Page 7 of Operation: Discovery

He turned to the woman looking for her child. “Take them up front. I’ll help you find your child if they aren’t here. Those whose children are still missing can come back one at a time.”

He backed out and held the door open for her as he saw another nurse in full surgical gear exit one room at the end of the hall and rush for the furthest door. She carried a bag of clear IV fluid. The sight made his blood run cold. There was no reason she should have IV fluid to give vaccinations. He focused on what he could see of her face, memorizing as best he could.

The children behind him raced to the exit, the sound distracting the nurse. She turned to him and froze for a second before rushing through the door. He reached under his leg for his phone and dialed Officer Blake’s direct number. There was no time for his call to go through dispatch as he raced toward the closed door.

He had no weapon. He had no defenses other than his own strength.That’s not true. Forgive me, Lord. I can do all things through you.He tugged on the door, wishing it would push instead. Entering a room was easier if he didn’t have to back up. The door was locked, though, and he couldn’t get in.

“Open up.” He pounded. If they weren’t doing anything wrong, he’d pay the fine or whatever happened if they chose to charge him with anything, but he had to make sure no one was being harmed in that room.

He heard scraping and movement behind the door. “Open up, now!”

Behind him, the door down the hall squeaked open. “Brendon, what’s going on down there?”

“Locked door.” He pounded again as his chest constricted. There was an exit back here somewhere, but he didn’t know the building well enough to know where it was. If this room had an exit out the back, they could be getting away. “Officer Nixon, where are you?” he yelled into the phone.

“Just pulling in now.” The line went dead in his hand.

Dee ran in behind him with keys jangling. “As soon as the kids burst out that door, the attending nurse at the front raced out the door on her phone, yelling orders in a language I didn’t understand. There are about twenty parents still waiting for their children up front.”

“Check these other rooms.” He tried the first two keys in the lock, but he just wasn’t fast enough. He needed to get in there now.

“Let me.” Officer Blake came in behind Brendon.

Brendon rolled back a few feet, giving Officer Blake access. “This is Officer Blake, open up.” He drew his weapon. After a silent count of three, he kicked the door in with a loudbang.

Brendon expected to hear crying or some noise, but the room was silent. He followed Officer Blake inside, surprised by the darkness. The area had been set up as a rough surgical suite. A rolling bed similar to those in a standard ER sat in the middle of the room under a few LED ring lights, the only lights in use. A metal tray sat on a table with shiny surgical equipment at the ready.

“Is he alive?” Dee breathed, touching Brendon’s shoulder, and drawing his attention to the little boy on the bed.

Brendon covered her hand without thinking about the ramifications and the same feelings from their earlier handshake danced up his arm. The boy’s small chest rose and fell slowly, almost imperceptibly. Brendon rolled up to the bed and covered his small bare chest with the blanket that draped him to the waist.

“He’s strapped to the table, but it looks like we got here just in time,” Officer Blake said. “We need to get him to the hospital and make sure he comes out of this alright. We have no idea what he was given to put him under, nor how much sedative was used.”

Dee pointed to the surgical tray. “I think your answer is there, at least to what sedative we’re dealing with.” She reached for the bottle.

Brendon gripped her arm to stop her from touching anything. A needle and empty vial sat next to a gleaming scalpel on the tray. What in the world had they planned to do? And how had they planned to do it right under the noses of parents right out in the waiting area?

Officer Blake used his radio to call in enough EMS to cover the situation, both the local fire department and the hospital in Cheyenne. Once finished, he turned to Brendon. “I need to stay here. This whole building is a crime scene. I want you to carefully check those other rooms for children. Use gloves. Touch nothing. Have the parents stay in the front room until an officer can speak to them. I’ll call in some backup to help with questioning.”

Brendon was thankful his chair was narrow and made of titanium, making it light and easy to move around in the tight space of the conference room so he could get out more easily. He returned to the hall and Dee handed him a set of sterile gloves. He had to be careful in opening the doors or he’d wipe away any fresh prints. Officer Blake would already have difficulty lifting a print on a door used by so many people. The choice of the town hall had to have been on purpose, making tracking these people difficult.

He knocked on the first door and, hearing nothing on the other side, dug the keys from the chest pocket of his shirt again. The fourth key was the right one and he used the key to push the door open, avoiding the knob completely.

Inside, three children lay on the floor in unnatural positions, like they’d dropped from a standing position. Could they have been hit on the head? What could have been used on them to make them fall like that?

Dee raced around him and knelt at the side of the nearest one. “She’s still alive, just drugged. What in the world had they planned here?”

There wasn’t any way to know for certain without catching someone or learning more. But if he had to guess, he’d say this was an attempt at organ harvesting, the deadliest form of human trafficking. He called down the hall, “Blake, we’ve got three more in here. Is your help on the way yet?”

“Fire EMS will be here in under two minutes. The hospital EMS is coming from Cheyenne, still forty minutes out.”

“I’ll look them over,” Dee said almost to herself as she started checking pulses and pupils. Brendon headed for the other rooms, trusting that she could make a better assessment than him and would call if she needed him. They’d found four of the twenty or so children, but there were only a few rooms left. The building wasn’t that large, and the silence closed in on him. There had been crying before, but all had gone completely still now.

He headed for the next door and knocked. A small voice that sounded older than the other children he’d seen answered on the other side. “Mom? Is that you?”

At least some of the children hadn’t been drugged if they could answer. Or this was a trap for him. If it wasn’t, maybe they would have a clue about what had happened here. Brendon answered with a firm and steady voice, “I’m not your mom, but I’m here to make sure you get back to her. Just stay right where you are. You’re safe now. I’m going to unlock the door and bring you out to her.”

He moved to the next key on the ring and found that the keys were in order. The door swung inward, revealing a large group of teens in a clump on the floor in the middle of the room. A quick head count turned up an additional fifteen children.

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