Isabel's Run (23 page)

Our eyes met, and we instantly recognized each other. “D-Lo!” he said, hopping out of his chair. “Son of a bitch! I had no idea you were the one we were meeting with today.”

“Mickey Cole,” I said as I walked around the table to greet him. Michael Cole, known far and wide as Mickey, had been a senior at Ballard High School when I was a sophomore. Normally, that two-year difference would have made us invisible to each other. In our case, though, we were both on the varsity track team—he threw the javelin, and I was a miler. We spent a lot of time together. “Long time no see.”

“Damn right,” he said as we shook hands warmly. “Last I heard, you’d gotten yourself shot over in Iraq.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I zigged when I should have zagged.”

“Jesus, dude. You’re okay?”

“I’m fine. All in one piece. I was only out of action for a week or so.”

“Glad to hear it,” he said. He turned to Toni. “Hi,” he said, smiling broadly. “I’m Mickey Cole.”

Toni smiled. “Hi,” she said. “Toni Blair. I work for Danny.”

Mickey shook her hand. “Danny and I were on the track team together in high school. He was pretty good at it—damn good, actually. I sucked. I was just there for the letter.”

“He’s still pretty fast,” Toni said.

“I’ll bet he is,” Mickey said. He turned to the other man at the table. “This skinny guy over here is my partner Javier Martinez. Javi and I head up the Gang Unit’s north-side efforts. Nancy told us about your little sting operation. Sounds like it didn’t turn out quite the way you’d hoped.”

I shook my head. “No, it didn’t,” I said.

“Let’s have a seat, and you can tell us about it.”

We took our seats. “Have you ever heard of a group called the North Side Street Boyz—that’s boyz with a ‘z’?” I asked.

Mickey glanced at Javier and then turned back to me. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “We’ve heard of them. Donnie “Young Love” Martin and his crew. What are those knuckleheads up to?”

I walked them through the events of the last week and a half, starting with the text messages Kelli’d received from Isabel, all the way through our vehicle surveillance. “So,” I concluded, “our interest in this is finding and rescuing Isabel Delgado.”

Mickey nodded. “Based on what you just described, this sounds like vintage shit from these punks. They recruit young runaway girls, force them into prostitution, and then they live off the earnings. We think they’ve been doing it for three years or so. They use the money to buy drugs and fancy cars. They’re nothing but modern-day pimps.”

“That’s actually an insult to pimps, if you can believe that,” Javier said. “At least most of the old-fashioned pimps split the money with the prostitutes in some fashion. These guys don’t even do that. They keep everything. They’re actually modern-day slave masters.”

I opened the file I’d brought and slid out pictures of the three individuals we’d seen at the big house.

“That’s Donnie Martin,” Javier said. He held up the picture and turned to Nancy. “Have you pulled this guy’s sheet?”

Nancy nodded. “He’s been in trouble since he was ten years old.”

“No doubt,” Mickey said. “He’s a bad dude. What’s worse, he’s not very bright. The combination makes him dangerous. I’d say he’s on a one-way street. If he’s lucky, he’ll end up in prison for a long, long time.”

“And if he’s not,” Javier said, “somebody’s gonna take him out.”

“You guys don’t have any active investigations going on this guy then?” Nancy asked.

“Nothing formal,” Mickey said. “You guys neither?”

Nancy shook her head. “We’d never even heard of them until Danny and Toni brought them to us. It’s the exact kind of thing we’re all over—particularly with the threat of trafficking.”

“What threat is that?” Mickey asked.

Nancy recounted Paola’s conversation about Isabel possibly being sold.

“That makes it federal, doesn’t it?” Mickey asked.

Nancy nodded. “It does. The FBI runs a local task force dealing with sex trafficking of minors. They should be joining us any minute.”

* * * *

Ten seconds later, a man in a suit and a woman in a dress suit were led into the conference room by a member of Nancy’s staff.

“Here they are,” Nancy said, standing. We all stood for introductions. “Special Agents Nicole Bryan and Jonathan Geist.” Nancy introduced each of us.

“Thank you for inviting us to your meeting, Nancy,” Agent Bryan said as they took their seats. She was a tall woman, perhaps mid-thirties. Her blond hair was pulled back tightly. She turned to us. “I don’t know how familiar you are with what we do, but Agent Geist and I are attached to the national Innocence Lost Initiative. As such, we head up the King County Innocence Lost Task Force, which consists of the FBI, the King County Sheriff’s Department, and most of the local police departments. We’re here to try and stop domestic sex trafficking of children in the Seattle area. Nancy called us and told us that we might have a new subject.”

“That’s right,” Nancy said. “Danny and Toni are trying to find Isabel Delgado, a sixteen-year-old girl who we believe has become connected with a local gang called the North Side Street Boyz.” Nancy went on to explain the sting and how we ended up with Paola. “When Paola implicated the NSSB gang in trafficking, I had no choice but to notify the task force.”

“Just to be clear,” I said, “as I recall, Paola said she heard Isabel Delgado was going to be sold to another pimp—perhaps someone in Las Vegas—because she refused to begin prostituting herself for the gang.”

“Understood. And there are no details other than that?” Agent Bryan asked.

“If by details you mean times and places of exchange, then no,” I said, “no additional details. We do believe we have the addresses of the three houses where the gang bases its operation, the automobiles they drive, and—,” I pointed to the pictures, “—pictures of the gang leaders.”

Both agents examined the photos and took notes. When she was finished, Agent Bryan said, “Well, Nancy, I agree—this sounds like exactly the kind of case we’re set up to investigate. As you know, we’re just days away from pulling the trigger on Operation Cross Country VI. It’s way too late to fold this into that. But I’d be willing to recommend that we start an investigation into this NSSB group now. That way, we could definitely include it in Cross Country VII.”

“How long would that take?” I asked.

“It could take a while,” she said. “We have to gather evidence, prepare a case.”

“Weeks?” I asked. “Months?”

“Probably months,” she said.

“Well, let me ask you this,” I said. “You said you’re about to pull the trigger on Cross Country VI, right?”

“Yes,” she said.

“When did Cross Country V happen?”

She thought about it for a minute, and then she said, “December—no, November 2010.”

“2010?” I said. “Eighteen months ago?”

She nodded. “That’s about right.”

“And how many kids got rescued?”

She considered this. “Around seventy,” she said.

“Nationwide? Or just here in Seattle?”

“That was nationwide. I can see what you’re getting at, Mr. Logan,” she said, a little testily. “But you have to understand that it takes time for us to put a case together against these people.”

“I do understand,” I said. “And that’s the point.” I tilted my head a little and looked at her. “Where’s that leave Isabel? Apparently, she’s about to be sold like a slave and shipped out of state any time now. What about her?”

“I wish we could do more, but we can’t swoop in and arrest these guys and make a case that will stick overnight,” Agent Bryan said.

“Who cares about that?” I said. “We can definitely swoop in and rescue Isabel—this afternoon for that matter. To hell with making a case. All I care about is Isabel. I don’t give a damn about NSSB.”

She looked at me for a moment and then said, “Unfortunately, for us it doesn’t work that way. We have to look at the bigger picture.” She seemed to have channeled her patience and decided to explain things to me. I felt like I was back in elementary school. “Consider for a moment that these guys might be involved with dozens of girls just like Isabel. We have a duty to close the whole operation down. Jumping in and blowing our cover before we’re ready probably eliminates that possibility. We have no choice but to carefully assemble a tight, solid case against the men involved so that we can arrest them, convict them, and put them away. In the process, we save all of their victims.”

I stared at her for a moment. “And while you’re doing that, what? You just ignore the people you see right in front of you who are being hurt by these men? People like Isabel?”

The room was tense. I could clearly hear the ticking of the clock on the wall as the seconds passed by. Finally, Nancy broke the silence. “Nobody’s going to ignore anyone we see getting hurt, including Isabel,” she said. “That said, the sad fact is that right now, it’s a moot point anyway. We don’t even know where she is.”

“That’s easy enough,” I said. “Why don’t you just go look? We already gave you the addresses.”

“You mean get a warrant and search the houses?” Agent Bryan said.

“Yeah.”

“We can’t do that,” she said. “We don’t have anything on them. We just heard about them two minutes ago. I don’t think that hearsay from a fifteen-year-old would be sufficient probable cause. We’d never be able to get a warrant.”

“You mean a warrant for trafficking?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I turned to Nancy. “And you agree? I mean—the Seattle Police Department agrees?”

She looked at me. “For the moment—much as I hate to say it—we don’t have a choice. Unless we get something more concrete, our hands are tied.” She turned to face Agent Bryan. “But, Nicole, if we do come up with something more concrete—something that makes it so we think we know where that little girl is, then I
will
try to get a warrant. And I don’t care if it’s for trafficking or jaywalking or whatever. My first job is to protect. I won’t stand by and watch one little girl become a sacrifice while we build a case against these guys. I’ll find some reason to throw them in jail.”

“But they might turn right around and walk,” Agent Bryan protested.

“They might,” Nancy said. “But in the meantime, I’ll have Isabel. Safe and sound.”

* * * *

“This is the exact problem I almost always have with those pinheads at the FBI,” I said as I spooned my bowl of chowder. We were at Duke’s Chowder House in Chandler’s Cove by Lake Union, directly across the water from our office. I’d called a team meeting at one o’clock, and Toni and I were grabbing a quick lunch before. “Some of them—not all of them, but enough of them—they lose their common sense when they get their FBI badge and the secret decoder ring that goes with it.”

Toni kept eating, content to let me rant.

“‘We’re here to arrest bank robbers,’” I said in my best FBI voice. “‘We don’t care if you’re selling crack cocaine to little kids. That’s someone else’s department. We want to know about bank robbers.’” I shook my head. “That whole mindset pisses me off.”

“The government compartmentalizes everything,” Toni said. “And then, they assign duties and responsibilities based just on that narrow scope.”

“And their culture rewards people who stick to the program and penalizes people who don’t.”

“Like the free thinkers,” she said.

“Exactly.”

“Good thing your girlfriend moved to Virginia,” she said without looking up. She was referring to an FBI agent friend of mine—not a girlfriend—whom I’d spent some quality time with earlier in the year. My friend had coincidentally decided to transfer back east about the same time I came to my senses and figured out Toni was more than just a business partner to me. I could see Toni smiling, even as she refused to look up at me.

“Shut up,” I said. “Gloating doesn’t become you.”

Now she looked up and smiled. “Just saying.”

“Saying nothing. Besides,” I said, “my girlfriend lives in Seattle.”

“Oh, does she? Anyone I know?”

I shrugged. “Could be. She’s pretty tall, dark hair, great eyes.” I paused, as if I was thinking. Then I shrugged again. “Decent figure,” I said, for which I received a quick kick in the shins under the table.

“Decent?” she said, feigning indignation.

“Okay,” I admitted. “Better than decent.” I stared off toward the ceiling, as if I were visualizing. Fact is, I
was
visualizing. “Damn fine, actually.”

“You’d better say that,” she said, smiling.

“Are you blushing?”

“No.”

“Yeah, I think you are. Just a little.”

“Shut up, Logan.”

When we were finished, a thought occurred to me. “I have an idea,” I said.

“Good.”

“About the case.”

“I assumed.”

“Nancy said if she got something more concrete about Isabel’s whereabouts, she’d move on it. Right?” I said.

“Yeah.” Her voice took on a wary edge. “What’d you have in mind?”

“I think I might have a way of moving things along. No waiting for the FBI.”