PART IX INTO THE DARKNESS #5
Well, I hadn’t accounted for Deek Hammonds being with me at this stage of my scheme.
So I adapted.
Quick as a whip, I reached through the window and grabbed something from one of the pouches on his law enforcement–style gun belt and—snap!—clasped it around his exposed wrist.
His handcuffs.
The Hammer blanched.
‘What the fuck—?’ he began.
Then snap, I clasped the other cuff around the doorhandle of the transport truck.
I glared at the Hammer. ‘You might be bigger than me and you might be stronger and you’re a much better killer than me. But I’m sure I’m better at one thing than you are. I can hold my breath for five minutes.’
And with those words, I did it.
I swung my truck in a wide arc and drove it nose-first into the safety rail, blasting right through the concrete fence . . .
. . . causing the livestock truck to sail down through the air for a full six seconds . . .
. . . before it crashed with a massive splash into the Sabine River . . .
. . . with the Hammer and me still in it.
Underwater silence.
Bubbles rushed upward all around me as my truck sank through the watery haze.
The streetlights up on the bridge cast shafts of eerie green light through the water.
As we sank, the Hammer yanked desperately at the handcuffs fastening him to the doorhandle.
He clutched at me, but I leaned back in my seat, out of his reach.
And just held my breath.
I’d been ready for this part of my plan: to take a deep inhale and go under for five minutes.
He’d barely had time to comprehend the insane thing I’d done: driving us off a perfectly good bridge into the river.
He writhed and pulled, but the cuffs held.
Then our truck hit the bottom, maybe thirty feet down.
Silt and mud from the riverbed billowed around us in watery slow motion.
Still he struggled.
Still I didn’t move.
After about thirty seconds of this, the Hammer suddenly shuddered . . . and gagged . . . and froze in mid-struggle . . . and stopped pulling on the cuff.
He went still.
He’d run out of air.
He hung there in the sickly green void, motionless except for his hair wafting in the current, his eyes open but devoid of life.
The Hammer was dead, drowned in the Sabine River.
But my plan wasn’t done.
I had to keep moving.
Still holding my breath, I flicked on my flashlight and cast its beam around the riverbed beside the sunken livestock truck, searching for—
—a weighted-down mesh bag containing the rebreathing scuba gear that I’d taken from the Saudis’ GMC van and planted here the previous night.
More preparations.
I swam over to the mesh bag, unzipped it, grabbed the scuba regulator, thrust it into my mouth and took several deep breaths. Then I switched off my flashlight.
Being a rebreathing unit, this scuba kit wouldn’t emit any telltale bubbles that might be seen by the Texas state troopers who were, no doubt, peering over the side of the bridge above me at that very moment.
I slipped the scuba tank onto my back, put on the mask and flippers, and then I swam downriver, kicking gently, assisted by the current, gliding through the murk.
As I’d guessed, there was activity all over the border bridge above me: troopers shouting and running to the gash I’d made in the fence when I’d driven the livestock transport off it.
As I swam further away from the well-lit bridge, the river around me darkened.
I kept swimming under the surface until I came to a boat ramp on the Texas side of the river about a mile downstream.
There I exited the water and climbed into the white GMC Savana van that I’d left there the previous night.
I ditched my black clothes, dried myself with some towels I’d stashed in the van, put on the spare set of regular clothes I’d left on the passenger seat and combed my hair.
If any cop pulled me over, I didn’t want to look like I’d just come from a night-time swim in the river.
Then I started up the van and drove away into the night, heading into Texas, having used almost everything I’d prepared.
Almost everything.
I mean, how do you effect the escape of fifty-odd slaves from two Southern states that are ‘owned’ by a far-reaching secret neo--Confederate conspiracy?
First of all, I figured, you get off the main roads—the cops would be patrolling them across Louisiana and Texas by dawn.
Then you get them to a place that isn’t going to be owned or controlled by the aforementioned far-reaching secret neo--Confederate conspiracy.
It should also be a place where you can contact some authorities whose power was independent of the far-reaching secret neo-Confederate conspiracy.
That was why, a day earlier, I’d booked a whole floor—ten rooms—at the Four Seasons Hotel in Houston.
As instructed, Heidi and Brenda took the long way there, entering Texas from the north through Deweyville and driving down to Houston via Beaumont.
Having surfaced from the river on the Texas side of the border, I actually beat them to the hotel.
As I pulled up to its front doors in the white GMC van, I noted the FBI agents still surveilling the hotel from the parking lot across the street.
I went through the main entrance, hoping my other helpers had got there ahead of me.
I stepped up to the reception counter.
‘Hi, I’m Sam Speedman. I’m a movie producer; I booked a bunch of rooms. I’m hoping my costume team arrived earlier tonight; they woulda turned up with a whole lot of clothes racks and boxes and stuff.’
The receptionist smiled broadly, eagerly. Movies have that effect on people.
‘They sure did, Mr Speedman,’ she said brightly. ‘They’re up in your rooms right now. In fact, here come a couple of them now.’
The receptionist pointed over my shoulder and I turned to see Millie-Mae and Darla striding over from the elevators.
Millie-Mae smiled. ‘Hey there, handsome.’
An hour later, Heidi and Brenda arrived in the rig, with Audrey escorting them in her Range Rover.
Of course, all hell broke loose then.
A huge semitrailer rig dragging a coal hopper is a big-ass vehicle. When one rumbles to a stop in front of a luxury hotel, it’ll capture some attention.
When the fifty captives emerged from the coal hopper—in rags, crying and sobbing—it seized the full attention of the FBI guys across the street.
As they came over from their van, Audrey and I went to meet them and told them to come with us to the rooms I’d booked.
And there the shocked FBI agents saw, up close, our rescued slaves: wretched, dirty, many of them half-starved.
My advance team of five sweet Hooters waitresses were already hard at work.
They directed the freed captives to various hot showers and room service meals.
Millie-Mae and Sequoia handed out prepaid cell phones so the newly freed captives could call their families and loved ones for the first time in years.
Darla handed out brand-new clothes that she’d purchased while Charlene passed around toiletry packs and Honor dealt out wads of cash. (All up, it cost me $65,000 but it was worth it.)
The FBI agents gaped at it all.
The lead agent turned to me. ‘What the hell is all this?’
‘I need you to contact your missing persons department,’ I said. ‘I got a whole bunch of them here.’
Within two hours, a whole FBI force descended on Victorville.
As I’d hoped, the FBI guys surveilling the Saudi hotel were not from any part of the Bureau that the Kingmans held sway over.
They got a federal judge to issue the requisite warrants—human trafficking being a federal crime—and the FBI flooded onto the Kingman property at Victorville, at first in helicopters and then in cars and command vans.
Prewarned by Audrey, a bunch of agents went directly into the caves behind the Tree of Fear that had held the enslaved people while a senior group of agents arrested Tad Kingman Sr, his wife, Clara, and his surviving son, Beau.
Threats were made—‘Don’t you know who I am!’—but once again, these feds didn’t fall under the Kingmans’ zone of influence.
The Dearborns—including the bride-to-be Misty—had fled to Texas, but more federal agents were dispatched to arrest them.
Likewise, FBI people in Florida raided the Fisher mine and sealed off the cave containing the slave cells and the bones at the base of the mine shaft, while more still secured the LaSalle --mausoleum in the swamps south of New Orleans.
By the next day, the story had hit the news.
The news channels led with titles blaring: ‘Southern Blueblood Families Discovered Keeping Slaves’. ‘Scheme Goes Back 150 Years’.
Cyrus had said there were perhaps 4,000 enslaved people held by the families.
The final number would be 5,607.
The story would lead every network’s national bulletin for the next two weeks.
By the next morning, some semblance of order had been established at the Four Seasons.
Teams of FBI agents moved through the rooms on our floor, recording the details of the rescued captives.
Naturally, many of the ex-slaves wanted to get home right away and some left as soon as they could, armed with handfuls of cash, new cell phones and fresh clothes.
Others were sick and required medical attention. The Kingmans apparently just let ill slaves die.
Most of them stayed, happy just to have a clean bed, a hot meal or just wanting to tell their story to the FBI or the media or anyone who might bear witness to what had happened to them.
Among the rescued captives were seven children.
They clutched in their hands unusual toys: oddly old toys, like wooden train engines and antique dolls.
Just like the one the baby had been found in.
It seemed that the Kingmans didn’t buy new or modern toys for their slaves: they just gave them the dirty old ones from previous generations.
I made some inquiries among the adult captives and soon I was kneeling in front of a tiny four-year-old biracial girl who said her name was Kecia Martyn.
LaToya Martyn’s daughter by Tad Kingman Jr, born into slavery. LaToya, I noted, had named the child after her own mother.