The Traffickers (Badge of Honor 9)

He looked at Byrth. “ISD falls under the department’s Science and Technology division.”

Byrth was nodding when he felt his cell phone vibrate.

“Sorry,” he said, slipping the white bean into his pocket and reaching for the phone. “Apparently, I’m not any better than Marshal In Lust here.”

He read the screen. His eyebrows went up.

“Excuse me,” he said.

He pushed a speed-dial key and put the phone to his ear.

Harris and Payne exchanged a glance.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Byrth said into the phone. “What do you have?”

And he remained stone-faced and silent for the next few minutes, breaking his silence with only a few grunts and “uh-huh”s.

Then he said, “Okay. Thanks. Keep me posted.”

Byrth looked at Payne and said, “Remember that kid running drugs I told you we nabbed in College Station?”

“Shoney?”

“Close,” Byrth said. “Ramos Manuel Chac?n. Good memory, though.”

He turned to Harris and brought him up to speed on Ramos Manuel Chac?n.

“What about him?” Payne then said.

“When they booked him, they didn’t really get anything beyond the phone numbers on his cell phone. But then they went through his car with the proverbial fine-tooth comb. In addition to the drug residue-he’d already delivered the drugs to his vendors-there was all kinds of trash. And, apparently, there were a few bills that had not been mailed, including a City of Dallas water bill.”

Payne and Harris were nodding.

“Water bills have service street addresses,” Payne said.

“Right,” Byrth said. “So they called Company B in Garland; that’s the Texas Rangers office in DFW. And Sergeant Kenny Kasper-really good guy-gets the address and drives by in his personal vehicle. Doesn’t see anything of interest. So he gets an idea. He drives over to Dallas City Hall. Craziest damn place; the building looks like a triangle turned on its head. That I. M. Pei designer did it. Anyway, he pulls some strings. Now he’s wearing a water meter reader’s outfit and he’s got a city vehicle with all the appropriate stickers on the doors.”

Payne snorted. “Pretty good trick.”

Byrth nodded and said mock-seriously, “That’s why we’re Texas Rangers.”

He went on: “So then Kenny drove over to the house and banged on the front door, prepared to say he’s there to turn on the water. No one answered, but he thought he could hear muffled moans. He went around to the backyard. But all the windows and the back door were covered. He banged on that door and-you know what? — the damnedest thing happened. It swung wide open.”

Payne chuckled. “That’s called a Size 10 Steel-Toe Universal Key.”

After a moment’s thought, Byrth went on: “What he found wasn’t pretty. But it could’ve been worse if he hadn’t taken the door.”

“What?” Harris and Payne said at almost the exact same time.

“It’s a stash house in a struggling neighborhood near downtown. And inside he found eighteen undocumented immigrants, mostly women, all but the two toddlers chained and locked up. Everyone had duct tape on their mouths, toddlers included. Kasper said he’s pretty sure some of the young girls had been raped.”

“My God!” Harris exclaimed.

Byrth nodded. “And there was drug-manufacturing paraphernalia. Empty packets of Queso Azul scattered all over the dining room. They don’t know how long the bad guys had been gone, but it appeared that they just missed them. And judging by the way things were thrown around, they’re not going back to the house.”

“They just left those people to die?” Payne said, shaking his head.

“Happens all the time in the desert,” Byrth said. “Doesn’t make it right, of course.”