Chapter 15

Monday

Something woke me even earlier than usual this morning. I wasn’t sure what it was, but knew it wasn’t my normal early morning wakefulness. I crawled from bed carefully to avoid waking anyone, threw on my pants, and grabbed my Glock and two extra magazines. I didn’t know why I needed the Glock, but my gut told me I did.

The upstairs was secure, and I didn’t hear any unusual sounds. The alarm panel by the front door showed that the alarms were on and nobody had breached the house. The alarm panel in the kitchen showed exactly the same thing. Then I barely heard what sounded like a far away, muffled scream. The scream was long enough that I could tell it was a male scream, not female, but it stopped before I could pinpoint exactly where it came from. Even though I felt that it had come from inside the house, I turned off the back-door alarm and stepped outside, staying perfectly still, listening.

Frogs were croaking and an occasional bird chirping in the dark told me the scream hadn’t been from back here. Seeing me, one of the farm’s dogs bounded over, looking to get his ears scratched. Since he hadn’t reacted to anything outside, I took him inside to see if anything caught his attention. Two minutes later, there was another muted scream, one cut off abruptly after half a second. I still couldn’t place it, but King sure did, racing to the pantry door, whining and scratching at it trying to open it. When I opened it, he bolted to the basement door and scratched at it, too.

“Basement? Who the fuck would be in my basement? and how would they get there?” I wondered. Making a decision, I went back upstairs and put on my vest. Then I grabbed the last three full magazines for the Glock from the drawer and woke Chloe.

“Ssssshhhhh,” I whispered, putting my finger against her lips. I motioned for her to follow me into the bathroom. After shutting the door, I explained what had happened.

“I’m going to check the basement. I want you to cover the basement door and keep King in the kitchen,” I explained to her. I gave her my spare vest and unlocked the gun case, getting out the MP5/10. I also grabbed three extra magazines for it. If she needed those, we were being invaded.

Once she was set up where she could watch the door without being in the direct line of fire from inside the pantry, I gave her a kiss. “Don’t shoot just because the door opens, it might be me. I’ll call King when I open the door,” I told her. I put a leash on King after looping the end around the leg of the heavy wooden table in the breakfast nook. The table had no chance of stopping King if he was determined, but it would slow him down enough that I could get into the basement without him at my side. Chloe wouldn’t be able to hang onto him and aim at the same time.

After closing the door behind me and turning on the night vision goggles, I realized that I should probably get vests and goggles for all the women in my life and some of the leaders on the farm. Aside from the attack on my parents’ place, I’d never needed anything at home before.

At least the limestone stairs didn’t squeak as I descended them, although they made the bottom of my bare feet cold. The only sound I could hear in the basement was my own breathing, so I began searching. Ten minutes later, I knew no more than when I had heard the last scream.

“King,” I whispered when I got back to the top of the stairs and opened the door. He whimpered, and I could hear his claws on the tile floor as he tried to gain traction to reach me.

“Come on out,” Chloe laughed.

I got King unhooked from the table and headed for the basement again. I’ve seen search dogs work before, searching for drugs and explosives; I’ve even seen a cadaver dog in training. The dogs rush from place to place, nose to the ground, sniffing excitedly. The handler needs to keep them going in an organized pattern or they’ll bounce from one side of a crime scene to the next and back again.

Although I’ve never worked with a trained dog, I tried to keep King going methodically up and down each row of shelving in the basement. When we reached the far side of the basement, somewhere on the north side beneath what had originally been the library, King began whining and scratching at the junction of the wall and the back of a shelving unit down near the floor. “Duh,” I mentally berated myself. Antebellum homes were notorious for secret tunnels.

Taking King back upstairs, I explained to Chloe what I had found, all while wondering where the tunnel went, as well as who was in the tunnel and how they got there. Grabbing another MP5/10, I entered the basement for a third time. I had Chloe and King wait upstairs again while I began figuring out how to release the shelving unit. If I hadn’t known it was there somewhere, I would have never found the release. What looked like a small knothole hid the release. The almost silent click when the unit released still had me sweating bullets, wondering if someone on the other side had heard it.

I pulled the door open just an inch, enough to see that the area behind the door was dark. When I stuck my head inside, I couldn’t tell how long the tunnel was, but there was a faint glow at the far end. Hurrying back upstairs, I told Chloe what I had found. She insisted that I wait to enter the tunnel until everyone else was up and I had more backup than just King and her. Fortunately, the rooster picked that moment to mock the sunrise, although I was wound up tight enough that it scared the crap out of me.

Right after a quick breakfast, I had a dozen men armed with hunting rifles in my basement. Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I opened the hidden door again and stepped into the tunnel. Chloe stood just inside the door with her MP5/10 ready. Mine was slung over my shoulder as I let my Glock lead the way. Twenty minutes later, I was still making my way down the tunnel when I saw a pair of leg irons on the floor that were attached to the wall. Right below them was a dark stain on the limestone floor of the tunnel. Taking a chance, I switched on my flashlight; the stain was red.

When I looked around, I saw a set of antique manacles attached to chains near the top of the wall. From there, I found another set every few feet on alternating sides of the tunnel. I stopped counting after twenty sets. The tunnel continued. I could have moved faster, but I was watching for trip wires or laser beams that could trigger a deadly trap or warn someone that I was here. The entire time, I was wondering just how far the tunnel went and why it was here. At least the light at the end of the tunnel was getting closer.

Ten minutes later, I was nearing the end of the tunnel and heard quiet sobbing. I could see where the tunnel ended, turning ninety degrees to the right. Before reaching the end, there was a wooden door on each side of the tunnel, one like you might see in the movies in medieval dungeons. The sobbing was coming from behind the door on my right. When I got closer, I could hear a second female voice whispering consolingly, but couldn’t make out anything they were saying.

“Do you need help?” I whispered as I stood next to the barred opening in the wooden door. I had chanced a peek around the corner of the tunnel, as well as into the other door first to make sure nobody was there. There was no answer, but all sound stopped behind the door except for a single hiccough from whoever had been sobbing.

“Are you okay? Do you need help?” I whispered again, only slightly louder.

“Who are you?” a female voice whispered back nervously.

“I live nearby and heard screaming a while ago,” I answered, not sure yet how much information I wanted to give them.

“We’re being held against our will and forced to work as prostitutes. There are nine of us ranging in age up to eighteen. Do not call the sheriff, he’s in on it!” she warned.

“Are you safe where you are for now?” I asked.

“They don’t usually come to get us until late in the evening. They just brought us back about an hour ago,” she replied.

“Let me get some help that doesn’t include the sheriff’s department. I may be gone for a couple of hours, but I promise I’ll be back,” I told her trying to reassure the girls. “How many of them are there?” I asked as an afterthought.

“A lot, maybe fifty,” she replied.

“I’m going to go get help now. You girls keep quiet and don’t say anything,” I said.

Having already checked the tunnel for booby-traps and alarms, I ran back. I checked my watch when I started back, and it took just under four minutes to run back, barefoot, and with the MP5/10 bouncing against my back. I estimated the tunnel to be half to three quarters of a mile long. Everyone was waiting at the entrance, several actually inside the tunnel, trying to learn what I had found, but I was breathing too hard to explain. When the shooing motions didn’t get a reaction, I started pushing people out of the tunnel. “Move,” I hissed, still trying to catch my breath.

I kept pushing people until they got the idea that I wanted them the hell out of the basement. Then I closed and blockaded the shelving unit, and the door upstairs. By then, I had finally caught my breath so I phoned Dwight.

I explained the situation, telling him that my single visit to the Marshals Office in Jackson had left me with the impression that they felt I was a waste of their time. I didn’t want to trust an office like that to watch my back.

“You sit tight and wait for backup,” Dwight ordered.

“I told the girls I’d be back within two hours,” I protested. I could hear Dwight’s aggravated sigh even over the phone.

“Hang on, let me put you on hold,” he said, and the line switched to elevator music. Four minutes later, he was back. “I just scrambled the SOG Team. They should be there in two hours. Wait for them, ” he growled.

“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll wait, but have them fly into NAS Meridian. Warn the base that a civilian motor home will be arriving within the hour to transport them. If they need a password, use Sucarnoochee.”

“Sucar-who?” Dwight asked.

“Sucarnoochee, it’s the name of a tiny town near here. It was unusual enough that it stuck in my brain,” I replied. “I want to use a civilian motor home to pick them up so the group next door doesn’t suspect anything. Have them bring several armored shields, the kind SWAT uses. The tunnel is at least half a mile long and there is no cover in it. Make sure you stress that they are not to contact the local Leos because they are involved.

“If anyone from the Jackson office comes, stress that there are to be no sirens or lights, no government vehicles, no uniforms or badges, and everything they bring has to be in civilian luggage. I’ll station men up the road to shoot anyone stupid enough to show up in a government vehicle or using sirens,” I warned.

“Got it, pretend everyone is showing up for a family reunion,” Dwight chuckled. “You wait for backup or I’ll kick your ass, lucky or not,” he warned again.

Everyone was staring at me, mouths agape when I hung up. “What?” I asked defensively.

“I knew you worked for the Marshals service once in a while, but never realized what you did,” Ramón commented.

“It’s not that big a deal,” I replied, shrugging.

Before they could get wound up about the subject, I started issuing orders. “I want the back patio set up as if we were going to have a huge party. Someone needs to call a local party rental place and get canopies, tables, and chairs delivered and set up, and the sooner the better. Helium balloons would be a nice touch. Start something cooking on the outdoor barbecues, and send one of the bigger motor homes to NAS Meridian.”

I left King in the kitchen to warn us if anyone made any noise in the basement. I was going up into the attic to do recon. First, I put on my boots. I also added the XM2010 and my binoculars to the hardware I was carrying with me.

One of the girls would come up every few minutes to keep me informed about what was going on. They also brought me snacks and water. Next door, it seemed that everyone was still asleep. There was one guy in a patio chair sitting under a tree about a hundred feet from the chain-link gate across their driveway near the street. I realized that they had an eight-foot chain link fence surrounding the farmhouse, about a hundred feet from the house. I’d never even noticed that my neighbors had the fence. There was a second lookout on the front porch. That one had a scoped hunting rifle next to him.

Surprisingly, the Jackson Deputy Marshals showed up first. They had listened to Dwight and arrived in civilian vehicles that had previously been seized. Walt, the Station Chief apologized for giving me the bum’s rush when I reported in. He thought a volunteer would be in the way more than he helped. “Shit, even Dan from the training center called me,” he chuckled. “He admitted that he had the same initial reaction, at least until you cleaned his clock on the mats,” he laughed.

“It wasn’t that bad,” I replied.

I took him up in the attic to see the outside of the farmhouse next door, and gave him a more detailed description of the tunnel. His agents had just finished changing into their gear when the motor home returned with the strike team. The women all rushed outside to greet them, hugging everyone as if they were relatives. Several of my men helped carry their luggage inside. I was watching the two lookouts next door, and neither one gave the arrivals more than a cursory glance.

By the time I left the attic, everyone was gathered in the dining room for a briefing. I explained about the tunnel, and that the girl estimated fifty men belonged to the group.

“ATF and DEA have been watching them for several months. They estimate fifty-seven members, although rarely do they have even fifty men there at once,” Walt interjected.