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“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.
Chapter
50
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.
