My flight landed on time at eight thirty on Friday night. Before leaving for the airport, I’d made sure to spend a few hours at Eva’s house before we both left to meet up with James. Eva told her mother that we’d all be out late watching a movie and not to wait up for her. As soon as we left, I took off for the airport. Eva really was going to the movies with James.
It had been a full flight and I’d had to sit on the ground beside the main entry door because having the ghost of someone sitting on me for hours wasn’t appealing. I’d tried it for ten minutes and I’d promptly moved when she’d passed gas. I was in R1, but I still felt like I was marinating in it. She was also fidgety and talked to her seatmate non-stop. The floor was a much better choice.
Upon landing, I rode my bike to Serpentine Logistics and verified that everything was as it was a week ago. I didn’t want any surprises. I checked the cells in the basement, in case a freelancer like Len had dropped someone off, but they were all empty. Next, I verified that their wireless password still worked and I set up the cameras to connect to their internet and send out live feeds to a website that I specified. Placing the tiny cameras in the right locations took a little bit of time, because I had to verify that each camera was focused properly and looking in the right direction. I needed the extra time because I was working with gloves and my fingers were clumsier in them.
So far, the building was empty except for the gate guard and the guard at the security station inside. It was still over four hours until showtime and I expected more guards to arrive at midnight. With all the cameras in the building, both mine and Serpentine’s, I decided to go outside to make my call to the police.
It wouldn’t actually be a call yet. The Wilmington police had at ‘text-a-tip’ system where you could text in information about crimes anonymously. I didn’t trust that anything would stay anonymous once they saw what was going on at Serpentine, but thanks to Howie I had the equipment to make sure that I stayed anonymous.
Setting up my phone to show a fake name, Roger Willoughby, and number, I texted out “Human traffickers will be operating in Wilmington tonight. Video from last time to follow.” I had a short video of the women in cells from one of Serpentine’s more recent deliveries and I texted it to them, along with a number that they could reach me at.
I had a few other ways of reaching out to the police, but I wanted to see if this would be effective. I got a call back in just under twenty minutes. Given that my video was two minutes long, I was betting that I wouldn’t be dealing with an underling. I wasn’t.
“Hello. This is Captain Stevens, of Special Investigations. We received your tip about human trafficking. What else can you tell us about it?”
“Their next delivery of victims is scheduled for 2AM. My information shows that there will be 40 women and children brought in.” I was using the voice changer in the mask and I sounded like a middle-aged man. I’d decided not to go with the celebrity option, because I’d felt that I’d lose credibility that way.
“Sir, where are they being transported to?”, he asked.
“I’ll call you back at 2AM and tell you.”
“Why don’t you just tell me now? Why wait?”
“My information might be wrong. Once I see the captives, I’ll call you back.”
“Sir, I’d really like to get the information now. It’s my job to check these things out. Two of the women in the video that you sent are on our missing persons list. They were identified through our facial recognition software. Both went missing two months ago. I don’t know where you got the video from or your information, but it’s not fake and we need to follow up on it.”
I had wondered if they’d think that the video was staged and I was just some idiot prankster, but it seemed that I had their full attention.
“They have guards patrolling the place and a lot of cameras watching over everything. If they see you, they’ll have enough time to stop the transport. I won’t risk that. Organize whatever you need in the meantime.” I was hanging up, when I heard him shout, “Wait.”
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“I can’t get a warrant to search the place if I don’t have an address.” I knew that he was trying to trace the call, but I trusted Howie’s equipment and I stayed on long enough to answer him.
“If this is important to you, you’ll have a judge standing by.” I hung up and shifted back to R2 to get into the building.
The floor safe was my next objective. Now that I didn’t have to worry about anyone noticing if things were moved around, I could take a look at the files inside. In Daniel’s office, I shifted to R2 and shifted the contents of the safe to R2 as well. Reaching into the safe, I removed everything and examined the ex-contents. The bag of diamonds was incredible. I’d seen bags like this in movies and videos plenty of times and they’d often referred to the diamonds as ice. I could definitely see why.
I packed the diamonds away in my backpack and searched through the bags of jewelry. The bags were filled with engagement rings, diamond bracelets, and gold necklaces, along with watches and earrings. These weren’t new pieces of jewelry; these were taken from their victims. I placed these bags back in the safe for the police to find. Maybe there was some way to get them back to the victims’ families.
Ever since I downloaded Daniel’s computer and the server, I’d been hoping for some clues about the organization behind the human trafficking. Daniel was basically a middleman. A sleezy, piece of filth middleman, but still only just that. He wasn’t kidnapping the women and children, he was housing them and transporting them to their final destinations. I wanted to find the kidnappers, the brokers and the buyers. I wanted to track where the victims went after they were shipped off from here. The Serpentine servers didn’t have that information anywhere on them that I could find and I was really hoping that the files in the safe would have something worthwhile for my search.
Those hopes were dashed when I looked at the tabs. Each folder had the name of a bank on it and inside each folder were the details of those banks and passwords. Of course I realized that I could use that money to fund my search for more traffickers, but I didn’t know how to transfer the money and even if I did, I didn’t know how to do it without the money being traced to me. For now, it was useless information, but I stored it in my backpack for another day.
My last chance was in the external drives that I’d pulled out of the safe. I suspected that they had more of Daniel’s videos on them, older ones that he didn’t want to keep on his computer, but I plugged them into my laptop and checked them anyways. I was right. More videos. Another dead end. I was running out of places to look for clues. My last chance would be the delivery truck. If he had a GPS system, or some manifest, then I’d be able to see where he picked up the women and children from. If that failed, I’d have to use the police records of this investigation to see what leads they found. Maybe I’d missed something in the server.
Midnight rolled around and with it came ten beefy guards. They all drove into the warehouse and parked along the back wall. Two immediately went downstairs to the cells and two stationed themselves by the loading dock. The other six took positions at various points along the route that the victims would take on their way to the basement. This was standard procedure and I’d seen in on the security camera files several times. In about an hour, the head of IT and Daniel would show up, along with the head of finance and Daniel’s assistant. Delivery time was always all hands-on-deck at Serpentine.
With some time on my hands, I returned to Daniel’s office and checked out his walk-in safe. In R2 I just walked right through the credenza entrance and used my phone as a flashlight to look around. It was a small space, with shelves on one side and a tool pegboard on the other. The shelves were full of bundles of cash while the pegboard was covered in guns. Looking at the cash, I’d hoped that I’d brought enough bags to hold it all. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get it all back home.
The guns were another matter. I hadn’t planned on taking those at all but seeing them changed my mind. I might need a gun at some time in the future and here was a whole collection just sitting around, waiting to be asked for a dance. It was possible that Howie could hook me up with a gun, should I need one, but I’d prefer not to have to ask him for one. With a ‘better safe than sorry’ attitude, I examined the handguns carefully and picked a 22, a 38, and 45. From experience, I knew I could handle the 22 and the 38, but the 45 would probably have too much kick for me. I’d take it anyways. A 45 makes for a good stocking-stuffer. Daniel was also kind enough to have a shelf full of ammunition for his various toys for me to choose from.
Having chosen what I would take later, I left the walk-in safe without disturbing anything. Should Daniel decide to come in here before the transport arrived, I didn’t want him to realize that anything had been disturbed. I’d already taken enough of a chance by pillaging his floor safe, but that couldn’t be helped, as I had to know in advance what was in there. Was there a way to stop him from opening the safe without becoming suspicious? I took a few seconds to scan the safe, saw that it was battery operated and shifted the batteries into R1. That will at least slow him down long enough for me to put the files and bag of diamonds back if I needed to.