War Bringer (5 page)

Tears flooded Fiona’s eyes as she took the bracelet. “Yes.” Her hands were shaking as she pressed the activation button hidden near the clasp. Her knees went weak. She crumpled to the ground, crying as she smiled up at the girls. Her relief was so great, she couldn’t summon anger that Bess had lied to her.
 

“Everything’s going to be fine now.”

Chapter
 
Four

Kelan’s phone buzzed with an alert—the one he’d been waiting for. “It’s Fiona. I gave her a secondary security device—a bracelet.” He sent the coordinates to the team. They gathered their weapons and hurried out of their motel rooms.
 

“I’m driving,” Val said as he unlocked one of the SUVs. Kelan didn’t argue.
 

“What are we looking at, Kelan?”
Kit asked over their comm units as both vehicles cut through traffic.
 

Kelan used the vehicle’s Wi-Fi to check the coordinates sent by the bracelet. He expanded the satellite image the security app brought up. “It’s a farmhouse in the middle of a cornfield. About forty miles east of here. It’s got some outbuildings, but no other houses or large structures for at least a klick in either direction. The signal’s coming from the house.”

They drove east, passing the industrial fringe of Denver, urban and suburban neighborhoods, then hit the farms and miles of crops—onions, beets, beans, and corn, some of which had been harvested, some still waiting. All of it looked peaceful in the crisp September afternoon.

The fields where their target was had not been harvested. Tall spires of drying corn hid just about everything. Worse than merely limiting visibility, it gave an enemy perfect cover. He exchanged looks with Val, all of his senses firing a warning.

They couldn’t wait for backup. Not even an hour had passed since Fiona’s ping. This was the first break they’d had in the nearly twenty hours since she’d been taken. Val pulled onto the narrow dirt road, with Kit close behind him. After a short drive, an area opened in the cornfield, revealing an old farmhouse, a yard, and some other supporting farm structures. Kit drove around behind the house, then turned around and parked.

A high chain-link fence surrounded the front and what Kelan could see of the side of the house. The eight-foot fence was topped by an inward sloping course of barbed wire. The place looked like a prison.

When Kelan got out of the SUV, he saw two dogs leaping and barking at something in the house. He could just make out a figure at the door. He thought it might be female. She was banging at the glass and shouting. Was it Fiona? Adrenaline burned his veins…and it wasn’t the only thing burning. A thin line of smoke seeped around the door, but the girl couldn’t come out because of the dogs.
 

“Val, there’s a fire inside! I’ll get the dogs. You get them out!” Kelan drew his weapon then opened the gate and whistled for the dogs. They paused in their vicious assault on the doorway and looked back at him, then rushed down the steps toward him. Totally expecting an attack, he was surprised when they sat at his feet and looked up at him.

The girl opened the door and shouted for him to get them out of there.

Everything happened so fast. He ordered the dogs to heel and took them out of the gate. At the trunk of his SUV, he retrieved a rope and tied them to the far corner of the fence.

Val was already inside the house with a fire extinguisher. Two girls hurried outside, coughing, sucking in fresh air, and coughing again.
 

“One…more…girl,” one of the girls said. “Inside. One. More.”

Angel tossed Kelan the fire extinguisher from their SUV then took over the care of the girls, leading them away from the dogs toward the SUV Kit had parked at the side of the house.

Kelan hurried inside the house.
One more.
Was it Fiona? Val was working on a pile of rags that still smoldered. The smoke burned Kelan’s eyes. He rushed through the tiny house. The two bedrooms had been divided into four cribs, each with a narrow bed and nightstand. The first three he checked were empty.

In the corner of the last was a small, huddled shadow. Unsure if it was a pile of dirty linens or a human, he rushed toward it and saw it stretch up as it sucked in a bit of air from a shattered, barred window.
 

He scooped her up, knowing instantly from the feel of her that she wasn’t Fiona. The girl tried to scream, but her lungs were too filled with smoke to make more than a hissing sound. She clawed at him and fought, but as he raced her outside, she started to scream, “No! Nonononono.”

“Easy, baby. I gotcha. The dogs are tied up.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him. Kelan handed her over to Angel and went back inside.

Val had the fire extinguished, but it still smoldered. He’d kicked the back door open to let the thick cloud of smoke dissipate. “The doors and windows were locked and barred. Their only way out was through the dogs, who would have mauled them.”

Kelan looked out the front door to the dogs lying down by the corner of the yard. “Someone wanted them dead.”

Kelan’s boot crunched on something on the floor. He bent and picked it up. A mangled bit of metal—it was all that was left of Fiona’s bracelet. He went outside. The girls were sitting under the back hatch. Angel had found two blankets, which he wrapped around the girls.
 

“Where is she?” he asked them as he held up the bracelet. “Fiona. What happened to her?”
 

The youngest of the girls, the one he’d carried from the house, pulled the blanket corner from her face. “Are you him? Her boyfriend? She said you would come.”

He nodded. “Where is she?”

“They took her.”

“Who took her?”

The girl shook her head. Hers were the saddest eyes he’d ever seen. He’d seen that look in Afghanistan, in territories that kept passing between allied and Taliban control. Savaged though she’d been, he could tell the pain in her eyes was for him and Fiona.
 

“I don’t know them,” she said. “Fiona fought, but there were too many of them. They hit Bess and set the fire when we tried to keep them from taking her.”

“Describe them.” He could hear emergency vehicles in the far distance. The girl started to cough. Angel handed her and the others bottles of water.
 

One of the other girls looked at him. “They were white. They wore ski masks. It happened so fast. We were too focused on the fire to notice much else. Thank you for coming. She said you would.”

The fire engine was first on the scene. Kit and Val went to talk to the firefighters, hoping to keep the house as intact as possible so they could collect evidence. An ambulance arrived and the paramedics started working on the girls.

Kelan stepped away to phone Max. “What do we know about the owner of this house?”

Max told him the guy’s name.
“He’s been on the watch list of several agencies. Among other criminal activities he’s associated with, he’s suspected of being a kingpin in Denver’s sex-trafficking industry, but they haven’t been able to pin anything on him.”

“Until now.”

“And maybe not now. The house has been leased for the last two years by a Fred Perkins.”

“Text me the addresses.”

“There’s a flag on the owner’s info, but I’m sending you the renter’s. Oh, and Lobo’s on his way over.”

“He’s just pulling in now. I’m out,” Kelan disconnected the call.

Angel came over, slipping his phone into his pocket. “Blade’s coming down with Eden. She wants custody of the dogs.”

Kelan shook his head. “Not a good idea. You saw them when we first pulled up. They’ve been trained to attack females.”

“I told her about them. She said if she doesn’t take them, they’ll be euthanized—for doing what they’ve been trained to do. You know how she feels about that.” Angel grinned.

Lobo didn’t come alone. Several other Feds and a couple of cop cars pulled in behind him. So much for keeping this quiet. It was looking like a RICO bust. He just hoped reporters didn’t show up soon.
 

Kit talked to Lobo about getting the girls some protection while they were at the hospital and whatever shelter they ended up at. Kelan told them about the owner and tenant of the house. “I want to talk to the owner.”

“No,” Lobo nixed that. “You’ll jeopardize a case that’s been three years in the making. I don’t want our informants and agents compromised. There are a lot more women at stake than just yours. And it’s not my case. I can’t make that call.”

Kelan’s smile was no smile at all. “You’re moving too slowly. Your methodical process nearly cost these girls their lives. It’s time to shake things up. Warn your people I’m coming in. Do what you have to do, but don’t be in my way.”

Kit stepped between the two of them before the situation could escalate. “Go visit Perkins,” he ordered Kelan. “See what info you can get out of him. He’s closer to this and likely to know more anyway.”

* * *

The house Fred Perkins lived in was a typical mid-last-century home in a neighborhood that had only started being revitalized. They went up the steps just as the guy was walking out the door. He stopped short. “Who are you?”

“The guys who just saved your cathouse from burning down,” Kelan growled.
 

The man immediately tried to get back inside, but Kelan and Val were right with him. All three of them stepped into the foyer as a woman was hurrying down the stairs, two kids close on her heels. She was dressed in a suit, and the kids were lugging backpacks, as if it was any other normal morning.

“Honey, take the kids upstairs,” Perkins ordered, like a fucking stand-up family man trying to protect his family.

She did as he requested. He waited until she was completely upstairs, then turned and walked into the living room. The TV was on. “So what’s this about a fire? And how does it involve me?”

“Three girls almost burned to death,” Val continued. “They were locked inside when the house you’re renting was set on fire.”

“You want to tell us why you’re trafficking underage girls there?” Kelan asked.

The man’s mouth opened and his eyes bugged in a look of shock. He held his hands out, palms down as he gestured for them to keep their voices quiet.

“Did you think the taint of your business wouldn’t soil your family?” Kelan asked. “Or are they in on your lucrative dealings?”

“It’s not lucrative. It’s not anything. I don’t have anything to do with it.”

“And yet you don’t deny your name’s on the lease…”

“It isn’t what you think.”

“I saw the girls dying in that house. One is probably not even fifteen.” Kelan tilted his head. “How old’s your oldest? Just a couple years younger than that? You’re in a shitload of trouble, Perkins. How about you start talking?”

“Oh, God.”

“Yeah, we’re gonna need more than that,” Val said.

“I was afraid this would happen.” The man wrung his hands and started to pace. “I have a gambling problem.”

“You have a helluva bigger problem than that.”

He sent a look toward the stairs. “My wife knows about my gambling. I tried to quit. I had quit, for a long time, but a couple of years ago, we went through a bad patch. She left, and I thought I’d lose myself in a few rounds of poker. The good rounds—high-stakes, backroom kind. I thought if I could just make some quick money, I could buy us a vacation, and we could work things out. Well, I lost money. A lot of it.

“When I couldn’t pay it back, they threatened my family. One day, when I was here alone, they came for me. They drove me out to a house and told me I had three choices. Pay them back immediately, get a bullet in my head, or agree to put my name on a lease. If I chose the last, we’d be even. They swore I’d never hear from them again—and I wouldn’t have to pay the rent. They just wanted my name.”

“Who are these men?”

“I don’t know. I had never seen them before. Nor since.”

“What did they look like?” The plaintive wail of a siren began in the distance.

Perkins shook his head. “It was two years ago. I was panicking. I don’t remember what they looked like.”

Kelan pulled his lips back from his teeth. The siren was getting closer. He was almost out of time. “These men took my woman. They’re dragging her into the sex-trafficking underworld. How would you like it if your wife was taken and your young daughter fed into the system?”

“The only name I have is the bookie’s who set the games up. But I heard he’s dead.” He gave them the name. “I don’t know who took his spot.”

“Where was this game?” Val asked.

The man gave him an address.

The wife came back down the stairs. “You leave my husband alone. I called the cops. They’re going to be here in seconds.”

Kelan looked over at her. “They were already on their way.”

She sent a worried look toward her husband.
 

“I swear I had nothing to do with this.”

Val opened the door as the cops came across the porch.
 

Kelan looked over at Mrs. Perkins, who was watching the cops search her husband, then cuff him as they read him his rights. He wondered if she knew more than she let on. How could she not know what her husband was caught up in? Despite his protestations of innocence, did he avail himself of his captive sex outlet when he wished?

At that thought, Kelan pivoted on his heel, heading back into the room to lay into the guy, until Val grabbed his shirt and dragged him outside.

“He’s going to jail. He’s destroyed his family. A broken nose isn’t going to make anything measurably worse for him. And you don’t need to get arrested while we’re looking for Fiona. Save it for the rest of the bad guys.”

* * *

Rocco was in the bunker, analyzing the social media threads of their main people of interest, when his phone buzzed. Max stepped out of the ops room and pointed to him. “It’s Jafaar. You’re on, Khalid.”

Rocco put his phone on speaker.

“Peace be upon you, Khalid,” Jafaar said in Arabic.
 

“And upon you, peace, Jafaar,” Rocco returned.

“I am calling with felicitous news. One of our important allies is celebrating the wedding of his daughter this weekend. Only his closest friends and allies have been invited to attend. My boss and your client, Abdul Baseer al Jahni, has been selected to represent his region. As his only agent in this country, I will be standing in for him at this momentous event. Each representative is allowed to bring a guest. I choose you. As my friend and in your capacity overseeing the security of his foreign affairs, it is correct that you join me. I regret not being able to give you much advance notice, but I suspect King did not give anyone much, due to his need for security.”