The kitchen was large with a dozen cooks, servers, and food preparers, all male. Shouts and conversation in Chinese echoed throughout the room, backed by the strains of a singer butchering a song in Chinese. The smell of cooked food was thick and rich.
A single guard watching the kitchen perched on a stool in one corner. He stared at the two masked men for too long, too slow to react. His pistol had just cleared his holster before a double burst of 9mm rounds sent him flying back into the wall. The gunfire cut through the conversation like a knife, and every man turned to look at the intruders. One moved his hand toward a knife, but when Dante pointed his MP-9 at him, the man yanked his hand back, his glare doing what he wished to do with the blade.
“Bravo to Able,” Dante said into his radio. “Kitchen secured. One Tango down.”
“Copy,” Tanner replied. “Charlie Team, move in.”
“Copy Prime,” Naomi said. “Charlie is moving. ETA twenty seconds.”
Stephen placed the jammer on a counter, then pulled out a digital recorder, held it up and pushed a button. None of the team spoke Chinese, so there was a need to communicate with those illegals who couldn’t speak English. Vessler had a friend who spoke both fluent Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese, so he had recorded messages in both dialects for the team’s use. While the team couldn’t understand what was being said, they knew what the messages were; an appeal for those Chinese who were working as slaves to leave with the team and escape the Triad’s clutches. As they surveyed the crowd, both Stephen and Dante noticed some of the servers and a couple of the cooks perk up with interest. Many of the other kitchen staff, mostly older men, looked at the masked intruders with fear, but a couple of the others’ expressions were undisguised hate.
After the messages finished, one of the servers stepped forward, hands up. “You are here to help us?”
“You can speak English?” Stephen said.
“Yes, I took English in school in China.”
“What is your name?”
“I am Ko Chan.”
“How many of you are here are being held against your will by the Triad?”
Chan looked back at the group. “Most of us,” he said. He pointed at some of the staff. “They not held against their will.”
Stephen motioned to the dead guard near the wall. “Any more guards down here?”
“He is the only one down here all the time. There are three others upstairs.”
“All right, tell your friends who want to leave to stand over there.” Stephen flicked his MP-9 to the right.
Ko turned and began speaking rapidly in Chinese. As he did so, Naomi said over the radio, “Charlie to Bravo. We’re at the gate. Moving to the back door.”
“Copy.” Dante stepped back so he could see the open back door. In a few seconds Naomi appeared in the doorway, waving. Dante waved back.
Ko turned around. “They are ready.”
“One last thing I need you and your friends to do,” Stephen said.
“What?”
Stephen took out a pack of riot cuffs and tossed them to Ko. “I want you to restrain those people who don’t want to come along. We’ll make sure they cooperate.” He hefted his gun.
Ko nodded eagerly, then turned and spoke to the others. In less than two minutes, the remaining kitchen staff were bound by their wrists and ankles, then secured to table legs or other immovable objects with more riot cuffs. A couple of them resisted, but a few blows from Ko’s comrades ended resistance quickly. Ko looked at Stephen. “Are you here for the girls, too?”
“Yes. We have people upstairs handling that.”
“What about those in the punishment cells?”
“What punishment calls?”
“There are cells down here.” Ko pointed down another hall. “They use them for new girls or to punish girls who defy them. No food, little water.”
“Are there girls in the cells now?”
Ko nodded. “Two, maybe three.”
“Bravo to Able,” Dante subvocalized. “We have a complication. One of the staff speaks English and he’s telling us there are girls being held in cells down here.”
“Get them all out,” Tanner replied. “Then get you asses up here, ASAP.”
“Copy.”
Stephen said to Ko, “Tell your friends to go out the back door. One of my team is there. A truck is waiting at the gate. Get in it and wait.”
“Yes.” Ko spoke rapidly to the others and in a matter of seconds, the kitchen was a lot less crowded. Ko was the only one of the freed illegals remaining. “I will help you get the girls from the cells.”
“Okay,” Dante said. “Stay behind us.” Then he subvocalized into his radio. “Three, I need to guard the kitchen and the hall.”
“Copy.” Naomi appeared a few seconds later. “Go.”
Dante and Stephen moved down the hall, which was fifteen feet long, dark, and had a cold, damp feeling to it. At the far end were two jail cell doors facing each other, cold gray steel solid doors with a pair of covered slots, one at eye level, the other at waist level. A set of keys hung on a wall hook a few feet from the door on the right. Stephen snatched the keys from the hook as they went by.
They started with the door on the right. It took Stephen a couple of times to find the right key, one of six on the ring. The lock went thunk and the door opened. Dante went in first while Stephen covered him from the doorway. The cell was small, the size of a walk-in closet. Two women lay on rickety cots, dressed in crude smocks that were little more than thin rags. The smell of sweat, human waste and dampness was strong and unpleasant. Chains bound the girls’ ankles. Both women were cringing, babbling in Chinese, and shielding their faces from the newcomers they thought were their captors.
“Ko,” Date said. “Get in here.”
It took three minutes of Ko talking to them to make them realize they were being rescued. In the meantime, Stephen used the keys to unlock the cuffs and help the girls to their feet. Neither was very steady, forcing Ko and Stephen to assist them. While they helped the two girls down the hall, Date unlocked the other jail cell. A third girl lay face down on a cot, chained to the wall and wearing a smock like the others. She didn’t move when Dante entered. He reached down and felt for a pulse. He found a weak, but steady one. When he lifted her arm, it was limp. “Bravo to Charlie. Send Eight in. I have an unconscious woman here.”
Choi’s reply was immediate. “On my way.”
By the time the DEA agent appeared at the cell door, Dante had unlocked her shackles and turned her over. He turned on his flashlight and hissed when he saw the victim’s battered face.
“What?” Choi asked from the doorway.
“She’s been worked over,” Dante replied angrily. “I need you to carry her out to the truck and stay there. We have to go help Able.”
Choi lifted the slight woman into his arms. “I saw the other two when I passed them in the hall, and they looked like hell.”
“She’s worse than they are. Get going.”
“Bravo to Able. We’re on our way up.”
On the main floor, Tanner and Liam had separated the illegals from the ones who had been strong-armed into prostitution. The johns, madam, the doorman, and several of the older prostitutes sat against one wall of the main room, their wrists and ankles bound with riot cuffs. The freed slaves stood on the other side of the room, with Tanner and Liam standing in the doorway leading into the main hall. Tanner had forced the male clients to give up their coats and jackets, in order to cover all of the women. Tanner hadn’t heard any movement upstairs since they ordered those on the balcony to come down, but they hadn’t swept the bedrooms yet for any other occupants.