Trapped in the Mayan Tattoo

by Ronda Pauley

“Louise, just give me a few minutes,” she said, aware of the listening device and trying not to say what they were up to. “It’s really OK if you don’t go. I just want you to have a good time. I’ve been a little grumpy lately.”

  “Understandably. I’m with you to the end,” Louise said as she followed.

  The girls climbed up a few steps. Abbi checked the design and was glad when they entered a strongly supported duct system. It shouldn’t fall under their weight, and it seemed well-vented so that they were breathing relatively fresh air. Abbi couldn’t help it. These things were important to her.

  They dropped down onto their knees on the shiny aluminum sheeting that was, admittedly, a little grubby and began shuffling along on all fours with the other kids. Abbi crawled along easily in her shorts, happy to be out of her suit. Louise grunted and groaned constantly and it echoed along with noise from other children through the long, winding chamber. Just passing through the ducts created a loud squeaking sound. The more people who crawled through, the louder the squeaking. The bugging device Abbi wore had to be picking up these extraneous sounds--the grunting, the squeaking. Abbi laughed.

  Since only kids in a certain size range were allowed into the overhead ducts, getting up there offered the girls some privacy. Besides, Abbi wanted a break from Big Sam’s edginess and the unapproving way he watched their every move.

  At one point in the rambling ductwork, which wound through the museum’s rooms just under the ceiling, Abbi got her bearings and figured the Bureau’s temporary headquarters for Operation Missing Shoe had to be overhead. She discovered a way to listen in on conversations that were going on in headquarters. When Abbi recognized a couple of the voices, she stopped and reached back in the ductwork to brush Louise’s cheek with her hand. Louise appeared to understand the delay when Abbi pointed up and cupped her ear with her hand. She let a group pass them so that she and Louise could listen.

  The voices sounded faint enough that Abbi was pretty sure her bugging device would not pick up on them. Catching bits of phrases, Abbi could hear “drop”, “GPS” and someone asking if Miss Kowalski knew how to use it. There was laughter. Someone objected to using her for this mission. Abbi knew that had to be the tall, thin man who seemed against the idea at the law complex in Virginia. Then there were several people talking, and it became hard to tell who was in the conference room. Voices got louder but not clearer. Someone shouted, “NM has to be stopped.” Someone else said more quietly, so quiet Abbi stopped and pressed her ear against the wall of the tunnel to hear, “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Wait until our meeting. It will all be clear then.”

  Some little children were coming through the duct behind them, giggling and talking in a high pitch. It became impossible to hear the meeting room. Abbi and Louise slid over and plastered themselves to the duct wall, allowing the small children to pass through. Then a group of larger children found themselves waiting behind Abbi and Louise. They didn’t wait quietly or patiently. Abbi scrambled quickly through the ductwork, slid down the shoot at the end and plopped onto the hearth of a revolving fireplace.

  “That was great!” she whispered and pointed that she’d like to try that again.

  Hastily she walked back through the museum where she and Louise waited in line to go up through the ductwork for the second time.

  It was all Louise could do to keep up with Abbi. After two times through the ducts, Louise grew bored as well as tired. By the third trip, Abbi went alone and Louise walked under the duct. Either from noise inside the ducts or silence at Operation Missing Shoe headquarters, Abbi could no longer hear the bits of conversation. When Louise tapped on the duct, Abbi knew the talk had ended and she had to slide down. She had a strange feeling she was about to be reprimanded.

  The final descent from the shoot landed her at the feet of Big Sam, who waited on the platform of the revolving fireplace. He posed as an employee, complete with name badge. He wore the expression and body language of annoyance as he rubbed his ears. At his right ear, she saw a tiny receiver. That’s when Abbi realized how squeaky the ducts had been, how high pitched the squeals of the little children had been, and how easily these sounds must have been transmitted.

  “What are you trying to do? Wear out the ductwork? We have other items of interest in our museum and we close soon,” Big Sam said.

  “Yes, sir,” Abbi said meekly.

  She wanted to ask Big Sam what he knew about the new drop plan, but his stern face convinced her that now was neither the time nor the place. She would hear the details soon enough.

  She and Louise scooted away to the gift shop where displays of harmless items could be found, from kaleidoscopes to sunglasses to x-ray spray that would allow a person to read the contents of an envelope.

  “I have that stuff!” Abbi said. “Mrs. Hightower let me try it out!”

  “Why?” Louise asked when Abbi showed her.

  “I don’t know,” Abbi said. “To play spy, I guess.”

  As they re-entered the museum, Abbi read accounts of women who disappeared while doing espionage during World War II and the kinds of rumors that spread about their outcomes. Fear overcame her and for a moment she felt weak, suddenly remembering that her mother was in grave danger, and if NM2 wanted to find Abbi, then she was in danger too. How many other times had her mother risked her life in the line of duty? Weak-kneed and worried, she wanted to go to the meeting and find out the new details of negotiations.

  In that moment Abbi almost hated herself for not knowing more about her parents, for dismissing their work as boring when she used to think her parents sold shoes, for not seeing the many signs and signals earlier, for not recognizing the risks they took to do their work. And she realized that, like the walls upstairs, like a magician’s slight-of-hand, her parents had only allowed her see what they wanted her to see. She still wasn’t sure what her father did and that made her very curious. She had a lifetime of catching up to do—if it wasn’t too late.

  “Mademoiselle, let’s go back,” Abbi said with a renewed sense of urgency.

  “Why? We still have time.”

  “We can’t go to the meeting like this, and I feel grubby. We’ll need to get back into our business clothes and look the part,” Abbi said.

  “Ok,” Louise said, still trying to text her parents. “Abbi, something seems wrong. My parents always text back!”

  “Yeah.” Abbi said, reminded of her parents’ dangerous situations. “Come on, Foo Foo!”

  “Don’t start that stuff!” Louise whispered. “I’m not going to get kicked out of here because you can’t behave, Miss KOO-KOO Kowalski!”

  “OUCH!” Abbi whispered to Louise as she felt for the panel that would get them to the hidden staircase and back to their tiny suite near the mission’s headquarters. “That’s just cruel.”

  “Don’t get mean with me!”

  “That was fun, but I’m too stressed to enjoy it. Didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

  By the time Abbi got them into the secret passageway, it seemed that Louise forgave her, maybe sensing that it was purely in fun and not to be hurtful. At least, that’s all Abbi intended. Obviously, Louise felt some stress too.

  Back in the tiny apartment, Louise showered and refreshed. Abbi had a few minutes for much-needed exercise to the upper body, and then doing some pushups and situps. While she exercised, she reflected on recent events. She stopped her exercises abruptly to cross check some things in the folders.

  The first few pieces of a jigsaw puzzle are often the hardest to place but she could see the patterns developing. Key pieces which created a border gave shape to the puzzle: her mother’s drawings were actually tattoos, and a couple of tattoos that Mrs. Hightower had photographed on the girl matched them perfectly. The drawings left out in plain view on her mother’s desk, the labeled folders left out for her to find, and the actual tattoos—these all helped formed the outer edges of the puzzle. Now it became clear that the unfinished report and folders—all filed
in her mother’s computer under the file name “Fred’s Boots”—and the drawings had all been so carefully placed, organized, and labeled leaving little doubt that they were intended for her eyes, especially the folder labeled, “In the Event…”. That folder Abbi did not open. Nor did she print it.

  The other compiled folders that Abbi brought with her contained news articles, sometimes circled, about a notoriously dangerous gang. This was the best source Abbi had found about a sort of club with lifelong membership or, as an article mentioned, possible ownership. The article called it a modern slave trade. Sometimes very poor parents would sell their children as a last resort to give them a better life. This information helped fill in the center of the puzzle. Actual cases of kidnappings and human trafficking—the girl named Maria. Abbi had seen this missing persons report but had not realized its significance.

  As her mother started closing in on this particular rescue mission, she must have sensed trouble, had a premonition, something that made her leave a trail of evidence for Abbi to follow. Several times in the week before her mother went missing she had sent Abbi into the office to grab a pen or to get something out of a drawer. That’s when Abbi would notice things scattered on the desk, sometimes drawings, other times news articles. And her mother, herself, had advised Abbi that there was a secret locking system for a hidden side drawer and showed her how to operate it.

  Abbi cleaned the last bit of dust off her mind’s lens she looked through and focused hard.

  Membership in NM2 meant a lifetime commitment, cemented by such things as tattoos and initiation rites that sometimes included doing a ritualistic killing or being raped by multiple men. Getting out of NM2 alive was next to impossible. So what would their incentive be to let Miss Shoe leave, once they realized who she was? For an organization with so much wealth, the incentive had to be more than money. But what?

  Abbi read the report of a girl who managed to escape but had to change her identity. The girl told harrowing stories to authorities and still had tattoos and internal scars from her ordeal. She had gotten involved because of her boyfriend. Later, because she talked to authorities, the girl was found stabbed to death in the Killing Forest, even after her change of identity!

  Again Abbi’s knees felt weak. This group was extremely dangerous, and her mother was now caught in its terrifying web.

  Louise came out of the bathroom.

  “Your turn,” she announced.

  Feeling numb, Abbi closed up the contents of the files and returned them to her briefcase. Then she quickly gathered her clothes and toiletries and went to bathe, still deep in thought.

  Abbi remembered a video clip of an interview with a Latina who had become a member of the group. The interview had aired on a cable news network. At the time, Abbi didn’t know of the organization or the rescued girl or her mother’s study of the group. Although the girl’s face had been blurred to protect her, the girl bravely told of the lure of the organization. At first, the unidentified girl had thought it had something to do with religion, with Mary, mother of Jesus. That’s how her boyfriend convinced her to join, that and being able to buy things cheaper. She was told she could go to college if she joined and NM would pay for it. All these promises came with hefty price tags but a new recruit would not know that. Later the girl had discovered that initiation requirements to join sometimes involved deadly consequences. The victim would not discuss on air the requirements for her initiation but, after her initiation, she was admitted into the organization. She said in the interview that she wasn’t allowed to leave or contact family, not even when she explained how unhappy she had become. She was given a number of tasks to do, endless tasks, as if she owed the organization every moment of her day, every part of her body. The interviewer avoided asking for specifics but the girl reported that most girls who joined became domestic slaves and some were expected to bear children to help increase numbers in the organization. Abbi shuddered as she remembered this interview. When the girl broke free and went to police, she was arrested and treated like a criminal. An international human rights organization intervened, pleaded her case, and then helped relocate that girl, providing her with a new name, a new life. The documentary had been made to raise awareness.

  How awful, Abbi thought, to be kidnapped, treated like that, and then arrested!

  That was NM, a radical human rights group, known for its communes and its promise of a better life. Although life in the commune was harsh, NM attempted to provide a better way of life for the people inside its walls.

  On the other hand, the faction that split, NM2, was of a different design and used drug trafficking and human trafficking for sex as their business models. Faster money. That is what her mother had discovered, pursued, and they were the ones involved in her kidnapping.

  “GK just texted. C is coming,” Louise yelled.

  Abbi could barely hear her. She turned off the shower.

  “C? Is that really necessary? Don’t they have people on payroll to do interpreting?” Abbi asked, feeling a tightening in her stomach. She didn’t feel right about this girl and wasn’t sure why.

  “This is a small contract job,” Louise said. “She overhears things. GK says she’s so pretty and innocent-looking that the bad guys don’t think she can understand what they say. GK says she’s amazing! I think he likes her, but what’s not to like?”

  FIFTY

  After the interview with Mrs. Hightower, Tina fell into a deep exhausted sleep. When she awoke, she saw her laptop and remembered her assignment.

  She stretched, swallowed down some liquids that were to serve as her dinner, and thought about how hard it would be to try to talk to Gopher again. She hated him for what he had done to her, what he apparently did for a living. It had grown into a deep down revulsion. Admittedly, she brought it on herself, starting with the picture she sent him and believing the lies he told. She didn’t imagine that he would send it out to others. For that, and everything else, she would get him, and get him good. All she had to do was to get the conversation going and then the FBI would take over. Piece. Of. Cake.

  The broth felt wonderful and tasted delicious when she added a little salt. If it would just stay down, that would be a start toward getting better. She ate as if she’d been starving. A nurse came in and was pleased with Tina’s appetite. She took her temperature and reported that the fever was gone, and that Tina looked like she felt better.

  “Much better!” Tina said. “Could you please hand me my laptop?”

  “Feeling social?” the nurse asked as she accommodated the request.

  “I feel like making things happen,” Tina said with a smile. Bad things to bad people, she thought, but she wouldn’t divulge in the inner workings of her heart.

  “Well, then, if you’re finished eating, we’ll get this stuff cleared away and you can enjoy some peace and quiet.”

  “Thanks,” Tina said. She took a moment while her tray was being removed to frame her thoughts. She wondered if Gopher responded to yesterday’s message.

  As soon as Tina reached her page, she took time to see that her old friends, especially the friends she went to the mall with, had become more and more concerned in their private messages to her.

  Two of them took a week-long road trip with one of the families. They wanted her to go with them. One of them was visiting colleges with her mother. But they were all sick with worry since they hadn’t heard from her. They knew her father filed MISSING PERSONS.

  It’s not fair, she thought, that I can’t talk to them. They didn’t do anything wrong except to think Gopher was nice and maybe someone I should talk to. I’ll talk to Mrs. Hightower and see if I can have my friends back.

  She scrolled through things she had said before her abduction. Automatically, she started to respond but stopped herself.

  Then, there it was, the message from Gopher.

  “Baby Maria, prettiest little girl I ever laid eyes on! Where have you been? My heart’s been breaking for you. Can’t look at o
ther girls. What means I sold you?”

  You’re such a liar, Tina thought. Well, I’ve learned to lie, too.

  “Gopher, I’m sorry. It’s just someone said that. I’m OK now. Of course it’s not true. Been back with my dad for 5 or 6 weeks but he wouldn’t let me have a computer. Couldn’t stay with your friends in Mexico. What a church! ;-) Party all night long!!! How do they do that? LOL! I’m not like that. Just been dying to see you again, but Daddy says I’m too young.”

  Tina clicked ENTER. That message was so far off the mark.

  Within minutes, Mrs. Hightower called.

  “Hello, Tina! How are you feeling?”

  “Like I’ve been brought back to life.”

  “Good! You were a sick little puppy! We picked up on your message to Gopher. I was going to get a script to you, but you did better than we would.”

  “You really think so? It was awful! You know it’s not true at all?”

  “Of course. The important thing is, will Gopher know? We’ll watch for his response. If Ramon got in touch with him, he’ll try to find you.”

  “Not good.”

  “Don’t worry. Gopher can’t find you and I want you to try to stay in touch with him, but with a script next time. I’m sending somebody to you. She’s about your size and she has worked with me, off and on as my assistant, for the past couple of years. I think she’ll be a good double for you. The two of you can work on the script for now, and then she’ll take over your account.”

  “Why not you?”

  “I’m working on Miss Shoe’s rescue. Someday, I want you to get the chance to see her again.”

  “You don’t have Miss Shoe back yet? They’re awful! What Ramon might do, I don’t even want to think! You have to find her! And get the other girls out.”

  “We are trying with everything we’ve got. Your information is most helpful. They won’t like it, but we’re going to get this job done. In the meantime, I’m sending Miss Sobori to you with the beginning of a script.”