Chapter 21

Cue the Mission Impossible theme -- bumpbump-badah-bumpbump-baddah-bumpbump-badah bumpbump-deedleooo, deedleooo, deedleooo...

I saw the movie. Charlie's Angels might have been more appropriate but there's only one of me.

My mission, which I had invented my own self, was to infiltrate a house where six underage siblings were being held against their will, rescuing them from a future of pornographic video performances, prostitution, drug addiction, and winding up working the mean streets of God only knows what city, for whatever short lifetime they had.

This tape will self-destruct in fifteen seconds.

Sure, the police had their rescue plan. Brute force. Mine involved subtlety, and I could only hope when it ended it wouldn't take my skinny ass with it, along with asses of the kids I was trying to rescue. I had to pull it off before the balloon went up and the doors came down.

Or maybe that should be the doors came down and the balloon went up?

Whatever.

My mouth was dry and my gloved palms sweaty. Hanging on by ten toes and five finger tips I carefully used my one free hand to open the second floor window, thanking whatever deities were keeping me safe if not sane, that the home's current owners had not thought to nail it shut. They probably didn't think anyone could reach it from the outside, and that it was too far off the ground to risk jumping from.

Obviously they didn't know me. I've done both, though the jump was more of a fall.

My ears were cocked for the slightest sound as, pushing through heavy drapes, I slithered through the opening with nary a whisper. I might have been mistaken for a ninja if I weren't six feet tall with a swimmer's shoulders -- think feminine lumberjack. I had a black balaclava pulled down over my trademark mop of blonde hair hiding everything but my eyes. From the neck down it was a black turtleneck, black tights, black knit gloves, even black soft-soled slippers.

Thanks to thrift shops I looked like something out of a low-budget action flick.

I was a shadow.

I was a ghost.

I was scared shitless.

In exactly fifteen minutes a battalion of police and federal agents, looking like robo-cops, all swaddled in nice safe bulletproof vests and helmets, were going to execute a no-knock warrant and take down this snake-pit, hopefully without killing anyone. According to Maria, the Good Guys would only be armed with tasers and their grenades were only loaded with obnoxious gases or lots of flash and bang but no sharp fragments to get bloodstains on my nice outfit.

Yeah, and I still believe in the tooth fairy! Maria I trust, but not a SWAT team made up of local, state and federal forces. Still trying to recruit me for the constabulary, Maria had talked them into letting me sit in on the planning sessions. There had been enough testosterone floating around that briefing room to grow hair on my chest. Someone was sure to bring something extra to the party.

Us girls got testosterone too, you know. Maybe that's drove me to do this.

I had two plans.

Plan A was that I'd get all of the kids out of the house the same way I got in, before all hell broke loose.

Plan B was that if we couldn't get out I'd barricade my room's door from the inside, and stuff myself and whoever I had with me in my closet, where we'd hunker down until things quieted down.

I even pre-programmed text messages to Maria to alert her once we were either clear or under cover and where we were.

And just how, you ask, had I once again gotten myself into such a mess? Why was it me and not some suitably experienced and armored cop crawling through the window?

Because only I knew a way to sneak in without a key and had the Spider-Man skills to do it stealthily enough to get away with it.

Besides, according to Maria, "stealth" is not found in the SWAT field manual. "Massive use of force" is the operative phrase.

Secondly, I knew the house like I knew the inside of my own eyelids. Oh sure, Mom and I described the layout to the cops, but I knew every creaky board and squeaky hinge, because this had been my home for most of my life! The thought of these monsters using it for their sick shit had me feeling like I was being raped along with these poor kids.

Come to think of it, if I screwed up I might be.

Best not to think of it.

Given the kind of people we were dealing with, the only comforting thought was that if this whole thing went sour I might only wind up as someone's sex slave rather than in a pine box.

A fate worse than death? Debatable. After all, where there's life there's hope.

Anyway, the trail of breadcrumbs that had led me to this point picked up where we'd left Missy Wilson's mom still holding forth on the wonders of self-proclaimed prophet Pastor Paul and his noble, self-sacrificing, forward-looking congregation.

Yeah, right. The question in my mind, as to whether he was just as deluded as his flock, crooked as a corkscrew, or the mastermind behind this obscene conspiracy had yet to be determined.

At Mom's office, while she had been busy tracking some highly questionable real estate transactions, I'd innocently amused myself at another terminal by tracking down the story of our old home since we'd moved. I found some curious stuff -- it's amazing how much you can learn from just a street address and seeing where the Internet takes you.

At the time I didn't know how important what I'd learned would turn out to be.

What Mom found that sent her off on a tear I don't know. At the police station she had gone in search of someone she could talk with about it. Elaine hadn't been available to bring take-out -- some mothers-to-be can be so inconsiderate as to when they go into labor! -- and I was starving. I ran into Maria and my old friend from pre-Worm days Mrs. Swain, from Child Protective Services, in the break room. Maria treated me to some yogurt out of the fridge-- be still my beating heart and panging stomach! -- and the three of us chatted while they drank muddy coffee.

I learned that the raids had gone well, for the most part, breaking the back of the pedophile ring. But during the process some children had been misplaced. A whole family of 'em, in fact.

Mrs. Swain was beating herself up about that, of course.

Mom came back from her meeting looking frustrated. "They wouldn't listen to me! Told me to take it up with the Board of Realtors. They're too busy chasing pedophiles right now."

She sighed, then noticed Mrs. Swain. "Hi! I'm sorry, I know we've met before but I forget ... I'm Kathy Walker, Dee's mom."

"I know. I'm Georgia Swain, CPS."

"Child Protective Services," I filled in.

"Of course! You were there at the war council that brought down that..." Even Mom had trouble saying the Worm's name. "What brings you here?"

"Kids, of course. When the cops bust the pedos, we save the kids -- or try to." She went on to explain about the missing ones. "We should've been suspicious when we placed 'em in that foster home two months ago. We should have taken a good hard look at anyone willing to take all six kids. Sure, we like to keep siblings together, but finding someone that will accept a brood that big is a dream and the group homes are already overcrowded. We should have known it was just too good to be true. Now they've all vanished."

"When?" Mom asked. "How?"

"Just before the foster parents -- so-called -- were to be busted for promoting sexual performances by children, as it is so delicately put. Kiddie porn!" Mrs. Swain's dark face puckered with fury. "The youngest is six, the oldest, a girl, is twelve and just blossoming, as the creeps would put it. That's Mary.

"She tries to be mother to the others. She's strong, but so young yet. Jacob is a year younger, tries to be the man of the house -- such as it is. The ten-year-olds are fraternal twins, a boy and a girl. After them is Mark, who is eight, and the baby Elizabeth, six. They were so happy to be reunited after two years split up and bouncing around through the system!" She was almost in tears.

I felt sick. "How'd they get away during the raid?"

"They didn't get away," Swain answered angrily. "Someone took 'em away. The so-called foster parents must have been tipped off. They took 'em out the back just before we got the house surrounded. We already had the streets blocked off, so they must've been taken through the backyards."

"We caught the foster parents two blocks away," Maria explained, "but by then the kids had already been handed off to someone else. I swear, this case is like a game of Whack-a-Mole! Too many perps hiding in too many places, not enough of us. God! They must have seen a gold mine in those poor kids. How'd they wind up in a trap like this?"

Mrs. Swain sighed. "They were born behind the eight-ball. Their mom was a victim of abuse herself, had her first child when she was all of thirteen, the last when she was nineteen, when she finally got off on her own, still a kid herself, not even a high school diploma. Trying to do the right thing she wound up like so many do, working the streets to support her family. She got a drug habit, of course. When she went into rehab we took the children into the system. The youngest was barely two. Tried to keep 'em together, but it was impossible, until this opportunity dropped in our lap. Some opportunity!

"But now things have gone from bad to worse. Turns out we're not dealing with your garden-variety pedophiles. These guys traffic in human souls. They deliberately set up their honey pot of a 'foster home'" -- she hooked her fingers into quotes -- "to pluck these kids out of the system -- a bunch of ripe, plump grapes fresh off the vine. Now they're probably squirreled away in some address that's not on our lists until they can be shipped out to God only knows where."

"What about in an apartment? A cheap motel?" Mom asked.

Swain shook her head. "Not a rental. They wouldn't want a landlord snooping about. Not a motel either, even a no-tell motel would be too risky. Probably a house, not abandoned -- they'd want power and water -- but a recent sale. It's been done before. They pick it up cheap, when the market's low, and just hold it, maybe rent it out until they need it themselves. Then they'll use it for short-term storage, dump it back on the market before we know it, even burn it down for the insurance. Probably even make a profit on it in the process."

"How recent a sale?" Mom asked. "Maybe I can track it down for you. The market's been on the slow side. I was lucky to find a buyer for our place as quick as I did -- the perk of being in the real estate business, I guess. Got a better price than I expected, even."

I remembered how happy Mom had been when she'd gotten that offer, and that reminded me of my snooping. "That's funny. While you were busy doing your thing at the office I was looking up the records on our old place. About a month ago it sold again, for less than we got."

That jolted Mom. "How much less?"

"Something like low five digits to the left of the decimal."

"That's a lot less! A month ago? The people who bought from us had hardly moved in. Why would they sell? That doesn't make sense. And why would they take less than they paid?" Mom looked at me but all I could do was shrug.

Mrs. Swain's nose wrinkled. "I smell a setup, just like that foster home was."

Maria nodded. "Swapping ownership to hide their trail. Either that or -- to use an old movie line -- someone made them an offer they couldn't refuse. Cash money under the table, or extortion."

We all looked at each other, the same suspicion rattling around in our heads.

Oh shit. Our guts were telling us where the lost could be found.

"You don't suppose..." Mom began.

"It would be a heck of a coincidence," I pointed out.

Swain studied the dregs in the bottom of her cup. "We're out of leads. Maybe..."

"It's a long shot, but there's nothing to lose following up on this one," Maria concluded.

Mom began shredding a napkin. "How can we check it out? The previous owners?"

"If they haven't skipped town," Maria countered. "Or even really existed. Did they have a mortgage?"

Mom shook her head, looking sick. "Paid cash -- or, rather, a certified check, drawn on a local bank, no less."

"So there's a lot of money floating around. Money can buy identities, too," Maria pointed out. "We'll look, but it's better just to stake out the house. Six kids ain't easy to hide, feed, or move. See who's going in and out. Pull in some people to interview -- postmen, newspaper boys. Not neighbors, that might be noticed. Maybe see if we can slip in a cop masquerading as someone looking for a gas leak or somethin', even just to knock on the door to get a peek."

She gathered up the used cups, grabbed the shreds of Mom's napkin and tossed them all in a gaping trash barrel. "Come on. We gotta talk to Mike. Chiquita? You got any paperwork or anything to confirm this -- what do they call it -- flipping the house?"

"I can do it," Mom volunteered.

"Wanna race? Don't forget, I just did it," I pointed out.

She surrendered without a fight.

It hadn't even taken that long, and half an hour after presenting what we had to Maria's boss, Detective Sergeant Michael Kelly, he had a stakeout arranged. They needed more than just our suspicions before they could get a warrant to barge in.

So, less than a week later, thanks to evidence gathered by, among other things, a pizza delivery girl -- Maria got a nice tip that night, though maybe it was for her awesome cleavage and bright smile rather than good service -- they had what they thought they needed.

I wasn't included in their calculations, of course, but thanks to Maria I knew as much as they did -- I'm her favorite pupil after all -- and I could see how it could all turn into a really ugly hostage situation. Even they acknowledged that as a possibility, and had a negotiating team standing by.

Whoopee.

Maria was suspicious of me, but I assured her our partnership was solid.

I wasn't sure it would be after this, though.

I tiptoed over to check the door, guided by a faint light from the hall. Obviously it wasn't locked from the other side. Maria's assessment was that with six hostages, the bad guys would go with chains and locks to secure them at night rather than go to the trouble of outside locks on the doors. I heaved a mental sigh of relief that she was right. I eased the door closed to block any noise from in here.

"Who's there?"

I froze, prickling with sweat. It was as much a whisper as a whimper, and sounded like a girl. I guess my sigh hadn't been just mental or I hadn't been as silent with the door as I thought. On the other hand, in her situation I'd be alert to the slightest sound, especially from the door. Abandoning my cloak of invisibility I stripped off the balaclava so I wouldn't look like a pair of spooky eyes floating through space as I moved through the gloom in the direction of her voice.

"Sshhhhh. My name is Dee Walker. This used to be my house. I'm here to get you out of here."

To my surprise she seemed to accept that. Maybe after all she'd been through she'd learned to roll with the punches, or accept any chance that was better than what she had.

"Not without the others," she insisted stoutly.

"Of course not. All of you. Come on."

There was a rattle. "I'm chained to the bed."

"Where? Are you Mary?"

"Yeah. It's my ankle."

A stroke of luck, it was the oldest girl. I dug the bolt cutters I'd borrowed from the shop class out of the crack of my ass, where they'd decided to hide during my climb. God only knows what would have happened to me if I'd fallen on them.

"Sorry," I apologized as I fumbled around in the dark. She was blossoming. She was also naked and there was someone else jammed in with her.

Yum! was The Stick's reaction.

Not now! I scolded. Naked for us is our comfort zone, but for these kids it's vulnerable.