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They all went to and through the kitchen. Sure enough, awkwardly placed in a short hall between the kitchen and the laundry room, was an empty bookcase, about three feet by six feet. It didn’t budge when Dex tried to move it, but there was something odd in how it felt when he’d tried. He put his arms to either side and skimmed his fingers along the edge, where the case met the wall, up and over, across the top—where he felt two hook-and-eye fasteners.
“Back up,” he said, and when the others made room, Dex lifted the case off the eyebolts and set it it to the side.
He’d uncovered a rough-cut doorway, where the jamb had been removed. A large, black void remained, with a set of steps that were more ladder than stairs, heading straight down.
Basement.
“You smell that?” he asked as a barrage of old memories thundered forward.
“Smells like damp rot. Like an old, leaky basement,” JJ answered.
“Dirt basement,” Gargoyle added.
“Under that.”
“Yeah, I got it,” Gunner said. “What the fuck?”
“I remember this from over there. Tora Bora—Taliban stronghold, with these elaborate mountain cave systems. We’d get a target, and they’d be packed into these caves, dozens of ‘em living in there, hardly any air moving around, nobody getting a regular wash—it made a certain kind of stink.”
“And you smell that now?” Gunner asked, and Dex thought again how different their Middle East wars had been.
“Yeah.”
“You meanpeopleare down there?”
“I don’t know. But if not, there used to be, and not long ago.” He pulled his Beretta. “Look sharp—JJ, text Dunc, let him know we’re going to the basement. Gun, cover me.” With that, he turned and started making his way down the ladder into the pitch dark.
The smell was considerably stronger down here, and Dex stood stock still for a moment, nearly paralyzed by flashbacks. He might have lost time right there in the middle of a mission, except that Gargoyle followed him down and almost crashed into him because Dex hadn’t moved.
“You okay?” Gargo muttered.
“Yeah.” Dex shook it off and aimed as Gargo swept the flashlight around the room.
It was a dirt basement, yes. Dirt floor, stone walls. No windows. Several bare bulbs hung from the rafters of the low ceiling. Down the middle of the room was a series of plastic banquet tables, on which stood a row of plastic milk crates. The crates were full of plastic packages.
Dex didn’t need to take a step to know they’d found the rebranding operation.
What had his real attention, though, was the strange, soft sound coming from a far corner, beyond the reach of the flashlight beam.
Now that Gunner and JJ were down the ladder, too, they spread out and used their lights.
About ten feet from the ladder, the beam of Dex’s phone reached what looked like a wooden fence. Two more steps showed what was behind that fence.
Several points of light shone back, cutting in and out like tiny strobes. Eyes. People. Caged. They stood there watching, silently, blinking against the pain of the light. Dex shifted his phone downward.
“Holy fucking fuck,” Gunner said, his voice soft with shock and awe.
“What the fuck?” JJ said. “Noway.”
“Damn,” said Gargoyle.
It was too dark, and they weren’t yet close enough, but something about the placement of those blinking eyes pinged in Dex’s head. He took another couple steps and lifted the light.
Women. One, two, three—eight of them. A couple were small enough that they might have been girls. His stomach flipped. And then he went to the cage—it was closed with a chain and a heavy Master lock. The women flinched and drew back, huddling together. “Gun! Can you get this?”
Again, the women reacted in fear. Dex used his light to get a better look. They were Latina or Hispanic. “It’s okay. We’re not gonna hurt you. We’re going to help.”
They didn’t react as if they’d understood him. “Anybody speak Spanish?” All he had was a middling fluency in Arabic. No help there.
