ESCAPE FROM AMBERGRIS CAYE (28 page)

Leon
couldn’t believe his eyes.
Where were they taking him?
From the back
seat of the car, it looked like the surface of the moon. U.S. Marshals had
flown him from Tampa to Chicago, then put him on one of their planes, which
made him feel mighty important for a few hours.

They
continued their journey by car refusing to say where they were headed. Said it
was for his protection; that the fewer who knew his destination the better off
he’d be. Leon understood their reasoning but thought
he
should be in on
it.
For Christ’s sake, it was his hide at stake.

At least
they’d let him bring Tiny along. At first they’d balked, but Leon had put his
foot down. Said he wouldn’t testify against Seymour if Tiny wasn’t part of the
deal. So they’d caved. Score one for his side.

Now if he
could only figure out where they were going. It was somewhere west, he could
tell by the sun. Maybe it was California, someplace near the ocean, like San
Diego or hell, he didn’t know the state; had only read about cities like San
Francisco and Los Angeles. Any place like that worked for him.

As he
glanced out the window, the landscape seemed just plain weird, like nothing
he’d ever seen.
Was this California?
He didn’t think so. For one thing,
there wasn’t a palm tree in sight, for another there was nothing, few cars, and
nothing much to see except what looked like rocks that weren’t as large as
mountains but too big to be considered hills besides which there was no grass
on them.
What the hell were they?
Even the flat areas were desolate.

“Hey,
where’re we going?” He leaned up to ask Deputy Marshal Massey upfront.

“You’ll
see when we get there.”

The man
hadn’t even turned around, just told him to settle down—like he was a goddamned
kid. He sat back in the seat and closed his eyes.   

Hours
later they pulled off the Interstate into a gas station. Leon, who’d dozed off
thought they were going to fill up so, still sleepy, he closed his eyes. A few
seconds later the car door opened and the federal agent tapped his shoulder and
said, “Hey Leon, wake up.”

“What?”
Leon said. “I don’t
hafta
take a leak.” He rubbed his
eyes.

Massey
laughed. “Get out. This here’s your new home.”

Leon
looked around. This was nothing like the California he’d seen in magazines.
Where were the palm trees, the beaches and the beautiful people? For that
matter, where was the ocean?

 Then
he saw it. A sign advertising the “world’s number-one roadside attraction where
ice water’s free for weary travelers and coffee costs only twenty-five cents”.
It said “Welcome to Wall, South Dakota. Population 850.”

ESCAPE FROM AMBERGRIS CAYE is a
work of fiction that puts a spotlight on a very real and growing problem. While
Izzie, Zac and Jackson managed to survive and escape their traffickers, in real
life many are not so lucky. It’s hard to imagine that in this day and age over
27 million people worldwide are believed to be working as personal and sexual
slaves.

Those ensnared in such a life may
be as close as your next door neighbor, the server at your favorite restaurant,
or the maid in the hotel you stayed at on your last vacation. Help eliminate
this scourge by recognizing the signs and reporting suspected trafficking
situations to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center
hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or text to
BeFree
(233733).

A list of potential red flags and indicators of human
trafficking may be obtained from the Polaris Project’s website at
http://www.polarisproject.org/human-trafficking/recognizing-the-signs
. The
Polaris Project is an organization devoted to the fight against human
trafficking and modern-day slavery. Knowing the indicators of human trafficking
is a key step in identifying its victims.

Anyone can become a victim of human
trafficking—even you. Join the fight and help rid the world of this unsavory
crime by educating yourself about it and supporting federal and local laws
designed to prevent and combat it.

The
author of three previous novels including THE WATERKEEPER’S DAUGHTER (2014),
THE MANGLED SPOON (2014) and HALIFAX (2013), Joan Mauch’s background ranges
from teaching and working for nonprofit organizations advocating for the poor,
to a career in marketing and public relations.  She has a bachelor’s
degree in chemistry and a master’s in urban studies. Visit her website at
www.joanmauch.com
or her Facebook author page at facebook.com/joanmauch.author.