ESCAPE FROM AMBERGRIS CAYE (26 page)

While her
friends were just trying to stay alive, Izzie faced problems of her own.
Although not required to don the orange jumpsuits their male counterparts wore,
conditions in the women’s section were no better and in some respects worse.
The guards openly lusted after the more attractive females and were not at all
subtle in reminding them that if they wanted to improve their situation they
needed to cooperate. Their intentions weren’t lost on the women; they knew
exactly to what they referred.

Izzie was
by
turns
exhausted, terrified and just plain hungry.
The previous night she’d tried to sleep on the cold cement floor. With no
blanket to keep out the dampness or stop insects from biting, she had little
success.

“So, what
‘
cha in
for?” Her cellmate was an attractive woman
Izzie judged to be in her thirties.

“My
friend borrowed a boat. Now we’re accused of stealing it.”

The woman
nodded in sympathy. “
Oooh
, too bad. That’ll get you a
couple years for sure.”

“What? Why?
We didn’t do anything wrong. Just borrowed a friend’s boat to go for a ride.”

“Stealing,
isn’t that what they say you did?”

Izzie
nodded.

“Judge
doesn’t like thieves.”

Izzie
could feel her heart sink. “We haven’t seen a judge yet. Maybe after he hears
our story, he’ll let us go.”

The woman
laughed, her face crinkled into a broad smile. “Okay, you hold onto that
thought. It’ll help get you through the next month.”

“Month?
Why a month?”

“That’s
when the judge comes ’round next.”

Izzie was
so crestfallen, she wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. How could she possibly
last in these miserable conditions a whole month? The food was horrible; she’d
gotten no-end of bug bites and the guards? How long could she fend them off?
The one, she thought his name was Roscoe, had made his intentions very clear:
he could make her life easier or impossible. It was up to her.

“How
about you? What’d they get you for?”

“Murder.”

“
Murder?
Really?”

The woman
nodded.

“Who’d
you kill?”

“They say
I killed my boyfriend, that I stabbed him because he raped my little girl.”

“Your
little girl? How old is she?”

“Just
ten.”

“Did
you?”

“I found
him with her and screamed at him to leave her alone. He came at me with a
knife. We struggled and he tripped, cutting himself in the stomach. By the time
the ambulance got there, he’d bled to death. I told them what happened, but
they didn’t believe me.”

“What
about your daughter? Couldn’t she tell them?”

“She did,
but they said I coached her. They found me guilty and sentenced me to twenty
years, maybe less with good behavior.”

“And the
guards? Are they after you too?”

She
seemed to blush then said, “They were till you got here. You’re lucky, you
know. They can make things a whole lot better if you give them what they want.”

Izzie’s stomach
clenched; she thought she’d vomit at the thought of what she’d have to do to
survive.

"He
ready to spill?" Detective Anders said to Leon's lawyer. He enjoyed doing
battle with Patricia Maxwell. They'd dated briefly several years ago, before he
settled down and got married. He was faithful to his wife, Beth, always would
be. Still, he wasn't above noticing an attractive woman, especially when she
sat right across the desk from him.

"Absolutely."

"Gonna
give us something we can use?"

"Depends
on what he gets in return. You have to understand: the guy he turns over—the
operation he exposes—could mean a death sentence. Before he risks his life, he
needs assurances that he'll be protected, as in witness protection, and not
just some half-assed effort on your part either."

Man, that
woman had a mouth on her. Anders leaned back in his swivel chair. "Like I
told you before, depends on what he gives us and what he can prove. Just
telling us the candidate for the mayor of Chicago is involved with human
trafficking isn't enough. We need hard proof. I mean, imagine the explosion his
allegations are going to make—not only in Chicago, but across the country.
We're going to look like a bunch of fools if what he says doesn't hold water.
Know what I mean?"

"I
do. Look, talk to him and see what you think."

****

Five
minutes later, Anders joined the attorney and her client in the interview room.
"Let's get this party started. What’ve we got?"

Ms.
Maxwell looked at Leon. "You're up," she said.

Leon began
to talk and the story he told was nothing less than startling to Detective
Anders. He claimed he’d known Seymour Cottingham, prominent citizen of Chicago
and candidate for mayor, since they were both in a street gang as teens. From
there they’d graduated to the mob, but whereas Leon repeatedly ended up in jail
for a variety of petty crimes, Seymour kept his nose clean. He had no record
whatever—a model citizen that one.

“All
right, I get it,” Detective Anders looked at his watch. “You claim the guy, who’s
never been in prison a day in his life, is a big-time trafficker for the mob.
That what you want me to believe?”

Leon
nodded. With dark circles under his eyes and a troubled expression, he looked
exhausted. He’d been held for over twelve hours now with no sleep and little to
eat. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. He’s the one calling the shots.”

Anders
ran his hand through a head of thick wavy hair. If what Leon was saying was
true then this was big. A case like this could make or break a guy’s career. He
had to handle it right or it’d blow up in his face.

“How did
it work? I mean did he call with specific orders or what?”

“
Naw
, nothing like that. He knew
if’n
he did that, there’d be a trail and he’d get caught. He had to keep his hands
clean so if anything went wrong, nothing could be traced back to him.”

“Then how
do we know you’re telling the truth? You could be making this up to save your
own skin.”

“But I’m
not. Look, this is how it worked.” Leon stopped. “Any chance I can get something
to drink and maybe a burger? I’m starving.”

Anders
pressed “pause” on the interview recorder and signaled to the policeman sitting
next to him at the table. “He’ll get you something. In the meantime, let’s
proceed.” He pressed “record” and nodded at Leon. “You were about to tell us
how the operation worked.”

“Yes. All
right. Seymour, er Mr. Cottingham, set me up in that house in Tampa your guys
broke into last night. His contacts in other countries attracted young people,
mostly girls but some guys too, telling them and their parents they’d get them
into this country and either into schools for an education or good paying jobs
so they could send money home. They bought the lie and went willingly. My role
was to receive the poor suckers, and sell them to whoever wanted their
‘services’.”

“That’s
where that notebook of yours came in?”

“Right. I
had to keep a record of some kind, so I’d know if Seymour was cheating me. He
wasn’t above doing that, you know.”

“How did
you get paid?”

“Cash
only. The asshole,” Leon paused and looked at Ms. Maxwell, “Sorry, I mean
Seymour covered all his bases.”

“So we’re
right back where we started from then?” Anders’ patience was wearing thin. They
were going round and round in circles. The bastard was playing him. “We’re not
getting anywhere. Book him.” He signaled to someone behind the two-way mirror.

The door
to the interview room opened and the policeman walked in with his food followed
by another who appeared ready to do as the detective requested.

“No,
wait, I’m not finished,” Leon protested. “There’s more.”

“Well,
get to it. Either you can prove Cottingham’s involved or you can’t. I don’t
have all day.”

Leon
opened the bag and dug in. The smell of a hamburger and fries filled the room.

Detective
Anders’ stomach rumbled, reminding him he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. It made
him even more eager to finish this and be done with it. He turned the recorder
back on.

“How’d
you stay in touch?”

“Cottingham
called from time to time, but always said I was never to call him. He was clear
about that.”

“How’d
you get paid?”

“He had
one of his flunkies drop off an envelope of cash each time we handled a
shipment.”

Leon’s
business-like approach surprised Anders. For a run-of-the-mill street thug, he
was surprisingly organized. “So you never had occasion to call the guy? Nothing
ever went wrong?”

“Well,
there was that thing with the girl who killed herself. That was bad.”

The hair
on Anders’ neck prickled; a chill ran down his spine. “What girl?”

“The one
that showed up on Clearwater Beach ’bout a month ago. You remember, it was all
over the news.”

Indeed he
did remember. They’d tried everything to identify her. No one claimed the body
and they’d finally buried her in a pauper’s grave. “You had something to do
with that?”

“Whoa, wait
a damn minute. I didn’t kill her.
Lemme
be clear on
that. I admit she was a ‘guest’. Somehow she got hold of my gun and shot
herself in the head. I didn’t know what to do, so I called Seymour. He freaked
out, said I’d jeopardized the whole operation and to get rid of the body.
Dumping her on the beach was my idea.” Leon seemed proud of that.

“You have
a record of who she was?”

“Just
what I have in my notebook.”

“But you
can point that out?”

“Sure. Be
hard to forget that one, it caused me so much trouble.”

“Okay,
we’ll get back to that later. Tell me about Zac.”

“Zac?
What about him?”

“He works
for you, right?”

Leon’s
eyes bulged. “How’d you know about him?”

“Never
mind that. Just tell me what he did and where he is now.”

“Him? He
did odds and ends for me, nothing much. I sent him out of the country to
deliver a shipment about ten days ago.”

“A
shipment? As in a trafficking victim?”

“You
could say that.”

“I
thought your victims were foreigners. You traffic U.S. citizens too?” Good God,
this was getting more complicated by the minute.

“Sure.
But we usually move them around within the country. I mean when I get a girl
from here, I make sure she’s sent across the country. That makes the
possibility of getting caught a lot less. See what I mean?”

“What
made this one different?”

“It was a
guy nosing around. I couldn’t take any chances.”

“So how’d
you get him out of the country?”

“In a
trunk.”

“A trunk?
On an airplane?”

“No, by
boat. A plane would have been too risky.”

Anders
began to wonder if that was what happened to the other Taylor. What was his
name? Jackson, the news
photographer, that
was it. He
was Zac’s brother. He’d been concerned about his reporter friend. Claimed she’d
disappeared and wasn’t about to let it go.

“So, you
took him onboard what? A cruise ship?”

“No, it
was a trawler yacht. A friend of Seymour’s handles these
kinda
shipments from time to time.”

“Really?”
Now they were getting someplace. “And where did he generally take his special
cargo?”

“To
Belize.”

It was hot—ungodly
hot, and there was a constant line at the faucet to get a drink of tepid water.
Zac had gone inside to relieve himself and for the moment lost sight of Jackson
and Charlie. When he came out, Charlie was in line but Jackson was nowhere to
be seen.

“Charlie,
where’s Jackson?” Zac tapped him on the shoulder.

“I
thought he was with you.” Charlie looked startled, as if awakened from a dream.

Fearing
his worst nightmare—his brother attacked by the gang of vicious thugs that
populated the place—may be coming true, Zac frantically eyeballed the
courtyard.
Oh God, where was he?

Numerous
groups of orange-clad inmates mulled about, making it nearly impossible to
distinguish one from another. Charlie joined him. As they began to search,
going from one group to the other, they were more often than not greeted with
taunts and hostile stares.

What if
Jackson had been cornered in an isolated area of the complex and was fighting
for his life. It wasn’t unheard of for inmates to be murdered in this place;
one had been found beaten to death in the few days they’d been there.

Zac was
in full panic mode.
Where the hell was he?
Doubling his fists, his
adrenalin pumping, he charged about the yard like a man half-crazed. If they
harmed his brother they’d pay for
it, that
was for
damned sure. He’d find out who was responsible and … and…
was that Jackson?
Over
there, in the corner of the yard surrounded by a dozen or so men? Were they
threatening him? Or about to beat him up? He’d witnessed more than one smack
down of that type since they’d been here and shuddered to think of Jackson
being on the receiving end.

The
closer he got the more befuddled he became. The men were laughing up a storm,
almost howling in merriment. What was so damned funny? Were they forcing
Jackson to do something obscene? Had they taken his clothes or made him
impersonate a woman?

He was
close enough now to hear some of the remarks, which only confused him more.

“That’s a
good one. Tell us another.” One voice said. He didn’t sound angry or
threatening.
What the hell was going on?

Zac
elbowed his way through the tight little group and was astonished at what he
saw. Standing there surrounded by some of the toughest men in the yard, Jackson
not only didn’t appear frightened or under any kind of duress, he seemed to
actually be enjoying himself.

“Another
time I covered a story about a lady whose legs were cut off in a lawn-mower
accident. That was gruesome. Blood everywhere,” he said, then noticing Zac, he
paused, “This here’s my brother. He can tell you a lot of good stories, can’t
you, Zac?”

Before
Zac could respond, the group’s reaction left no doubt who they preferred to
hear from.

“Tell us
how somebody gets to be a news photographer.”

“Do you
have to have your own camera?”

“Do they
provide a car?”

As the
questions kept flying, Zac slipped away from the throng. It was obvious Jackson
didn’t need his help. He was doing just fine on his own.