Breaking the Rules

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Izzy glanced at Dan in the light from the dashboard. This was not going to be good. That was one hell of a cryptic message, and Jules Cassidy was usually a straight shooter when it came to telling it like it was.

  “With that said,” Cassidy continued, “I first want to inform you that I’ve been in contact with Field Agent Kathy Gordon, who’s been working a case there in Las Vegas. That picture you took on your cell phone, Zanella? That one of the two men who came to Ben’s house, looking for him, because they were trying to track down the girl, Neesha? They allegedly work for an organization that specializes in international sex trafficking. We’re talking the sale of women and children to buyers who are … Well, they’re in the market to buy women and children, so that pretty much tells you all you need to know. Except maybe that some of them are snuff enthusiasts, which is pretty much just another name for serial killers who happen to be really rich men, who can purchase victims who won’t be missed.”

  “Jesus,” Dan breathed.

  “That’s just one branch of this booming business, but it’s one I thought you should know about, in terms of the danger that Ben, Eden, and Jenn could well be in.”

  Izzy couldn’t believe what he was hearing and he drove a little faster. “Are you freaking kidding me?”

  “I wish I were,” Cassidy said. “But there’s a whole nother side to this, and it’s the more immediate subject of this FBI investigation, because this organization also deals in the sale or trade of girls—and I’m talking really little girls, seven, eight years old—to brothel-type businesses, here in the U.S. One of those esteemed establishments is believed to be northwest of Vegas, just over the Clark County line. The children are nearly all brought here from outside of the country. Most of them are sold by their families, some of them thinking that they’re going to work as maids, others knowing exactly what their daughters are going to be doing. Others are orphans. Some are kidnapped—some are from families of illegals who are living here in the United States. They can’t go to the authorities to report the disappearances and … Well, bottom line, these little girls are easy to exploit, because they don’t exist. And when they grow up or if they cause trouble, they’re sold at a discount to one of those snuff fans who’ll kill them and dispose of the body. Neat and tidy, two birds with one stone.”

  Dan spoke. “So you’re telling us that Neesha’s one of these girls.”

  “We believe so,” Cassidy said. “Yes. And securing her as a witness, to testify against the men who run this operation? That’s the priority of the AIC of this investigation. I’ve been asked to obtain from you the girl’s location, so that she can be brought into custody as quickly as possible—”

  “We do that,” Dan interrupted, “and those very dangerous people who have Jenni and Eden and Ben? They’re going to know it, and they’re going to kill them. They’ve got a man watching—”

  “Neesha doesn’t go anywhere,” Izzy cut him off. “Until we get our family out of harm’s way.”

  “I suspected you’d say that,” Cassidy said evenly. “And, in anticipation of that, I’ve been instructed to inform you that an FBI task force is being created to rescue your family members, if possible.” He paused so his words could sink in. “We have access to the GPS signal from Gillman’s cell phone, too, and have pinpointed their location. From satellite images, they appear to be in some kind of storage-type structure, alongside an airfield.”

  “An airfield?” Dan’s voice cracked.

  “Correct,” Cassidy said. “The belief is that this is one of the locations where the children are transported into the country. And where … others are transported out. If you arrive at the airfield and there is an aircraft on the runway?” He paused, again very deliberately, and then said, “Report that information immediately. But I am to insist that you remain back, out of danger, until the authorities arrive. At which point you will be taken into protective custody—”

  Fuck you, Dan started to say, but didn’t get more than the F-sound out before Izzy reached over and whacked him in the chest. He shot Izzy a what the hell look, and Izzy answered with a hard look and the hand signal for silence. This man was not their enemy.

  “—while the team determines the best option for apprehending the suspects and rescuing the hostages.”

  It was no mistake that he’d again mentioned the apprehension of the suspects as being the FBI team’s priority.

  Izzy had to work to keep his voice even. “Task Force ETA?” he asked.

  “Best guess,” Cassidy said, “is they’re about thirty minutes behind you.” He paused again. “Do you understand what I’m telling you, Zanella?”

  “Sir, yes, sir, absolutely I do. Any other info you can share from the sat images?” Izzy asked. “Any infrared?”

  “You don’t need that information,” Cassidy said. “Unless you can reassure me that you’ll limit your participation to surveillance only.” He cleared his throat rather loudly.

  “Cross my heart,” Izzy said, “and if I lie, sweet baby jeebus can poke me in the eye.”

  “Fabulous,” Cassidy said dryly. “I’m completely reassured. And in that case, there are what appears to be four guards outside the structure, eleven people inside—but it’s difficult to discern which are the prisoners and which are the bad guys. Sorry. I know you have concerns about Ben’s health and safety, but I don’t have access to moving images and can’t begin to speculate which green dot belongs to Jenn, Eden, or Ben. If this information changes, I’ll … text you.”

  Text, not call. Because Cassidy knew damn well that Izzy wasn’t going to be able to pick up while he was dispatching those four guards and kicking down the door of that storage facility.

  “Thank you, sir,” Izzy said.

  “I thought I was your bro, Zanella.”

  “No, sir,” Izzy told the man. “You’re the kind of leader I would follow into hell, should the need ever arise.”

  Cassidy cleared his throat. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said quietly, then added, “Good luck, guys.” And with that he ended the call.

  Dan looked at Izzy. “Did he just say what I think he said?”

  “He certainly did, and he could lose his job for it.” Izzy glanced back at Dan. “But if there’s a plane on that runway? Shit, even if there’s not … He just told us we shouldn’t wait for anyone. As soon as we get there? We’re going in.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Izzy and Dan knew where they were.

  Jenn held on to that thought as the man named Nathan held her tightly by the arm as he half pushed, half dragged her with him into what looked like a warehouse.

  There was a sign—a small one—on the side of the building: A&B STORAGE AND DISCREET PEST CONTROL.

  There were windows in the structure, but they were up along the roofline. They were more like air vents that opened to keep the building, with its nearly flat metal roof, from getting too hot in the daytime.

  Although, that was an impossibility. When the sun was out, this place would literally cook. It was crazy. The construction looked new. Who would build something like this, out in the middle of the desert, and expect to be able to store anything here at all?

  Although there were large garage-bay-type doors all along the side of the building—large enough to accommodate a small plane or a fleet of trucks.

  The place had what looked to be a relatively low-tech security system. There were two cameras—at least that Jenn could see—each mounted at a corner of the building, but they were fixed in place. They were seemingly consistent with the type of security at a storage facility—enough to lower the insurance, but not enough to break the bank. But, incongruous with a typical storage facility’s security system, there was also a very large guard out front, carrying a very large assault rifle.

  “You need to get the bag with the insulin and the needles,” Eden was saying again, but then she screamed, and Jenn turned quickly back to look at her.

  Jake had her arm twisted up b
ehind her back as he told her, “What you need to do is to shut the fuck up.”

  She didn’t. “Ow! He could die without it! Ow!”

  “Keep it moving.” Nathan gave Jenn a nudge that nearly knocked her over.

  “Do I look like I give a shit?” Jake asked.

  “You should,” Eden gasped. “Because Danny’s going to ask for proof of life.”

  “And you’re going to tell him that you’re all hunky-dory,” Jake said.

  “He’s not an idiot,” Eden argued. “He’s going to ask to talk to Ben.”

  Jenn was pushed again, past all the bay doors, past that very large guard, who spoke into a cell phone. “They’re here.”

  There was a large metal door down at the end of the building, and it opened before they reached it, before Nathan knocked.

  The man who opened the door could have been Nathan’s twin, they looked so much alike, with those same blue-gray eyes and lean faces. This new man greeted them without any words, and barely even a glance. He just stepped back to let them in.

  Nathan gave Jenn another nudge, so she stepped inside.

  And yes, it was a warehouse, and absolutely, it was extremely hot in here.

  A large thermometer on the wall advertised the fact that it was 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Despite that, a series of fans up in the high metal rafters moved only very slowly, and only a few of the window vents were open.

  And yes, there was a fleet of trucks inside—if you could call one truck and two vans a fleet. They, too, bore the name A&B Storage on their sides. No doubt the discreet-pest-control part of the business was so discreet that it wasn’t advertised on the trucks.

  It was weird in the warehouse, though. Most of the big dimly lit room was empty, but there were huge wooden crates, wrapped in plastic and perched on pallets, distributed haphazardly throughout the vast, shadowy space.

  One would think they would’ve been stacked neatly, in one corner, but they weren’t.

  It made the place look spooky.

  “Bedbug remediation,” Nathan told her as he saw her confusion. “It’s a growing business. Heat over a hundred and seventeen degrees kills ’em dead.”

  “Bedbugs,” she repeated. She knew they were a problem, particularly in urban areas … Still, it was mind-bending. An organization that ran a child prostitution ring and dealt in the purchase and sale of human beings also managed a bedbug remediation service …?

  Although it gave them a reason to be here—to have trucks and a warehouse in the middle of the desert.

  Or maybe the people who owned A&B Storage were similar to Jenn and Eden and Ben. Maybe they’d also gotten involved in a bad situation purely by accident.

  Eden was still pushing Jake about Ben. “We want to see him. And there’s a device in the bag? That you didn’t bring in from the van? It’ll test Ben’s blood sugar levels so I’ll know how much insulin to give him.”

  Jake pushed Eden, hard, at Nathan’s brother. “Get them photographed and secured in the back. And someone call Todd. Tell him to get back inside that apartment—find out why the sailor hasn’t called us yet.”

  By sailor, he meant Dan.

  Oh God.

  Jenn met Eden’s gaze. The younger woman was terrified, too—Jenn could see it in her eyes. But she was fighting it—and she was going to keep on fighting it. Jenn could see that, too.

  “He’s probably not calling because he was drunk before I hit him,” Eden lied. “You better let him sleep it off, or he’s going to be useless.”

  “Todd just called to check in,” Nathan’s brother volunteered. “He says the sailor didn’t leave, so he couldn’t follow him to find the girl. He says nothing’s moving, no lights have gone off or on, nobody’s come near the place.”

  Jenn raised her hand. “Excuse me,” she said, trying, like Eden, to distract. But she couldn’t keep her voice from shaking. “I’m so sorry, but I need to use the bathroom.”

  Jake had had enough. “Forget the photos, just take them to the back,” he ordered Nathan and his brother and two other men who’d come from somewhere to join them. “And call Todd, and tell him to get the hell over there and wake that asshole up. We are running the fuck out of time.” He looked at Eden and Jenn. “We’re not going to give him proof of life. If he doesn’t tell us what we want to know, we’ll give him proof of death. Flip a coin, girls. One of you, or the kid, is going to die.”

  They’d gone as far they could risk going in via car, but they still had about a half a mile of ground to cover before they had to slow their pace and move covertly.

  Normally, a half-mile run would’ve been a piece of cake. But Dan hadn’t done more than very short spurts of fast movement for quite a few weeks. Running half of a mile seemed as daunting a task as running a full marathon immediately after eating a huge Thanksgiving dinner.

  Izzy was on the phone again with Jenk as Dan hauled Izzy’s bag out of the backseat of the car that they’d driven off the dirt road and down into a gully, where it wouldn’t be seen by any casual passersby.

  The sun was going to come up soon, and the sky to the east was already giving off the start of a predawn glow.

  It was actually a good time to approach a guarded facility. If the guards had NVs—night-vision glasses—they’d have to take them off. Even just that little glow from the sky would prove to be too bright and would distort their vision. But without the NVs, the desert would seem otherworldly. Heat would stir and shimmy. And darkness and shadows would prevail.

  Now, if the guards had infrared glasses, able to pick up the heat signal from a human being … Then they were completely screwed.

  Because Izzy and Dan had, between them, a series of kitchen knives, each blade duller than the last.

  Dan would have preferred an M16 or a grenade launcher.

  Izzy snapped his phone shut as they headed briskly south. “You know Tess Bailey? She works at Troubleshooters with Lindsey? She’s their comspesh. She’s got mad hacking skills.”

  “I’ve met her,” Dan said. “Yeah.”

  “Jenk says Tess is using her home setup to try to access those satellite images, give us a better read on how many tangos we’re up against.”

  “She can just hack into a high-clearance FBI—”

  “I’m not asking questions,” Izzy cut him off. “When people want to help, I say thank you. If you want to be a Boy Scout—”

  “No,” Dan said, working hard to keep up. “I’m just impressed. I didn’t think anyone besides WildCard could do that.” Navy SEAL Chief Ken Karmody, nicknamed WildCard for obvious reasons, was currently OCONUS, with most of Team Sixteen. So Tess Bailey would have to do.

  “Jenk’ll send a text when she gets through. Dude. Gimme that.” Izzy took the bag from him. “You should’ve reminded me.”

  “I’m okay,” Dan said. “But if you’ve got the bag? I’m good to run.”

  Izzy looked at him hard, but then nodded. “Your pace,” he said. “Save something for when we get there.” But then he softened the implied I’m reminding you because we both know you’re an idiot of his words by adding, in his best Groucho Marx, “And save a little something else for even later, to throw to Jennilyn.”

  “Zanella, you’re an asshole.” Dan started to run, slowly at first and then faster. Jesus, his leg hurt. And after all those weeks of sitting on his ass, his wind was for shit.

  “What?” Izzy said as he easily kept up, bag and all. “I’m just saying. I got myself a post-mission plan …”

  “TMI,” Dan gasped.

  Izzy ran closer and put his free arm around Dan’s waist. “Arm around my shoulder, bro.”

  And with much of Dan’s weight transferred to Izzy, they could both punch up the pace.

  Izzy, of course, started to sing, because he clearly had wind to spare. “The road is long, with many a winding turn …”

  The song was “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother.” Through the years that they’d worked together, Dan had heard Izzy singing it plenty of times, along with
a whole playlist of similarly themed tunes. He’d always thought Izzy’d done it to purposely annoy and just generally be an asshole.

  But it was entirely possible that Dan had been wrong—and that Izzy sang the sappy lyrics because he meant them.

  “Actually,” he gasped now, cutting Izzy off mid-brother. “I’d prefer ‘Lean on Me.’ ”

  Izzy laughed his surprise. “I was trying to piss you off,” he admitted. “Get a little stamina-building rage burning.”

  “I got plenty of rage,” Dan told him. “Those assholes have my family.” He corrected himself. “Our family.”

  “Not for long,” Izzy said. And he started to sing. “Sometimes in our lives, we all have pain, we all have sorrow …”

  He really did have a nice voice.

  The entire back section of the warehouse was air-conditioned.

  It was separated from the main area by a heavily insulated wall with a single door in the middle that opened into a significantly cooler but still-warm hallway.

  The hallway was windowless and ran the entire length of the back of the building, with one of those white acoustical-tile drop ceilings overhead and cheap linoleum tile in an industrial shade of speckled tan underfoot.

  Eden’s heart was pounding as the two men who were escorting her and Jenn led her to the left, past two, then three, then four doorways, all of which opened into dark rooms. She didn’t get more than a peek inside. Two had typical cheap office setups, with desks and chairs and file cabinets—she couldn’t see if there were phones on the desks—and one was simply empty.

  “I really need to use the bathroom,” Jenn said again.

  “I’ll get a bucket,” the man holding Jenn told her as he pushed her toward the very last room at the end of the hall. The door was shut and locked with a big thumb bolt on the outside, and he opened it and shoved Jenn in.

  “Oh, my God, and towels, too,” Jenn said. “And that bag, from the van!”

  Something was wrong—Eden could tell by the tone of Jenn’s voice, and as she, too, was pushed forward, into the open doorway, she saw … “Ben!”