by Chris Culver
Ash turned his attention next to the concrete pad. He counted twelve young women, but he couldn’t recognize faces at that distance. None of the girls said anything; they simply huddled together like animals heading to the slaughterhouse. Ash considered the scene and scratched his chin, trying to form a plan. One stray bullet, and another girl would die. He had seen enough of that, which meant they needed to separate the men from the girls. If he had to guess, the traffickers would do that for them by putting the girls onto the truck. Once that happened, the state police could lay a spike strip on the road and shred the truck’s tires before it even left the driveway. With so little light penetrating the woods, the men in the truck wouldn’t even know what had happened until a dozen firearms pointed at their chests. It wasn’t ideal, but the plan could work.
Bowers crept beside him again and leaned close to him. “Backup is on the way. We wait, we watch, and we report any changes.”
“How long?”
“Five to ten. The men were in place around the other farm. They’ve got to get back.”
Ash nodded and took a breath. About a minute after Bowers placed the call to the state police, a fifth man emerged from the barn. He had black hair streaked with silver and, despite the time of night, sunglasses on top of his head. He looked like a skunk. He threw a cigarette on the ground with one hand and slipped a phone into his pocket with the other.
“The old man just got hit in Chicago. We move now.”
Red Shirt stood straighter and walked onto the parking pad about fifteen feet from their hiding spot. Ash held his breath.
“He was arrested?”
“No. He caught eighteen bullets in an alley,” said the skunk, already jogging toward the truck. He undid the latch on the rear door with a clank and threw it open. “We’ve got to move.”
“You sure it was him?” asked Red Shirt, walking toward the others.
“Pretty sure,” said the skunk. He used a handle to climb onto the bed of the truck before waving toward the girls. “Let’s move, ladies.”
None of the girls took a step, but that might have been because none of them spoke English. The skunk reached behind him, pulled a semiautomatic from a holster at his belt, and chambered a round. Ash adjusted his aim on his new target. A shotgun was usually a close-quarters weapon, but Ash had loaded his with rifled slugs, which increased the accuracy to a reasonable distance. Several of the girls nearest the skunk flinched. Red Shirt threw down his cigarette and started herding the girls toward the rear of the truck while the skunk pulled them inside. The other three men strolled about the yard as if nothing were going on.
Bowers started lifting his radio but stopped before saying anything as one of the girls looked directly at them. She wore a pair of light blue hospital scrubs with a pink drawstring. Her auburn hair had been pulled away from her face and put into a ponytail. If Ash had to guess, she was in her late teens.
“Turn away,” whispered Ash. “Turn away and do as they say.”
As if hearing him, she turned her attention toward the girl in front of her. Unfortunately, she also shuffled to her right, toward them. Ash held his breath and shook his head, silently willing her to get into the truck. Separated from the men, they might be able to get her. If she bolted toward them…Ash didn’t want to think about it. Bowers reached into his jacket and withdrew his firearm. He held it low against the ground and slid the receiver back, chambering a round. His lips were straight and his body rigid.
The girl looked over her shoulder at them again, and Ash felt his stomach drop. He shook his head, hoping she could see it.
“Don’t do it,” he whispered. “Stay where you are.”
Ash heard Bowers’s feet shift as he readjusted his position into a shooter’s stance. Their backup was still a few minutes out. She needed to wait. The girl licked her lips and shivered before taking another step toward them. The skunk and his men didn’t seem to notice her as they forced other girls into the truck.
“Not now, honey,” whispered Ash. “Take a step back.”
Five shells. That’s all Ash had. He didn’t know what kind of firearm Bowers had, but it wouldn’t carry more than fifteen rounds. With five men who might possibly shoot at them, that didn’t leave them much room to miss. He felt his throat tighten.
Turn away and get in the truck.
In his mind, Ash pleaded with the redhead over and over, but to no avail. She took another step toward them and then another until she finally slipped into a run.
The skunk reacted immediately and pointed his firearm at an Asian girl at the head of the line while looking at the thug nearest the tree line.
“Bring her back. Seems someone needs to learn a lesson about consequences.”
Red Shirt nodded and started jogging, but not before the redhead reached Ash and Bowers. Ash lowered his firearm and motioned her forward as her face passed the first row of branches. Her eyes were wide, pleading. Bowers kept one hand on his gun but scooted her toward the other side of the tree line with his other. Ash did likewise, hoping she understood. Neither man could turn his head to find out, though, because they had another visitor jogging straight toward them.
“Whoa,” said Red Shirt, immediately upon stepping through the trees. He held up his hands and straightened his back. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. Ash pointed the shotgun at his chest.
“Put your hands on top of your head and back up,” said Ash.
Red Shirt paused and looked from Bowers and then back to Ash before putting his hands on top of his head. He took halting steps back, emerging from the trees. Ash followed, the barrel of his shotgun a foot or two out of Red Shirt’s reach. The safety light from the barn seemed brighter out of the trees. Ash had a clean shot on the skunk, elevated as he was on the back of the truck, but the other three men stood on the far side of the parking pad, a crowd of increasingly listless young women blocking the path. If someone started shooting, it would get ugly fast.
Ash took a hand off his shotgun and started waving the girls down. An Asian girl in front hesitated and then knelt. Several others followed quickly.
“What the hell is this?” asked the skunk.
“Drop your weapons and put your hands on top of your heads,” said Bowers, not taking his eyes from Red Shirt’s. “A dozen police officers are in the woods behind me.”
The skunk stayed still for a moment. Ash held his breath, silently praying they’d believe Bowers’s bluff. The stalemate lasted only a moment, though, before the skunk raised his weapon and fired twice. Ash squeezed the trigger on his shotgun, feeling the heavy weapon jerk against his shoulder like a jackhammer. A one-ounce led slug hit the skunk in the chest, blowing a hole the size of a grapefruit clear through him. Bowers stumbled back and fell to a knee, clutching his chest and shoulder. The girls immediately started screaming, their heads down as they huddled in the middle of the concrete.
Red Shirt turned and reached behind him. Ash chambered another round and fired a second time as Red Shirt raised his weapon. He went down hard, most of his chest a confused mass of red. Ash whirled and faced the remaining three men.
“Drop your weapons!” screamed Ash. “Now!”
Two complied by throwing down their firearms, but the third, the man closest to the truck’s cabin, ran for it. Ash started to give chase but then stopped and looked at Captain Bowers. His vest caught both rounds the skunk shot at him, but even that could cause serious injury. The girls wailed. Bowers waved in the general direction of the truck.
“Go.”
Ash didn’t need further prodding. He ran after the thug and careened around the side of the truck in time to see the front door being opened. He didn’t hear the truck’s engine, but he saw it start to roll forward, slowly at first, then speeding up. The thug had probably just put it in neutral, knowing it would roll down the hill. Ash dug his toes into the ground and sprinted. By the time he reached the cabin, the truck was moving too quickly for him to run beside. Ash tried grabbing a handhold beside th
e door, but the thug inside kicked his chest and shoulder hard, knocking him back. Ash slipped and fell, facedown, his weapon clattering against the gravel. He barely got his arm away before the truck’s rear tires would have run over it.
Ash tried pushing up, but his shoulder couldn’t support his weight. He flopped down, helpless, as the truck’s engine started with a dull roar and the thug closed his door. By the time the vehicle reached the end of the driveway, it had probably hit forty miles an hour. In a car, that might have been doable, even on those curvy back roads. A moving truck at those speeds on those roads might as well have been a bowling ball. As Ash watched, it slammed into a pair of trees at the end of the driveway with a crack and a thump and moved no more.
Ash stayed still for a moment, trying to catch his breath. Eventually, he rolled onto his back and sat up. In an hour or two, he might be screaming with pain, but for the moment, he had so much adrenaline flowing through him that he didn’t feel a thing. He looked up the hill. Captain Bowers still held the two remaining men at gunpoint, his face a mask of pain.
“You okay?” asked Ash.
“I think I broke some ribs,” he said, grimacing. “You?”
“I’m breathing.”
Bowers nodded toward the truck at the foot of the driveway. “Find out if that asshole is alive.”
Ash nodded and headed down the driveway. As he neared the truck, the smell of diesel became almost overpowering. The truck must have ruptured its fuel tank on impact, which meant they’d have to get a fire crew out there soon. Cracks striated the windshield and blood painted the interior like stained glass. Ash pulled open the door and watched as the driver, the second of the two men who had taken him to Rebecca’s body in Lafayette, tumbled out.
“You should have worn your seat belt.”
28
Ash and Bowers stayed at the farm in Cecil for the next hour. Both men answered questions, but mostly they sat around and watched while detectives from the state police worked the scene. They took Doug and Loretta Brown in for questioning, but neither seemed to have any idea what was going on. They claimed to have rented their barn and back pasture out to a nice couple who wouldn’t cause trouble. It would have been nice if they had mentioned that on the phone when he called earlier. They’d be questioned, and based on what came out, the local county prosecutor would decide what to do with them.
Intermixed with the girls from the Dandelion Inn, they found a number of girls who had come from other locations, including the home in Avon. Among them they found Faria, Amina’s younger sister. At fifteen years old, she had already seen and experienced some of the worst atrocities one human being could do to another. No amount of therapy could help her undo that, but God willing, she and her sister would be okay. God willing, everyone would be okay.
The ambulances started arriving half an hour after the raid. Those girls under the age of eighteen were taken to a children’s hospital in Louisville, Kentucky, for evaluation, while those over eighteen were taken to a hospital for adults. They’d be assigned social workers who could figure out what to do next. Faria didn’t speak English, but Ash gave her a note on which he had written his contact information. He’d call the hospital as well to make sure she was okay. After the girls were shipped off, he sent a text message to his wife to let her know that he and Mike Bowers had survived with relatively minor injuries. She sent a message back almost immediately to let him know that she loved him. She must have been waiting up for him.
At about one in the morning, a state police officer drove Bowers and Ash to a hospital for evaluation. The ER physician had an X-ray taken of Ash’s shoulder and found that his collarbone had been fractured, presumably when the thug in the truck kicked him. The physician set it into place and put Ash into a sling that forced his shoulders back. Bowers had two broken ribs. His vest probably saved his life.
While waiting for a physician to check out Bowers, Ash sent a text message to Leena Tahir, telling her they had safely rescued Faria. She could tell Amina the news at dawn prayer. Meanwhile, he’d look into having Faria transferred to Indianapolis when he could so the two girls could see each other again. What would happen to them afterward was anyone’s guess. The tribal regions in Pakistan were brutal and backward. A girl who had sex outside marriage—whether or not she consented to it—was considered by many to be a black mark on the family. Even if their family took Amina and Faria in again, the local tribal elders might pressure their father to kill them as a way to reclaim the family honor. Islam taught that all innocents—man, woman, child, believer, unbeliever—were equal and that to murder someone was as bad as murdering all of humanity. Unfortunately, some people seemed to forget that.
Bowers stayed overnight in the hospital near Louisville because he hurt too much to move, but a state trooper drove Ash back to Indianapolis at about three in the morning. Before leaving, an ER physician gave Ash a painkiller that blurred the entire drive home into a narcotic-induced fog. He didn’t even remember getting out of the car and climbing into bed when they made it home. He did remember seeing his wife, though, and somehow that made his night easier.
Ash slept straight through suhoor and dawn prayer the next day and woke only after his daughter jumped on the end of the bed at around nine. A pink ribbon held her black hair away from her face, a gap-toothed grin on her lips. Two of her primary teeth had begun wiggling a few days earlier, another sign that she was growing up.
“I lost a tooth last night.”
“I see,” said Ash, sitting upright. “Did you show Ummi?” When Megan nodded, her entire body moved. “Did she tell you what it means?”
She nodded with her entire body again. “I’ll put it under my pillow, and the tooth fairy will come and get it.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Ash. “She didn’t tell you the bad part. Now that you’ve started losing your teeth, you have to get a job.”
She shook her head no just as enthusiastically as she had nodded. “No, I don’t. You won’t make me get a job.”
Ash put his hands on his chest and shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t make the rules. You’re going to have to get a job. Have you ever worked a backhoe or crane before? I hear heavy machinery operators are in demand.”
Megan narrowed her eyes. “I don’t believe you.”
Ash shrugged. “When the tooth fairy asks to see the stub from your last paycheck, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Megan looked at him and then to the door and then back at him. “I’m going to talk to Ummi.”
“How about you give me a hug first.”
She scampered up the bed and threw her arms around Ash’s neck, jostling his injured shoulder. Despite the pain, it felt nice to hug her again. When she left the room, he stretched, showered, and then dressed. The brace the physician had given him to hold his shoulders back kept him from carrying a gun, but that wouldn’t be a problem for the foreseeable future. No one would hand him a firearm until the department’s psychiatrist cleared him, a task that might take a while with his baggage.
Ash met his wife and kids in the kitchen. His shoulder prevented him from picking up Kaden, but it didn’t stop him from playing with him. They stacked up blocks together and then laughed when Kaden knocked them over. At around eleven, play stopped when Special Agent Kevin Havelock knocked on the front door. He wore jeans, a white polo shirt with the FBI’s logo on the breast, and a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses. Must have been off duty.
“Detective Rashid,” he said, extending his hand to shake before wincing and then pulling it back. “Sorry. I heard about your injury.”
“That’s all right,” said Ash. “I’ll recover. What can I do for you?”
“I hope you don’t mind me coming by. I got your address from Chief Reddington.”
Ash leaned against the door frame and then gasped and stood straighter when pain ripped through the top of his rib cage. That wasn’t the smartest thing he’d done that day.
“No, I don’t mind,” said
Ash, once he caught his breath again. “What do you need?”
“Just a conversation,” said Havelock. “Off the record.”
Ash breathed out of his nose for a moment before turning his head and shouting over his shoulder, “Hey, Hannah. I’m going to talk to a guy in the backyard.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
Ash stepped forward and started to close the door behind him, but Havelock didn’t move. He tilted his head to the side.
“Aren’t we going to the backyard?” he asked, nodding toward the house.
“We’ll go around. Hannah wears the hijab, and she doesn’t like men seeing her without it.”
“Oh. I didn’t know you were a Muslim.”
Ash shrugged and started toward the driveway. “The Imam at my mosque told me the same thing last year.” Havelock followed him through the gate in his cedar fence. No matter how many times Ash saw his backyard, he still felt lucky to have it. At over one acre, it felt like a park in the middle of the city. It even had an old oak tree that swayed in the warm, morning breeze. Ash crossed the lawn to his bluestone patio and took a seat at a teak table and chair set beneath his cedar pergola. Havelock did likewise.
“You have a nice yard.”
“Did you not see it on the surveillance video your agents shot eight months ago?”
Havelock looked at him for a moment and then shook his head. “We focused on Konstantin Bukoholov, not your yard. Our agents stayed in a van on the street.”
“What do you want?”
“How’d you know to find that farm last night?”
Ash leaned back in his chair. “I asked Frank Hayes, the junkie I picked up in Avon. He told me he had driven a van full of girls there the day before. You should consider talking to people. I bet you’d be amazed at what you can learn.”
