Chapter 3
Mike fought a grin as he turned the corner. He was enjoying teasing the ICE Queen as he’d come to think of Special Agent Kameron Hood. He knew she was checking him out as he walked away from the interrogation room.
He’d never doubted that he was a good-looking man.
Since he turned sixteen, he’d never had a problem getting laid.
If he chose, he knew how to turn on the charm as quickly as he could scrape unwanted women off him.
He had two ex-wives to prove the latter was true. Thankfully, he’d never had children.
Paternity with wife number two had been a close encounter of the baby kind, but Mike had always been good at math.
Bethany, not so much. That had been proven by how many times she’d overdrawn their account while he was away on missions.
He’d even managed to get a tiny smidgen excited when she’d proclaimed her pregnancy, until the ultrasound.
When the technician announced the baby was nine weeks old, Mike’s math was better than hers.
He’d only gotten home from his last mission a month before.
As he reached into the refrigerator, snagging five bottles of water, Mike scoffed.
He hadn’t thought of his ex-wives in years.
The last time he’d heard, Bethany was on her fourth marriage and had four kids.
Jan had remarried within days of their divorce and her husband left the Navy as soon as he could.
Years ago, he’d heard a rumor that they lived in Iowa.
Or was it Idaho? Mike didn’t care either way.
Heading back down the hall, Mike reassured himself that he would never get married again.
There were plenty of women around to satisfy him when he felt the need.
Sometimes, he came back to the same watering hole two or three times.
But the minute they started acting like a wife, they were gone, or he was.
As he turned the corner, he slowed his pace ever so slightly.
Kam in profile was stunning in a way he’d never admired before.
Her loose-fitting clothes hid an amazing body.
With her arms crossed over her chest, well-defined biceps were visible in the short-sleeved black uniform.
Her boots were shoulder-width apart, a gun strapped around a shapely thigh, dark auburn hair pulled back from a face that wasn’t classically beautiful but interesting without makeup.
She was the epitome of a woman warrior…Wonder Woman style.
Mike’s mind immediately painted the movie version costume on her. A heart-shaped red bustier plumping her well-hidden breasts, the tiny blue skirt with slits up the front hiding yet teasing, and those fuck-me-hard red boots…damn. He was getting stiff just at the thought.
As he approached the two-way mirror, Tala’s sad story of capture and mistreatment deflated all fantasies with the ICE Queen.
“The American men promise us we work in good clubs. Good customers. Good tips. Make lots of money to send home to Papa. Same as recruiter, they handle all money.” Tala sucked in a shaky breath.
Mike held up the bottles and Captain Hubbard and Kam each took one before he headed to the door, taking advantage of the excellent timing. It would give Tala and his lieutenant a few minutes reprieve from the intense questions and answers.
Knocking before he entered, because he didn’t want to scare the already tremulous young girl, Mike waited a beat before he entered the room.
“Thought you both needed one of these.” He handed each of them a bottled water before silently exchanging an entire conversation with Dylan before Mike laid a hand on his shoulder and gave it a single squeeze.
Once the door had closed behind him, Mike announced to the captain and Kam, “He’s doing fine. He got the message to keep going.”
Kam stared at him and raised one eyebrow.
“The shoulder squeeze.” Then Mike added, “It’s a SEAL thing.”
Cracking open his own bottle of water, he downed nearly half of it before Dylan continued the interrogation.
Over the next thirty minutes, they discovered the American men purchased Tala and Perla from the bar owners, loaded them in a limousine, and took them to several bars where they picked up other girls while drinking and partying all night.
The girls were loaded onto a private jet, where they were joined by two other men and several other teenage girls. On the long flight, they were allowed all the food, alcohol, and drugs they wanted. But when they landed on a small airstrip, everything changed.
All Mike could do was slowly shake his head as Tala’s story unfolded.
When he was a Lieutenant Junior Grade, he and his team rescued two American girls from a commando camp in Colombia.
Their story had been so similar except they had been partying in Tampa and the good-looking rich guys had offered to continue the party in the Caribbean and promised to bring the girls home by the end of the weekend.
The kidnappers had no idea they’d taken the only daughter of a member of the House of Representatives.
His team had freed seven other women and left the camp a funeral pyre.
That hadn’t been the first, nor the last, human trafficking mission for Mike.
For him, though, this was the first time kidnap victims had been brought to the United States. No one from the Philippines would come and rescue these girls.
He slid a glance to Kam and was surprised that she wasn’t more emotional. The women he knew would have been outraged. But then again, human trafficking was her job. He wondered if she’d become hardened to the girls and their stories.
Mike got his answer when Tala spoke about the online auction selling her virginity, being drugged and raped in a hotel room, then trained by her original kidnappers for weeks.
Kam bowed her head, sucked in air through clenched teeth, and pounded her fist into an open hand. She paced the hall for a few minutes, never out of hearing distance, before she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. When she returned to the window, she was once again calm and collected.
Neat trick. He wondered if she’d teach it to him.
“Bad men train us. Tala good. Perlah better. Perlah picked go to the club. I go to Miss Nami’s house. She train me more so I make good tips. I get specials.”
Dylan leaned forward slightly but kept his distance. “We’re going to come back and talk about Perlah in a minute, but did all the girls go either to the club or to Miss Nami’s? Were some of the girls sent elsewhere?”
Tala’s eyebrows drew together. “I no know…eselware.” She said the sentence very slowly and struggled with the last word.
Dylan gave her a reassuring smile. “Elsewhere. Were girls taken to some other place to work?”
Tala tried the word again. “Lesacare.” She shook her head. “Say word again.”
“Elsewhere.” He then broke down the word into syllables and made her repeat it until she was able to say the entire word. By the success on Tala’s face, Mike would have thought she’d just received the most wonderful gift. In a way, she had.
Words. Language. Understanding. As someone who could reasonably speak two other languages, Mike could identify with her joy.
Redirecting, Dylan rephrased the question, “Some girls went to the club, some to Miss Nami’s house, were there other girls that went?—
“Elsewhere.” Tala smiled at her correct pronunciation.
Dylan returned her smile. “Perfect.”
“Yes, some pretty girls go to Colombia. Big Daddy have club there too.” Tala nodded her head. “Chesa, friend to me and Perlah, very beautiful, she go to Colombia.”
“You know where in Colombia they went?” Dylan pressed.
“De Trick.” Tala shook her head. “I try to find on map but no find.”
The corners of Dylan’s lips quirked. “Did they call it District of Columbia?”
Tala looked offended. “That what I say. De Trick Colombia.”
“Holy fuck.” Kam’s whispered words echoed his own sentiments. “Ask her about Big Daddy. We need to find the sonofabitch now.”
“Other than Miss Nami’s, the club where Perlah went, and District of Columbia, where else did the girls go?” As trained, Dylan was trying to follow down each thread as far as possible. Mike recognized the technique and was as proud as a father of this young lieutenant.
Tala shrugged. “I no know. Girls come and leave training. Some fight the men and gone soon. Perlah and me no like get beat. We learn fast. Some girls in training when we got picked.”
“Okay, so you got picked to go to Miss Nami’s, and Perlah got picked to go to the club. Did you tell me that Big Daddy owns both?” At Dylan’s question, all three in the observation area smiled.
Nodding, Tala said, “Yes. Big Daddy nice. He gives good girls specials.”
“What are specials?”
Tala sat up, dropping her feet to the floor.
“I get to see Perlah. If I good, and Perlah good, we get to go shopping.” A sneer quickly crossed her face.
“Miss Nami have to come with us, but she buys the clothes. We still have fun. Eat real Filipino food. Go to mall. Get pretty clothes. See, Perlah like sister to me. I no leave her here.” Tala grabbed Dylan’s hand. “You save me. Now you save Perlah.”
“Okay, okay.” Dylan patted the hand that clung to his. “We’ll do our best. You have to tell us everything you know about this club. Do you know where it is?”
“In city, LA.” Tala took her hand back and folded it with the other on top of the scarred table. She looked anxious for the next question.
“Have you ever been there?”
Tala shook her head as she said, “Perlah told me all about it. Lots of movie stars. They make her do all kinds of things to them. Sometimes two men at a time. Sometimes women in the bed with her. She get real good food but not allowed to get fat. Her bedroom is pretty. She lives at the club. Much nicer than Miss Nami’s. ”
“What was nicer at the club than Miss Nami’s?” Dylan asked the question that Mike wanted to know. The more details Tala could give them the better chance they had finding the place.