Dawn Patrol

127

They follow the van out to the 5, then north to the 78, and east to the town of Vista, where the van pulls up to a nondescript house in a lower-middle-class neighborhood.

Nothing special, just your basic suburban cul-de-sac.

A garage door opens and the van pulls in.

Johnny gets on the radio.

The Sex Crimes Unit is there in five minutes, with a SWAT team. The SCU lieutenant is a woman named Terry Gilman, who used to work homicide and then jumped from the frying pan into the shit fire. She walks up to Johnny's car.

“Where'd you get this, Johnny?” she asks.

“You're looking good, Terry.”

She straps a vest on, checks the load in her. 9mm, and says, “If we don't find evidence, will your source testify?”

“Let's find the evidence,” Johnny says as he gets out of the car.

“Sounds good to me.” Terry Gilman is pissed. She hates snakeheads in general and snakeheads who run children in particular. She's almost hoping this thing goes south so she can use the nine on one of them.

They hit the front door like Normandy.

A SWAT guy swings the heavy ram and the door cracks open. Johnny is the first guy through. He ignores the adults scrambling to get away- SWAT will wrap them up. He just keeps pushing through until he comes to a door that opens to a basement stairway.

Pistol in front of him, he goes down the stairs.

It's a dormitory, a barracks of sorts.

Dirty mattresses are set side by side on the concrete slab. A rough open shower in one corner, an open toilet in the other. Blankets everywhere. A few dirty, stained pillows. An old TV set hooked up to a video player.

Kids' movies.

A few children's books in Spanish.

The girls from the boat have jammed themselves into one corner. They stand there holding one another, staring at him in sheer terror.

“It's all right,” Johnny says to them, lowering his pistol. “It's all going to be all right now.”

Maybe it is, he thinks.

I have these kids.

But where are the children who were living here?