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EVERYTHING WAS READY. Dark sedans filled with FBI agents were parked in various spots along the street in Chestnut Hill, sunlight falling in streaks on their windshields through the half-bare trees. Zan sat with Mel in the car closest to the target house, another sedan right behind them.
As she had hoped, the photographs they took during their surveillance had corroborated Rainer’s evidence sufficiently to establish probable cause. They had search warrants for the houses in Chestnut Hill and North Philadelphia and were about to serve them simultaneously. Both houses were filled with men. Zan hoped they would submit to the search without incident. She suspected they wouldn’t, as did Nguyen. So, while they weren’t exactly set up for a raid, there were plenty of agents around in case cooperation was not forthcoming. They were all on coms and wearing vests. The tactical team was hanging out in the parking lot of a nearby supermarket attracting way too much attention.
Mel glanced at her watch. “Ready, partner?”
“Yep. Time to confront the monsters.”
Mel spoke into her coms unit, then they strode up the walkway that sliced the wide lawn to ring the doorbell of the large colonial house. They were joined by Steve and Landon, two agents who had been in the car behind them. No response to the ring. Mel pressed it again. Still nothing.
“FBI!” Zan shouted, pounding on the door. “We have a warrant to search the premises.” She waited the requisite time. “FBI! Open up! We have a warrant to search these premises! If you don’t open the door we will force it!”
The coms units crackled with a report that other agents were pursuing some men who had run out the back. “Use the jamb spreader,” Mel said to Landon. She talked into her coms. “Everyone converge. Car six, you hang back and guard the perimeter and get tactical over here.”
Landon put the device in the jamb but it wouldn’t open. The door was reinforced.
“Let’s go in the bay window,” Zan said. They went to the window, smashed the glass and were contemplating how best to climb in when gunshots flew from inside the house.
“We need that front door open,” Mel said. “Tactical better hurry the fuck up.”
Just then the door creaked open. They stared at it. “What do you know? Spreader must’ve worked.” Mel said. The four agents surrounded the door and entered from alternating sides, guns drawn, as other agents ran towards them across the lawn. Zan heard the loud approach of the tactical transport.
The agents ran into the dining room on the left, away from the shots. As other agents came in the front, Zan could hear them entering from the rear as well. Mel directed Landon and Steve to clear the kitchen. She told the agents who had just arrived to send tactical into the living with some firepower, then she put a foot on the stairs. “You’re with me, Zan.”
The two women crept up the stairs, guns held up, bobbing back and forth to get constant new angles on the hallway upstairs. Zan wished Mel had let her go first. She was taller and could see better.
I don’t feel like seeing Mel’s blood spattered on this lovely hardwood.
They made the second-floor hallway. Mel spoke into her coms to get other agents up there because there was another floor and at least six bedrooms, but from the sound of the gunfire downstairs, they would be on their own for a while. She nodded at her partner. Zan went left and Mel went right.
Zan heard a thud behind her. She wheeled to see an armed man fly out of a bedroom at the end of the hall. He had a clear shot on Mel. There was nothing Zan could do. Mel was between her and the man. She braced for it, ready to take out the assailant if the force of the bullet into Mel’s vest knocked her down.
Please, in the vest, in the vest.
The man fired, but Mel didn’t go down. She returned fire and the man crumpled in the hallway.
He missed. I love it when that happens.
By that time other agents were on the landing. Zan and Mel warned them about armed lurkers and headed to the third floor. They decided to stick together. They were moving left to clear those rooms first when a retractable attic door slammed down on their heads, bringing them both to the ground. Mel had been in the lead. She was knocked unconscious, whether from the descending door or from hitting her head on the hardwood floor, Zan didn’t know.
Three men rushed out of the attic and ran towards a back bedroom. They were all armed. Flipping onto her stomach, Zan pulled Mel back, grunting with effort as she kept herself as flat on the ground as she could. Once Mel was back far enough, Zan stood over her and peered around the still-lowered attic door.
Better than no cover at all.
The three men had reached the bedroom. Two went inside as one turned to shoot, mostly shielded by the door jamb. Zan raised her weapon to return fire when the man disappeared like he’d been sucked into a vortex.
What the hell?
Zan leaned to her coms unit. “I need assistance on the third floor. Agent unconscious. Three armed men in the back, east bedroom.”
From the shouts and shots coming from downstairs plus chatter on the coms, she knew assistance would not be quick. She didn’t want the men to flee through a window so she crept forward, her gunsight level with her eyes. Then Rainer stepped out of the bedroom, one of the men dangling from his giant hand like a skinned rabbit. Zan screamed but bit it off after a second.
“Looking for him?” he asked.
“What the fucking fuck?” she hissed. She jerked around so hard toward the stairs behind her that she wrenched her neck.
Again with this shit?
“Come in the bedroom,” Rainer said. “Call off the assistance. The men are unconscious. There are no more up here. I looked.”
Muttering a string of curses, Zan checked on Mel then stomped down the hall. She informed the other agents that the third floor was cleared, but that Mel needed assistance near the landing. She passed into the bedroom to find Rainer standing over a pile of unmoving men, grinning, his right forearm covered in blood. Zan forgot she was furious.
“Rainer, your arm!” She ran to him and inspected the injured limb. “You’ve been shot!”
With his finger to his lips, Rainer exhaled a gentle “shhh,” then leaned to peer intensely at her. “I’m all right, Zan. I routinely deal with wounds far worse than this.” He moved his arm to demonstrate. Blood seeped from a ragged hole.
“What?” Zan whispered. She stared at him, wide-eyed. “Oh my god. You were concealed. The guy who shot at Mel. You took the bullet.”
“I deflected it. You’ll find it embedded in the wall downstairs.”
“You can’t deflect a bullet with your fucking arm.”
He shrugged. “I have dense bones.”
She scowled at him. “You’re an idiot.”
One of the men stirred. Zan holstered her gun, crouched, and rolled him onto his stomach. She cuffed him, redrew her weapon, then applied a sharp blow to the base of his skull, knocking him out again. She backed up to the doorway and leaned out to see if anyone was coming. She looked back at the pile of men. “What am I going to say? That I went all Bruce Lee on them?”
“That is more plausible than saying an alien warrior helped you.” Rainer’s eyes twinkled.
“This is not funny.”
“Then why are you about to laugh?”
Zan pursed her lips.
Do not laugh, O’Gara. Do not.
She heard a groan from the hall and leaned her head out again. Mel was pulling herself upright.
“You have to get out of here, now,” Zan said to Rainer. He nodded, went to the window, opened it, put a leg out and was lost to her vision. She shook her head and took a few steps closer. She saw him as if he was sandwiched between the real window and a grainy representation of it.
“And Zan? Congratulations. The daggers and the medallions are here.”
Nineteen men in custody. No women. Zan and Nguyen observed four of them via closed-circuit cameras as they sat in separate interrogation rooms. Three were in the hospital. The rest were in holding.
Tactical had killed two of the men in the Chestnut Hill house. The man Mel had shot was also dead. She would need to be cleared, but Zan figured it wouldn’t take long.
Cut and dry self-defense.
For now, the twelve men from the house in Chestnut Hill were being held on weapons and assault charges. The seven men from the house in North Philadelphia were being held on obscenity charges. This last group had let the agents in the house when they arrived to serve the search warrant and went peaceably when arrested.
“What makes you think we should start with the dark-haired guy in Room A?” Nguyen asked Zan, pointing to the first in a line of monitors in the narrow white-walled room that housed the recording and surveillance equipment.
“He was one of the first guys to run out the back. He had a bag full of cash. Plus, he’s wearing an expensive suit.”
“And the bald guy in B?”
“He was with him. Another expensive suit.”
“One thing about expensive suits. They tend to ask for lawyers.”
“I’m expecting it,” Zan said. Nguyen told the agent doing the recording to switch it on for Room A, then he and Zan headed off down the hall.
“Will Steve and Landon question the other two?” Zan asked.
“Yeah. Then we’ll get the three you apprehended into rooms. You should question all of them. I’m guessing they’re afraid of you.”
Zan laughed nervously.
“That was some great work, Agent O’Gara.”
“Thank you, sir. Like I said, I got lucky. They must have tripped over each other in a panic.”
I wonder what the scumbags think happened. Probably have no idea.
Nguyen smirked as they entered Interrogation Room A. The dark-haired man sat under bright lights at a metal table on a metal chair in the frigid room. Nguyen grabbed the back of a chair opposite the man and pulled it out so Zan could sit, then sat beside her. Zan put a folder on the table. She opened it, then laid out a series of photographs so the man could see them.
“You’re in a tough situation, Mr. Bogdani,” Zan said. “Or is it Mr. Greenbaum? Or Mr. Crawford?” The man did not react.
“We found all three names on passports with your photograph. So what should I call you?” No response.
“Okay. We’ll find out soon enough,” Zan said. She picked up a photograph of a young woman, lifeless, bloodied and bound, holding it by the edge as if to touch it caused her pain. She put her forearm on the table and leaned toward the man so that the photograph was right in front of his face.
“We’ve confiscated your product, Mr. Bogdani. We’ve linked the Chestnut Hill house to your operation in North Philadelphia.” She put the photograph back on the table and imagined slitting his throat, hopeful this desire showed on her face. “We know about the men in France. It’s only a matter of time before we collect the evidence to charge you with human trafficking.”
Still no reaction.
Not even a twitch.
“See this, Mr. Bogdani?” Zan said, picking up the gruesome photograph of Emanuel Morales after his internal organs had been removed. “The Philadelphia police have a set of daggers that were found with this man’s spleen, part of some sick ritual. These daggers are evidence in the open murder case.” Zan tapped her finger on another photograph. “We found daggers just like them in your house. We’re going to charge you with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. You and all your pals.”
She paused to let the reality sink in.
“You have a chance to help yourself here, Mr. Bogdani. If you have any information that could be useful to us, I suggest you tell us now.”
“I want my lawyer.”
And there it was. Now that the FBI had shown its hand, Bogdani had something to talk about with his lawyer. Probably a good one, judging from the suit. Zan stood and motioned for Nguyen to follow her into the hall.
Here goes nothing.
“Sir,” she said. “Let me talk to this guy alone. Let me turn off the closed-circuit equipment. My CIs told me a few things that might make this guy more cooperative, but I don’t want to risk revealing who they are for something that might not even bear fruit. I won’t ask him questions. I’ll just make statements.”
Nguyen tilted his head and eyeballed her. “I suppose you think I’ll agree just because you got us all that evidence and collared those three guys by yourself.” He smiled. “And you’d be right.”
“Thank you, sir,” Zan said with a nod. Nguyen told her to give him a minute to turn off the equipment.
When Zan reentered the room she stole a glance at the camera in the corner to make sure the light was off. She walked to Bogdani and got in his space, sitting on the table, looming over him.
“I think you may know a friend of mine, Mr. Bogdani. Know of him, anyway. I think you know his enemies, too. You helped them back in September. The 22nd, to be exact. Picked them up in a box truck? Drove them to Bridesburg?”
Bogdani had been staring straight ahead, not looking at her. Now, his eyes shifted to her face.
“Yes, that’s right. He’s a friend of mine. In fact,” Zan leaned in close to whisper in his ear, “I’m the woman you tried to use against him.”
The chair made a scraping noise as Bogdani stiffened and leaned away from Zan.
“You know, I prefer working through the system, but I can’t speak for him,” Zan continued, as she stood and walked around to the other side of the table. She put her hands on its surface and leaned forward. “He doesn’t give a shit about lawyers, or due process. He doesn’t care where you are or who’s protecting you.” She chuckled. “Except me. If I’m protecting you, he’ll care. So I suggest you cooperate.”
She walked to the door.
“The clerk will be in so you can contact your lawyer.”
Zan sat at her desk staring at the red and gold invitation in her hand. She’d received it in the mail the day before. It swamped her thoughts with anxiety just when she needed to be clear.
If I had any sense I’d have thrown it in the trash already.
Mel walked in. She said good morning, turned on her computer then rotated in her chair to face Zan.
“Do you think they’ll clear me today?” she asked. “I hate being on the sidelines.”
“They should. I told them what happened. The gun was there, recently fired. The bullet was in the wall. I don’t see why they wouldn’t.”
Her partner nodded.
“How are you doing, Mel? Things like this aren’t easy.”
“I’m oddly fine,” Mel said. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s the pictures. I don’t feel bad that I killed the depraved piece of shit.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“Yep, I’m fine,” Mel added. “So, what’s next?”
“The U.S. Attorney’s Office is going to call this morning. We’ll see what we can offer in exchange for everything these scumbags have on the snuff porn.”
“It better be a lot, for a deal on murder.”
“Conspiracy to commit murder, most likely. I think the men in France were the actual murderers. We have the evidence that they traveled here on the days in question, remember? Plus, I think it’s worth it. If that snuff porn is real, the traffickers should be our highest priority. Think how many women we’ll save.”
“You’re right.” Mel put her elbows on her chair arms and leaned toward Zan. “One more thing. You’ve got to tell me how you got the drop on the three guys from the attic.”
Oh boy. I hope I can still lie like an alcoholic.
“I got lucky, Mel. It’s that simple,” Zan said, spreading her hands. “They rushed into the bedroom, and one guy turned to shoot, using the door frame as cover. When I raised my weapon to return fire he jerked away. I ran down the hall. When I poked my head around to look in the bedroom, they were all on the floor. I have no idea how they got there. They must have fought each other. Maybe they panicked.”
“You must have one hell of a guardian angel.”
Zan choked, then hid her face in her hands.
“Why is that so funny?”
“Uh, it’s not. I’m feeling high strung at the moment.” She held up the invitation. “Interested in going with me to a fundraiser for the Philadelphia Orchestra? December 13th. A big gala at the Culture Center.”
Mel pressed her lips together so hard they disappeared. Her eyebrows dove between her eyes. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“What?”
“Isn’t that the fundraiser Rainer sponsors?”
“Yeah. So what?’
“You want him back?”
“No. That’s not what it’s about.”
“What’s it about, then?”
“I want to support the orchestra. I’m a musician, for Christ’s sake. Plus, it’s a big fancy party. Don’t you like big fancy parties?”
“Yeah. Right. And it has nothing to do with Rainer, who is certain to be there.” Mel said. She grimaced at her friend like she’d caught her taking a hit from flask stashed in her desk.
“Well, of course, it does. I think I might be in a better place about him now. I’d like to see if I can handle it. Isn’t one of your best friends that guy you were with for like, six years?” Zan fumbled with some papers on her desk.
“C’mon, Zan. That’s not the same and you know it. Chris and I broke up because we didn’t love each other anymore in a romantic way. You, on the other hand, love Rainer with a passion that borders on insanity.”
“I do not. Not anymore.”
“Stop lying to yourself.”
“Don’t you think it will help if I go to the event and it’s all fine and normal? I need to move on.”
Mel groaned and rolled her eyes. “I don’t think subjecting yourself to the sight of that man in a tuxedo is the way to go about it.”
“All right, forget it then,” Zan said, shifting her eyes to her computer. “I’ll ask Mikey.”
“Stop sounding so wounded. I’ll go. I’m beginning to think you should just forgive him, anyway. I don’t think you stand a chance.”
I’d better stand a chance. There are plenty of reasons I might have to talk to the beautiful bastard.