Dark Carnival Murders (12 page)

Everyone entered the room,
there were three men standing nearby, Mary asked if this was the
whole party?

Louie looked to her and
said, "Be patient, we haven’t even begun. Now please sit and
relax."

The women went to the big
couch and sat. They were all lookers and Louie said to Buck, "Good
choice, my friend, now get lost."

Buck was taken by surprise
and said, "Don’t you need us to help?"

"Nope, get out of here,
we’ll take it from here."

Buck didn’t want to queer
the deal so he looked to Mac and said to follow him. Louie opened
the door as they went out. He closed the door as Mary asked where
they were going. The snooping equipment gave us their
voices.

"They are just going out
to get some refreshments." He turned to the bedroom door as it
opened, Skeeter walked out.

The women gave Skeeter a
surprised look as he pointed a gun and said, "Ladies, I need you to
put your hands up and close your mouths."

*

Chapter 16

I carefully opened the
suite door to look out and see where Buck and Mac went to. They
were still standing in the hallway talking. Buck saw me, looked
back to the door they just came out of and moved over towards me. I
opened the door for them and they entered.

"What’s going on in the
room?" Buck asked.

Lynn smiled and said, "The
game is afoot," quoting Sherlock Holmes.

"Who’s foot? What do feet
have to do with the case?" Buck was confused.

"Buck, someone has the
women held with a threat. I’m imagining he has a gun on them. The
kidnapping begins," I said.

Buck went to the
communication equipment and listened. We could hear Skeeter giving
orders to the other men.

"That’s Skeeter’s voice, I
didn’t see him in the room when we took the ladies in," Buck
said.

"It sounded like he was in
another room and after you left he came out."

Skeeter’s voice from the
other room said, "Okay ladies, put all your cell phones on the
table along with your purses."

"I hope he doesn’t frisk
them," Earl spoke up.

"Mary has the wire and the
safe word so be ready if she says it," Lynn said.

"What is the safe word?"
Buck asked.

"Biscuits," Lynn
replied.

"Biscuits? That’s the
word, who thinks these things up?" Buck laughed.

"Quiet, Skeeter’s giving
more commands."

From the speaker we could
hear him saying, "Okay ladies, here’s what is going down. If you
cooperate you’ll live long and productive lives. Otherwise you die.
Now we are all going out of this room, each of these men will
escort you and I’ll take this lovely lady." It sounded like he
yanked one of the women up from the couch and then continued. "Now
if any of you decide to run, or open your mouths to get help, I’ll
shoot this bitch in the head. You don’t want to be responsible for
her death, now do you?"

We could hear the women
agreeing.

"Do you have a tracker on
Mary?" Earl asked.

"Yes we do, it’s in her
belt. It’s hidden well, unless they have a electronic de-bugging
device. I got electronics division in the precinct watching her.
They’ll report back when they can confirm a route from the
hotel."

Skeeter was now speaking
loudly, "Okay everyone, get up and pair with the men, we are going
out now and I don’t want any problems, or she dies,
understand?"

We could hear agreements,
then they were moving about in the room. We could hear the door
open and Lynn got on her walkie-talkie and asked someone named Dave
if he had them on the radar. He confirmed that they were on the
move and would keep her posted. Lynn clipped the unit to her belt
and put an earpiece in her ear.

We moved to the door, Lynn
listened and then carefully opened it. She couldn’t see them but
heard them heading down the hall in the opposite direction from us.
Lynn stuck her head out the door and saw them go into the stairwell
door. She said to move, we went out the door.

Lynn pulled her cell phone
and hit a speed dial number, "George, have you got eyes on
them?"

I knew she had arranged
with the hotel security to follow them on the cameras all over the
hotel. The man on the other end of the call told Lynn they were in
the stairwell and heading down.

"They would have to be
going to the ground floor, let’s take the elevator down to greet
them," Lynn said as Warren, Williams, Earl and I, followed by Buck
and Mac, went to the elevator and pushed the button for the first
floor.

We stood waiting...
annoyed that the thing didn’t move faster. Lynn was still listening
to the security report of the men, they were almost to the ground
floor. We burst out from the elevator and around the corner to see
the four men and four women come out of the stairwell door and head
for the exit. Lynn thanked the man in the security room and we
followed, but not too close.

Buck could see Skeeter and
I said to him that maybe he should back off in case Skeeter looked
back and saw him. He agreed, so he and Mac stopped and went off the
side of the room behind a row of slot machines.

Lynn was listening through
the earpiece to Dave back in the precinct who was following the GPS
and reporting their progress. She led us out to the parking lot and
we waited until they had gotten in a very long limo. Warren and
Williams went off quickly to get their cars so we could follow. We
stood waiting for something to happen; the limo started up and
pulled out of the parking, heading out to Las Vegas
Boulevard.

Two unmarked cars pulled
up with Warren and Williams driving, we piled in. Lynn asked Dave
where they were headed and the man on the other end said they
turned south on the Boulevard. Lynn gave the details to Warren and
he drove out.

It was after midnight and
dark so it was easier to tail the limo without being seen. Lynn
said Dave reported that they were still going south; Warren kept
going until we spotted the car and then he pulled back since we had
them on GPS. Dave reported that the limo had suddenly turned left
into McCarran Airport’s commercial business area. Warren carefully
turned into the drive across the median and drove through the
gates, pulling around to the side of the commercial hangers where
they ran the private flights out of Vegas. He parked as Dave
reported that the bad guys had stopped.

Everyone piled out of the
unmarked cars and carefully went around the hangers where we could
see the limo parked by a very expensive Airstream jet. We watched
as the men pulled the women out of the limo and handed them over to
three other men standing by the plane.

"They’re taking them out
of the area quickly. Crap, we don’t want to lose them but we also
don’t want to give away our sting to Dark. We have to time this
closely," Lynn was speaking, "Warren get on your phone and call the
McCarran Airport security and have them tell the tower to delay
that plane from leaving. Get the tail number and call."

Warren went off to make
the call as we watched. "If Dark’s men leave the airport before the
plane takes off, we can get the women back and lock down these men
for kidnapping, and Dark will never know what we did."

Warren came back and told
us the tower was going to put the plane in a delayed hold. We
waited until Skeeter and his men got back in the limo and drove
off. "Williams, go watch and let me know when they are out of the
airport," Lynn said and Williams went off.

"This may work," I
said.

"So why do I feel like
something is going to screw up," she said with a
grimace.

We got the word that
Dark’s men had driven off the property and we relaxed. Lynn led the
charge towards the jet, but as we were almost there the thing
started up and was moving now.

"Crap, they’re supposed to
wait for the tower to clear them," Lynn yelled over the roar of the
jets. "Follow me," she said as she ran back to the cars. She got in
the driver’s seat and started it up. Warren got into the passenger
seat as Earl and I jumped in the back. Williams went to the other
car. Lynn sped out towards the now moving jet as it left the tarmac
and headed out to the runway.

Lynn, followed by
Williams, sped down the runway towards the accelerating jet. "The
bastard is going to break airport regs and take off without
authorization. So he thinks." She accelerated faster now and was
pulling alongside of the jet. Warren had his window down and was
showing his badge to the cockpit, it didn’t do much, the jet kept
going.

Lynn pushed the car hard
and finally got ahead of the jet and turned sharply into the path
of the beast. We all jumped from the car as the jet was hitting its
brakes narrowly missing Lynn’s car by inches. We all had our guns
trained on the plane as Williams pulled up next to the jet. We
waited for something to happen inside.

We could hear a number of
gunshots and saw flashes from the window of the jet. My heart
skipped a couple beats as we waited. After a few minutes, the
gangplank lowered and we aimed our weapons towards the opening.
Suddenly Mary came out followed by her women and Lynn went running
to them.

"What happened?" she
yelled as the jet was shutting down its engines.

"Assholes, they were more
interested in watching you guys out here, we got the drop on them
from behind. Just four helpless women, no threat to the big bad
guys," she laughed with a sigh of relief.

*

Chapter 17

Lynn had called for backup
and the men on the plane were being dragged off. Lynn then placed a
call to Bill Kestor, the FBI agent out in Florida, and explained
why she woke him at an ungodly hour. He was appreciative and said
he would get hold of his counterpart in Vegas and have them
investigate the human trafficking angle.

Lynn came to Earl and I,
"Well, I think we got this part of the situation taken care of.
Kidnapping, robbery and child endangerment, Dark is really racking
them up."

"How are you going to keep
this under wraps so Dark doesn’t hear back from the people he sold
these women to?" I asked.

"I talked to Bill Kestor,
FBI, and he agreed to see about delaying info about the jet. As far
as the people in Dubai will be concerned, the jet was delayed for
engine problems. We just have to delay for one more day. Tonight is
the auction and if we can take that down and get the boys back, the
FBI can move in on the slavers. The men on the plane will spend a
quiet night in Homeland Security cells here at the airport." Lynn
explained. "Next, we need to get Buck to find out where the auction
is to take place."

As if on cue, Buck and Mac
drove up in their camper, after calling me earlier to find out
where we were. They parked and came over to us.

"One more night and
hopefully this will end," Buck said.

"You have to get the info
for the auction to us as soon as you hear from Dark," Lynn
said.

"What if he doesn’t tell
me?" Buck asked.

Lynn thought for a moment,
"We may need to hook you up for GPS. I’ll have Dave set it up for
you."

"Will that thing follow me
to the john?" Buck laughed.

"I hope not, but we’re
lucky it has no sound capabilities. We don’t need to hear you
fart," I said.

"Gentlemen, it’s now after
one in the morning, I think we can call it a night," Lynn said as
airport security was putting the men from the jet into a van to be
taken to the office of the airport Homeland Security to be
detained.

We all agreed and went to
our vehicles. I drove Earl back to the office where he left his car
and he drove off. I headed home and the house was dark by the time
I got there. I didn’t hear the driveway alarm going off so I
presumed Penny didn’t set it. I parked the van and went in the
front door to find Willy sitting in the middle of the kitchen
looking half-asleep.

"Are you hungry, is that
why you’re in here?" I said standing at the door to the
kitchen.

"He and I are both hungry,
did you bring any food home with you?" Penny said coming up behind
me. "Did you get your kidnappers?"

I put my arms around her
and pulled her in tightly, "Yes, we did. They are on ice for now
until we get the boys back tonight. I hope this ends on a good
note. As to food, I didn’t know I was supposed to bring
any."

"It’s alright; I don’t
expect you to think of mundane things like feeding your wife and
son. I’ll whip up something for us. I presume you haven’t
eaten?"

"Had a Carl’s Jr. burger
earlier but I could use a meal. Are you going to wake Angelo or
attempt to cook yourself?"

She whacked my arm and
went into the kitchen, I followed.

We had microwave treats,
Penny’s best way of cooking and then headed to bed. Willy was put
on his Bate’s Motel chair and circled a few times before plopping
down with a snort. We were in bed quickly and Penny snuggled close.
She was asleep before I could even get comfortable, she could do
that very easily. I lay there thinking about what may go down
tonight; hopefully it would come to an end. I slept well this
morning.