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Authors: Daniel Palmer

Forgive Me (28 page)

BOOK: Forgive Me
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Glancing down the row of guys from the FBI dressed in tactical gear, Bryce smirked as he made eye contact with an agent seated on the bench across from him. “I’m surprised you guys didn’t bring a second BearCat to this shindig. Heck, I expected the whole fleet.” The FBI’s penchant for excessive personnel deployment was good fodder for the Marshals.

“Ha-ha,” the agent answered without smiling. “Very funny, Taggart.”

Bryce tightened the straps on his Kevlar vest and winked. Bryce had two guys from the Marshals with him, as well as two local cops whose loyalty was to the USMS. But it was still one fewer than the FBI had brought, so ribbing was allowed.

The agent Bryce had antagonized leaned forward in his seat. “Taggart, tell me. How does it feel to spend your career snatching low-hanging fruit like Buggy Gutierrez? I bet it gets pretty boring. If you ever grow a bigger pair, give us a call. I’m sure we can find an opening for you somewhere.” The special agent grabbed his crotch.

Bryce gave it some thought, but not for long. “Aren’t you guys the Blue Team?”

“Yeah, Red Team is taking down Markovich in DC.”

“Blue team, now that’s appropriate,” Bryce said.

The agent squinted. “Why’s that?”

“Because you got big blue balls, of course.” Bryce followed another wink with a rakish grin, then checked the time on his Casio watch. By now the Red Team had probably stormed into Ivan “Stinger” Markovich’s stylish DC residence, cuffed him, and read him his rights. His arrest was scheduled to go down around the same time as this one.

Red Team’s raid would be a bit blind because they didn’t have an inside source like Nadine feeding them information. She was a brave girl and proving to be a critical mission asset, which meant Angie and Mike were useful, too. Those two were parked safely inside the FBI’s mobile command post, tasked with getting intel from Nadine to send back to the tactical teams.

Bryce thought about checking in with Angie just because he wanted to hear her voice again. She intrigued him. She seemed smart, ambitious, and supremely capable, and he couldn’t help but notice her good looks and absence of a wedding ring. But his curiosity would have to wait until the after-bust party, which hopefully would take place at McSorley’s in eight or so hours.

The truck came to a hard stop.

“Let’s try to keep all our bullets in their respective guns,” Bryce said.

The crotch-grabbing FBI agent said, “We’ll go in first. You Marshal boys can follow.”

Bryce picked up a scaled-down pump action Remington shotgun he called Little Pig, as in the nursery rhyme “Little pig, little pig, let me come in.” He grinned. “You may have the bigger pair, but I got the gun.” He pushed opened the rear doors.

A rush of warm wind swept into the back of the truck. First out was Bryce. He jumped to the street and headed to the target building, followed closely by a processional of armed guys all dressed in black, wearing ear protection of some sort. Not that there was any noise to block out—not yet, anyway. Everyone kept silent as they got into position at the front door.

Bryce set the barrel of Little Pig against the door lock. His pulse hammered as his blood heated up. Anyone who said they didn’t get nervous before a job like this, who didn’t feel a tickle of fear, was either a psychopath or a liar, and not welcome on Bryce’s team. The jump in his heart was something he had come to accept. He used it as a reminder to put his training into practice.

Bryce glanced behind him. Eleven to take down three, plus round up all the girls. Should be more than enough. Everyone looked ready to strike, so he pulled the trigger on Little Pig.

The bang echoed off into the distance as the lock shot inward at high velocity. Bryce holstered Little Pig, and used the steel toe of his boot to kick the door open. He rushed inside with his M-4 ready to spit fire. He covered the corner to his right and the nearby vicinity. His back was exposed to threats down the hallway, but he wasn’t concerned. Frank Dansby, the barrel-chested marshal who came in behind him, was responsible for that sector. Trust was everything.

Bryce moved only as fast he could accurately shoot. The stack stayed tight as his team of three headed for the basement door at the rear of the hallway. There were plenty of wrong ways to clear a building, and only one way to do it right. The right way usually kept people alive. As the lead man, it was Bryce’s job to provide security to the front. The number two and three men covered Bryce’s left and right sides respectively. A single doorway stood at the end of the hall, just as Nadine had described.

The adrenaline rush Bryce felt couldn’t fully compensate for his reduced dexterity. It seemed counterintuitive, but increased blood pressure and heart rate meant less blood flow to his extremities. His visual tracking deteriorated as his peripheral field narrowed, but he wasn’t alarmed. He noticed the changes to his body, had come to expect them. The best way to control fear was to have confidence in his ability. For that reason, he trained until his response to a threat situation became a reflex.

At the door to the basement, Bryce paused. Little Pig might have awoken Buggy.

Behind him, Bryce heard the sound of a mission in progress. The first floor apartment was being cleared. Banging on doors, lots of shouting, lots of screaming.

“Open up! Open up!”

Another bang.

The agents spoke in a clipped manner—“mission-ese,” Bryce called it.

“In!”

“Clear! Clear!”

“All secure!”

“On the ground, now!”

They’d found someone. The roundup was underway.

Bryce opened the basement door slowly. He kept to the strong side of the door. His numbers two and three were there to shoot anyone who might be behind it. Nobody was there. Light from a source below leaked up to illuminate a set of concrete stairs descending to a concrete landing. Stairwells were always a tactical disadvantage. Stairwells of concrete came with the added complexity of ricochet problems.

Bryce didn’t have any blindside reconnaissance devices, such as thermal imagery or infrared viewers. If Buggy were waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs, it would be a situation of who shot first and best. In that event, Bryce liked his chances. At the gun range, few were better.

On the way down, he kept close to the right wall. Clearing from top to bottom played in his favor. He had smoke and flash grenades with him, but what went down also came up, and such diversions were best avoided. When he reached the landing, he took up position toward the center of the stairs and slightly forward. Buggy wasn’t waiting for them at the bottom either, but that didn’t mean he was still asleep.

The two follow-on team members quickly took up positions for rear security and cover. Bryce bounded down the stairs and stepped into a narrow hallway composed of particleboard.

The Baltimore fire marshals would have a field day with this place,
he thought.

Overhead fluorescents lit the dank space and a pervasive moldy smell filled the air. A few of the ceiling mounted lights blinked to create a strobe effect down the hall.

Bryce motioned to a room directly in front of him. The two marshals at his back covered the sectors he couldn’t see.

He went through a silent count down using his fingers—
three . . . two . . . one
—then lifted the latch on the flimsy particleboard door. The black hinges didn’t make a sound when the door came open.

Bryce entered first. Based on Nadine’s description of the floor layout, he and his team had agreed to use the buttonhook method to clear each room.

As soon as he entered, Bryce swept a wide portion of the room’s right side with his M-4 and saw no threats. Frank Dansby moved across the door and cleared the hard corner by taking the opposite area of responsibility. The third man, a six-year vet of the Marshals service named Gary Graves, watched the hallway.

Even though Nadine had told Bryce what to expect, he still found the first room depressing as hell. Light from a flea market lamp resting on a ratty nightstand helped light the room. Next to the lamp was an ashtray full of butts. Nearby, a thin mattress topped a crappy rust-speckled metal bed frame. The wastebasket was full of used tissues and condom wrappers, and there were beer cans aplenty littering the floor. They cleared the room quickly and Bryce was the first back into the hallway.

The second room was a repeat of the first. Sex traffickers weren’t too big on hygiene, it seemed.

From the hallway, Bryce heard Graves shout, “Hey, you! Hold it right there!”

Bryce bolted out the room. He saw Graves pointing his M-4 at a young girl he recognized. Frank Dansby followed Bryce into the hall, and he too had his weapon aimed at Nadine. The girl had her hands up. Her whole body shook violently.

“That’s Nadine!” Bryce shouted. “Stand down. Nadine, you’re safe. You’re okay.”

The girl was sickly pale, and her eyes wide and wild. “Go now!” she cried.

To Bryce’s surprise, Nadine made herself big as possible by spreading out her arms and legs. Her limbs were long enough to touch the particleboard walls on either side of her. She looked to be frozen mid jumping jack. Her shout summoned two men from a doorway behind her. The guy in front was tall and lanky and had to be Ricardo. Bryce thought the one bringing up the rear looked a heck of a lot like Buggy, but it was hard to tell as he was moving so fast.

Graves held his ground to provide cover, while Bryce and Frank charged at the fleeing men.

Desperation blossomed in Nadine’s eyes as realization took hold. Big guys with big guns were coming at her and weren’t going to stop. In a panic, she threw herself to one side, which happened to be in front of Frank Dansby. This left a good-sized gap for Bryce to get by. There was a brief interlude where Frank had to untangle himself from Nadine, who was screaming incoherently.

Frank might have been slowed, but Bryce and Graves went ahead unencumbered. They were the first to reach the room into which the two men had vanished. Bryce unclipped a flash grenade from his battle belt and tossed it into the room before he entered. A loud bang followed, then a puff of white smoke.

Bryce burst into the room with his gun aimed at his zone only. He knew Graves was on his heel and would cover the area to his back. Both men soon had their guns pointed at the only person they could see. Ricardo squirmed on the floor, covering his ears.

“Don’t move! Don’t move!” Graves yelled, while pointing the gun barrel at Ricardo’s head.

It wasn’t clear if Ricardo could even hear, but at least he wasn’t reaching for a weapon. Frank entered the room and Bryce didn’t need to see Nadine to know that she was in the hallway and handcuffed. Unfortunately, the girl they had come to rescue had turned into a potential threat. It happened from time to time.

Bryce figured Nadine was suffering from some form of Stockholm syndrome, identifying with her captor more than her rescuers. The bigger problem was that two had entered the room, but only one was there and the missing guy was the one Bryce had come to retrieve.

A metal door, more like a hatch located in the middle of the floor, was open wide. Bryce peered inside. It looked very dark down there. He groaned. “Aw, crap.”

“What?” Darby said.

“I think Buggy went down in the hole.”

CHAPTER 37

B
ryce shone his flashlight into the hole, while Graves secured Ricardo. The beam cut through the darkness, illuminating only a fraction of the space below. Not much height, three feet at most. It was an on-your-belly type crawl space with a dirt floor and scattered debris throughout. Unquestionably, it was a horrible place to spend a few minutes, let alone days. What these animals had done to Tasha put a new stamp on the passport of human depravity, and Bryce had seen a lot of stamps over the years.

“Hey Buggy, we know you’re down there. Come on up. Let’s make this easy, all right?” Bryce’s voice echoed.

He didn’t expect a reply. He didn’t get one.

Bryce turned to Frank Dansby. “Go get Nadine, will you.”

Frank returned a nod.

Bryce hesitated to put his head in the hole again just in case Buggy decided to take a shot. But he did it anyway and scanned the crawl space a second time with the help of his flashlight. It appeared the area below the basement was the size of the apartment building’s foundation. Buggy could be anywhere.

Frank brought Nadine into the room. Poor girl looked utterly terrified. Nothing about Frank’s manner was hostile. He was gentle with her, but her crying still bordered on hyperventilation. They’d get her medical attention soon enough.

“Is there a way out of the crawl space?” Bryce asked.

Nadine shook her head.

Bryce put a hand on her shoulder. She shrank from his touch.

“Nadine, you’re not in trouble,” he said, looking her in the eyes. “I promise. I’ll watch after you, but I’ve got to know. Is there a way out?”

Ricardo, who was handcuffed on the floor, perked up. “Shut up! Don’t say a word. You guys go screw yourselves.”

Bryce rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m trembling here, amigo. Graves, get Mr. Congeniality out of here, please. Have someone from upstairs help you. I want two guys on this P-O-S.”

Nadine let out a few shaky breaths. Graves radioed for help.

Ricardo glared at Nadine with hate in his eyes. “
Puta
.”

Bryce could see him getting ready to spit, so he slammed the butt end of his rifle into Ricardo’s mid-section. The only thing Ricardo spit on after that was his shoe.

“He can’t hurt you anymore, Nadine,” Bryce said while Graves dragged Ricardo out of the room.

Nadine spoke only when she felt safe to do so. “Ricardo said there’s a vent he could use to get out.”

It made sense. There had to be an air supply, otherwise Tasha would have suffocated. Bryce figured the light source was blocked—it was so damn dark down there. “Which way is that vent? Do you know?”

“I don’t know,” Nadine said. Her tears were flowing freely. “Ricardo had the only flashlight. I shouldn’t have gotten in your way. I just panicked. I’m sorry. I screwed everything up.”

BOOK: Forgive Me
7.42Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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