Chapter 18

The night before leaving Spain

The team was departing Spain for Warsaw the next morning, so they had decided to deal with the human trafficking house that Noah had told them about. David had been in favor of letting law enforcement know and letting them deal with it. The rest of the team planned out the operation and how they would make sure that the only people that died in the house were the ones that deserved it. Denise did tell him that he could forward everything they found in the house to the bureau.

After a drone fly over one cloudy night, they had a general overview of the terrain surrounding the house. The drone had caught the entrance to a basement and showed them a trail that led through the trees to the house. With Steven and Hannah set up on the hill at the right corner, they had a full field of view of the front of the house and the side where the basement entrance was.

“No movement in the house, you’re clear to the basement.” Steven told the group.

“Roger, we’re moving.” Dom said quietly.

Steven and Hannah watched as the four of them moved from the tree line to the corner of the house and then paused. Dominic walked over to the fuse box and shut the power off to the house and rejoined the team. Petra moved forward and took a knee to cover the front of the house, while Dom was watching behind them. Robert attached a small piece of paracord to the door as Laura went to work on the locks. When she had both locks picked, she nodded her head and Robert gently pulled on the basement door while Laura searched for anti-intrusion devices. “Trip wire...” Laura said into comms. Not taking her eyes off the wire, she pulled two small blocks of wood out of a pouch on her belt. She slid them into the space between the door and the frame to keep the door from shutting so she could disarm the trap. “Ok, gently let it go.” Robert released the line and Laura went to work disarming the trap.

“How’s it feeling to be behind the rifle and not the spotter’s scope?” Steven asked Hannah.

“Not too bad, I wouldn’t mind more of this if I get the chance.” She replied as she looked through the scope of her M110 sniper rifle. “I do like these new thermals, SO much better resolution than the ones we used in Afghanistan.”

“Tell me about it. It’s like night and day between them.” He replied.

“Overwatch, confirm no movement in the house.” Dom said quietly.

“No movement.” Hannah told Steven.

“Confirm no movement, Assault...” Steven told Dominic.

Laura was using a small pen light to double check her work. When she was satisfied, she spoke. “Tripwire disarmed...” She nodded her head and Robert pulled the door open a bit more so Laura could see the inner frame of the door. She aimed her light at the top of the frame and found the hand grenade that was attached to the trip wire. “Grenade at the top of the door.” She reported. She reached up and started to pull the grenade out. Making sure to keep the spoon of the grenade in place, she double checked for wires attached to the bottom of the explosive device. When she saw there weren’t any, she pulled a roll of electrical tape from her pocket and handed it to Robert. “Six times around please...” Laura said to him. When he was finished, she said, “Clear...” and then put the grenade in her pack. She unslung her rifle from her back and then put her pack back on. She picked up her rifle and slid her NODs back down.

“Assault is Oscar Mike...” Dom said as the four of them entered the basement.

“Roger, still no movement in the house...” Steven said.

The four of them slipped quietly into the basement. Their night vision goggles lit up the darkness quite well. They saw a dozen cages and over half of them had people in them.

“Who’s there?” A quiet voice with a British accent asked in the darkness.

“Shhhh, I’ll be right there...” Petra whispered back to the voice. When she got to the cage where the voice came from, she lifted her NVGs and turned on a small pen light. The young girl in the cage looked up at her in fear. Shifting her rifle behind her and kneeling down next to her, Petra whispered, “It’s ok, don’t be afraid. We’re here to get you out.”

Laura was talking to another woman in another cage in Spanish. She told her that they were here to get them out and that they would be safe in a moment, but she had to stay quiet for now. The woman in the cage nodded her head and started to tear up hearing that she was safe now. Robert grabbed the bolt cutters from Laura’s pack and handed them to her so she could get started releasing the women and girls. She started cutting the lock to the cages as Petra came behind her, let them out, and had them stand next to the exit.

“Home base, be advised, we count 8 hostages.” Dominic said quietly.

“Roger, I copy 8 hostages, we’re ready to receive them.” Denise’s voice came over the radio.

“Roger...” Dominic replied. “Over watch, Rescue is bringing the hostages out now, look for IR flash.” Dominic told Steven.

Steven and Hannah watched as Laura flashed her IR laser at the ground. “Coming out.” They heard her say.

“You’re clear Rescue, come out.” They watched as Laura came out first and stood in the middle of the back yard to cover them in case anyone inside the house started shooting at them. Then Petra came out followed by 8 women. She briskly walked to the trail that the team came in on and took a knee. Talitha and David met the group at the tree line and waved at them to follow them. When the group of women were out of the way, Petra jogged back to the house and linked up with Laura.

“Rescue is coming in, hold fire.” Laura said quietly.

“Roger.” Dominic said. Hannah and Steven watched as Laura and Petra quietly moved into the basement. “Assault is regrouped, moving to the main level.”

“Roger, still no movement or lights.” Steven told him. That exact same second, Hannah and Steven heard a car coming up the road towards the house. He looked up and over Hannah to see if it was coming to the house. He saw the lights coming up the drive and getting closer. “Assault, freeze where you are, vehicle in coming.” He watched as the car pulled up to the house and then shut off. A pair of men got out of the car, started to stretch, and talk to each other.

“Range to vehicle, 2-9-1 yards, shooter on target.” Hannah told him.

“Passenger first and then the driver.” He told Hannah. “Fire on my one ... Three ... Two ... One...” Hannah’s suppressed rifle fired a 7.62 round into the heart of the passenger and then another into the driver with less than two seconds between shots. “Targets are down. Assault, you’re clear from outside.” Steven said to Dominic and the others. Looking through the thermal sights, they watched as the rest of the team made their way into the main level of the house. Steven and Hannah saw someone was walking into the living area but was immediately shot dead by the team.

“One down main living area.” They heard Petra say.

“Roger.” Steven told her.

Noticing the vehicle rear bouncing a bit, Hannah spoke up. “The vehicle has someone in it, the ass end is bouncing.”

Before he could look, Steven heard two suppressed rifles firing in the house.

“Two down, master bedroom.” Robert called out.

“Roger.” He replied. Turning his spotter’s scope to the vehicle, he looked and watched as it shook. “Assault, we have movement in the vehicle, possible hostage in the trunk or back seat.”

“Roger, bravo team, what’s your status?” Dominic asked.

“Bravo team is clear.” Robert came back with.

“Roger, move outside and check the vehicle, we’re right behind you.” Dom told him.

“Overwatch, bravo team coming out...” Robert said through the radio. He flashed his IR laser out on the ground.

“Roger, you’re clear, come out.” Steven replied.

Robert and Laura moved out of the house and to the vehicle. Robert slung his rifle over his shoulder to his back and pulled out his pistol. Turning the flashlight attached to it on, he started to check the vehicle. Dom and Petra had joined them by the time they got to the trunk. When they opened the trunk, a pair of young women screamed in terror.

“Homefront, two more in the trunk of the vehicle.” Dom told her.

“Roger, we’re on the move to your location, be there in 10 minutes.” Denise told him.

“They’re French, we need you down here Overwatch...” Robert came across the radio.

“Roger, be there ASAP.” Steven said as he and Hannah started breaking down their hide site. After making their way down the hill, they broke into a fast jog to get to the vehicle. Hannah set her rifle down and pulled off all her gear and started talking to the crying women.

“Sh-sh-sh-sh, Vous êtes en sécurité, vous n’allez pas être blessé, nous sommes là pour vous aider, calmez-vous. Détendez-vous et laissez-nous vous aider.” Hannah said to them. “Calmez-vous, vous êtes en sécurité maintenant. Nous allons vous sortir de là.”

Laura came back out with two blankets for the girls, handed one to Petra, and wrapped them up since their clothes were in tatters. Hannah asked what happened to them. The older one started to talk and explain what happened about the same time Denise and David appeared from around the corner of the house.

“They’re French and from the little that I speak, they were kidnapped the same way that they tried to get our women a few days ago. Everything they’re saying is being recorded.” Dom told her. He turned to look at David, “There’s a computer in the basement that we haven’t been through yet, I’ll have our computer goddess go down with you.”

David and Petra started walking back into the house but stopped when Steven spoke.

He was shining his weapon light down at the ground. “Hey look ... It’s Jaxon and his butt-pirate buddy Gerald.” He said pointing at the driver and the passenger.

David walked over, knelt down, and looked at the body. “Yup. It sure is.” He stood up and looked at Steven. “Guess he should have listened to you.” He pulled out a small digital camera and took pictures of them before following Petra into the house and down into the basement.

Thirty minutes later, everything was packed up and only Dominic, Laura, Denise, and David were left. They were waiting for Laura to finish her demolitions preparations. As she came out of the basement, the noticed she was carrying another backpack in addition to her own.

“What did we miss?” David asked her as she handed the pack to him.

“Nothing major ... Just a strong box with a bunch of euros in it.” She replied handing it to him. “I left three candles burning in the bedrooms and turned the gas back on as I walked out. The house should be filled by the time it reaches them.”

“Will it do the job?” Denise asked.

“Absolutely. I dumped a small gas can of fuel on the drapes, so when the gas catches, the drapes will act as an accelerant.” She replied.

“How did we miss this much money?” David asked holding it open so Denise could see how much was in it.

“It was in the return for the AC unit. I noticed it when I was disconnecting the gas line to the inner unit.” She told him.

By the time the four of them were back at the vehicles, they could see the house had been engulfed in flames and was burning with no way to stop it. Denise walked up to Lana and Talitha who had been caring for the women that had been kidnapped. “How are they?”

“They are understandably traumatized, but they are thankful for you rescuing them.” Lana told her. “The woman sitting on the rock, her name is Margarete, would like to talk to someone about someone that visited the house.”

“Hey David, someone has information for us...” Denise said. David followed Denise over to the woman sitting on the rock. “This is Margarete and apparently she has information about a person that came to the house.”

“Hello, I’m David and this is Denise, what would you like to talk to us about?” he asked the woman.

“I was here for vacation before I went back to university to finish my studies. I was drugged and kidnapped like the rest of these women were. I cannot speak for them, but I was raped by a Tunisian man named Nahir Abdullah.” She told him. She wiped a tear away from her eye and started speaking again. “When he was raping me, he would refer to himself in the third person, which is what made me remember it better. Instead of making me more afraid of him, it just made me more angry. He kept telling me that I would be his personal slave and that I would do anything and everything he wanted.”

“How do you know he’s Tunisian?” Denise asked.

“He kept talking about how his brothers in Tunisia would love me as well.” Margarete told her.

Denise looked over at Tali. “Can you call your superiors?” Tali pulled her phone out and walked off to make a call.

“What did this Nahir look like?” David asked. Him and Denise listened as she gave a detailed description of his face and various birthmarks and scars on his face and body. “Your description is very detailed, what are you studying?”

“I am studying law at the University of Milan.” She replied.

“Well, that explains it.” Denise said with a grin. “Can you tell us anything else about Nahir that might help us?”

“He mentioned the fact that he would be back with his yacht to take me to his home.” She replied. “He also took pictures of the women that were still at the house saying that he knew buyers that would be interested in them.”

David was recording everything she said to them. “Did you overhear anything that the boss at the house might have told him?”

“The man that ran the house told him that they changed ‘stock’ every 5 days. Other than that, I do not know anything else.” She told him.

Denise put her hand on her shoulder. “Thank you, Margarete. You were very brave to stay so strong during your ordeal.”

“What will happen to us now?” She asked.

“We are going to take you to a hospital to get examined and Interpol will be notified about the ten of you and where you are.” Denise replied. “Don’t worry about this Nahir Abdullah, he will be taken care of, I promise you.”

“Thank you...” Margarete said as she started to break down and cry.

A few minutes later, the team had all the women in the vehicles and were on their way to the local hospital. Denise had talked to a contact she had in Interpol and he was VERY interested in what Denise was telling him. They had dispatched a team to meet them at the hospital and would take care of the women from there. David handed over copies of everything they took from the house and sent the originals to the Madrid office of the FBI. The team decided that they would split the one point seven million euros between the ten women as compensation for pain and suffering. Lana volunteered to get the accounts set up and deposit the money in them for the girls. After everything was finished, they had a meeting with the FBI at St Etienne at Lana’s new home.

1 week later, the warehouse in Warsaw

Directors Richards and Denise were sitting in the conference room at the warehouse in Warsaw talking about the coming weeks. The team had received the target packages through secure email the day after they had dropped Lana off at her place in France. The FBI was waiting on her to walk Lana through her house and to show her where all the panic buttons were located. David had walked with her and was asking questions about levels of response and reaction times.

“The panic buttons are all well-hidden, but easy to get to.” He told David and Lana. They walked into the kitchen and watched as he opened a cabinet door next to the refrigerator. “The kitchen button is here and it’s pressure sensitive. Press and hold it for two seconds and it activates.” He told her.

Lana reached into the drawer and felt the button. “It feels like it is part of the wood.”

“We sunk it into the wood to be able to hide it better. The other two switches are under the right side of the mantel over the fireplace, and in the master bathroom under the vanity.” He told her.

“So, if she hits a panic button, how long will it take to get someone here?” David asked.

The agent handed him what looked like a cheap cell phone. “It would take us too long to get here to engage whoever is attacking her. Our department was told she has E&E training. She hits the panic button in the house and when she’s safe, she calls the number on that phone. It has a built in GPS so we can track her in real time. She gets picked up and taken to a secure location until we can place her again.”

“When you say secure location...” David started to ask.

“The American embassy in Paris.” The agent replied. “I’ve been briefed that Katerina Cirillo is priority one and that she is to be protected as an active asset at all costs.”

“So, what you’re saying is that they want to know where she is at all times in case someone wants to talk to her.” David asked.

“Pretty much.” The agent responded.

“I have to ask. If she gets a call from someone that wants to talk to her, will the caller ID still come up as Schimel’s Bakery?” David asked with a smirk.

“Yeah, it will, how do you know about that?” the agent asked a bit puzzled.

“Once upon a time when I was a baby agent ... I was Schimel.” David replied with a smirk. He looked over at Lana. “So, what do you think?”

She was looking running her hand over the counter tops in her kitchen. “I am thinking I’m going to put granite counter tops in and redo the paint in the dining room with a sky blue with eggshell crown molding.” She replied.

“You’re already planning home improvements?” The agent asked.

“Of course. If you are not trying to put your signature all over your home, what is the sense in having one, do you not agree David?” She asked.

“I do actually.” David replied.

“Do you have active listening and video in this house?” She asked the agent.

“We do, but it only activates if you hit one of the panic buttons.” The agent replied. He walked over to the wall perpendicular to the front door and pointed to the thermostat. “This has a fiber optic camera that is linked directly to the cloud. There’s another one at the back door as well.” They walked to the living area and he pointed to the carbon monoxide detector. “Here’s the other camera. The microphones are all located in the ceiling fans and the light fixtures and will only come on if you trigger them.”

Looking David in the eye, she asked the agent, “No one is going to watch me if I have male company over in the evenings?”

“No, no one can activate the cameras unless the panic alarm is triggered.” The agent told her.

David saw the look in Lana’s eyes as he looked back at her. He smiled and blushed a bit and walked closer to her. “That means I can’t watch you either...” He whispered to her.

David opened his eyes and was brought back to the present by someone yelling his name. “Sorry, could you repeat that, I was doing trigonometry in my head...”

“Keep lying to yourself if you want to. I was asking you about Lana’s security and what you thought about it.” Richards asked him.

“I went over everything and I’m confident that with the security measures in place, she’ll be ok.” He replied. “I do have to admit that I really wanted to explore the tunnel under the house. It was always a childhood dream to have a tunnel under my house.”

“I agree, it’s a boyhood dream of mine as well. The guy that we bought it from, his father owned the house during World War 2. The resistance used the house and tunnel to hide fighters and store material during the war.” Richards told him. “The tunnel exit comes up into the farmer’s market two blocks north of her house.”

“Good to know.” David replied.

Tali walked in with her arm through Director Fogelman’s arm. They were laughing and talking in Hebrew. He kissed her on the cheek and then walked to the chair with his name on it.

“Henry, how are you my friend?” He asked Director Richards.

“I’m good thanks Chiam. How’s your family?” Hank asked him as he shook his hand and embracing him.

“They are good. Since I am in Poland for a couple days, Devorah is staying with our daughter this week. She called me this morning to tell me that her mission to spoil our grandchildren is a complete success.” He replied. “She received your Lucy’s graduation invitation for December. Has she decided on where she is doing her residency?”

“She starts her residency in May at Emory in Atlanta.” Hank told him. “She was one of four students that was selected by the chief of staff to do residency under him. Needless to say, her mom and I are very proud.”

“You should be. Dr Sweeny is very selective about the residents he picks.” He replied.

Denise waited for the rest of the team to walk in and sit down before she spoke. “Directors, if you would be seated, we’ll get going on what we have for the target package you gave us.” Denise asked.

Chiam stood and spoke before they started the briefing. “Before we begin, I want to relate to you what happened with Nahir Abdullah.”

“Did something bad happen to him?” Robert asked.

“He was the unfortunate victim of pirates. The Italian navy found his yacht drifting off the coast of Sardinia. There was no one aboard and there was human blood all over the interior.”

“Awww, too bad.” Denise said with a smirk.

“Has he talked yet?” Hank asked.

“We are gathering intelligence on his human trafficking network and other businesses he is involved in. We are hopeful that we can have enough information to shut it down.” Chiam told him. “Of course, we will share it with you as we gather the intelligence.”

“We look forward to seeing what you send us, Chiam.” Hank told him with a smirk. “I’d love to shove a few cruise missiles up their collective asses.”