Capitol Conspiracy

29

Loving tightly gripped the steering wheel of his van. “I still can’t believe it. Children?”

“Horrifying,” Shohreh said softly. “But sadly true.”

“In a third-world nation, maybe. But here?”

“The General’s principal operations are still overseas. But he has gained a foothold here. The federal government gives such scrutiny to large sums of money transported from overseas banks since 9/11. He needs a domestic source of income.”

“But- children?”

“You can see now, perhaps, why I am so determined to find him. And stop him. It is not only that he threatens my life. If the General is allowed to continue his revolting business-there is no telling how many lives could be destroyed. He is far from the first. He will not be the last. But usually, those who traffic in sex do not use their filthy profits to finance terrorism.”

“That’s just-sick,” Loving said, banging his hands against the steering wheel and swerving around a broken-down car blocking the fast lane. Loving hated D.C. traffic. Interstate 66 was the worst, but tonight he’d managed to skirt through it without any of the usual tie-ups. He’d taken the Key Bridge exit and followed the road across the Potomac, turned right onto M Street, and in less time than usual found himself in Georgetown. Hard to believe anything so sleazy could exist in this swanky college town. Sure, in the past he’d found art thieves here, and also, come to think of it, vampires. As he passed through the main shopping meccas surrounding the intersection of Wisconsin Street, he was reminded of the mall where two trained killers tried to drill him full of holes. Okay, those had been bad moments in Georgetown. But this was something else again.

“And you think this address I found on the assassin might be-what did you call it? A stash house?”

“I’m almost certain of it,” she replied. “I know it was used that way in the past. Once they have smuggled the young girls into the country, they must put them somewhere.”

“Where do these girls come from?”

“Eastern Europe and the Middle East, usually. Countries in turmoil. Remember-until the 1990s, prostitution barely existed in Russia. Almost all women had legitimate jobs. But after communism collapsed, things changed. Poverty soared, as did unemployment. Many young women, some of them well-educated, even married, were forced to become prostitutes. And what of the children? In such a world as that, it became easy for these traffickers to lure or kidnap unprotected girls.”

“How do they fly them in from the Middle East?”

“They bring them into the United States through Mexico.”

“To become prostitutes.”

“No,” Shohreh said, her voice low. “Sex slaves.”

“There’s a difference?”

“The difference is huge. These children become prisoners. They don’t speak the language. They have no money. They have no identification or travel papers. If they attempt to escape, they will be harshly beaten-perhaps even killed, to set an example to the others. They may be kept hungry, sleep deprived. Their mental state, probably never strong, begins to crumble. They can’t think clearly. They don’t know what to do-except follow instructions. They never earn any money. They are rented out for sex-sometimes ten times a day. They are sold cheap-the profit is made through volume. Perhaps fifty dollars for fifteen minutes of what you might call ordinary intercourse with most clothes still on. For a little more, clothes might be removed. Oral sex costs more. A hundred dollars might get a customer anything he wants.”

“That’s just…disgustin’.”

“Occasionally they will be sold outright to pay a debt to another trafficker or a drug lord. But that is worse, not better.”

“And you say this goes on a lot?”

“More often than you can imagine. No one knows the exact numbers. But the CIA says that approximately twenty thousand people are trafficked into the United States every year. Most people who have studied this horror think that at least half of those become sex slaves.”

Loving could not conceal his outrage. “In Washington, D.C.? The nation’s capital? Why doesn’t the government do something about it?”

“They’ve made noises. But there’s been no real action. The traffickers are too slick, too professional. They remain invisible. Your former President Bush called sex trafficking ‘a special evil’ and a multibillion-dollar ‘underground of brutality and lonely fear.’ He pushed for some sort of action from the UN. But nothing happened. He signed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which finally recognized that people trafficked against their will should not be treated as illegal aliens and made it illegal to traffic children for the purpose of sex. Violators can receive thirty-year sentences. But still the evil continues. It is too profitable to be eliminated so easily.”

“And that girl you mentioned-Djamila. She got caught up in this?”

Shohreh’s eyes darkened. “Yes.”

Loving nodded, his gaze fixed on the road. “I’ll do anythin’ I can to help you.”

She laid her hand gently on his shoulder. “I know you will.”

“It’s just around the corner. I still think we should call the cops.”

“I assure you that would be a mistake. They would know. The General would escape. The children would be relocated or, if there was not enough time, killed. Their only hope is that we get to the General. Bring him to the authorities.”

“Cut the head off the beast.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay, then. Let’s go find the beast.”

Loving stared at the house across the street, astonished.

“Are you sure we’re in the right place?”

“I am. I remember it well.”

Loving couldn’t believe it. He had expected to end up in a wretched poverty-stricken neighborhood. Instead, he was in a perfectly ordinary, perfectly respectable middle-class enclave. There were children playing on the street. Bicycles and basketballs. The house itself was two stories, Victorian-style, with an arched gable and yellow trim. Everything about it belied what apparently took place within.

“How can they…conduct their business…without the neighbors noticin’?”

“Have you ever lived in a neighborhood such as this?”

“Well…no.”

“These people do not socialize with their neighbors, for the most part. Perhaps once a year at the neighborhood block party. They may know the names of their immediate neighbors, they may wave to them as they pass by walking their dog, but little else. They know more about the celebrities on the cover of People magazine than they do about the people who live next door.” She sighed. “Drug pushers have also learned the advantages of living in a respectable neighborhood. They are more invisible than they would be in a lower-rent district, and much less suspect.”

Loving frowned. “We gonna find a lot of toughs in there? Protectin’ the merchandise?”

“If we are lucky, there will be no men at all this time of day. The children are usually cared for by women.”

“Women participate in this freak show?”

“I wish I could say this horror is solely the product of deranged and greedy men, but it is not so. Female accomplices become surrogate mothers to the children. They are better at gaining the children’s trust. They are much more adept at managing them, handling them, making sure they do as expected. They deliver the warnings-and the beatings. They teach them how to…perform. How to act sultry, sexy, scared-whatever the customer wants. Usually scared, especially with the youngest girls.” She inhaled deeply, as if purging herself from within. “The men may be the traffickers and controllers. And of course, the customers. But women operate the business on a day-to-day basis.”

Loving felt as if he were about to hurl. Focus on the mission, he told himself, and try not to think about what goes on inside. “See that basement window? I’m goin’ in.”

“I will follow.”

“No.”

“I insist.”

Loving held her back firmly. “You can’t get through that window with an arm in a sling and a wounded leg.”

“You might be surprised what I can-”

“Besides, you’re my backup. If I don’t come out in an hour or so, you can assume I screwed it up and the General has fled. Call Lieutenant Albertson at the DCPD.”

Shohreh reluctantly nodded. “I will do as you say. But I do not like it.”

Loving had no trouble getting inside the house. He slipped into the basement silently, without attracting attention from the neighbors.

The basement seemed perfectly ordinary. Tools, firewood, and lots of dust. Till he looked closer.

There were mattresses on the floor, more than a dozen, uncovered, filthy, putrid.

When he examined the nearest workbench, he found antibiotics, a large quantity of what he knew to be the infamous “morning-after” pill, as well as a stomach medication he knew could induce abortions.

Then he saw the girls, all huddled together in the far corner, staring at him. Some looked as if they were not even twelve; none appeared older than seventeen. Their faces were dirty, grimy. They smelled as if they had not bathed. Their clothes looked as if they had worn them for weeks. They stared back at him like freaks in a carnival show, their eyes unblinking, their minds barely comprehending.

One girl, a petite thing whose hair might be blond if it had been washed recently, stepped toward him. She had an air of comprehension about her, some small sense of resilience. Perhaps, he thought, her mind was not yet totally shattered. Perhaps that was why she acted as the leader.

“We’ve been expecting you,” she said with a thick accent, obviously attempting some grotesque parody of grown-up hospitality. “Are you my next customer?”

“No,” Loving said, his lips pressed tightly together. “I’m your last. We’re gettin’ outta here.”