Chapter XVI
The paramedics stared at the sheriff. “Now what?”
“We wait. See if he survives. When he wakes from the anesthesia, we will transport him to the cargo container and on to Jersey. I have a house there the FBI don’t know about. He can recover there.” He paused. “What do you think?”
She looked at the boy, now bandaged and hooked up to oxygen, IVs and blood. His pulse was fast but stronger, his blood pressure hovering at 110/52. “His vitals aren’t bad. If he remains stable, he should be okay. You move him too soon and he could still bleed out internally. His lungs are keeping up but with the one collapsed and re-inflated–he’s not breathing too well. Kids are so fragile and they crash so quickly. I wouldn’t move him for a couple of days.”
“We may not have that option. We have the FBI on our tails. Load him up in the ambulance once he wakes up.” He went outside, and spoke to his men as they went in search of the Doctor and found him in his kitchen. They took care of that loose end, leaving incriminating evidence of his child porno leanings scattered around the house. The ticking of the clock was an annoying repeat until the Sheriff’s mike buzzed and he listened intently to the dispatcher.
“Send two patrol cars out,” he told them. “I’m tied up at a crime scene. It may be hours before I can get there. Sorry to hear about Granny Elkins and Beebe Junior. What were they doing out there, anyway?”
He went out to his patrol car and scanned the computer terminal for news of the raid and then dialed up an Internet connection through back door sites until he accessed the middleman in charge of special orders.
Baby Blue in custody, he typed. Somewhat damaged. Will need extensive medical coverage. Still interested? He waited, knowing the site was monitored 24/7 and the answer wasn’t long in coming.
How damaged? Mentally or physically?
Surgical intervention. One of my men shot at the boy’s keeper and missed. Arrow went through his lung and had surgery to remove it. His serious but stable. Mental condition unchanged.
Is Baby Blue intact?
How so? He typed back, confused.
Untouched. Not sodomized, was the swift reply.
No one fucked him. At least, not in the last two weeks.
His values lessened should he be…used.
How much is the client willing to go now?
Alive and well, 250 K. Dead, zero dollars. Wounded –?
Delivery at Port J6 hours.
Will be there.
Bring the cash, he typed but there was no further reply and he logged off. 20 minutes later, Alice the paramedic called him. “He’s coming up and out of the anesthesia, Sheriff. Where’s the doctor?” He exited the patrol car and came into the house to stare at the boy. Those great violet eyes opened and steered blearily around the room and his free hand plucked at his chest. He tried to cough but the mask over his face muffled it and he could not seem to draw deep enough of a breath.
“Don’t move, Cale. You’ve had surgery and must stay quiet.” The woman urged, holding his shoulders.
He looked, it was obvious that he was searching for his friends and when he did not see them, there was a lessening of his intensity. He seemed to deflate and sink lower onto the cot.
“What’s so special about you, anyway?” Trask wondered. “You’re just a skinny little kid with weird eyes. What makes you worth so much money? You’re not even that pretty. Personally, I’d rather hump a big old blonde with melon boobs and a big ass.”
The paramedic looked shocked. “You’re involved in child prostitution?”
“What do you think I do with all these kids, Alice Freeman?”
“I thought you sold them to adoptive parents.”
“You are naïve,” he wondered. “I sell them for sex and sadism and whatever their buyers want them for and for good money, too.” He waited, hand on his pistol but she swallowed and nodded for the sheriff had his hooks into her, too.
*******
The first ones out of the chopper were the Marine SWAT team and they rappelled down, secured the scene and let the HRT teams descend. Deleon was in that group. They searched the barn, found the two bodies and checked them for signs of life.
“The boy’s alive. Gunshot to the head but just creased him. The woman’s dead. Shattered the heart with a large caliber rifle. There’s blood in front of her but not hers. A good amount, and looks like aspirated lung,” the agent reported. They went to the tack room and found where they had apparently holed up. “More blood,” he noted. “Looks like they did a drain tube. Sawed off an arrow shaft. How old did you say this kid is?”
“13. A skinny 13.”
“It’s a lot of blood for a little kid, Jed.”
“I know,” he whispered. “Get the other boy airlifted to the nearest trauma center. Let me know when he wakes. Call this in to the locals. Her name was Cassie Elkins. See if she’s got family.”
“What makes these people willing to die for the boy?” HRT agent asked.
“Because they know he’d die for them,” he returned.
“Any idea where they’re taking him?”
“He’s still alive or they would have left his body here. We know the group has a transfer house in Memphis. Trouble is they know we know.”
“Special Agent Deleon?” It was the leader of the SWAT team. “We have the teenager stabilized and ready to go. Local police are on the way, along with the Park Rangers. There’s supposed to be one on duty here but all we found was his empty truck with blood on the seat and there were tire marks where a large van skidded to a stop and three loose horses.”
“They were escaping, came here to rendezvous with the Ranger and walked into a trap. They’ll have to arrange for medical help, I doubt they’ll risk taking him to a hospital. Mount up; let’s go looking for an ambulance in the wrong place.”
“Yes, sir.”
*******
They had transferred the boy complete with his IV, oxygen mask and tank into the waiting cargo container stacked on the refrigerated 18 Wheeler. The inside was equipped with a semi-sterile lab with bunks along one wall complete with restraints. The other wall had a pullout examination table with gynecological stirrups. Girls as young as two had been on it and the atmosphere inside stank of misery and fear even though it was bright and spotlessly clean. The two ambulance people put the boy onto the table, strapped him in and hooked him up to the heart monitors.
“We going with him, Sheriff?” They asked.
“One of you is. The other needs to drive the ambulance over to the Park.”
“You stay, Alice. I’ll go,” the man offered. It was apparent he thought both of them were going to meet the same fate as the doctor.
Trask laughed. “You don’t know anything, Bubba. And I need you to take care of the kid. There’s a closed circuit TV in here. You can communicate with the driver by intercom and I can see you on my laptop. Keep him alive and get him to speak and you’ll get a bonus. $10,000.”
“Why? Is he schizophrenic?”
“No. Withdrawn and catatonic but there’s been some response. Acts more as if he’s autistic. He won’t speak, and won’t make eye contact. Cassie Elkins had him and was treating him like a baby.”
“I have an autistic brother,” she said.
“I know. That’s why you’re here. Because you know how to deal with him.” He leaned into the boy’s face and no matter where he looked; the boy did not meet his eyes. He put out his hands and grabbed the boy’s face, forcing him to look at him and watched as he literally shut down and went away.
Cale’s eyes darkened, turned reddish black and he spoke not in his childish boy’s voice but that of an old woman with a broad southern accent. “Billy Trask, you’re gonna die in blood for what you done to me and my kin and all them children.”
The paramedics and the sheriff both turned white, as he let him go and stepped back in shock. “Cassie? Miz Elkins?”
“I curse you, Billy Trask,” said the low hissing voice. “Demons gonna eat your soul.” The eyes closed and when they reopened, they were pale lavender and unfocused.
A cold frisson raced up his spine and he bolted out of the cargo container with the male driver following. He locked it behind them. She went to the door and found no way out, sat down to study the boy. “Who are you?” She murmured. “Just what makes you so different?”
She felt the motion of the road under her feet and knew they had entered the interstate, were tooling down the blacktop at speeds of over 70 mph. She heard the peculiar humming of the tires on the tar, and the whoosh as they passed other vehicles. Traffic built up as the approached Memphis and Interstate 95.
A peculiar whine arose and she discovered to her surprise that it was coming from the youngster, a low ululating wail that she eventually deciphered as words. He was crying in a monotone, “don’t take me, don’t take me, don’t take me,” until it made her grit her teeth and hold her hands over her ears.
“Cale,” she said quietly, urgently, knowing that if she yelled he would only escalate. “Cale, take you where?”
He gasped and pushed away his mask. “The cargo boxes. We all die there. You die. They cut off your head. I die, inside. Don’t let them kill me. Kill me here. Or let me do it.”
“Are you…back?” But he would not meet her gaze and he continued his mewling cries.