by Marc Cameron
• • •
Ninety seconds later, Ryan pulled the Dodge in front of a blue Subaru WRX and stepped on the brakes. The driver, a skinny Hispanic male, attempted to go around him, but Ryan put his foot on the gas and nosed the Dodge into the much lighter vehicle, shoving it back into Adara’s waiting pickup truck. The skinny kid’s eyes flew wide and he raised his hands as Ryan, Chavez, and Adara bailed out of their vehicles. All of them wore black balaclavas and pointed their pistols at his face.
“Damn it,” Sherman said as she yanked open the door while Chavez and Ryan covered her. “I was hoping you’d fight.”
They had him bagged and gagged and trussed in the back of Adara’s pickup by the time Midas and Clark rolled up with their lights off. Clark lowered his window and motioned for everyone to follow him back around the corner, just in case Special Agent Callahan and her crew showed up sooner than they thought they would.
The skinny kid said his name was Flaco. He started slinging snot and sobbing the moment Clark dragged him out of the truck and ripped the bag off his head. Clark shoved him into the ditch on the side of the road. He knelt there, pleading for his life. The sharp odor of urine filled the night air. It wasn’t surprising. If John Clark threw him in a ditch and pointed a gun at him, Ryan was pretty sure he’d lose control of his bladder, too.
Clark wore a balaclava as well, but there was enough hatred burning out of his eyes to make his intentions clear. He gave Flaco a brutal kick to the ribs, knocking him over, and then stepped on his neck.
“Okay, asshole,” Clark said. “You have exactly one chance to stop me from turning your head into bits of skull and goo. Answer my questions as I ask them to you. Don’t pause. Don’t beg for mercy. Just answer the questions. Do. You. Understand?” Clark bore down with the boot at each word, grinding the man’s face into the ground and muffling his reply.
“Yeeesss,” he said, sounding like a deflating tire.
“Who’s the top guy? Cantu?”
It turned out to be harder to get the tattooed gangbanger to shut up than it had been to get his car stopped.
“Cantu is boss of the girls around here,” Flaco said. “But Zambrano is the top guy in Texas. Everybody who runs girls gotta pay him.”
“Zambrano?” Clark said. “Same name as the Cubs pitcher?”
“Same name,” Flaco said. “Different dude. This one’s from Mexico.”
“Where is he?”
Flaco shook his head. “He’s everywhere, man. He moves all the time.”
Clark nodded. “How about Matarife?”
“That dude’s evil as shit, man,” Flaco said.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
Clark bore down again.
“Seriously, man,” Flaco whined. “I never been to his house. I been places where he does his stuff, though, and it’s pretty damn sick.”
“Who would know where to find him?”
“On my mother,” Flaco said, “I got no idea.”
Clark looked at his watch. “There’s a Chinese guy been hanging around. What’s his name?”
“Eddie.”
“Another Chinese guy.”
Flaco began to hyperventilate. “Man, since the triad moved in, there’s like a hundred Chinese guys hanging around. I’m not tryin’ to lie to you, man. I swear it. I’m just not sure who you mean.”
“Coronet?”
“Okay, okay,” Flaco said. “I only heard him called that once, but I know who you’re talking about now. Sharp dresser. Likes his girls fresh and young. That dude’s weird. Acts like he’s James Bond or somethin’, but I heard he just sold Christmas cards. His name’s Chen. Vinnie Chen . . . or Vincent, I think. Hey! He would know where Matarife is.”
“That doesn’t help,” Clark said. “Describe Vincent Chen.”
“Dude, I can do you one better,” Flaco said. “I got his picture on my phone.”
Clark nodded and Ryan retrieved the cell from Flaco’s hip pocket. Fortunately, he’d been facedown when he wet his pants, sparing the phone and Ryan’s hand.
“Password?” Ryan said.
“Eleven-eleven,” Flaco said.
“Want me to do it?” Ryan said, thumb hovering over the touchscreen. “He could have a distress signal preprogrammed.”
Clark scoffed. “Does this look like a guy who plans that far ahead?”
“Right,” Ryan said, and punched in the number. He opened the photos and, after scrolling through some seriously gut-churning pictures of girls that would be enough to put Flaco away for a very long time, he found a photo of a nattily dressed Asian man. Rather than leave a virtual trail by sending the image anywhere, Jack used his phone to take a photo of the screen.
“How about his phone number?” Clark asked.
“It’s in my contacts,” Flaco said. “But he was here a day and a half ago. He dumps his phones every few days and gets a new one.”
“Every few days?”
“See what I mean?” the gangbanger said. “Weird shit for a Christmas card salesman.”
“Where is Chen now?” Clark prodded.
“No idea,” Flaco said.
“Who gets the girls for Cantu?”
Ryan shot a glance at Chavez. This was outside the scope of their mission. They had what they needed on Coronet.
Caruso’s voice came across the radio again.
“Want me to let everyone know we’re less than ten out?”
Callahan’s muffled voice followed. “They’re all behind us,” she said. “Pretty sure they know already.”
Chavez twirled his index finger in the air, reminding everyone that they needed to hurry.
Flaco nodded, unaware of the conversation going on in their earpieces.
“A guy named Parrot.”
Chavez raised both palms to the sky. “Seriously, boss. We need to haul ass.”
Clark nodded. “Okay.” He pressed down on Flaco’s neck with his boot one last time before stepping back. “Dump his body by the gate.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Flaco pleaded. “You don’t have to kill me.”
“We never had this conversation,” Clark said.
Flaco’s head wagged so hard it looked like it might roll off his skinny neck. “Never, man. I swear it.”
Clark hooked a thumb toward the Dodge without another word.
Ryan and Chavez dumped the sobbing gangbanger alongside the road, bound hand and foot and gagged with a piece of tape so he couldn’t warn his buds about the approaching parade of vehicles coming down FM 644.
Ryan kept his lights off and his foot off the brake until they were well over a mile away. He smiled to himself when he heard Callahan’s voice gasp.
18
Special Agent Callahan put two Ellis County ambulances on call when she was two minutes out from Naldo Cantu’s farmhouse. The headlights of her Bureau-issued Expedition played on the grassy ditch as she came around a slight curve in the road. She nodded toward Caruso. “Jump on the radio and tell Ellis County where we are. I don’t want them to— Oh, shit!”
Callahan yanked the wheel hard left, narrowly missing a slender Hispanic man kneeling in the middle of the gravel road, just in front of the gate. His arms were fully sleeved with tattoos and his hands were taped behind his back. A pillowcase had been pulled over his head.
Sergeant Bourke and Special Agent John Olson were in the car behind her. Bourke had turned his lights off earlier on the approach, and narrowly avoided rear-ending the Expedition.
Callahan reached for the radio in Caruso’s hand, snatching it away.
“Listen up,” she said, at the same time she pressed the gas to drive around the hooded man.
Ellis County Sheriff’s Office came back. “Unit calling?”
“Damn it!” Callahan said. “Disregard, Ellis County.” She p
ressed the button on her radio, flipping it back to the encrypted frequency. Leading a task force made up of many different agencies made secure communication problematic. Instead of 10-codes or other unique signal language, she employed plain talk and relied on encryption.
“Listen up!” she said again when she was back on the secure channel. The Expedition bounced across the rutted field as she drove around the bound man. “Caution as you come to the gate! Hispanic male, tied and hooded. Olson, you and Winston peel off and scoop him up. You’re gonna have to stay back and babysit. The rest of you haul ass to the house with me. I’m sure they already hear us coming.” She tossed the mic to Caruso. “Now you can call Ellis County with our location.” She wheeled around to the far side of the house, out of the line of fire from the front door. “Leave it on the open channel this time, just in case we’re walking into a whirlwind of shit.”
Naldo Cantu and his cousin Reuben were so engrossed in Dancing with the Stars that they had not heard the approaching vehicles. Flaco, who blew a .14 on the PBT, had left the door unlocked when he’d gone for beer, so Jermaine Armstrong didn’t even get to use his ram.
Now Caruso stood in the yard, just outside the pool of light from the yellow porch bulb. A Rock River Arms LAR-15 with a collapsible stock hung from a single-point sling around his neck. Pistols were well and good, but he always felt better when he had a long gun in situations like this, so he’d borrowed one from the field office. He pressed a cell phone to his ear.
John Clark filled him in on the roadside interrogation of Flaco.
“Wish I could have been there, boss,” Caruso said. He refrained from using names, just in case any member of the task force had better-than-average hearing. “Things went off without a hitch here. Two in custody plus the one bagged at the gate.”
“The girls?” Clark asked.
Caruso took a deep breath. “One of them is in pretty bad shape. Veins were so collapsed from all the dope they’ve been giving her, medics had to use an IO gun to get fluids started.”
Dom winced just thinking about the drill-like device that shot a fifteen-gauge needle directly into the poor kid’s femur. She was so stoned from whatever these assholes had been shooting into her that she didn’t feel it, but the heavy thunk of metal puncturing the large bone made Caruso gag. There was a reason he’d gone into law enforcement instead of medicine.
“Anyway,” Dom continued. “She’s on her way to the hospital. Callahan had two Child Protective Services officers follow us out and hang back until we made entry. They’re with the other two girls now. Sounds like all three of them are from Mexico. How about you? Did you get anything good?”
Clark grunted. “Some. Coronet’s last name is possibly Chen. We also got a cell number he’s likely to ditch in the next day or two. I’ve already got Gavin working on it. These guys are the tip of the iceberg with this human-trafficking ring. It’s worth our time to talk to a few more. They may have more information on Chen and what he’s up to.”
“Copy that,” Caruso said. “You know that thumb drive we heard Feng mention on the GSM bug?”
“What about it?”
“Some kid—a girl he was sleeping with—swiped it from him, if you can believe that.”
“Where’s this drive now?” Clark asked.
“The girl gave it to the troopers, who passed it on to the FBI. Special Agent Callahan has it now. I didn’t hear all the interrogation, but somehow Feng got his hands on a bunch of data related to Coronet/Chen. She believes it has information about human-trafficking payouts et cetera. I haven’t seen it, but the way she talks, it’s coded.”
Clark was silent for a long moment. “Dom,” he finally said, “we need to get the information on that thumb drive to Gavin.”
“So put in a request,” Caruso said. “It’s national security–related. Gerry can get someone to back-channel the director. He’ll order Callahan to turn it over.”
“That’ll take too long,” Clark said. “I need it tonight.”
“Are you kidding me?” This whole conversation made Caruso’s stomach ache. “You want me to steal it from the FBI?”
He could almost hear Clark smile on the other end of the line.
“Now you’re tracking,” Clark said.
“The task force isn’t even located at the field office. I don’t have a code to get in the building.”
“Ah,” Clark said. “But you’ve got Gavin.”
“Seriously?” Caruso shook his head and looked skyward. He dropped his voice even lower. “Hell, forget prison, Callahan will just murder me. Due respect, boss, but—”
Caruso stopped talking and waved at Callahan, who was now marching across the shabby lawn, apparently on the hunt for him.
“She already trusts you,” Clark said. “I can hear it in her voice.”
Callahan stopped directly in front of him and folded her arms tight across her chest. Her eyes were narrowed, head tilted back so she was looking down her nose. The explain-yourself-mister stance made him feel like a seventh-grader whose mother had just figured out how to search the browser history on his phone.
“Are your friends responsible for that kidnapping?”
“No,” Caruso lied, giving her what he hoped was a sufficiently indignant smirk. He chose the more direct “no” because Callahan would have taken anything else for the dodge that it was. Why would you ask that? or I’m not going to justify your question were obvious attempts to obfuscate. A quick and direct denial was always best—making sure not to overreact. Did you sleep with that other woman? was at one end of the spectrum while Did you eat the last of the cereal? was at the other. Did your friends kidnap that guy? fell somewhere in the middle for the appropriate amount of indignation.
Still, lying about anything was a slippery game when played with trained interrogators, so he decided it was better to change the subject.
“Good job tonight,” he said.
Callahan nodded. It was obvious that she still didn’t believe him, but she unfolded her arms. That was something. “Still no Magdalena, though,” she said. “I don’t know why, but I thought we might find her here, too.”
“You saved three kids,” Caruso said. “That’s cause for celebration. Cut yourself a little slack.”
Callahan said, “Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy about that.” She sighed, choosing her words carefully. “Hey, I need to talk to Flaco, but the other two have already lawyered up. Want to get a drink after?”
“So you can interrogate me, too?”
“No,” she said, mimicking Caruso’s previous indignant smirk.
The radio in Callahan’s hand broke squelch. “Ellis County Fire to any unit at the Cantu residence.”
The fire department ran the ambulance, two of which had just driven away carrying the formerly imprisoned girls.
“Special Agent Callahan, go ahead.”
“Thought you guys might want to know there was a guy parked at the end of the lane when we drove out of there. He pulled a bootlegger’s turn when he saw us coming and beat feet.”
“Did you get a plate number?” Callahan asked.
“Sorry,” the ambulance driver said. “He made a right before we could catch up to him. We had to turn toward the hospital. I do have a description, though. A small dark blue pickup. I’m guessing a Chevy S-10.”
19
Coronet had no intention of telling Dazid Ishmael that his real name was Vincent Chen. The Abu Sayyaf commander didn’t concern himself with such trivialities anyway, and didn’t really care so long as he got paid.
Both men had chosen unforgiving professions, and they had not survived as long as they had by having lax OPSEC.
They’d elected to postpone their talk and parted company shortly after Coronet killed the off-duty PNP officer. Each man had spent the entire night running surveillance detection routes. Chen had no idea exactly what Dazid
Ishmael had done. The fact that he was one of the most wanted men in the Philippines and was still alive was testament enough to the man’s skill at tradecraft.
For Chen’s part, he’d utilized a series of taxis and cover locations for his SDRs, spending enough time at each location to allow his team to observe and see if he’d grown any sort of tail. There’d been a scare shortly after midnight when a Davao City police truck parked across the street from the adult cinema Chen had chosen as a cover stop. A short time later, a young woman in short shorts and a halter top arrived in a taxi and got in the police truck. The two sped away into the night.
Chen held to the notion that two people could keep a secret, so long as one of them was dead. At the same time, there were large portions of his job that required the efforts of more than one man. He needed assistance, but he needed it from people he could trust. Of course, his handlers within the PRC knew this. In the beginning, he’d been part of several teams, learning from some of the best Beijing had to offer on operations from Taiwan to Los Angeles. Eventually, he’d been selected to work on his own and ordered to stop reporting to his regular handler in Beijing. His new handler, a man he knew only as Kevin, was a moderately high-ranking member of either the Chinese military or some facet of the country’s murky intelligence apparatus. Chen didn’t know exactly which organization or branch, and he didn’t care, so long as the missions and the money kept coming his way.
In the beginning, Kevin had told him to submit eight names of operatives with whom he’d worked before to be part of his team. Trust was an often bandied word but a seldom felt emotion in the intelligence business. Those who engaged in such work were trained to be untrustworthy, and so expected the same behavior from others. Vincent Chen knew full well at least half the men and women assigned to work with him were sent to spy on him. It was the way the PRC did things—give someone a job, assign two people to make certain that job was completed under the guidelines of the party, and then assign at least one other to watch the watchers. At some point, all involved knew they were watching and being watched. With the right incentives—in the form of money and actual rather than forced camaraderie—all the internal spying became a laughable house of cards.
