Authors: B J Brandon
SAFE
SAFE
B J BRANDON
Copyright © 2015 B J BRANDON
All rights reserved.
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Bristol-Myers Squibb - Excedrin
Drug Enforcement Administration - DEA
Federal Bureau of Investigation - FBI
General Motors Company - Denali
Thank you to all of my readers who have kept me hopping and writing. My Beta Readers, Del Kellogg, Patricia Walsh, and Jeremy Davis, who took time out of their busy days to give me suggestions and walk me through the quagmire of writer’s block, writer’s doubts, and all of the other problems over the last few months.
A special thanks to Roy D, who without him the
www.bjbrandon.com
would never have gotten off the ground the way it has, even when he tells me to keep my fingers off of it. (Grinz)
This book is dedicated to my sisters and my brother. You cannot pick your family but it is everything and blood is usually thicker than water. Keep your extend family, those you
choose
close to you because they will never lie to you and will be the ones who are there in the darkest times.
And finally Melissa - I hope you like your story! This Melissa has been in my dreams for a long time. A strong woman who has stood her grown, gone her own way, and is the toughest blond Amazon that I know. I love you kiddo - take care.
Table of Contents
Organized chaos was everywhere as several ambulances, squad cars from the FBI, DEA, and local Sheriff’s department all worked to get survivors out of a set of underground holding cells. Melissa McKinney shook her head again in wonder as she watched emergency staff assist several small figures when they couldn’t walk on their own. They handed them into the hands of professionals who hopefully would help put their lives back together. Her team had been on the trail of a cartel specializing in designer drugs coming into the United States across the Mexican borders and instead found the nest of human traffickers and gunrunners. Now all of the alphabets of law enforcement agencies were working to keep the push of reporters and locals back from the scene.
As Lead DEA agent assigned to the case, Melissa looked at the national news crews with their telescoping cameras and flashy reporters pushing to outdo each other for a story to propel them into stardom when their suspects could be standing right next to them. The local Sheriff’s department tried to keep them all behind the yellow crime tape but she realized this was getting out of hand, fast.
Vultures! These kids will never be the same again.
Visions of the cages and videos found within the scene made her stomach roll and her temper soar. This was why she went with the DEA instead of some of the other law enforcement agencies upon graduation but it seems this time it would have to be a cross-functional effort to catch scumb bags.
“Move those people back to the next parking lot so the emergency personnel have more room!” she yelled at the men corralling the onlookers. One of the men flashed his hand that he understood and began pushing the crowd back. She turned back just in time to see the last of the young prisoners led from the dark caverns, and Melissa cursed under her breath.
“I hate this shit!” she growled to the man standing next to her.
“It will get worse before it gets better, McKinney.” Buck Stanfield’s gruff reply was something Melissa was used to but the young Rookie standing close by cringed and turned to look at them.
“No way, sir.” She didn’t know who he was but Melissa almost felt sorry for him.
“If you are going to work for the DEA son, you need to get used to the shit storm humanity brings down on itself. This is clean compared to some of the atrocities these monsters can think up.” Buck turned his head and spit his gum out into a Kleenex tissue before stuffing it into his back pocket to dispose of later. One thing her boss, he was careful.
Melissa made it look like her attention was back on the crowd around them, watching. The hair on her nape and neck had been tingling, her senses kicking in warning her she was the center of attention instead of what was going on. She knew their IT geek was in the DEA’s van running surveillance on anyone showing up in the area and the Team would review it later. But she would bet her best gun someone was here somewhere, watching their “product” being removed from the area. Melissa could feel him. They had just taken his toys away from him. He wasn’t going to sit back and stew over it; there would be consequences, of that she had no doubt.
The profile the FBI had worked up made them sure they were looking for at least one male with possibly a team working this gig from the looks of the set-up they had found, it made sense. One person couldn’t have managed this complex of an operation alone. It would also take connections, multiple layers in order to transport and conceal their “product” which caused Melissa’s stomach to ache. This case was going to be the one that added to her nightmares, no question about it.
She was brought back from her thoughts and scanning the crowd as some of the younger ones were led out into the bright Texas sun trying to shield their eyes. This small community southeast of Amarillo, Texas had never seen anything as horrific as this and it had shaken the Bible-belt community to its core. It was no wonder there were so many in the crowd.
“Fuck!” Buck whispered under his breath as one of the girls stumbled, unable to stand. A female EMT gently wrapped the blanket more securely around her small frame before picking her up, cradling her against her chest. The EMT carried her to the waiting emergency vehicles that were filling fast and held her, rocking her and looked to be whispering to her softly while smoothing the messy hair back from the small face as tears streamed down the young EMT’s face.
“I know,” was all Melissa said to her boss as she stood beside him, notebook in hand. She kept jotting down notes from the last few interviews they had just finished only minutes before. “At least we were able to save eight of them, Buck.”
She couldn’t bear to look into his face, knowing the agony she would see there. He was a big man, an ex-Army Ranger and had been with the DEA for twenty years. He had seen all manner of evil that mankind could rain down on itself and had lectured Melissa countless times as her mentor on proper procedures, protocols and how to survive within the agency when she had joined the DEA. Buck Stanfield had never pampered Melissa but she could honestly say he had kicked her ass many times when he felt she needed. He had also stood by her as one of the few women in the agency who was exceptional at her job.
Now she kept a tight hold on her empathic blocks as a guard for her sanity. First, she was astute enough to realize Buck would never understand if she tried to explain them since he was a man of actions not so much feelings; and, second, the emotions surrounding her would bombard her entire being, sending her to her knees in a blinding shit storm. She had been fighting a headache ever since they had walked into that den of evil. The resulting migraine was something Melissa didn’t have time for right now but realized she may not have a choice later in the evening.
“I want you working with the Sheriff’s office on this one, Melissa. Not to mention the FBI will be involved in this since I’m sure there are some interstate complications. It’s their justification; we don’t want to step on toes. We need to work and coordinate with the Task Force and ensure that our lead on this is solid and everyone has as much information as possible.”
“Already on it, Sir.” Melissa’s comment seemed to ease some of Buck’s scowl. “I’ve already talked with the Leads of the alphabet groups and a meeting of the Task Force is set for 8 PM this evening. I’ve confirmed the DEA and FBI will be working together. The Sheriff’s Department allocated a large area that should hold all of us until this is resolved along with tech support and whatever else was needed to help Lonnie.”
She saw Buck’s head turn and Melissa grinned.
“Yes, Lonnie will be running the tech support, boss. Would I let anyone else do it? That boy is a genius.”
“Good job, McKinney.”
Melissa wasn’t looking forward to spending a lot of time back in her old stomping grounds again but there wasn’t anything that could be done about it. The old haunts were going to have to stay buried or else there would be no way she could function, and that meant staying away from her family.
“Do we have enough people lined up to help with the interviews for all of the ones rescued tonight or will some of them have to wait until tomorrow?” Stanfield asked, bringing her back to the task at hand.
“The immediate estimate is several of the older ones will need medical care first for obvious reasons such as rape and dehydration, abuse and other causes. A few of the younger ones were in better condition, probably because they haven’t been here long enough or may have only arrived.” Melissa rubbed her chin, looking toward the crime scene, thinking as she talked. “My guess is we talk to the young ones first while it’s still fresh, if we can. I know how Child Protective Services works in Potter and Randall County, boss. They will be hard to work with.”
“Fuck CPS!” Stanfield yelled, turning to Melissa and pointing his long, bony finger at her. “I want those kids talked to and protected. Get Ashton and Garcia working on CPS and that clusterfuck with the PR folks. We need to keep a lid on this for as long as possible. Lonnie’s IT magic will be needed on this one, so I want him working those techs like they are whores in his own whorehouse.”
He looked around the area with that piercing hawk’s gaze that had always made Melissa cringe in her rookie days wondering what he could see that no one else could. It was as if Buck Stanfield had laser eyes that could scope out a crime scene, picking out minute items a CSI tech had walked right over. It always gave her an eerie feeling that he could actually zero in on things no one else could. It was what made him such a great DEA Agent and an outstanding leader.
“He’s here, girl. I can feel him!” Buck whispered, keeping his eyes on the emergency staff and the kids.
“I know, sir. I can feel him too. However, Lonnie has surveillance set up and we’ll figure out what we aren’t seeing with our eyes as soon as he can run his programs.” She pushed her notebook into her hip pocket. Pushing a long strand of hair out of her eyes, Melissa took another good look around them.
“Gentle like, girl! I need you to go light on folks around here.” he growled, looking back at her as if he could read her mind. “I mean it! But I want as much information as we can get as quickly as we can get it. My gut tells me this nut job will go after more kids now that we took his toys away from him.”
“I’m afraid you may be right, sir!” she whispered, following her boss as he walked toward the black GMC Denali SUV off to the side thankful for its dark tented windows in this Texas heat. It was going to be a long night before either of them got any sleep.
Thirty-six hours later, after too much coffee and very little food, Melissa managed to fall into the king-size bed of her hotel room, exhausted and thankful for the hot shower she had run to almost cold. The team had managed to gather some preliminary interviews and a specially selected Executive Admin was entering them into the database so the excruciatingly painful process of identifying and notifying loved ones could begin.
It broke Melissa’s heart when she realized that more than half of the little ones had no one to contact. From a brief glance of her cliff notes, so far it looked like their perpetrator was buying children from foster homes, grabbing them off the streets and wherever else they were least likely to be missed, like shelters. With each story she read Melissa silently promised to track down the scumbag and make him pay for what was being done to these innocents. Lonnie had worked miracles in the short time he’d been here and managed to get her more information than just phone calls. The young geek was something else and you didn’t want to turn him loose on your personal computer. He could enhance it to rival any government set up out there. Melissa had proof with her personal laptop because he had restored it when it had crashed. She still didn’t know how he did some of the things he did.