Human Traffic (Detective Damien Drake Book 5) Read online

  Drake stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

  “She was with me,” Drake confirmed. “But now she’s with Sgt. Yasiv. He’s going to look after her.”

  “He’s not… you know, in the Mayor’s pocket?”

  Drake shrugged.

  “I don’t think so. I mean, if he was, he more than likely would’ve have arrested me on the spot after what happened to officer Kramer.”

  Screech shook his head.

  “I’m not even going to ask,” he said, leading Drake to his desk.

  Without another word, Screech pulled up a photograph surrounded by Spanish text. In it, Drake saw a younger looking Raul, but one with the same bristly mustache, the same flat features.

  “It’s Raul,” he said mostly to himself.

  “Sure is: Raul Mendez. But can you guess who has his arm on his shoulder?”

  It was an American soldier, that much was clear by the fatigues that he wore. He had a shock of black hair and the beginnings of a beard on his tanned cheeks. The man looked familiar, but Drake couldn’t place him.

  “Look closer, look at his eyes,” Screech instructed.

  The man’s pale blue irises were also familiar.

  “Now picture him with the cigar in his mouth.”

  This was the trigger that Drake needed.

  “No shit,” he said. “That’s Ken fucking Smith. That’s the Mayor. Where is taken from? When?”

  “From Colombia, 1983 or 84, I can’t tell for sure. You know what happened and 84 in Colombia?”

  “Well, I was five so, no,” Drake replied quickly. He kept studying the photograph as he listened to Screech talk; there was something about it that was a little off.

  “Fair enough, I was even born yet — but here’s the thing: in 1984 the RAND Corporation was hired by the Department of Defense to look into whether or not military intervention would stem the shipment of cocaine from Colombia in the US.”

  “And let me guess, in an ironic twist, the RAND Corporation needed a military escort to conduct their study.”

  “Very good, my young squire. So, with this in mind, I want to introduce you to Lieut. Cpl. Ken Smith.”

  Drake nodded. He knew that Ken had served in the Army in the 80’s. It had, after all, been a selling point for his campaign. After his stint in South America, Ken had returned and had enrolled in law school. The details from this period of Ken’s life — from law school to founding Smith, Smith, and Jackson — were sketchy, but the consensus was that several shrewd investments and high-profile mergers had set him on his trajectory to become mayor.

  “So this is where and when he met Raul,” Drake said, thinking out loud. “But what’s this mumbo-jumbo Spanish shit all about?”

  “Just wait.”

  Screech clicked enlarged the image and focused his pointer on something behind the two men.

  Drake leaned closer to the monitor. There appeared to be a sign just over Raul’s left shoulder. The words were in Spanish, and they were cut off by the mens’ faces, but there was a particular symbol that transcended language.

  “A snake eating the eyeball,” he muttered.

  “And they say you’re just a pretty face,” Screech said. Upon seeing Drake’s frown, he quickly continued. “Yeah, that the same goddamn symbol that was on the drugs and matches the tattoo on Raul’s arm. And that sign? The one that’s cut off? It says the Church of… you guessed it, Liberation. I also managed to translate some of the article and the gist of it is that while the U.S. Army was helping the RAND Corporation they came across this church. Apparently, it was just a front for a drug lab. What’s more, the people working in this drug lab had been kidnapped and written off as dead years beforehand. And guess who jumped in and saved the day? G.I. Ken, that’s who.”

  Drake was sure to wrap his mind around everything that he’d just heard. He wasn’t surprised about Raul’s connection to Colombia, of course, or the drug trade. What was alarming was how deep Ken’s ties appeared to run.

  “So, Ken saves the day, liberates these people and then… what? Takes over the shop? Uses Raul to ship the drugs to the US? Forms ANGUIS holdings to cover everything up?”

  Screech shrugged dramatically.

  “Your guess is as good as mine… but I’m thinking it’s a pretty good guess. I tried to find if there was anything about this whole Church of Liberation in US papers, and only found one small article about it. No names were used, only the mention of the Church of Liberation and how it had been… uh… liberated. It appeared in the Times about six months after it happened.”

  Drake scratching his head. Mandy was from Colombia, so it wouldn’t be a stretch to think that Ken was somehow behind what had happened to these girls. The drugs, the logo, the tattoo on Raul’s arm: they all depicted snake eating an eyeball.

  It was definitely connected.

  And then there was the matter of the woman’s leg on the business card that he’d blasted out of some Russian midget’s pocket. There was that, too.

  “Good stuff; keep digging, Screech. Anything we can—wait did you say the Times?”

  Screech nodded and pulled up another newspaper article.

  “Yep, the Times.”

  “And let me guess who the author is: Ivan Meitzer.”

  Screech clicked his mouse until a byline appeared on screen. The article was indeed written by Ivan Meitzer.

  Drake’s thoughts turned back to the day in the hangar when Meitzer had been beaten by Raul to get him up to stop posting articles about Drake’s activities.

  It appeared as if their relationship went back a ways, too.

  Drake pulled the business card out of his pocket and held it out to Screech. The man noticed the blood on the corner and raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m not can ask about that, either. What’s this card all about?”

  “I think… I think this is where Mandy and the girls were headed in New York. I’m guessing it’s a gentleman’s club of sorts. What I do know for sure, is that if Ken is behind this, he won’t be happy that his girls are dead. I also bet that he’s going to try to bring more into the city.”

  Screech’s face suddenly grew dark.

  “If they survive the journey overseas, that is.”

  “Shit,” Drake grumbled. He leaned back and rubbed his side absently. “And now that his drop point is compromised he’s going to be looking for another. Another location that is owned by ANGUIS.”

  “One of about a hundred and fifty.”

  This sobering thought brought about silence that lasted a full minute before Drake pulled an about-face.

  “What about the other thing I asked you about? The people behind ANGUIS? Anything on that front?”

  Screech pulled up another document.

  “You’re in luck. I managed to trace recent money sent from ANGUIS to four accounts. None linked back to Ken, unfortunately, but there is a Russian name on the list.”

  “Boris Brackovich,” Drake read out loud. Unlike the other information that Screech had provided, however interesting, this was something he might be able to act upon. “Get me a printout and send one to Yasiv. See what he can dig up on this Boris guy.”

  Chapter 24

  Beckett closed the door to the mass spec machine and watched the mechanical arm to take the sample inside. As he waited for the readout, his mind turned to what had happened on the yacht. He had tried to push these images from his mind, but no matter what he did, they kept coming back.

  Despite what he’d said, Screech was right; it was all related. It had to be.

  And Beckett wasn’t naïve; he knew that Bob Bumacher intended to use the yacht to smuggle the drugs that were on board. Hell, he was fairly certain that the yacht had actually belonged to Donnie DiMarco.

  That didn’t change the fact that DiMarco deserved to die. Bob on the other hand… up until this point, he hadn’t killed anybody, at least not to Becket’s knowledge.

  Now, however, after hearing about what had happened to the girls, Beck
ett was beginning to think that Bob didn’t deserve his free pass.

  The machine beeped and produced a readout, drawing him out of his head. Beckett took a quick look at the screen and then whistled.

  “Well slap my ass and call me Sally,” he said under his breath.

  The heroin was of Colombian origin and was almost laboratory grade shit; ninety-five percent pure, cut with…

  Beckett didn’t recognize the second, much smaller peak, and used the embedded software to search for a comparison. It took all of thirty seconds to come back with a match.

  C22H28N2O.

  Fentanyl.

  The package of heroin that Screech had given him weighed exactly 100g. Even if the girls had swallowed just a teaspoon of that shit, the fentanyl would likely kill them. And they hadn’t swallowed a teaspoon, they’d swallowed twenty bags.

  No, Beckett concluded, Bob Bumacher was not a good man.

  Upon closer inspection, he realized that there were also trace amounts of other substances. He ran a comparison on these, and when the results pinged he didn’t whistle this time. He cringed.

  In addition to the fentanyl, the heroin was also laced with Carfentanyl — an elephant tranquilizer — as well as two even more powerful variants: Ohmefentanyl and Lofentanil. Just a single grain of either of any these would mean almost certain death.

  “Fuck.”

  The last thing Beckett wanted to do right now was to get involved with Drake and Screech and Bob Bumacher. His finger still ached, and his mind was a scrambled mess.

  And the nightmares…

  As he stared at the screen, Beckett found himself absently rubbing the tattoos under his right armpit, the three lines that represented Craig Sloan, Donnie DiMarco, and Ray Reynolds.

  He didn’t want to get involved, but after seeing what they were trying to bring into New York, what choice did he have?

  Chapter 26

  “Goddamn it,” Screech swore, bringing a fist down on the table.

  Drake startled and opened his eyes. He must’ve fallen asleep at Screech’s death, although he couldn’t remember doing so. A quick check of his watch told him that it was coming on three in the morning.

  “What?” he asked in a groggy voice. “What did you find?”

  Screech shook his head.

  “It’s not what I found, it’s what I didn’t find.” He pointed at the image onscreen which depicted the same leg, this time with a matching second one, that Drake had found on the card at the hangar. “You were right — it appears that this is from a private gentleman’s club. But this isn’t your local rippers. This is real cloak and dagger shit. I can’t find out who the girls are, where the place is, nothing. It’s so secretive, I’d need all the computer power of NASA to break in.”

  Drake was disappointed, but he wasn’t surprised.

  Screech typed something into the password box, but it simply vibrated and notified him that it was incorrect.

  “Shit,” Screech muttered. “I give up. I’m not getting there. And unless you have connections with some high-priced hookers, then you’re not getting there either. I think our best bet at this point is to narrow down the most likely locations for the shipment drop and hope we get lucky.”

  Drake frowned. That wasn’t a plan, that was a guess.

  And Drake didn’t like guessing. He liked hard facts.

  There has to be a way…

  Screech’s words suddenly echoed in his head.

  Unless you have connections with some high-priced hookers…

  Drake rubbed his chin.

  “You know what? I might just know someone who might be able to get us in the door.”

  Screech looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

  “You sly dog, you. Who would’ve thunk it.”

  Drake ignored the comment.

  “I’m pretty sure that I know someone who might be able to help. It’s just a matter of using the right method of persuasion.”

  ***

  Drake tapped the yellow envelope in his palm.

  “Should I ask where you were you got this from?” he asked.

  Screech shook his head.

  “But you’re okay to part with it?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it. I’m more concerned about how you know about a place like this and why you think that a prostitute working in this neighborhood might be able to help us out.”

  Drake almost chuckled. He’d thought the same thing the first time you come here.

  “It’s a long story from back when I was a Detective. Anyways, this girl can be pretty feisty so if I’m not down 20 minutes, get the fuck out of here,” Drake said as he stepped out into the night.

  It was almost four in the morning now, but something told him that the woman he was visiting would still be up — some professions never slept.

  The real question was whether or not she would open the door for him.

  Drake opened the rundown outer door to the apartment complex and then walked over to the intercom system.

  “Here goes nothing,” he muttered as he pressed the button marked only with a V.

  It took only a moment for a female voice to answer.

  “V.”

  Drake cleared his throat.

  “It’s Raul,” he said and then cringed. He had meant to put on his best Spanish accent, but somehow it had come out sounding Irish.

  But to his surprise, there was a buzzing sound and Drake pulled the inner door open. Once inside, he was brought back to an earlier time, a much different time when he had still been part of the NYPD. His eyes turned to the hallway that he had once laid in, pretending to be a heroin addict when Raul walked by him.

  Drake shook his head. That time was long past.

  He hurried upstairs, making his way down the hall to the door that was painted to look like all the others, but one he knew from experience was made of reinforced steel.

  He was about to knock when it suddenly sprung open and a petite woman in a nightgown leaped out. Drake was so taken by surprise that he stumbled backward.

  Then he heard the crackle of a Taser.

  “You again,” Veronica said. “I swear, you men never learn.”

  Chapter 27

  Screech squinted at the dilapidated apartment building and wondered if this was going to lead anywhere. Part of him wanted to call Yasiv, to find out if Mandy was still okay, while another part of him couldn’t get her naked body out of his mind.

  Back in the Virgin Gorda, he’d seen some pretty amazing looking women — some of the most beautiful women that he’d ever laid eyes on either live or in film. But Mandy… she was different, somehow. She was beautiful, sure, but she was also real in a way that the girls on B-Yacht’ch weren’t.

  Another part of him thought that Drake had just lost his fucking mind, that everything that had happened to him at the Reynolds farm had finally gotten to his head.

  That the demons who haunted him had finally won.

  He was fiddling with his phone when it buzzed in his hand and he answered without even looking at the caller.

  “Screech here.”

  “It’s Beckett. I ran your powder… it came back almost pure. But it wasn’t cut with baking powder or laxatives. It was cut with fentanyl and other, more deadly variants.”

  Screech’s eyes widened. Heroin was dangerous enough, but fentanyl? A single dose could kill you.

  It seemed counterintuitive to lace your product with something as deadly as fentanyl, but it was in high demand. The sad fact was, the more risk involved, the more addicts wanted it.

  His brother had taught him that.

  “Which is why the girls died when the plastic bags dissolved in their stomachs,” Beckett continued. “As for the other thing? The bodies? Nothing that matches your description came through the morgue.”

  Screech nodded to himself.

  “Long story, but those bodies been disposed of,” he said absently, trying not to picture Mandy lying on the ground, foam at the corners of her dead lips.r />
  “Disposed of?” Beckett asked, the octave of his voice increasing.

  “Some Russian guy… Drake winged him with a bullet, but he still managed to take all the bodies out to sea. I’m guessing that they’re at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean by now.”