“I don’t know if you no­ticed, but my friends here are all wear­ing body cam­eras. So, just for the re­cord, are you say­ing you’re res­ist­ing ar­rest?”

  “I haven’t been ar­res­ted,” the man said.

  “You are now.” Al­varez signaled for one of his men to re­cite the man’s Mir­anda rights. When the agent fin­ished, Al­varez said, “On your side. Arms be­hind you.”

  The man com­plied. Quinn jammed the man’s wrists to­gether, looped a tie around them, and zipped it closed. He flipped the man back over. Us­ing an­other tie, he im­mob­il­ized the man’s ankles.

  “Bet­ter,” Quinn said, and turned to Al­varez. “Agent?”

  Quinn ges­tured for him and his team to face away from the bed. Al­varez’s eyes nar­rowed.

  Quinn asked, “Would you rather we walked out there blind?”

  Al­varez stared at him, then said to his men, “Eyes on me.”

  He made a sim­ilar ges­ture to the one Quinn had made. After the men—and the cam­eras strapped to their chests—had turned away, Quinn pulled out his SIG SAUER P226 and jammed the sup­pressor bar­rel into the man’s mouth.

  The man tried to jerk his head away.

  “I’d keep very still if I were you,” Quinn sug­ges­ted. “You never know what might make my trig­ger fin­ger slip.”

  The guy stopped mov­ing.

  Quinn leaned in close, and whispered so the cam­eras wouldn’t pick it up. “I know what you’re think­ing. He would never pull the trig­ger. The FBI has all these guidelines and eth­ics and things like that. You’re prob­ably think­ing that as soon as you tell your law­yer about this very mo­ment, he’ll be able to get any charges against you thrown out and you’ll walk away.

  “But, see, you’re miss­ing an im­port­ant piece of in­form­a­tion. I’m not FBI. I’m not even gov­ern­ment. I’m a ghost.” He shoved the bar­rel farther in, caus­ing the man to gag. “I’m go­ing to ask you the same ques­tion the nice agent asked you, and every time you don’t an­swer or give me a re­sponse I think isn’t true, you’re go­ing to eat a little bit more of my gun. And when I hit the back of your mouth, I’ll start shov­ing it down your throat.” He paused. “So, how many more of you sons of bitches are in the com­pound right now?”

  Quinn waited un­til the guy tried to say some­thing be­fore pulling the gun out. “Re­peat that.”

  “Twenty-three,” the man said, his voice hoarse.

  Though Vanessa and Jordan hadn’t known how many were there that night, they said there were usu­ally about forty men around, some­times a lot more.

  Be­fore the guy could shut his mouth, Quinn shoved the bar­rel back in. “Try again. This time at least get it in the ball­park.”

  The man star­ted talk­ing again.

  “Last chance. Lie again and you’ll eat this whole thing.”

  The guy said, “Ah ont ah, ah ont ah,” which Quinn in­ter­preted as he chose to co­oper­ate.

  When he re­moved the bar­rel, the man star­ted cough­ing.

  “Wa­ter,” the guy eked out.

  “An­swer the ques­tion and we’ll think about it.”

  The guy mumbled some­thing.

  “Louder.”

  The same sounds again, volume un­changed.

  Quinn stuck the muzzle of the SIG against the un­der­side of the man’s jaw.

  “Last chance.”

  The man found ad­di­tional en­ergy and said loudly, “Forty-eight.”

  “Thank you.” Quinn stuck a chunk of bed­sheet deeply enough into the man’s mouth that he’d have a hard time re­mov­ing it without his hands.

  Quinn turned to the girl. “He says there are forty-eight other men here—does that sound right to you?”

  “I think so. Well, and the girls.”

  “Right. Do you know where all the men sleep?”

  “Yes,” she said, look­ing like she wished she didn’t.

  He turned back to the cap­tive. The agents were fa­cing the bed again so Quinn said to Al­varez, “You’re go­ing to want to turn back around.”

  “I’m not sure—”

  Quinn stared at him.

  Al­varez signaled his men to turn away again.

  Quinn glanced at the girl. “What’s your name?”

  “Amy.”

  He leaned down next to the mi­li­tia man again. “This is for Amy,” he whispered, and then whacked the grip of his gun into the man’s jaw.

  *

  Given the early hour and the fact that the strike team had in­filt­rated the fa­cil­ity from Reed’s secret tun­nel, it took less than ten minutes to neut­ral­ize the forty-four mi­li­tia mem­bers in the bunk­houses. With the three they’d already sub­dued, and Reed him­self, they were still one mem­ber short. Either the guy who’d been with Amy had his count wrong or someone was miss­ing.

  As for the other girls, the team had found only one more among the men. The as­shole who had her had tried to use her as a host­age, but a pre­ci­sion shot from one of the FBI spe­cial­ists split the man’s skull.

  Once the men were se­cured, Quinn had Amy take him to where the girls were kept when they weren’t “needed.”

  It was more of a large stor­age shed than a liv­able build­ing. The two big doors at the front could be pad­locked, but at the mo­ment the pad­lock was miss­ing and the chain hung un­done.

  Quinn mo­tioned for Amy to stay back. He turned the handle and star­ted to push the door in.

  A gun boomed from the room, the bul­let blow­ing a hole and the door open.

  As Quinn dove to the ground and crawled away from the open­ing, he could hear people run­ning to­ward the build­ing from sev­eral dir­ec­tions in the court­yard be­hind him. A mo­ment later, Al­varez was at his side.

  “I think we found the miss­ing man,” Quinn said.

  “Are the other girls in there?” the agent asked.

  “One way to find out.”

  Quinn looked around.

  Sev­eral cars were parked ten yards away. Most were built within the last twenty years and would be equipped with steer­ing-wheel locks. One, how­ever, was an old rag­top Jeep Wran­gler that looked like it’d been built be­fore such locks be­came stand­ard equip­ment.

  Quinn snuck over to it, and waved for a couple of Al­varez’s men to join him. He dis­en­gaged the Jeep’s park­ing brake, and, with the oth­ers’ help, pushed the vehicle as close to the build­ing’s en­trance as pos­sible. Quinn then went over to where Amy was hid­ing with an­other agent.

  “I need your help.”

  Her eyes widened. “I’m not go­ing in there.”

  “I don’t want you to go in. Just over to the Jeep.”

  “Why?”

  After he told her, she re­luct­antly fol­lowed him.

  “You ready?” he asked her, after they were in po­s­i­tion be­hind the Jeep.

  “I guess.”

  “Go ahead.”

  She took a deep breath and said, “Kat­rina? Are you there?”

  “Louder,” Quinn said.

  “Kat­rina! Can you hear me? Are you in there?”

  No re­sponse.

  “Try again,” Quinn said.

  “It’s okay,” Amy yelled. “No one’s go­ing to hurt you. You can come out.”

  An­other mo­ment of noth­ing be­fore a girl called out, “Amy?”

  “Yes!” Amy smiled. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay. The po­lice are here.”

  An­other pause, and then a yelp, and then, “Are they with you?”

  “What happened? Are you all right?”

  “Are they with you now?” This time the ques­tion came from a male voice—young, angry, and frightened.

  Al­varez whispered to Amy, “Is there an­other way in?”

  She shook her head. “There were win­dows, but those were already boarded when I was brought here.”

  “Where?” Al­varez asked.

  “On the op­pos­ite side.”

  Al­varez ra­di­oed his men to go around and check.

  “God­damn it!” the guy in­side yelled. “Are they with you?”

  Quinn put a hand on Amy’s shoulder be­fore she could speak. He shouted, “Yes, we are.” He turned to Al­varez, whispered, “Keep him talk­ing,” and crept around the Jeep to the door­way.

  “You need to back off!” the voice said. “I’ve got host­ages! If you don’t, I will start killing them!”

  “There’s no need for any­one to get hurt,” Al­varez said.

  While Al­varez con­tin­ued to en­gage the mi­li­tia man, Quinn at­tached the goose­neck mi­crocam­era to his phone again, and slipped the lens low around the door into the build­ing. The in­terior was dark, un­til he se­lec­ted night vis­ion. He was now look­ing at a single large, rect­an­gu­lar room, ap­prox­im­ately fifty feet long by thirty wide, with six sets of bunks run­ning down each long side. All were empty. Quinn couldn’t see any­one any­where. He moved the cam­era all the way to the floor to look un­der the beds.

  Be­hind the farthest bunk along the wall where Quinn was look­ing, he could see sev­eral people huddled low to the floor. From that dis­tance, it was hard to sep­ar­ate one per­son from an­other. He pulled the cam­era out.

  With the closest bunk only a few feet away, he felt con­fid­ent he could enter the room un­seen. He crawled around the door into the room.

  No gun­shots. No shouts about his en­trance. Only the con­tin­ued con­ver­sa­tion between the shooter and Al­varez.

  Quinn reached the first bunk and checked un­der­neath. There was just enough room for him to pass be­neath without knock­ing against the metal mesh sup­port­ing the mat­tress.

  “You don’t want to piss me off!” the man shouted. “I swear, I’ll start killing!”

  “No one wants to piss you off,” Al­varez said. “We want to work this out so nobody has to die.”

  Us­ing the voices as cover, Quinn picked up his pace, and was soon passing un­der the second bed, and the third. When he reached the fourth, he stopped and took an­other look to­ward the end of the room.

  There should have been five girls in the room, plus the man. They might all be there, but Quinn could dis­cern only four. The two people nearest the corner were def­in­itely girls, so he fo­cused on the other two and waited.

  “Why don’t you let the girls go?” Al­varez said. “I know you don’t want to hurt them.”

  “You know what? What I want is for you to bring me a car and back the hell away from the build­ing!”

  Bingo.

  Dur­ing the ex­change, as the man made his re­quest, the body on the far left had moved in rhythm with the words.

  Quinn slipped un­der the fourth bed and halfway un­der the fifth. He stopped again.

  Al­varez re­peated his sug­ges­tion re­gard­ing the host­ages, and the mi­li­tia as­shole told him what Al­varez could do with his sug­ges­tion. Once more, the body on the far left moved with the words, but Quinn didn’t need that for con­firm­a­tion. He could now see the per­son at the end was a man.

  Quinn pulled out his gun and moved un­der the last set of bunks.

  “There’s a black Ford F-150 out there,” the man shouted. “The keys are un­der the mat! If I don’t hear it pull up in the next minute, someone’s go­ing to die!”

  The hand hold­ing the gun must have been on the bed be­cause Quinn couldn’t see it. The other hand was pressed against the floor, prop­ping the man up.

  “I’m send­ing one of my people to get the truck now,” Al­varez said. “As an act of good faith, why don’t you send out half of the host­ages.”

  Quinn stopped when he’d gone as far as ne­ces­sary.

  “Get the fuck­ing truck here and then maybe we can talk about—”

  In swift, fluid mo­tion, Quinn grabbed the man’s wrist, shoved the sup­pressor into the as­shole’s groin, and said in a calm voice, “Drop the weapon.”

  In­stead of com­ply­ing, the idiot tried to twist away.

  Quinn pulled the trig­ger.

  A howl of pain and the clat­ter of a gun hit­ting the floor.

  Quinn pulled him­self out from un­der the bed, his aim never leav­ing the host­age taker. But curled against the wall and writh­ing in agony, the guy was in no po­s­i­tion to do any more dam­age.

  Quinn kicked the man’s gun, send­ing it skit­ter­ing across the room. He looked over his shoulder at the girls. There were in­deed five of them, pressed to­gether in the corner, ter­ri­fied.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “No one’s go­ing to hurt you any­more.”

  *

  Thirty minutes later, Quinn and Or­lando were stand­ing with Al­varez near the middle of the com­pound, ready to take their leave.

  The place was swarm­ing with FBI agents, who had con­tin­ued ar­riv­ing well after the fest­iv­it­ies had con­cluded. So far, re­ports from the road­b­locks said no me­dia had shown up, but it would be only a mat­ter of time. Un­doubtedly, this would at first be re­por­ted as an­other Waco-style raid, but when the news of the sexual slavery got out, few would be able to fault the FBI’s ac­tions.

  The girls had been taken away to a nearby hos­pital. The men­tal ab­use they’d suffered would take a while to mend, if it ever did. Or­lando had talked to one of the girls be­fore an am­bu­lance took her away. The girl had been “gif­ted” to the mi­li­tia by her father, “in sup­port of Mr. Reed’s goals.” Or­lando had re­layed the in­form­a­tion to Al­varez, who as­sured her and Quinn he would look into each and every one of the girls’ cir­cum­stances and take the ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tions.

  “If you don’t,” Or­lando had said, “we will.”

  Al­varez al­most smiled. “I have no doubt of that.”

  They talked for sev­eral more minutes, then Quinn held out his hand. “Good work­ing with you.”

  For the second time that day, they shook.

  “I would say we ap­pre­ci­ate the as­sist, but I feel like we were the ones do­ing the as­sist­ing today, not you. You’re a handy man to have around, Mr. Quinn.”

  “Don’t get too used to it,” Or­lando said, shak­ing Al­varez’s hand. “The FBI can’t af­ford us.”

  “That does not sur­prise me.”

  “Agent Al­varez?” an agent called from near one of the build­ings. “You need to see this.”

  “I’ll be right there.” Al­varez turned back to Quinn and Or­lando, said, “Thank you again,” and headed over to the other agent.

  *

  Spe­cial Agent Al­varez was led to a small build­ing along the south side of the com­pound. Like most of the other struc­tures, it was two stor­ies high, but its foot­print was only large enough to ac­com­mod­ate three rooms per floor. This was one of the mi­li­tia’s bunk­houses.

  Al­varez hadn’t been in this par­tic­u­lar struc­ture yet, but it was much the same as the ones he had vis­ited—bunks and foot­lock­ers and little else.

  The agent who was es­cort­ing him took him to an open door in the ground-floor hall­way, near the bath­room. Bey­ond it were stairs lead­ing down to a base­ment. So far, all the build­ings had base­ments, a sur­vival ne­ces­sity here in Ok­lahoma.

  Al­varez fol­lowed the agent down into a single room that matched the size of the house above. In ad­di­tion to the base­ment lights, three power­ful crime-scene lights had been erec­ted. Five agents were gathered near the lights, three on their knees look­ing at the ground, while the other two were pulling items out of a gear bag.

  When one of the kneel­ing men saw Al­varez, he moved to the side to make room. Sur­roun­ded by a con­crete foot­ing and em­bed­ded in the floor was a steel door.

  “Any­one try open­ing it?” Al­varez asked.

  “Yes, sir,” the agent who’d moved said. “It’s locked.” He nod­ded to­ward the two men at the gear bags. “Beltre and Langer are about to check to make sure it’s not booby-trapped, then we should be able to get it un­locked.”

  “Was it just sit­ting ex­posed like this?”

  “No, sir. It was un­der that plat­form.” He poin­ted at a weathered wooden plat­form lean­ing against the wall, next to four bar­rels.

  “Who found it?”

  One of the other agents stood. “I did.”

  “Thomas, isn’t it?” Al­varez said. He had met him only that morn­ing.

  “Thompson, sir.”

  “Right. Sorry. What made you look un­der the plat­form, Agent Thompson?”

  “The bar­rels sit­ting on it were all empty, and it seemed like a strange place to store empty bar­rels.”

  “Nice work.”

  Al­varez and the other agents watched Beltre and Langer scan the door. When the men de­clared there were no ob­vi­ous traps, two oth­ers set to work dis­en­ga­ging the lock. On the other side of the door was a set of stairs.

  Since it had been Thompson’s dis­cov­ery, Al­varez al­lowed the agent to go first. The stairs let out at a pas­sage­way that ended at an­other locked door.

  Once again, Beltre and Langer did their thing and de­clared it safe. The lock was a stub­born one, but it fi­nally gave way.

  Flash­lights flooded through the open­ing. Thompson was again the first to step through.

  “My God,” he said.

  Al­varez moved to join him and found him­self on a metal plat­form. He ad­ded his flash­light beam to Thompson’s.

  My God, in­deed.

  The room was massive. A hun­dred feet across and at least that much long. The floor was ap­prox­im­ately six feet be­low the plat­form, and reached by stairs to the right. Nearly half the space was taken up by rows of wide metal shelving units, only a frac­tion of which were filled. No shelves in the rest of the room, just a wide area that played home to sev­eral crates and items covered by tarps. The items both on the shelves and in the open space were highly or­gan­ized, giv­ing the im­pres­sion Reed’s people were ex­pect­ing to fill the re­main­ing area with much more of the same.

  The team des­cen­ded into the room.

  “Pair off,” Al­varez ordered. “If you find some­thing of in­terest, shout out.”

 

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