Джеймс Паттерсон - Cross the Line

“How long were you in the truck?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t have a watch or phone. Two days? Maybe more?”

“Any other young Moldovan ladies here?”

“Two,” she had said. “There are more from Hungary and Slovakia.”

Several had been recruited as Mina had, she’d told me. Others had worked in brothels in Germany before being “transferred” to the United States, and—

“It’s sad,” Bree said, breaking me from my thoughts, “that there are parts of the world now where there’s so little hope that young women and boys desperate for something better will sell themselves into sexual slavery.”

“It sounded more like indentured servitude,” I said.

Bree arched an eyebrow. “You honestly think those Russians were going to turn Mina loose after five years? No way. They were going to use her up, spit her out. Someone would have found her in a ditch.”

“Maybe, but she’s got a chance now,” I said. “When the INS special agent in charge from Virginia Beach showed up, I had Mahoney single her out as critical to the investigation and in need of political asylum.”

“That’ll help her.”

I nodded, trying to feel good about that rather than tired and emotional, but my exhaustion must have shown because Bree said, “You okay, Alex?”

“Not really,” I said. “The whole ride back on the helicopter I was thinking about Jannie and Ali, and us. We all won the lottery at birth and got to grow up here in America, not someplace where we’d have to prostitute our way out of misery. I mean, I’m sorry, but something’s wrong or out of balance when that exists. Or am I overthinking things?”

“You’re just indignant,” she said. “Maybe outraged.”

“That bad?”

“No. It shows passion and a noble sense of fairness that I adore in you.”

I smiled. “Why, thank you.”

“Anytime,” she said, and she smiled and yawned. “I have to sleep.”

“Wait — how was your day, COD?”

Bree got to her feet, waved me off, and said, “I’m doing my best to forget it and start life over tomorrow morning, bright and early.”

“I like that idea,” I said.

“I’m full of good ideas,” she said, and kissed me on the cheek.

Late in the afternoon the Friday before Labor Day weekend, fifty members of law enforcement were crammed into the roll-call room at DC Metro for Special Agent Ned Mahoney’s briefing on the massacres.

I was pleased to see the same faces from ATF, Justice, and the DEA there. It helped if the same people showed up, kept the communication lines open and clear.

If I didn’t know Mahoney so well, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the slight stoop to his shoulders and the tight lines around his eyes. The case was weighing on him. He was being squeezed, probably harder than Bree.

“There have been no new attacks,” Mahoney said, “and we have made some progress, but we’ve been hampered by media leaks and the frenzy surrounding this killing spree.”

That was true. The media coverage had turned red-hot and constant after the fourth massacre. Stories had been published or broadcast stating that “unnamed sources close to the investigation” said that the FBI believed ex-military, likely mercenaries, were executing the attacks and were either working on behalf of a cartel or acting as vigilantes.

Also leaked was the fact that, in addition to the human cargo, the trucks had contained a million dollars in cash and ninety kilos of cocaine, all hidden in the produce crates. DC Metro and the FBI had been hoping to keep all that inside this room.

“The leaks must stop,” Mahoney said. “They’re hamstringing us.”

I scanned the room, seeing no one displaying obvious guilt or avoidance postures. But that didn’t matter. The leaks had already made the cops distrust this group as a whole. We had decided to hold back some of the new evidence we’d found, at least for the time being.

“Moving on,” Mahoney said. “There is no Littlefield Produce Company of Freehold Township, New Jersey. And six of the dead traffickers have been identified through fingerprints and IAFIS.”

Six mug shots went up on a screen behind the FBI agent.

“The two on the left are Russians with ties to organized-crime syndicates out of St. Petersburg and Brighton Beach,” Mahoney said. “There are agents in New York and Russia working those angles. These other four are more familiar to law enforcement. Correct, George?”

George Potter, the DEA’s special agent in charge, nodded. “All four have long rap sheets in south Florida or Texas. The two there on the right, Chavez and Burton, they have loose connections to the Sinaloa cartel.”

“Do any of them have a history of involvement in human trafficking?” Bree asked.

“Not that we know of,” Potter said. “But they could be branching out.”

“Or this could be just one branch of something bigger,” I said. “These connections to both Russian mobsters and Mexican drug cartels suggests a possible alliance that is frightening when you think about it.”

Potter nodded. “Like a supercartel.”

Sampson said, “Or maybe they’re just a crew of freight agents that transport three different kinds of criminal commodities at once: drugs, cash, and people.”

“Slaves, you mean,” Bree said.

Bob Taylor, a smart, African American agent over at Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, asked, “Are you a slave if you sign up of your own free will?”

“They were bought and paid for,” Bree said. “Even if the sellers were the girls themselves. Let’s call this what it is: sexual slavery.”

Taylor threw up his hands in surrender, said, “Just trying to clarify, Chief. You ask me, whoever these shooters are, they’re doing the world a favor getting defects out of the gene pool.”

There were a number of nods and murmurs of agreement in the room.

I couldn’t argue with the sentiment in one sense. I’d had the chance to go over the dead men’s rap sheets, and there was viciousness, cruelty, and depravity laced through their lives.

I don’t care if you believe in Jesus, God, Allah, karma, the spirit of the universe, or a Higher Power — the crew of thugs who’d died in Ladysmith, Virginia, had been begging for a violent death like that: shot down, no mercy. I believed that was true, even if I also believed that whoever killed those thugs deserved trial and punishment.

In my book and in the blind eyes of justice, the fact that a man had it coming to him doesn’t make killing him right. Especially if he’s killed in an ambush. That’s premeditation any way you look at it.

Mahoney went on with the briefing, giving some of the preliminary lab reports. The victims were all shot with .223 rounds, probably from AR-style rifles.

“Military?” ATF Special Agent Taylor asked. “Full-jacket?”

“No,” Mahoney said. “The bulk crap you can buy at Wal-mart.”

Sampson leaned over to me. “I gotta go. Anniversary dinner with Billie.”

“Congratulations to you and Billie. How many years?”

“The big six, and thanks.” He slipped out.

The big six. Somehow that was funny.

A few moments later, Bree leaned over and said, “I’ve got a pile of work on my desk I need to dig through.”

“I’ll stay here and tell you if there’s anything new,” I said.

There wasn’t anything new, at least not from my perspective. Mahoney wrapped up the rest of the briefing in twenty minutes, and the place emptied out.

“You look like you could use a three-day weekend,” I told Ned.

“Wouldn’t that be something?” Mahoney said.

“Go to your place on the shore; it’ll give you fresh eyes on Tuesday.”