A faint knock, as if someone didn’t want to be heard. Vanessa hur­ried over, but be­fore she could grab the handle, Quinn mo­tioned for her to re­lax.

  The girl took a deep breath, cracked open the door, and peeked through. A smile ap­peared on her face. After she opened the door wider, a smal­ler, younger girl entered. Vanessa im­me­di­ately closed the door again.

  The younger girl—Jordan—looked war­ily to­ward the bed, but when she didn’t see Reed, she turned to her sis­ter, con­fused. That’s when she no­ticed Quinn.

  Her eyes flew wide, but be­fore she could scream, Vanessa clamped a hand over the girl’s mouth.

  “Shhh,” Vanessa whispered. “It’s okay. He’s a friend.”

  Jordan looked less than con­vinced.

  “He’s go­ing to get us out of here,” Vanessa as­sured her.

  Jordan’s skep­ti­cism faded a bit.

  “I’m ser­i­ous. We’re leav­ing right now.”

  “What? Leave?” Jordan said, her voice muffled by her sis­ter’s hand.

  “That’s right. So, can I trust you to be quiet?”

  A pause and then a nod.

  Vanessa slowly lif­ted her hand away.

  Shoot­ing a weary look to­ward Quinn, Jordan said to her sis­ter, “Where’s Mr. Reed?”

  “Gone.”

  “Where?”

  “What does it mat­ter? He’s gone.”

  Jordan nod­ded to­ward Quinn. “Who is he?”

  “A friend.”

  “I’ve never seen him be­fore.”

  Vanessa locked eyes with her sis­ter. “Do you trust me?”

  “Yeah. Of course.”

  “Then you need to be­lieve me. He’s a friend and he’s get­ting us out of here.”

  “Right now?”

  “Right now.”

  For the first time, Jordan looked hope­ful.

  Vanessa glanced at Quinn. “We’re ready.”

  There had been a hand­ful of situ­ations that made Quinn ser­i­ously con­sider put­ting his life at risk to root out an evil. This one had just vaul­ted to the top of the list. He wanted to storm out of the bed­room and kill every mi­li­tia mem­ber he en­countered.

  But he held the urge in check, said, “This way,” and led the girls into the walk-in closet.

  Chapter Seven

  At an all-night truck stop twenty miles south­east of the mi­li­tia com­pound, Or­lando pur­chased clothes for Vanessa and Jordan. Once the girls were dressed, they, Soren­son, Howard, Taka­hashi, and Weeks went into the truck stop to get some­thing to eat.

  Or­lando and Quinn re­mained in the van and called Misty via video chat. Quinn had already briefed Misty over the phone as they drove, and now it was time to talk to ACORT.

  “Give me a second,” she said.

  The screen froze mo­ment­ar­ily. When it came back to life, it was split into two feeds, with Misty on the right, and Kyle Otero, dir­ector of ACORT, on the left. Quinn laid out what he had learned, much of the de­tails com­ing from Vanessa and Jordan.

  When he fin­ished, he said, “If you don’t move in right now, the girls who are still there will con­tinue to be raped and ab­used. I can’t let that hap­pen.”

  “You can’t?” Otero said.

  “No, sir. I can’t. If you are un­able to do any­thing about it, my team and I will.”

  “Re­lax, Mr. Quinn. I share your con­cern. But to make what you re­quest hap­pen, I need more than just your word. I need to talk to the girls.”

  Quinn had been hop­ing to avoid that, but un­der­stood the ne­ces­sity. “You’ll need to hold for a minute.”

  *

  Quinn paced out­side the van, glan­cing every few seconds at the back door. At Or­lando’s sug­ges­tion, only she and Soren­son had re­mained in the van with Vanessa and Jordan, hop­ing that would make them feel less un­com­fort­able.

  That had been nearly fif­teen minutes ago. How much con­vin­cing did the dir­ector need?

  “I’m get­ting a cof­fee,” Quinn said. “Any­one want any­thing?”

  A trio of shak­ing heads sent him head­ing to the truck stop on his own. He hit the toi­let be­fore grabbing a cup of cof­fee. As he ex­ited the build­ing, he saw the van’s side door was now open. Of course, the mo­ment he’d left, they’d fin­ished.

  Vanessa and Jordan were still in­side the van with Soren­son. Or­lando was stand­ing out­side with Howard, Taka­hashi, and Weeks. When she spot­ted Quinn, she walked to­ward him and met him halfway.

  “So?” he asked.

  “A team is be­ing as­sembled. Should be in place be­fore sunup, just like you asked. He has to run it through the FBI, though, so they’re go­ing to need a search war­rant.”

  Quinn frowned. “We can’t wait for a search war­rant.”

  “He says he an­ti­cip­ates hav­ing it be­fore the team is ready.”

  “Okay, good.”

  “In the mean­time, he wants eyes on the place and we’re the closest.”

  That made sense. If the raid went down at dawn, the mi­li­tia would likely not have real­ized yet its leader was miss­ing, but if it had, the place would be buzz­ing with activ­ity.

  “When they do go in, he thinks the FBI will be very in­ter­ested in us­ing that tun­nel. Since you have the ex­per­i­ence…”

  “He wants me to be the guide.” Not a sur­prise, either. “We’ll need to find some­place to stash Reed and the girls.”

  “Already worked out. Mar­ina and Makoto will take them to the drop-off point.”

  “Then how are we sup­posed to get back?”

  She smiled.

  *

  At ten minutes after three a.m., a search and res­cue heli­copter picked up Quinn, Or­lando, Howard, and Soren­son from the field next to the truck stop, and took them to a deser­ted in­ter­sec­tion five miles from the com­pound. Other than a traffic light hanging above the cross­roads, the only light came from a car parked on the other side of the in­ter­sec­tion from where they were dropped off. When the heli­copter was air­borne again, the vehicle drove over.

  The only oc­cu­pant was the driver. He rolled down his win­dow and said, “One of you Or­lando?”

  “I am,” Or­lando said, step­ping for­ward. “And you are?”

  “Agent Brills, FBI.” He flashed his Bur­eau ID.

  They shook hands.

  “I’ve been in­struc­ted to take you wherever you want to go,” Brills said.

  The team climbed in, Or­lando tak­ing the front pas­sen­ger seat, the oth­ers in back. She gave the agent dir­ec­tions to the best spot from which they could ob­serve the com­pound.

  Once they were on their way, Quinn asked the man, “How many more of you are here?”

  “As far as I know, I’m the only one so far. But I’ve been told more agents will be ar­riv­ing within the next few hours.”

  “Have you been briefed?” Quinn asked.

  “The only thing I’ve been told was to pick you up.” He glanced at Or­lando. “Be­fore I for­get, Spe­cial Agent Al­varez would like you to call him.”

  Or­lando punched the num­ber into her phone as the agent re­cited it.

  After a mo­ment, she said, “This is Or­lando. I be­lieve you were ex­pect­ing my call.” She was quiet for sev­eral seconds. “Yes, that’s cor­rect…of course…. Yes….yes…. Text me the co­ordin­ates…all right. Yes…talk to you soon.”

  “What was that all about?” Quinn asked after she hung up.

  “You and I are go­ing to do the brief­ing.” She looked back at Howard and Soren­son. “You two will have to keep an eye on the com­pound on your own.”

  “I think we can handle it,” Howard said.

  Or­lando turned on Brills. “I un­der­stand you have some long-range comm gear?”

  “Yes, ma’am. It’s in the trunk.”

  *

  They dropped off Howard and Soren­son a quarter-mile from the com­pound’s en­trance, then Quinn, Or­lando, and Brills pro­ceeded to a sher­iff’s sub­sta­tion, six miles east of Reed’s prop­erty, that was to serve as the as­sembly point.

  On a nor­mal night near four a.m., the sta­tion would have been a ghost town. But this morn­ing the place was jam-packed with over a dozen depu­ties, nearly as many po­lice of­ficers, and five men wear­ing light jack­ets with FBI prin­ted on the back in big, bold let­ters. When Quinn and Or­lando entered, one of the agents, a forty-plus His­panic man, ex­trac­ted him­self from the small group of law en­force­ment of­ficers he’d been talk­ing to and walked over to them.

  “Ms. Or­lando?” he asked as he neared.

  “It’s just Or­lando.”

  “Al­varez. Agent in charge.”

  They shook hands.

  “This is my as­so­ci­ate, Jonathan Quinn,” she said.

  Al­varez shook with Quinn, then said, “Please come with me.”

  He led them into an of­fice off the main bull­pen area and shut the door.

  “I’ve been told you’re aware this ac­tion has come to­gether in a hurry. I’ve also been in­formed you have spe­cial know­ledge of Jack­son Reed’s com­pound, and are go­ing to share that with me and the team.”

  Or­lando nod­ded. “Quinn can give you ac­tual spe­cif­ics. He was in the com­pound a few hours ago.”

  Al­varez raised an eye­brow. “A few hours ago.”

  “I’m afraid we’re re­spons­ible for the rush,” Quinn said.

  “How so?”

  There were cer­tain as­pects of the earlier mis­sion, spe­cific­ally the ab­duc­tion of Reed, Al­varez was bet­ter off not know­ing about. The FBI worked within the con­fines of the law. ACORT and those who worked for them? Not al­ways. So Quinn left out some de­tails but did ex­plain about the girls. “There are seven oth­ers still in­side, most un­der­age.”

  “I’d been in­formed there were chil­dren there, but…” Al­varez’s jaw tensed, an­ger and dis­gust leak­ing through his stoic FBI per­sona. “Wait here.”

  He opened the door and reentered the main room. When he re­turned, he was car­ry­ing a binder. He set it on a clear area of the desk and flipped the cover back. The top sheet was a satel­lite photo of the mi­li­tia com­pound, in a pro­tect­ive cov­er­ing. Al­varez pulled the pho­to­graph free and set it be­side the binder.

  “Do you know ex­actly where they’re loc­ated?” he asked.

  “There’s ap­par­ently a com­mon room where the girls are kept.” Quinn stud­ied the photo, and poin­ted at a build­ing across the cent­ral court­yard from the big house. “Here.”

  “Are you con­fid­ent in this in­form­a­tion?”

  “I am. But there’s a good chance at least a few of the girls will be…in the rooms of some of the mi­li­tia mem­bers.”

  A frown slipped across Al­varez’s mouth. “Please tell me there’s an easier way of get­ting in other than through the front gate.”

  “As a mat­ter of fact, there is.”

  *

  Mem­bers of the joint task force were in po­s­i­tion by five a.m. Most of the sher­iff’s depu­ties and po­lice of­ficers were split among three road­b­locks, seal­ing off out­side ac­cess to the com­pound. The re­main­ing local law en­force­ment of­ficers, two FBI agents, and Or­lando were sta­tioned in a grove of trees, ap­prox­im­ately a hun­dred and fifty yards from the mi­li­tia’s front gate.

  Quinn, Al­varez, and the other eight FBI agents who’d ar­rived for the mis­sion had worked their way through the rough land be­hind the com­pound to the tun­nel door, where they met up with Howard and Soren­son.

  The agents were all wear­ing bul­let­proof vests and armed with as­sault rifles. The three with ex­tens­ive tac­tical ex­per­i­ence were at the front of the line with Quinn and Al­varez. The other agents, save two as­signed to guard the tun­nel door, would be strung out be­hind the lead group, with Howard and Soren­son bring­ing up the rear.

  Al­varez toggled his comm mic. “This is Al­varez. All teams set?”

  Quinn and his friends had been is­sued FBI comm gear, and could hear the oth­ers reply in the af­firm­at­ive.

  “Cam­era check,” Al­varez said.

  One of the agents at Or­lando’s po­s­i­tion said, “Nine feeds, five by five.”

  The agents in the main strike group were all wear­ing body cams, the feeds be­ing trans­mit­ted in real time back to re­cord­ers and mon­it­ors at Or­lando’s po­s­i­tion. Quinn un­der­stood the reason, but wasn’t ex­actly com­fort­able with be­ing taped by the feds dur­ing an op­er­a­tion.

  “We are a go,” Al­varez said.

  The agents in front raised their weapons, while those be­hind shined their flash­lights on the door. Al­varez nod­ded to Quinn, who grabbed the handle and pulled the door open.

  Light beams flooded the tun­nel, con­firm­ing the por­tion in view was un­oc­cu­pied.

  An­other nod, and Quinn led the way.

  When they reached the house, they left Howard, Soren­son, and three of the agents in the base­ment. Quinn es­cor­ted Al­varez and the re­main­ing three men up to Reed’s bed­room.

  Everything was ex­actly as it had been when Quinn and the girls left sev­eral hours earlier, so it was safe to as­sume no one had vis­ited since Reed had been nabbed.

  Quinn ap­proached the main door and eased it open. The hall­way bey­ond was dim and empty. He si­lently in­dic­ated to Al­varez where the guard at the base of the stairs would be. Al­varez nod­ded and tapped the man nearest him to go out first.

  Quinn moved to let the chosen agent pass through and then fol­lowed. There were four ad­di­tional doors along the second-floor hall­way, all closed. While Quinn and the lead agent con­tin­ued to­ward the stairs at the far end, Al­varez and the oth­ers checked the rooms.

  The last part of the hall­way opened up onto a fif­teen-foot-long bal­cony, which ended at the top of the stairs. Along the edge of the bal­cony was a wooden rail­ing, sup­por­ted by two-inch-wide bal­usters, spaced every half foot.

  Through the gaps, Quinn and the agent could see a man walk­ing across the room be­low, car­ry­ing a steam­ing bowl of some­thing, and a glass of what looked like or­ange juice. The man con­tin­ued to a chair by the base of the stairs and sat down.

  If this had been one of Quinn’s typ­ical mis­sions, he would have ex­pec­ted an ops team mem­ber to take the guard out with a quick kill shot, given there was no way to get down and sub­due him be­fore be­ing seen. But there was that whole FBI and stay­ing within the con­fines of the law thing.

  The lead agent moved over to the end of the rail­ing and aimed his sup­pressed rifle at the guard. In­stead of pulling the trig­ger, he turned on his laser sight, plant­ing a red dot on the side of the man’s head. He moved the dot to the bowl in the man’s lap. The second the guard saw it, the agent whipped the dot up to the man’s chest.

  The philo­sophy be­hind the agent’s method was to make the tar­get aware he had no con­trol so that he would give up without a fight. But no one had in­formed the guard of that. He jumped to his feet and swiveled around, his hand go­ing for the hol­ster at his side as he searched for the source of the light.

  Thup.

  The bul­let pierced the man’s heart be­fore the guard’s fin­gers could even touch the grip of his pis­tol.

  The agent des­cen­ded the stairs, sweep­ing his weapon through the space for other tar­gets. Quinn fol­lowed closely, with Al­varez and the other agents on his heels.

  The guard turned out to be the only one in the main part of the first floor. There were, how­ever, two bed­rooms on the east side. In one they found a man in a shower and were able to sub­due him without a fight.

  In the other was an­other man.

  Sleep­ing.

  And not alone.

  The girl with him might have been eight­een but Quinn doubted it.

  Four agents sur­roun­ded the bed and poin­ted their guns at the mi­li­tia mem­ber. Al­varez put a hand over the girl’s mouth. Her eyes shot open. Al­varez touched a fin­ger to his lips, and poin­ted at FBI prin­ted on the breast of his wind­breaker. Her fear turned to con­fu­sion, tinged with the slight­est hint of hope.

  Keep­ing his hand on her mouth, Al­varez mo­tioned for her to climb out of bed. As she did, the mi­li­tia man stirred. Every­one froze.

  “Where do you think you’re go­ing,” the guy mumbled.

  He reached out to yank her back, but Al­varez pulled her off the bed. She was na­ked, with bruises on her legs and torso.

  The sleeper opened his eyes and star­ted turn­ing to­ward where the girl had been ly­ing. When he real­ized oth­ers were in the room, and point­ing guns at him, he stopped.

  Quinn found a towel in the bath­room and draped it over the girl. “You’re not go­ing to make any noise, are you?”

  She shook her head, and Al­varez with­drew his hand.

  “Do you have clothes here?” Quinn asked.

  She poin­ted at a pile against the wall. He went with her and held the towel up as a screen while she dressed. While they did this, Al­varez turned to the man in the bed.

  “How many oth­ers in the com­pound?” he asked.

  The man sneered at him. “Am I un­der ar­rest, Mr. FBI man?”

  “How many?”

  “Fuck you. Read me my rights or get the hell out of here.”

  The girl had fin­ished dress­ing so Quinn tossed the towel on the floor. “Everything’s go­ing to be okay now. I just need you to stay here for a mo­ment.”

  “Thank you,” she said, about as sin­cerely as he’d ever heard the words spoken.

  Quinn smiled and walked over to the bed, where Al­varez had made no pro­gress get­ting the mi­li­tia man to talk.

  Quinn pulled out a few zip ties. “Turn on your right side.”

  “Screw you. I ain’t do­ing noth­ing without my law­yer.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36