Lost

by James Patterson

  He didn’t waste any time on pleasantries. “My name is Randall Stone, and I’m an attorney here in Miami. Let me tell you something—that was some of the most careless, stupid police work I’ve ever seen. You put people at risk to stop someone who’s just trying to get into the country. Let me guess—he insulted the TSA? Or maybe it’s just another arrest to pad your statistics.”

  The lawyer made sure he said this loud enough for everyone in the immediate vicinity to hear. Then a woman trying to comfort her little boy stood up and walked over to me. She didn’t say anything as everybody stared at us. Then, without warning, she slapped me. Kinda hard.

  The slap brought Steph Hall over. Moving fast, she grabbed the woman by the shoulders. Steph was mad and I didn’t want this to get any more out of control. As the boss, I had to set the tone. I’d been slapped before. Punched, bitten, and stabbed as well. This was Miami, not Disney World.

  The woman said, in a strong Brooklyn accent, “My son was almost crushed by the panic you caused. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  I stood there silently, staring at the woman. I wanted to point out that it was the suspect who’d fired a pistol and run, but years of experience had taught me to let this go. In fact, from an early age, I’d learned to let most things go—my lack of achievement on the University of Miami football field, my failed love life, and even parts of my family life.

  Lorena said to the lawyer and the woman who’d slapped me, “How can you people be so stupid?” Then she glared at the attorney and said, “I understand an ambulance chaser like you trying to stir up a crowd, but this lady is way out of line. You have no idea what was going on.”

  I cut her off and waved at the team to start walking again, away from the crowd. “It’s okay, Lorena. ‘The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.’”

  Lorena said, “Socrates.”

  I turned and smiled at her. “Very good. That’s impressive.”

  She laughed and said, “You rotate between Plato, Socrates, and politicians. I took a shot. You’re right—no matter how much we explain, assholes like that lawyer hate whatever the police do.”

  I even avoided bumping into the attorney as we took our walk of triumph.

  Everything in police work depended on experience. I wanted to lead everyone away from these loudmouths before someone said or did something stupid. Lorena had a temper, something she’d have to learn to control. Maybe my example could serve as a lesson; I figured it was easier than some of the teaching methods I’d seen at local police departments.

  When I was a rookie, I’d arrested a local crack dealer. The narcotics detectives set up to interrogate him and made a big deal out of allowing me, a new patrol officer, to watch it over a closed-circuit TV in the next office. I had to lock up my service weapon and promise that I wouldn’t make any noise or tell anyone I was allowed to watch the interrogation.

  I sat there quietly with an older narcotics detective and watched as two of the better-known narcotics detectives sat across a small table from the thin, antsy crack dealer. One of the detectives wore a shoulder holster.

  Less than a minute into the interview, the crack dealer started to shout, and then, without warning, he reached across the small table and grabbed the pistol in the shoulder holster.

  It happened so fast I didn’t react until he was standing behind the table with the gun raised at the two detectives. Then he pulled the trigger. I still remember seeing the flashes on the fuzzy TV. Bang, bang, and both detectives were on the floor.

  Holy shit.

  I sprang out of my seat, burst through the door into the hallway, and yanked open the door to the interrogation room. That’s when I got one of the biggest surprises of my life: the two detectives were sitting on the table laughing, and the crack dealer was laughing right next to them.

  The crack dealer was one of their regular informants and they’d put blanks in the gun. The idea was to have a laugh at the expense of a rookie and teach him two important lessons, both of which I have never forgotten: don’t wear a shoulder holster, because it’s tactically unsound, and don’t take a gun into an interrogation with a prisoner in the first place.

  I also learned that a person could literally have the piss scared out of him from a prank like that.

  Today, I’d learned never to underestimate the speed of a skinny guy. And Lorena had learned that it never paid to argue with an idiot.

  Chapter 5

  ABOUT AN HOUR after the airport worker had used her martial arts skills to disable our Dutch suspect, I found myself sitting at a long table in a Department of Homeland Security conference room with all six of the children Nobler had brought over. We looked like the weirdest corporate board meeting in history.

  I said, “My name is Tom Moon. You can call me Tom.”

  The kids and I started chatting. At eighteen, Joseph from Poland was the oldest. His accent was thick, but he spoke decent English. We talked sports. He said, “Real football players are the best athletes, both in skill and endurance.”

  “I still prefer American football.”

  Joseph gave me a sly grin and said, “I would too if I were as big as you.”

  The two youngest kids didn’t speak much English, but I doubt they would have said a lot even if they’d understood what was going on. They were shy and quiet. Considering what had just happened to them, I got it.

  Michele, a little blond girl, was only nine years old. She was not ready to talk about how she’d ended up in this situation. She spoke only French. Our office was trying to find her parents or guardians, who were somewhere outside of Paris.

  The other little girl, Olivia, was eleven years old. She was from Madrid and thought she was on some kind of field trip. I still wasn’t clear on the details of how the traffickers had tricked her into coming, and I didn’t know if she had family back in Spain, but we had no problem finding a translator for her. More than 70 percent of the population of Miami–Dade County was fluent in Spanish. Even my Spanish was good enough to just chat.

  I asked her, in Spanish, “What do you like to do when you’re not in school?”

  “I have Rollerblades and roller skates. I’m faster than anyone in my apartment building.” Her eyes positively shone as she boasted of her skill.

  “I bet you are.” I couldn’t hide my smile.

  Monnie, the teenage girl from Kenya, turned to fifteen-year-old Jacques from Belgium and whispered in his ear. They both giggled. I smiled to let them know it was okay to speak, but they were happy in their private joke.

  I looked over at the Finnish girl, fourteen-year-old Annika, and said, “Hei, kuinka voit.”

  Her blue eyes opened wide and she hit me with a slew of Finnish.

  I held up my hands. “Whoa, sorry. ‘Hello, how are you,’ is all I know in Finnish.”

  She smiled and switched to English. “Where did you learn to say that?”

  I said, “‘If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.’” The quote covered the fact that I didn’t remember where I’d learned the Finnish phrase.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It’s a famous quote.”

  “Who said it?”

  “Nelson Mandela.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “A smart man who changed the world.”

  Joseph said, “Aren’t you a policeman? How do you know things like that?”

  “A policeman can read and go to college,” I told him. I turned back to Annika and said, “What kind of music do you listen to?”

  She fixed her blue eyes on me and said, “Mostly I like Top Forty pop. But sometimes I listen to classical music like Brahms or Mozart.” She looked at Joseph and said, “Joseph played me a Mozart sonata on the piano before we left Amsterdam. He’s really good.”

  I said, “My mom plays piano.”

  Annika asked, “Did she teach you to play?”

  I let out a laugh. “She tri
ed, but in South Florida, there are an awful lot of things for a boy to do that are more interesting than playing piano.”

  “Is she a piano teacher?”

  “She …” I decided to let that one go.

  A short while later, a dark-skinned man wearing a jacket that said DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY INVESTIGATIONS stepped into the room and announced, “Time to get your stuff together, kids. It’s a little bit of a drive to the place where you’ll be housed.”

  I looked at the man and said, “Where is that?”

  “Krome Detention Center.”

  “These kids are victims of a crime, not suspects. You dumb-asses let the damn suspect run. We caught him. Can’t you find a better place than Krome for them?”

  The man gave me a hard stare for a moment, then said, “Look, pal, there are certain procedures we follow, and that’s where I’m taking them.”

  As soon as the DHS agent stepped out of the room, I gathered everyone together. Joseph looked at me with big brown eyes and said, “What are we doing?”

  I smiled and said, “We’re making a break for it.”

  Chapter 6

  IT WAS A little bit of a challenge to fit all six kids in my unmarked FBI-issued Ford Explorer, which was made less spacious by the steel box bolted to the floor in the back. It held an MP5 machine gun, a few hundred rounds of ammunition, and a ballistic vest.

  In the eight months I’d been on the new task force, I hadn’t needed the extra firepower. It still amazed me how much money the federal government had to spend on international crime investigations. It was the hot new flavor of the month, and the FBI wanted all of us to look and act the part.

  Even the way they’d selected us was unique. There were actual tryouts for the unit that included a fitness test, reviews by the applicant’s bosses, and a breakdown of his or her three biggest cases. I’d liked the whole challenge, even the fitness test, which was held in the middle of a hot afternoon, maybe to see if anyone complained.

  I’d known about half the cops there. One of them was Alvin Teague, a Miami detective like me. The thirty-year-old Florida A and M graduate who never seemed to have a hair out of place and whose wardrobe looked like it would have bankrupted a Wall Street broker had been talking shit to everyone, trying to get in the other candidates’ heads. It looked like it was working on some of them. He called me by my street name, “Anti.” The name the Miami residents had given me was a source of pride.

  I said, “Hello, Smooth Jazz.” He was a good enough cop to have earned a street name. His was a nod to how he spoke—like an announcer on a late-night jazz station.

  Steph Hall, whom I didn’t know at the time, asked, “How’d you end up with a street name like ‘Anti’? What are you opposed to?”

  Before I could answer, Teague looked at the group and said, “Only one other brother and he’s on the stout side. I’ll smoke you all like cheap cigars.”

  The heavyset Fort Lauderdale cop looked offended as he glanced down at his stomach. Then he looked up, smiled, and shrugged.

  Steph Hall stepped up and said, “I’m black. Did you overlook me because I’m a woman?”

  Teague didn’t miss a beat. “I couldn’t overlook someone as beautiful as you. But I ran track in high school. I was the all-county champion in the four hundred meters. There’s no way someone here beats me.”

  That’s when Lorena Perez said, “Sounds like you’re worried about the other parts of the tryout. Didn’t you have any good cases to go over? You run your mouth so much, I don’t see how you would ever hear anyone offer you a decent case.”

  “I recognize you. You’re that financial-crimes genius from FDLE.” He didn’t hide the fact that he admired Lorena’s curves.

  “And you’re the Miami cop that I’m going to bet ten bucks can’t beat my girl Steph here.”

  It was a great afternoon and gave me some insight into my new partners. It also gave me a good laugh. I may not have been the fastest one on the track, but I finished the one-and-a-half-mile run within the twelve-minute time limit and I had a great view as Steph Hall’s long, graceful strides wore down Alvin Teague. She crossed the finish line a full ten seconds before he did.

  Alvin didn’t have to be reminded that he owed Lorena ten bucks. Being a resourceful detective, he used it to his advantage. He started to hand the ten-dollar bill to Lorena, then snatched it back and said, “Any chance I could pay off the bet with a nice dinner?”

  “You can eat all the nice dinners you want. As long as I have your ten dollars to get a pizza later.”

  Everyone roared with laughter, even Alvin Teague. He was a loudmouth and a braggart, but he wasn’t a bad guy, and everyone recognized he was one hell of a cop.

  But he didn’t get chosen for the task force.

  Now, as I ushered the kids through the halls of the Miami Police Department headquarters, I was hoping to avoid Teague and any other cop I knew. I stashed the kids in an interview room with a dispatcher who I knew could handle them.

  As I slipped out of the room, the dispatcher said, “Anti, you know you owe me a big favor after this.”

  “Anything you want, Tosha.”

  I raced up the stairs, wondering if witness services could help me find a place for the kids for the night, and ran into the one person I’d most wanted to avoid.

  Alvin Teague, wearing a starched shirt and a blue Vineyard Vines tie with a sailboat design, stood in the middle of the staircase. He gave me a smug smile and said, “Hey, Anti, you still holding my spot on the task force?”

  I just stared at him. I didn’t have time to trade burns.

  “I’m not joking,” he said. “I’ll be there one day. I hear that if you don’t keep making arrests, you’re rotated off.”

  “That’s what they say.”

  “That’s what I say too. I wish every unit was so strict. Maybe we’d get rid of some of the deadweight.”

  “You can have my spot when the Dolphins win a Super Bowl.”

  Teague let out a laugh. “Look at the philosopher making jokes. I thought your only joke was your football career.”

  It was pretty much the same shit I heard everywhere in Miami. It didn’t faze me.

  “By the way, is that fine Agent Perez still on the task force?”

  I said, “She’s still on the task force, but I doubt she’d give you the time of day.”

  “Lesbian?”

  “Good taste.”

  Teague laughed again and waved as he brushed past me on the stairs. He called over his shoulder, “Stay safe, Anti.”

  “You too, Smooth Jazz.”

  That interaction went better than my conversation with the witness advocates. They told me the only place they could house that many kids together was Krome. I had already decided that wouldn’t happen. Now I had to make another decision.

  Chapter 7

  I DROVE OUT of Miami slowly so the kids could get a decent look around. They marveled at the speeding, swerving cars, and I explained that in South Florida, hitting your brakes is considered a display of fear. It’s best to avoid it.

  I mentioned a few historical facts so the trip would be educational. For instance, I told them the city’s name had come from the native word mayaimi, which meant “big lake.” (No one cared.) And that Al Capone had lived here in the 1930s. (No one knew who Al Capone was.) I grew a little desperate and dredged up the legends of Blackbeard and Jean Lafitte, pirates who, it was said, used to visit the area and hide treasure on the coastal islands and the mainland.

  Joseph said, “Can we look for treasure?”

  “Maybe. It’s not common to find it anymore, but we can go to the beach and try.” That seemed to satisfy everyone.

  We stopped to pick up three gigantic pizzas from Pizza Brew, and by the time we reached our destination, everyone was hungry and tired. Each kid carried a small suitcase or backpack; I balanced the three pizzas like a Ringling Brothers act and opened the front door.

  When the kids stepped into the cool, wide room, they
all asked some version of the same question: Where are we?

  I still had some explaining to do. I’d been avoiding phone calls from my FBI supervisor that I was sure were related to me taking the kids. He was a stickler for rules, and I was fairly certain the FBI had a rule about not kidnapping minors. I wasn’t worried. I intended to return them once I was certain they’d be treated right.

  Jacques, the Belgian boy, stared through a sliding glass door at the patio with the pool wedged into the backyard. He turned to me and smiled. “I am a good swimmer.”

  I patted him on the head and said, “We’ll put that boast to the test after dinner.”

  All of the children turned and looked at the hallway on the far side of the room. I let them stare in silence for a moment at the two women standing there like ghosts. They didn’t move and both happened to be dressed in light clothes. The effect was perfect. I wasn’t sure how this would play out, but the time had come to see how good my decision-making abilities were.

  I cleared my throat, raised my voice slightly, and said, “Hey, guys, let me introduce you to some people.” I waited as the children all gathered around me. “This is my mother and my sister. You can call them Mrs. Moon and Lila.” I turned to my mom and sister. “Mom, Lila, this is Michele from France, Olivia from Spain, Joseph from Poland, Annika from Finland, Monnie from Kenya, and Jacques from Belgium. They’re going to be our guests tonight.”

  My whole body tensed as I waited to hear what would come out of my mom’s mouth. The longer the silence stretched, the worse I felt. Then a smile spread across my mother’s face and she said, “It’ll be so nice to have kids around the house for a change.” I glanced at my sister, who just winked.

  The relief I felt was incredible. I knew I should’ve called first, but I’d been afraid that if my mom was having a bad day, I would’ve lost my nerve and changed my mind about breaking the kids out of the Department of Homeland Security.