In Pursuit of Justice (38 page)

“No identification on the vehicle,” Mitchell reported. “The plates are not registered.”

“Forged, probably,” Rebecca muttered. “Roger that.”

After another minute, she dropped back, and the black Buick driven by Watts pulled out from several cars behind her and passed to take over the lead position. They would alternate like this as long as needed until Jason’s vehicle stopped. Somewhere behind them, Clark followed as well. If the SUV began to take evasive maneuvers, suggesting that the tail had been spotted, the third car would split off to triangulate an interception point. For now, whoever was driving the Mercedes ahead of them did not appear to be aware of their presence.

“Do you think that’s LongJohn driving?” Sloan asked at one point.

“Most likely,” Rebecca said, eyes fixed on the traffic ahead of her. “I can’t see him inviting someone else to the party at this point. Any potential customer might get spooked meeting someone they hadn’t anticipated. These guys are pretty suspicious as a group.”

“I wonder what the hell they’re talking about?” Sloan mused.

Rebecca shook her head. “I’ve got a feeling it’s not the weather or sports.”

“Well, whatever it is,” Catherine interjected, “Jason is fast on his feet, and he and LongJohn have a relationship. That’s why no one other than Jason could have done this at this point. He’ll be okay.”

He better be
, Sloan thought.
Because I can’t take one more person I care about getting hurt.

Twenty minutes later, they had circled nearly the entire city on expressways and arterials. They were approaching an area less than a mile north of Sloan’s loft that still retained the flavor of a working-class neighborhood. Called Fishtown, the neighborhood consisted of row houses and singles interspersed along narrow streets where a few trees still managed to grow.

“Here we go,” Rebecca said as the Mercedes signaled and pulled right toward an exit ramp. After following a few blocks, she once again opened the frequencies to the other members of the team. “Subject vehicle has turned right into a driveway on the corner of Girard and 4th. Single, two-story, white frame house—no number visible. Detached garage, front and rear entries likely. I am proceeding around the block and will approach from the north.”

Giving instructions as she drove, Rebecca deployed the other two vehicles where the police officers and federal agents could easily approach the house from opposite directions. She and Sloan needed to be as close as possible so that Sloan could hack in and monitor the live download. Two minutes later, they were parked between several vehicles on the adjacent cross street in a spot from which they had a clear sightline to the house. Lights were visible in a room on the first floor.

“We might be lucky,” Rebecca said. “The doors should be fairly easy to breach, and if they’re in that room with the lights, we should be inside and have containment in less than ten seconds.”

Sloan didn’t reply. Head lowered over her screen, she was feverishly running through programs, attempting to establish a strong enough signal to trace the activity from LongJohn’s computer. Finally, after what seemed like an interminable wait, an image flickered and then stabilized on her monitor.

Three pairs of eyes focused on the fifteen-inch color screen. For a moment, the images were indistinct, and then the focus cleared and they were able to see two young girls as they walked naked into a room furnished with a large bed and not much else.

“Got you, you son of a bitch,” Sloan whispered.

“Should we go in?” Rebecca asked Sloan, an edge in her voice as she thought about Jason. She hated having a man out of sight and hearing, particularly inside a building with a perp of unknown violence potential. Especially while she sat in a car watching the radio.

From the backseat, Catherine placed a hand lightly on Rebecca’s shoulder and urged, “Wait a few minutes if you can.” She had been sitting quietly, watching the figures on Sloan’s screen. A man had entered the room, joining the two young girls. He wore a nondescript uniform, apparently supposed to represent a delivery person of some kind. The two naked girls feigned surprise and awkward shyness, all of it clearly staged but not nearly as artificial as she might have expected. There was a sense of cinema verité that was all too professional and deeply disturbing given the subject matter. “I’d give…this…a while to run, because I think LongJohn is more likely to be preoccupied the longer this goes on.”

Rebecca glanced back sharply, aware of the hollow note in her lover’s voice. Stakeout operations like these were never easy, not when pent-up, adrenalized excitement and the fear of something going wrong invariably combined to make you crazy. This time it was even harder, because she was certain that Catherine must be feeling tremendous compassion for the young girls being degraded and victimized while they all sat watching.

“No matter what we do here,” Rebecca reminded her gently, “it won’t make any difference to them. Not tonight, at least.”

“I know,” Catherine replied tonelessly, not looking directly at Rebecca. “Ten minutes. That should be about right.”

Rebecca keyed her mike and instructed the other teams, “We’ll go in ten. Team one, you have the front; team two, the rear. Move into position and wait for my signal.” After terminating the transmission, Rebecca glanced at Sloan. “Are you getting what you need?”

“Looks like it,” Sloan said without glancing up. Intensely concentrating, she was still rapidly sequencing through programs and downloading as much information as she could.

“Okay, good.” Rebecca itched for action. “You two stay here until the all-clear.” She handed Sloan a handy talkie. “I’ll contact you on this as soon as we’ve secured the location. Then you can get a look at his system.”

“Good enough.” For the first time in the last hour, Sloan lifted her gaze from the computer monitor. “Look out for Jason, will you?”

“Absolutely.” As Rebecca lifted the handle, swung open the door, and put one leg out, she glanced briefly again into the rear seat. Catherine was watching her. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

“Yes,” Catherine responded softly, her eyes on Rebecca’s face. Memorizing it, as if it hadn’t already been indelibly carved on her heart.

Rebecca slipped away into the darkness, and Catherine wondered once again what it was that made someone do that. What was it that allowed an individual to place herself in imminent peril to right some wrong or correct some injustice? She continued to stare at the house, barely able to make out a flicker in the surrounding shadows, which she imagined would be Watts and Mitchell and perhaps the Justice agents.

She tried to imagine what they were thinking and finally decided that there was no way she could, not without having experienced it. Suddenly, she understood some of why it was that police officers rarely had friendships outside the force. She also understood why they had such a high rate of divorce. How could anyone who did not do this on a daily basis possibly understand what it was to go out day after day and face the unknown? An unknown that could very well kill you.

“She’ll be fine,” Sloan said as if reading her mind.

Without taking her eyes off the front of the building, where she could just see the door but could not see the figures, who she knew must be crouching in the shadows, Catherine said once more, softly, “Yes.”

*

“Did I tell you or did I tell you?” LongJohn said with a note of both excitement and pride in his voice. “This is the real thing. Primo, man.”

The two men were seated in front of a twenty-one-inch flat-screen computer monitor in small comfortable easy chairs with a TV tray-table between them. Two open bottles of beer sat on the table flanking a bowl of peanuts. On the screen, the now naked thirty-year-old man, a big beefy guy who looked like a college football player gone to fat, stood by the side of the bed while one of the preteen girls performed fellatio on him. Kneeling on the floor next to them, the other girl fondled him. His large hand roamed over her barely perceptible breasts.

“Oh, yeah, it’s everything you said,” Jason said, facing the screen and fixing his gaze on a point two inches above it. He had watched enough to know that this was what they had been waiting for. He didn’t want to see the details. “Worth every penny, guy. And more so. I wouldn’t mind getting this on a regular basis.”

“Like I said, that can be arranged,” LongJohn said, his eyes riveted to the screen. “All you need is a little green and the right connections. We’ll pipe this straight to your bedroom.”

“Just tell me where to sign,” Jason replied. The live download had been running for almost ten minutes, and he wasn’t certain how long it would last. More importantly, he estimated that the strike force would make their move soon. Now was the time for a little diversion.

“You know, I’ve been waiting all weekend for this,” Jason said, purposefully lowering his voice and hesitating as if he were having trouble catching his breath. “I’m afraid I might pop in my pants if I don’t do something about it pretty soon.”

“Go ahead, man. Feel free. I’m in need of a little relief myself,” his companion answered.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jason could see LongJohn rhythmically squeezing the crotch of his jeans as he stared fixedly at the monitor. Jason made a show of unbuttoning his chinos and lowering his fly. He wasn’t worried that LongJohn would watch him, because LongJohn wasn’t interested in what Jason had between his legs. He was interested in watching the children performing sex acts on the man on the screen. Jason slipped his hand inside his trousers and faked a moan. He wasn’t hard, but LongJohn would never know that. He spread his legs wider and murmured, “Oh yeah, that’s better.”

Next to him, he heard the sound of a zipper sliding down followed by a grunt as LongJohn reached inside his jeans. The sounds from the speakers were mostly moans and strangled grunts and fragmented bits of dialogue that combined with Jason’s intentionally audible breathing and LongJohn’s escalating groans.

Jason hoped the noise would help mask the sounds of the police entry and add to the general confusion when the strike force descended upon them. His only concern now was that LongJohn would be quicker to the finish line than he had anticipated. The guy had freed himself from the confines of his pants, and from the sound of his breathing and the rapid creaking of the chair as the other man rocked his hips in an ever increasing crescendo, Jason feared that his diversion would be shot before Frye and friends arrived.

And he hadn’t planned a second act.

*

“On three,” Rebecca whispered into her mike. “One, two, three…GO.”

Watts hit the door with his considerable bulk, and it broke loose from the frame, crashing inward with a splinter of wood and popping screws. Rebecca was surprised at the speed with which the big man moved. In an instant, he had disappeared into the darkened room, Mitchell close behind. Distantly, she heard an echoing crash from somewhere in the depths of the house.
Clark’s team.

Rebecca moved low through the doorway, stepping up quickly next to Mitchell. They turned their backs to one another, guns extended in two-handed grips, each of them scanning opposite sides of the room. Watts was out in front, beside the door on the wall opposite the entry, peering around the corner into the next room.

“Clear!” Mitchell shouted.

“Go,” Rebecca ordered, and they all surged forward. Within a matter of seconds, they were in a large recreation room filled with computers, video machines, and graphics equipment. A large monitor sat on an elevated shelf displaying the sexual scene they had observed from the car. Moans and cries and hoarse
oh yeahs
provided a backdrop to the surprised exclamations of the two men in the easy chairs.

Watts yanked the suspect, a youngish white male in a T-shirt and jeans, from the chair and pushed him spread-eagled onto the floor. Kneeling with one meaty leg in the center of the stunned man’s back, Watts glanced up at Rebecca with a satisfied smile. “What do you think, huh, Sarge? Caught the scumbags with their dicks in their hands.”

“Well, just get him zipped up and read him the card,” Rebecca said, referring to the Miranda warning.

Mitchell had Jason, who was loudly protesting for all to hear that he’d had no idea LongJohn planned to show a sex video, in the same position on the floor as the perp. She secured cuffs onto him as she recited his rights in a flat monotone.

Rebecca lifted her radio and said, “Sloan, come on ahead.” Then, switching frequencies, “Dispatch, this is Detective Sergeant Frye. I need the crime scene team at—”

“That won’t be necessary, Detective,” Avery Clark said as he and his two agents converged on the scene from the rear of the house. “We’ll be taking the equipment into custody.”