Page 38 of Operation: Silent Angel
“Don’t tell them anything,” Ruiz warned.
“Where’s that tape?” Garcia asked.
Mac tossed it to him, and he taped Ruiz’s mouth. Then he put a piece over the other woman’s mouth too. Mac thrust his weapon into the woman’s stomach, under the robe, as he and Lambchop escorted her to his room next door. Once inside, Mac dragged one of the dining chairs over and placed it in front of the bed. They made the woman sit in the chair and then the two men sat in front of her.
“You aren’t who we want,” Mac said. “You can walk out of here if you answer our questions.”
She shook her head. “He’ll kill me.”
“Ruiz? Or someone else?”
“Ruiz.”
“Does he know about the camera in your bag?” Mac asked.
Even Yvette could see she looked panicked at that question. No, he didn’t know.
“Who are you recording him for?” Mac pressed. “We can protect you. Get you out of whatever you're in.”
She shook her head. “There’s no getting out.”
“You’d be surprised what we can get people out of,” Lambchop said. “What’s your name?”
“Chyna,” she said.
“Let’s have the name your mother gave you,” Lambchop said gently. “You need to trust someone. It might as well be us.”
She thought it over for several long moments. “Mariella,” she finally said.
“Mariella, do you want out?” Lambchop asked.
She nodded.
“I want you to believe we can get you out. Do they have anyone they’re threatening to hurt if you don’t do what they say?” Lambchop asked.
“Not anymore. My mother died. They were threatening her life if I didn’t cooperate, but now, I have nowhere to go, no way to get there, and they’ll kill me if I leave and they find me.”
“That’s not going to happen. But we need your help,” Mac said.
“You’ll help me if I help you,” she said suspiciously.
“Yes. There’s a lot of little towns in America with no cartels, no gangs. We can set you up in one legally. You’ll be safe,” Lambchop said. “But yes, we need your help.”
“Ruiz has a lot of powerful contacts, provides people to just about anyone who wants them, buys them from anyone supplying them. Everyone is making a lot of money off his operation,” she said. “He ships them all over the world. I’ve seen them. Men, women, children. And I’ve seen their graves.”
Mac nodded. He had too. “Who sent you here?”
“Ruiz always requests us when he’s in town.”
“Please,” Mac said. “We want to stop Ruiz.”
She went on to tell them everything, what cartel owned her and the other woman who she knew as Charity, but she knew that was no more her real name than Chyna was hers. She told them what she knew about Ruiz’s operation and the locations of several of his stash houses in the Cancun area, including a boat at the marina he used to smuggle people. She’d been on it once, six months earlier when Ruiz had sent for her and Charity.There were six young girls, all under twelve years old, on the boat being held. Ruiz told her he couldn’t touch them as he’d like as their buyers were paying good money for virgins. He’d been exceptionally deviant that night, pent up frustration for not being able to rape the little girls.
Yvette had heard sick shit while in Ops before, and this was right up there with the worst of it. “Do you know any of his regular channels for trafficking people?”
“I don’t know exactly where they go after they leave Cancun, and I know he ships them through other locations. Not all of them come through here.”
“How long do his victims remain in his hands before they are sold?” Mac asked.
