Неизвестный - 5. Justice Served

“Maybe I’d like to be doing something else right now too,” Sandy grumped and put the beer back, exchanging it for a soda.

Watts looked from Sandy to Mitchell, who blushed furiously, and slowly grinned. “Well ain’t you the lucky one.”

Mitchell shoved her hands into her jeans. “Yeah.”

Watts clapped Mitchell on a shoulder. “You break this case, kid, and that gold shield of yours is really gonna shine.”

Before Mitchell could protest that she didn’t expect to break the case, Rebecca walked in with Sloan and Jason. Immediately, everyone sobered up and hurriedly took their usual places at the conference table.

“Okay, Mitchell,” Rebecca said. “Let’s hear it.”

“I think Jason and Sandy should go through the porn downloads and chart the dates when the girls that Sandy knows were doing the shoots.”

Rebecca frowned. “That’s on the agenda. We’ll be doing that over the next couple of days. We’ve got months’ worth of videos to screen.”

Mitchell shook her head. “No. I think we can narrow it down to a couple of days.”

Everyone’s attention was riveted on her, and Mitchell felt a trickle of sweat between her shoulder blades. If she was wrong, she’d look like an idiot. Worse, she’d disappoint Rebecca Frye, which was the last thing she ever wanted to do. After Sandy, there was no one whose opinion of her mattered more. She kept her hands on her thighs under the table so that nobody could see them shaking. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Sandy’s smile. And more important than her smile was the encouragement and faith in her eyes.

“I think we should look at the videos that were shot right around the time those ships came in—the ones that Jimmy Hogan was checking out with Port Authority.”

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There was a moment of silence, and then everyone began to speak at once.

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Justice Served

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Sunday, Midmorning

Wait a minute—”

“Why do you think—”

“Who would’ve—”

“How do—”

“All right—keep it down.” Rebecca’s voice rang out. As the din subsided, she motioned to Mitchell. “Go ahead. Lay it out for us, Detective.”

Mitchell cleared her throat. “Okay, I need to start at the beginning—

at least I think it’s the beginning.”

“Take your time, kid,” Watts said in a surprisingly quiet tone. “We ain’t in a hurry. My buns are just getting warm anyhow.”

“I think it all starts with Clark,” Mitchell said.

Sloan snarled an oath.

“What I mean,” Mitchell clariÞ ed, “is I think it starts with Justice and Jimmy Hogan. The feds were interested enough in something going on in this city to put a federal agent undercover.” She looked toward Rebecca, who gave her a barely perceptible nod. “I don’t think that an Internet pornography ring or garden-variety prostitution is really big enough to register on Justice’s radar. Sure, they’ve got people working on those kinds of investigations, but usually they leave them to the locals. And they sure don’t spare undercover agents. So I’m thinking something bigger than the usual Mob activity.”

“The feds have run some pretty big pornography stings,” Sloan pointed out. “I hate to say it, but Clark’s being here could have just been part of a broader interstate operation, especially considering the Internet angle. Just like he said.”

“True,” Rebecca interjected, “but it doesn’t really explain why Jimmy Hogan was undercover. Clark was up-front with us—well, as

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up-front as the feds ever are—about his interest in the pornography operation. He wouldn’t have needed someone undercover if he were going to investigate it through channels.” Rebecca turned her attention back to Mitchell. “Keep talking—give us your theory.”

“With Jimmy undercover as an undercover narco detective, Jimmy—and by extension Clark—had access to any Þ les that came through the police department. He could keep an eye out for the kind of activity he was really interested in. At the same time, he was assigned to do exactly what he came here to do, which was inÞ ltrate the underworld organization. He was working all the angles and probably passing everything right back to Clark.”

The others at the table nodded and made sounds of agreement.

“Where does Jeff Þ t in?” Rebecca asked solemnly.

“I think while Jimmy was investigating his real interest, occasionally he’d come across illegal activity that he didn’t have time to do anything about, so he’d tip off you and Cruz.” Mitchell shrugged.

“He was a cop, after all.”

“Like the kiddie prostitution circuit he clued us into last year,”

Rebecca said. “Okay. So far, so good. And then, he got close to what he was really after, and someone found out.” Her face went hard, her voice cold. “And took out him and Jeff, who probably just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Mitchell nodded. “Yes, ma’am. That’s what I think happened.”

Watts shifted in his seat. “Okay. Time to end the suspense, kid.

What the hell was Hogan interested in?”

“Smuggling.”

Watts looked blank.

“That’s usually a U.S. Customs gig,” Jason observed neutrally.

“Not Justice.”

“I know,” Mitchell said emphatically, “and that’s why I didn’t think of it at Þ rst. Why none of us thought of it.”

“You think Hogan got wind of something they were bringing in on those ships—the ones he had Carla looking into, right?” Watts leaned forward, drumming his Þ ngers on the tabletop, his eyes narrowed and intent. “That’s why he was trying to track the cargo.”

“Yeah, I think he was trying to get a line on who picked up the cargo and where it was going.”

“I’ve been over those cargo manifests, kid,” Watts said, shaking

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his head. “I didn’t see any similarities between the stuff those ships were bringing in. Usually, if you’re smuggling something, you use the same carrier vehicle each time. Bags of cocaine stuffed inside coffee barrels, diamonds packed inside fake objects of art, heroin sewn into the lining of clothes from Asia. There was nothing like that. I looked.”

Mitchell shook her head. “All the ships originated from ports in the same region of the world, right?”

“Yeah, but that could just be a coincidence.”

“I don’t think so. They came from the same region because they were carrying the same smuggled cargo.”

“What? ” Watts asked impatiently.

“The girls. The ships were bringing in the girls.”

There were a few seconds of silence, and then Watts muttered,

“Shit.”

“What’s the common denominator between the sex videos, the clubs, the prostitution…all of it,” Rebecca said. “The girls. None of it works without them.”

“And,” Sloan mused, “if those girls are your business, think how good it would be to have an inside person at the DA’s ofÞ ce. Someone who would hear about any local investigation that started getting close.

Beecher.”

“Not to mention,” Jason said, “using him to hack into law enforcement’s entire computer network. All bases covered.” He turned in his seat and looked at Sloan. “What do you want to bet that the Port Authority computer system is compromised too. This organization is sophisticated, and they’re going to want to monitor everything they can. If they can Þ nd an assistant district attorney to squeeze, they can Þ nd somebody at the port.”

Sloan nodded, her eyes shining. “We’ll need to get at that system.”