Rogues & Patriots, page 17
We came to the powerhouse, a dark, abandoned two-story building layered in graffiti. I waited in the shadows across the road while Bobby did a perfunctory search.
“Empty. For a long time. Ditto the bomb shelter in back.”
The next structure was hardly a structure, just a haphazard pile of rusted machinery inside the skeletal remains of a machine shed. The Dodge van was parked off to the right. Bobby started toward it, stopped, shot me a glance. I shook my head. First, AG. We walked past the ruined shed and came to a chain link barricade with a No Trespassing sign and a cutaway area to allow for foot traffic.
“That’s why he parked back there.” I gestured back toward the ruined shed. “You can’t drive in any farther.”
Bobby nodded, his eyes hooded. Shouldered his way through the opening. The road turned into a trail. Then we heard it––a rumble in the near distance that sounded like a piece of machinery. The trail narrowed and the sound grew louder. We passed the rusted husk of an old automobile. Rounded a bend and came to the source of the sound, a generator, dimly lit by crude outdoor lighting. Beyond it rose a sharply pitched, red-brick smokehouse, perhaps fifteen feet tall.
We crossed the clearing, clicked off our flashlights, and waited in the gloom under a brace of sycamores. Ten minutes stretched into twenty. No one came or went. The noise of the generator, at first so jarring, seemed to realign itself into a loud but comforting hum. Bobby started to nod off. I let him doze for a while, then reached out and nudged him back awake.
“Shit, Nick. What’d you do that for? I was having a good dream.” He yawned. “For all we know, he’s asleep in there.” Bobby gestured toward the smokehouse.
“Cheap rent.”
“Very funny, asshole. That’s where they keep the prisoners.”
Bobby was itching to get moving, but I wanted to wait till AG tipped his hand. “C’mon, Bobby. You got us here. ’Cause you’re a brilliant investigator. But now, we can’t rush things. Why don’t you go back and search the van? I’ll give you a hood in case you run into AG. If you do, use your own judgment.”
I extracted a spandex hood from my jean jacket pocket and held it out to him. He snatched it out of the air and stumped back up the trail. Bobby’s irritability is legendary among us, the few and the lucky who know him well. He is not necessarily the kind of guy you bring home to mother. But he knows a few things worth knowing, and I knew I could count on him. Fast as I am, and even though I can street fight and box, I would never want to go up against Bobby mano a mano.
He was gone a full thirty minutes but finally reappeared, wreathed in shadows, angling toward me. Now his mood was different. “Real interesting, Nick. Better than I expected. Not quite search and destroy. More like penetrate and analyze. The van just happened to be unlocked. The back is hollowed out—a big flat space with storage cabinets along the sides. It’s registered to a company called Fletcher Moss, Ltd. out of La Jolla. I wrote it all down.” Teeth stained dark in the half-light.
“Keep going.” I sensed the best was still to come.
“First, I searched the storage cabinets. Lots of tools—wrenches, hammers, hacksaws, screwdrivers—and several boxes of S&W cartridges. And, of course, Clejuso handcuffs and leg irons, which is about what you’d expect from these Nazis. But the best part was a box of syringes pre-packed with Versed. I copped a dozen. When the cortisol becomes unbearable, there are few things better than a shot of Versed to take the edge off. But the big surprise was the garbage bags. On the floor…” Bobby paused. Quantum shift. A bright part of my brain dropped into darkness.
“The garbage bags,” said Bobby slowly, “are full of women’s clothes—cheap designer labels, jeans, dresses, lingerie, teddies with peek-a-boo cutouts, hot stuff if you catch my drift…”
“I can see you made a study of this…”
“Naturally. But that’s not the point. The point is: Why are half the items too small for full-grown women?”
Again, the quantum shift. Could swear another part of my brain went black.
“We’re back,” said Bobby. “Church of the poisoned mind…”
We stared at each other there in the half-light. Somehow, given the dark possibilities I’d witnessed at the Munson farm, I wasn’t totally surprised. I told him we’d wait ten more minutes. Then if AG didn’t appear, we’d hit the smokehouse.
Five minutes later, AG came strolling down the road, a high-powered flashlight in his right hand. Wearing a keffiyeh and a white and blue striped tunic, courtesy of Tucker’s salon, his left hand firmly grasping the hand of a dark-haired girl in a loose, short-sleeved blouse and tight jeans…that showed off her half-formed curves.
A kind of growl erupted in Bobby’s throat. He started towards them and I yanked him back. He pivoted and shoved me hard. I stumbled and righted myself. He stood there staring, his eyes so full of pain I could hardly stand it. “C’mon, Nick! We can’t let him take her in there.” His hoarse whisper was chilling.
The steady hum of the generator muffled Bobby’s voice, and AG never looked our way. “Relax. The damage is already done. He’s dropping her off. We’ll arrest him on his way out. I don’t want the little girl to see it. It’ll scare her even more. But remember, he’s got intel. We gotta be careful.”
Bobby snorted, hating me for implying he might screw things up. Hating himself, too, for hating me. But more than anything, he hated the tall white man in the keffiyeh. Which I understood completely. You shadow someone with the intention of taking him down. You usually have a pretty good idea what his crimes are—both the mortal and the venial. But this was a shocker.
We watched AG lead the girl around to the back of the smokehouse. Barely audible rasp of a metal gate or grille. Two minutes later, we skirted the tree line and took up a position directly behind the smokehouse. The gate, backlit from inside and partly illuminated by the crude outdoor lighting, was about four feet tall. Made of strips of steel welded to a rectangular steel frame. Unlatched and half-ajar. A smaller gate, large enough for a mid-sized child, was hinged to the grille. Behind the gate, a full-sized metal door, closed. We waited, flattening ourselves against the brickwork on either side of the gate…
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
AG had his keys out and was about to lock the gate when I slipped the hood over his head. Bobby hit him hard, straight shot to the midsection. AG crumpled and I held him down. Bobby plunged a syringe of Versed into his shoulder. Big nurse delivering a most emphatic flu shot. AG thrashed about for sixty seconds, then lay still. We searched him. Nothing much. Just a .40 caliber S&W standard issue semi-automatic and a couple of Ka-Bar hunting knives in their stock leather sheaths, along with keys, two smart phones, and a wallet.
Popped the clip out of the gun and stuffed everything into my inner jacket pockets. Tried the inner door to the smokehouse. The knob turned easily. Found myself staring into darkness. Flicked on my flashlight. A sharp intake of breath. Furtive eyes blinking and looking away. Others staring like burning coals. Looking into such a private place was not for heathens such as me. I closed the door. Relief and guilt in equal measure. Bobby locked the gate and we conferred. A hellish decision, but Bobby agreed. Wrong as it felt to leave the females there, rescuing them at this point would be premature. First, we needed intel. We helped our half-comatose captive to his feet and marched him up the trail. No resistance from AG. He tripped once but I grabbed him on the way down. Back at the van, we trussed him up in his own Clejuso cuffs and leg irons and laid him down amidst the bags of women’s clothing. Then we got in, Bobby behind the wheel, me in back, keeping an eye on our new companion.
Ninety minutes later at around four a.m., we began interrogating AG in our own “black site,” a bare bones office in an old, deserted hay barn off Brown Mountain Truck Road in the foothills north of Altadena. The place had once belonged to Frank Constantine. This is where Frank’s double-dealing lieutenant, Henry Taylor, shot him from the trees with a Ruger SR9 while Tony and Bobby and I watched. Frank was waving a pipe bomb, and I was pleading with him to surrender, to opt for the insanity defense. It might have worked. Frank had pedigree. But he was beyond reason. So Henry Taylor shot him, which probably saved all of our lives. Frank’s estate has been deserted ever since. The two-story faux Colonial house at the end of the long driveway was boarded up, and the barn and corral have become a refuge for small animal life…and very occasional interrogations…like the one we were about to conduct.
We propped our chained and hooded captive up in a rickety chair and sat across from him—Bobby in a sprung office chair, me on top of a battered teakwood desk. Behind AG a single casement window sighted off into the gloom.
“This could get ugly, podna.” Bobby’s melodious drawl belied the menace in his words. “But it doesn’t need to. I’m Jack and this here’s my partner Grant. We have questions. You better have answers. First, why are you fools running around disguised as Arabs? This is not an Errol Flynn movie. Second, why did you murder Roberto Diaz? He was a family man. End of story. Third, what were you doing with that young girl up at the Nazi encampment? And last, who the fuck are you?”
“You needn’t be so rude,” said AG calmly in the cultured tones of someone who had grown up with a polo pony cropping grass outside his bedroom window. “I’ll answer your questions, but only if you take this hood off. I suffer from claustrophobia, and I’m right on the verge of a panic attack.”
A captive man usually looks small under a hood. AG was no exception. “Taking your hood off is not out of the question,” I said. “If and when we come to an understanding. So first, why the Arab disguises?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Certain zealots are conducting false flag operations to fan the fear of Muslim terrorists while deeply offending the real jihadists. It’s not a bad tactic. Of course, you have to be insane to do it.” He paused. “I’m dead set against it. But what you need to understand is I’m working undercover investigating these guys. And you’re interfering with my work. It’s called obstruction of justice, which, if I’m not mistaken, is both a state and federal offense. Next question…”
“By certain zealots, you mean Thomas Quincey.”
“True, but he’s not the only one.”
Interesting. Moving on. “Why did Quincey order the murder of Roberto Diaz?”
“I don’t recognize the name. Who’s Roberto Diaz?”
“Maybe this will help you remember.” Bobby jumped off the desk, set himself, and delivered a reminder to the man’s midsection. AG groaned and doubled up in his chair.
“Love taps, podna. Now answer the question.”
AG moaned, tried to straighten up, failed, and waited, tensing himself for another blow. I shook my head and Bobby sat back down.
“Where do you get the girls?”
“You have to promise not to hit me again. I’m sixty-two years old. I haven’t done anything to you. Why are you using me as a punching bag?”
“You haven’t seen Jack go really berserk,” I said. “It’s not a pretty sight. Where do you get the girls?”
“Where do you think? They’re illegals, detained by ICE at the border. By law, if you don’t have proper paperwork, ICE takes you into custody. You have the right to seek political asylum, and some illegals do obtain permanent residency. But that’s pretty rare. Most detainees are deported.”
“Yeah, I get that. But aren’t the girls supposed to be housed at a federal detention facility?”
“Of course. They are at a federal detention center. ICE has the legal authority to set up temporary facilities to combat overcrowding. Would you rather they were held in some overcrowded and understaffed hellhole down on the border?”
“You’re a real politician, ain’tcha?” said Bobby.
“What were you doing with that young girl you took into the smokehouse?”
“Smokehouse?” AG clasped his cuffed hands together. “There’s no smokehouse. Oh, you mean that red brick building? For your information, I dropped the girl off with her mother. And just so you know, no one is being gassed, burned, or tortured. That little girl, who’s very smart for her age, is delighted to be safe in that shelter with her mother. The girls and mothers are supposed to be kept separate for interrogation purposes.”
“Fuck you and your interrogation purpose bullshit,” Bobby burst in. Beside himself. Literally jumping up and down. “You piece of shit. You piece of pure shit.” I slid in between AG and Bobby, who smacked one huge fist into the other and sat back down.
“You probably missed the other shelter on your way in,” said AG calmly. “The small one is for the girls. Because I have a heart, I bend the rules for the sake of the children.”
“And because I have a heart, I’m keeping my partner from beating you to death. Now that I understand how the girls came to be there in your prison compound, perhaps you could explain what you do with them.”
“Certainly. I feed them and clothe them. And try to comfort them when they’re sad or lonely.”
“So you’re their minder, right?”
“You could say that.”
“How many under-aged girls?”
“Four. Dolores, Teresa, Tamara, and Amy Li Kong. They’re really nice girls. I have to force myself not to get attached to them. Dolores is Colombian and Teresa is the younger member of a mother-daughter team from Guadalajara. Tamara is Ukrainian. Her mother wants to marry an American man. Amy Li is Korean. And so it goes. Everyone has a story in the theater of poverty and despair. Teresa is the girl I was walking with.”
“So your job, then,” said Bobby, “when you’re not feeding and dressing or comforting the girls, is to pimp them out to fat cats.”
AG threw up his cuffed hands. “Ridiculous! That’s so insulting. I would never be part of anything so loathsome.” Aggrieved. To a fault.
“Glad to hear it. Only one problem. Why did my partner find children’s lingerie among the women’s clothes in the back of your van?”
“That’s news to me,” said AG quickly. He shook his head under the hood. Pulled himself fully upright and spoke firmly. “Maybe they like to play dress-up. Although I was driving that van, I didn’t load it. The supplies are purchased at closeouts by one of the shoppers.”
“You fuckhead! You absolute fuckhead!” Bobby jumped to his feet. Again, I had to slide in between him and AG.
“Look, fool, my partner and I think you and Tragg and this Thomas Quincey-Miles Amsterdam prick are pimping out those children. You’re right in the middle of it. The facilitator.” It hit me hard and my throat tightened.
I looked at Bobby and motioned toward the door. We stepped out of the office into the barn, which was an explosion of rusted machinery, moldy hay bales, burlap sacks of undetermined content, and animal droppings.
I took a deep breath. Then another. Had to slow my heart rate down. “Don’t worry, Bobby. These pricks are going down.”
“Yeah? How?”
I hesitated. I knew this thing about the children was killing Bobby. Full disclosure is just another word for terror.
“Listen, Bobby. We’ll figure it out. But our timing has to be right.” I shivered. Something my deceased DOJ friend Hec Green told me while we were on the hunt for Frank Constantine. The higher up the food chain you go, the better people get at concealing their actual intentions. And the harder it is to know when they’re lying.
“I know,” said Bobby, “you’re the surprise attack guy and I’m the berserker.”
“All I know is we’ve got to take it slow and read this guy. Listen to his lies and figure out what he’s not telling us.”
We went back into the interrogation room.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“Did you miss us?” said Bobby cheerfully.
“I missed you, Bobby Moore,” said AG calmly, “but not your snakehead partner. We know you served our country bravely. Though I do wish you would stop hitting me every time you don’t get your way. Nonetheless, there is something engaging about you. Perhaps it’s your lack of guile and the fact your brand of violence is not that of a programmed killer. We would prefer to let you go your own way. It’s your bad luck, though, to be tangled up with Mr. Crane, your own personal albatross. He’s the man with the big X on his back. He’s the man who led the lynch mob that harried poor Frank to his grave…”
He had made us. Maybe while driving over to the old hay barn? Or maybe during the interrogation, based on the nature of our questions?
AG had a wonderful ability to spin the facts of Frank Constantine’s death. The truth was, Frank died because his trusted assistant, Henry Taylor, had the presence of mind to shoot him through the head from his vantage point in the trees when Frank was about to blow us all, including himself, to kingdom come with a pipe bomb. A weapon that, oddly enough, Henry had built for Frank in the first place.
So AG spun. Spin and spill. Spill and spin. He talked, we listened. He said his name was James Franklin Rowe. He said we had a few friends among the principals, but we had far more enemies. And that Hec Green, who’d pulled strings to locate Frank Constantine’s foothill hideaway, had been much-loved by both moderates and hardliners. And how Hec’s last act before his fatal heart attack a few weeks after Frank’s death had been to arrange for Frank’s torture records to be returned to the military forthwith and as discreetly as possible. The unidentified agency with the brown cargo vans had arrived first, however.
But as with any story with too many tellers, as it made the rounds, the actual facts devolved. In one alarming version, I was the one who procured Frank’s female victims, the proverbial lambs for slaughter. Frank’s murderous rampage would never have happened without Crane supplying the bait.
But what really caught my attention was this. James Franklin Rowe said my recent gun battle at Leo’s auto repair shop had been a kind of initiation. One or more of the principals were responsible. And one of them, at the last possible moment, had told the men on the roof to stand down. Which was why I was still alive. “I have tremendous respect for my colleague, who will remain unnamed,” said Rowe. Oddly, he compared my initiation to that of a Spartan youth sent out into the countryside at age thirteen to survive for three days by tooth and claw before being allowed back into the barracks.
