Page 6 of Summer Heatwave
Mike held up the bottles and Captain Hubbard and Kam each took one before he headed to the door, taking advantage of the excellent timing.It would give Tala and his lieutenant a few minutes reprieve from the intense questions and answers.
Knocking before he entered, because he didn’t want to scare the already tremulous young girl, Mike waited a beat before he entered the room.“Thought you both needed one of these.”He handed each of them a bottled water before silently exchanging an entire conversation with Dylan before Mike laid a hand on his shoulder and gave it a single squeeze.
Once the door had closed behind him, Mike announced to the captain and Kam, “He’s doing fine.He got the message to keep going.”
Kam stared at him and raised one eyebrow.
“The shoulder squeeze.”Then Mike added, “It’s a SEAL thing.”
Cracking open his own bottle of water, he downed nearly half of it before Dylan continued the interrogation.Over the next thirty minutes, they discovered the American men purchased Tala and Perla from the bar owners, loaded them in a limousine, and took them to several bars where they picked up other girls while drinking and partying all night.
The girls were loaded onto a private jet, where they were joined by two other men and several other teenage girls.On the long flight, they were allowed all the food, alcohol, and drugs they wanted.But when they landed on a small airstrip, everything changed.
All Mike could do was slowly shake his head as Tala’s story unfolded.When he was a Lieutenant Junior Grade, he and his team rescued two American girls from a commando camp in Colombia.Their story had been so similar except they had been partying in Tampa and the good-looking rich guys had offered to continue the party in the Caribbean and promised to bring the girls home by the end of the weekend.The kidnappers had no idea they’d taken the only daughter of a member of the House of Representatives.His team had freed seven other women and left the camp a funeral pyre.That hadn’t been the first, nor the last, human trafficking mission for Mike.
For him, though, this was the first time kidnap victims had been brought to the United States.No one from the Philippines would come and rescue these girls.
He slid a glance to Kam and was surprised that she wasn’t more emotional.The women he knew would have been outraged.But then again, human trafficking was her job.He wondered if she’d become hardened to the girls and their stories.
Mike got his answer when Tala spoke about the online auction selling her virginity, being drugged and raped in a hotel room, thentrainedby her original kidnappers for weeks.
Kam bowed her head, sucked in air through clenched teeth, and pounded her fist into an open hand.She paced the hall for a few minutes, never out of hearing distance, before she took a deep breath and closed her eyes.When she returned to the window, she was once again calm and collected.
Neat trick.He wondered if she’d teach it to him.
“Bad men train us.Tala good.Perlah better.Perlah picked go to the club.I go to Miss Nami’s house.She train me more so I make good tips.I get specials.”
Dylan leaned forward slightly but kept his distance.“We’re going to come back and talk about Perlah in a minute, but did all the girls go either to the club or to Miss Nami’s?Were some of the girls sent elsewhere?”
Tala’s eyebrows drew together.“I no know…eselware.”She said the sentence very slowly and struggled with the last word.
Dylan gave her a reassuring smile.“Elsewhere.Were girls taken to some other place to work?”
Tala tried the word again.“Lesacare.”She shook her head.“Say word again.”
“Elsewhere.”He then broke down the word into syllables and made her repeat it until she was able to say the entire word.By the success on Tala’s face, Mike would have thought she’d just received the most wonderful gift.In a way, she had.
Words.Language.Understanding.As someone who could reasonably speak two other languages, Mike could identify with her joy.
Redirecting, Dylan rephrased the question, “Some girls went to the club, some to Miss Nami’s house, were there other girls that went?—
“Elsewhere.”Tala smiled at her correct pronunciation.
Dylan returned her smile.“Perfect.”
“Yes, some pretty girls go to Colombia.Big Daddy have club there too.”Tala nodded her head.“Chesa, friend to me and Perlah, very beautiful, she go to Colombia.”
“You know where in Colombia they went?”Dylan pressed.
“De Trick.”Tala shook her head.“I try to find on map but no find.”
The corners of Dylan’s lips quirked.“Did they call it District of Columbia?”
Tala looked offended.“That what I say.De Trick Colombia.”
“Holy fuck.”Kam’s whispered words echoed his own sentiments.“Ask her about Big Daddy.We need to find the sonofabitch now.”
“Other than Miss Nami’s, the club where Perlah went, and District of Columbia, where else did the girls go?”As trained, Dylan was trying to follow down each thread as far as possible.Mike recognized the technique and was as proud as a father of this young lieutenant.
