Forgive Me (27 page)

If lip biting were an Olympic sport, Angie would have medaled. She forced herself to end the call on friendly terms. She didn’t think the scant police response was proof of a Thin Blue Discount, but it sure it made easy to speculate.

She radioed Mike to vent. Her conversation got cut short when her phone rang.

The call came up with a Maryland area code, but it wasn’t a number Angie recognized, and that included the burner phone number she had committed to memory. She answered the call with a little flitter in her heart.

“This is Angie.”

A whispered voice answered back. “My name is Nadine Jessup. I think you’re looking for me.”

CHAPTER 34

I
n light traffic, the FBI headquarters on Lord Baltimore Drive was twenty-five minutes from the apartment building where Nadine Jessup was being held. It was a square brick structure indistinct as any office park building. Angie and Mike were given special passes and taken to a conference room on the third floor, where a special planning session was already in progress.

Nadine had told Angie some of the girls were foreigners. “You have to come soon. Tasha might be dead down there for all I know,” she had said, confirming what Angie already suspected. Tasha, the girl down in the hole (Nadine’s label for it) was the same girl who’d taken the phone from Mike.

“You have to help her,” Nadine had pleaded.

Human trafficking was a federal crime. The FBI would act, and Angie couldn’t be confident that the local PD would. Things were moving forward with haste, as they should have been all along.

Normally, the FBI would have thanked Angie for her service and sent her on her way. But Nadine was scared, understandably so, and would only talk to Angie. In turn, Angie requested Mike’s presence and so there they were.

A lot had happened in the four hours since Nadine’s initial phone call. A tactical team had been assembled, various warrants were being expedited, and plans were hatching with urgency. Everything moved quickly—a girl’s life was in danger. Angie had infrequent contact with Nadine since the initial phone call that set all this in motion. Nadine spoke in a whispered voice and often went silent abruptly when it was no longer safe to talk. For this reason, Angie kept her phone in her hand at all times, unsure when Nadine would have the chance to call again. Everyone here was waiting for the phone to ring again.

Every seat around the massive conference table was taken, leaving standing room only for more than twenty people from various agencies who had crammed into the room, including a team from the U.S. Marshals Service who’d arrived about a half hour ago.

Another late arrival was Terrance Hill. An assistant state’s attorney in Baltimore County and the current head of the Maryland Human Trafficking Task Force, he had a kind face for managing such an unkind job and appeared to have the ear of Barbara Curtis, a seasoned FBI agent who headed the FBI’s arm of the task force. In her fifties, Curtis had short hair, a thin build, and could have easily been a friend of Angie’s mother. Instead, she was organizing the entire tactical response.

Introductions were made and various roles explained. Angie and Mike’s stakeout had proved useful, providing images of all four suspects.

“We ran photographs of the suspects through the NCIC, our National Crime Information Computer,” Agent Curtis said. “Ramon Gutierrez, who goes by the alias Buggy, came up wanted on a federal drug offense. We’ve brought the marshals in on our operation as a courtesy.”

Bryce Taggart made an awkward wave to the agents seated around the table. The Bureau was interested in sex trafficking, not drug offenders. The marshals had a fugitive interest in this operation and he said as much. “We have one dog to put back in the pound, you guys got at least three.” Bryce understood the concern that the marshals might get in the way. Nadine couldn’t care less about roles and responsibilities. She just wanted out.

Angie’s phone rang. She answered immediately. “Nadine?”

“It’s me.”

“You’re on speakerphone,” Angie said. “I can take you off speaker if you want. There are a lot of people here who want to help you.”

“No, no. Don’t leave me. Just get here soon.”

“Can we get a room layout from you, Nadine?” Agent Curtis asked. She enunciatied her words as though suggesting each one mattered.

“Who . . . who was that?” Nadine asked.

Barbara Curtis rose from her seat, giving Angie a good look at the black suit and grey shirt she wore. She strode to the front of the room, put her hands on the table, and leaned her body over Angie’s phone as if it was an intercom. “Nadine, my name is Special Agent Barbara Curtis and I’m with the FBI’s—”

Inwardly, Angie cringed. Nadine might not even understand what she was involved in, or what
human trafficking
meant.

“I’m with the FBI,” Agent Curtis repeated. “I’m organizing the group that’s going to help get you out of there. We need some information if you can provide it.”

“I can try. What do you need?”

For the next several minutes Nadine did her best to describe the layout of various floors. Angie got a good visual of a maze of makeshift rooms in the basement constructed out of cheap particleboard. Her heart broke for Nadine. Getting her out safely was only half the battle. The road to recovery from her ordeal would be a long one, and might last a lifetime.

Nadine was brave and composed on the phone, providing agents with the location of the entrances and exits, the details of the apartments above, and the location of the hole where Tasha would be found.

“How many men are involved?” Agent Curtis asked.

“Ivan is the head,” said Nadine. “Some people call him Stinger. He speaks Russian. A lot of the girls, not all, speak Russian. Then there’s Casper. He’s really big and kind of protects us, and another guy named Buggy.”

Angie noticed the two marshals whispering to each other at the mention of Buggy’s name. One of the marshals had rugged good looks, dark hair, ice blue eyes and a jaw line that could slice bread. She remembered his name was Bryce Taggart, but heck if she could recall the other guy’s name.

Mike had pointed Bryce out to her soon as he’d entered the room and said, “Whatever that guy’s flaw is, I bet it’s a doozy.”

Angie had returned a warning look, but she couldn’t help but notice Bryce. If he were on Tinder, she would have certainly swiped right.

Agent Curtis asked Nadine, “Are there any other people involved? Names, descriptions, anything you can give us?”

“Well there’s Ricardo. He’s my . . . was my”—Nadine was having a hard time getting out the words—“he was my boyfriend.” Then she started to cry and everyone, including Angie looked dismayed at the depth of this perp’s cruelty.

Agent Curtis held up a picture of a tall, thin, good-looking man. “We think this is Ricardo.”

Nadine began breathing hard into the phone. “Look, I gotta go. Someone is coming.”

There was a lot of noise and Angie strained to make out some words, but didn’t have much success.

“Oh. Oh my God. I think they’re letting Tasha out,” Nadine said in a breathless whisper. “Look, I gotta go. Gotta go. I’ll call when I can. But please tell me you’re still coming. Please!”

“We’re coming,” Angie said, sounding confident. She glanced around the table at representatives from the FBI, State Police, and U.S. Marshals. For a moment she forgot she was the lowest notch on the law enforcement totem pole.

“Please, Angie. Please come.”

The call ended and a heavy silence filled the room.

“Look,” Agent Curtis said, “this isn’t going to be a shoot ’em up breach and clear. I don’t want any of those girls leaving in body bags.”

Amen,
Angie thought.

CHAPTER 35

E
xhibit D: Excerpts from the journal of Nadine Jessup, pages 58-60

I knew they were coming to get us. I just had to wait it out. But first Tasha. She climbed out of the hole looking like a coal miner. Her arms and face were caked with dust and dirt like she was an oversized earthworm or something. I felt so so sorry for her. And I mean not just about the vacant look in her eyes, but everything. How she went down there for me. How she suffered because of me. Went into the hole to protect me. When she climbed out, she looked really confused, like she didn’t know who any of us were anymore. Ricardo took her upstairs. I had to stay downstairs with the other girls. There was more work to do. Work as in $46, you know? We usually get upstairs around three in morning, or when the guys stop showing up, whichever comes first.

When I got back to the apartment, I found Tasha sitting on the edge of her bed. She had showered. Her hair was all tangled. She had a towel wrapped around her, but her skin was dry. I wondered how long she’d been sitting there like that. Looking at nothing. Doing nothing. Barely moving. I sat down next to her and told her about Angie and the phone call with FBI people and how they were coming to rescue us. Tasha didn’t even react. It made me nervous so I just kept talking, saying all these stupid things about what I would do once I got home. How I missed my own bed and my friends. How I was never going to have sex again, like I was going to become a nun or something. How I was going to do things differently. But it felt so empty to say those things because the words were meaningless to me. Basically, I was trying to make Tasha feel better, when really what I was doing was justifying what I had done by making that phone call. Deep down I’m honestly scared to leave. Like I don’t know what will happen to me. Will Ricardo come after me? Screwed up, right? But scared as I was about Ricardo, I was more so scared for Tasha. If she hadn’t gone into the hole I probably would have just stayed here. This is my normal now.

Tasha had a spark once, but now it’s gone. She is gone. Extinguished like a flame. Blown out like a wish on a birthday candle that will never come true. Why us? That’s what I want to know. Why were we chosen to live a life so absent of joy? What did we do to deserve this?

Now that Tasha’s here—well, here but not here, not really here, now that she’s out of the hole, now I’m questioning what I’ve done. Before, it seemed urgent we get out of here. Now that they’re coming it all just seems so unreal.

I have no home. Let’s be honest about it, my mom and dad won’t want me. Not after what I’ve done, what I’ve become. I’m like Tasha after she got out of the hole. Vacant and gone. And they’re still coming. The FBI will be here any minute now. Tasha is asleep. I can hear her breathing in the room next to mine. Angie tells me everything is going to be fine, but I don’t believe her. I told her I was scared about fitting in back home, and worried how people would judge me. People like Tasha wouldn’t judge me. People who knew from experience. My poor sweet friend still hasn’t said a word. Not a single word. I got a comb from the bathroom and I brushed Tasha’s long hair for thirty minutes straight. Tasha has such amazing hair. I wish my hair was like hers, but it’s not even close. The only thing similar about us is that we’re both completely screwed up.

I can see the first bit of sunrise out Tasha’s window. I haven’t slept a wink. Tasha is asleep, though. My stomach is knotted. I feel so empty, utterly lost. I’m terrified of staying here and just as scared to leave. I thought about jumping up and down when the police show up. Pretending I have a gun or something. Imagining that they’ll shoot me and this will all be over. All the pain, my dark emptiness.

I just got a text message from Angie.

They’re coming.

Ricardo is going to blame me. I know he is.

I’m sorry, Angie.

I’m so so sorry.

But I’ve got to undo what I’ve done.

CHAPTER 36

T
he tactical attack truck carrying Bryce Taggart bounded down rutted streets in a part of Baltimore he knew well. Plenty of fugitives wanted by the federal court system hid out in this part of the city, and it was Bryce’s job to track them down. The high profile cases—the ones Wolf Blitzer would cover incessantly—merited the Marshals Special Operations Group. But nabbing pedestrian d-bags like Ramon Gutierrez, aka Buggy, was the purview of local task forces led by guys like Bryce.

Through a rectangular window made of bulletproof glass, Bryce took in the glorious sunrise that speckled an otherwise bleak cityscape with bands of color. Early in the morning and he was dressed like Baltimore was Fallujah. He was not alone. Nine other guys were in the back of the BearCat, dressed similarly, but only three had body armor and tactical helmets marked with the U.S. Marshals stencil. For weaponry, Bryce had his M-4 long gun and Glock pistol snapped securely in its holster.

Based on Nadine’s information, they’d decided to hit the building at six in the morning. Tasha was out of immediate danger and Special Agent Curtis wanted to go in with a bit of daylight. At that hour, most everyone in the house would still be sleeping and the fewest civilians would be exposed to risk. Bryce agreed with the decision.

The multistory structure made entry a bit tricky, but again thanks to Nadine, Bryce knew where to look for Buggy. Ricardo and Casper shared an apartment on the first floor. When Buggy stayed over, which happened frequently, he preferred to crash in one of the makeshift rooms in the basement. Evidently Casper snored.

The plan was to breach the front entrance with overwhelming force, with local police assigned to watch the front and rear alley. If anyone tried to escape out back, they’d enjoy a short sprint at most before the manacles came on.

Two mobile command posts had been set up, one for the Marshals and one for the FBI. The law enforcement organizations could pretend to swim in the same pool, but it didn’t mean each wouldn’t try to piss in the other’s lane.