Armstrong typed the number to one of the office burner smartphones — so called not because it was a prepaid, but because the disgusting photos that came across the devices rendered them unsuitable for anything but burning in a very hot fire once they’d been utilized as evidence for the prosecution. As soon as he entered the number, Armstrong typed POS—parent over shoulder — and logged out.
Joe Rice looked up from his computer and raised both fists high in the air. “He shoots, he scores, the crowd goes wild.”
“Talk to me, Joe,” Callahan said.
“Eddie Feng’s phone is pinging a tower off Harry Hines Boulevard near the LBJ Expressway. Google Maps shows two strip clubs in that quadrant. One of them is closed until six, but a place called Chicas Peligrosas opens at noon. It’s not far from here.”
Callahan stood again and grabbed her jacket, glaring across the squad room. “Why aren’t y’all already in your cars?”
Less than ten minutes after Special Agent Kelsey Callahan slapped the flat of her hand on the top of her desk, fourteen members of the North Texas Crimes Against Children Task Force followed her out the hangar door en route to Chicas Peligrosas. Considering the story Blanca Limón told her about Eddie Feng and his friends, Callahan thought she might just arrest everyone in the place. Even if they weren’t involved with Feng, odds are they’d be sitting around watching a bunch of kids take their clothes off. It would do them good to cool their heels in Dallas County lockup until a judge cut them loose. They might beat the rap, but they wouldn’t be able to beat the ride.
11
Less than six miles from the Dallas Area CAC Task Force hangar, Jack Ryan, Jr., slouched at his wobbly table and tried to figure out how he could unsee the sad scene unfolding amid the pulsing lights and throbbing music on the raised stage less than ten feet away. He ordered a second bottle of Corona from a sullen Hispanic waitress. Unlike the girls on the stage, who wore nothing but tiny G-strings and sweaty layers of body glitter, the waitress got to wear a tube top. Unfortunately, it was so small it wouldn’t have covered a roll of breath mints, let alone her full figure. Not that any strip club was an upstanding establishment, but there were strip clubs and there were strip clubs. These girls looked awfully young and it made Jack feel dirty to be within a hundred feet of them. He did his best impersonation of a happy-go-lucky frat boy, but a sticky film of unknown residue on the table’s surface made him wish he’d worn long sleeves. The slightly sour smell of the place melded with the pulsing bass note from the speakers behind the stage like some kind of enhanced interrogation measure, making it difficult to think.
Ryan faced the dancers but scanned the rest of the club with his peripheral vision — a respite from focusing on the poor girls on stage doing their level best to look sexy. He knew Chavez was doing the same, taking the left half of the club — including a couple tables of triad types and Fee Fi Fo Fum, who remained by the front door. Jack looked predominantly at the area to his right. The strobe lights of the stage left the area extra-dark, but he could just make out the curtained booths in the shadows along the back wall — where the special “dance” arrangements were taken care of. At the far end of the stage, Eddie Feng sat next to an equally sleazy-looking Tres Equis guy and tapped away on his iPad in between slugs of Red Bull.
Feng was the polar opposite of the giant at the front door. His skin was pasty and pale, appearing to glow pulsing strobes. As with many of the people Ryan had followed over the years, there was nothing formidable about the man at all. In fact, calling him wormy was a disservice to actual worms.
In addition to working on the iPad, Feng scribbled notes in a spiral notebook on the table in front of him. Ryan didn’t know exactly what this guy was up to, but he knew he wanted to get a look at that spiral notebook as well as the iPad.
Ryan nursed his beer, casting enough looks at the dark-eyed dancing girls so as not to appear out of place. He leaned sideways toward Chavez and spoke under his breath, hoping the mic on his neck loop would pick up his whisper and broadcast it to the rest of the team.
“Our friend has a tablet computer I’d like to get my hands on.”
“Due time,” Clark said. “Does it seem like he’s being protected? Guarded by the cartel or triad?”
Ryan fought the urge to shake his head at the question coming from his earpiece. “No,” he said, still gawking at the stage and tilting his head as if speaking to Chavez. “There’s a Hispanic guy at his table chatting him up, but everyone appears to be guarding the girls.”
“He’s right,” Chavez mumbled. “I’d lay odds that there’s enough firepower in here to hold off a small army.”
“Good enough,” Clark said. “Keep eyes-on for another half-hour. Sing out if it looks like you’re starting to get stale.”
Adara’s voice came across the radio, calm but direct. “That small army you mentioned,” she said. “I’ve got eight plainclothes officers coming your way from a half a block south. I’m betting they’re Feds, and not trained counterintel types, either. They’re too overt-covert.”
Jack nodded to himself, as if in time with the bass beat from the speakers. He knew exactly what Adara meant. Men and women who’d spent long careers carrying large and heavy firearms on their belts often tended to walk holding their arms slightly away from their bodies — even when they transitioned to a smaller, more concealable weapon for different duty. It took practice and concentration to overcome the effect of being a beat cop or even a suit-wearing detective. Simply wearing plain clothes did not make one covert.
Dom broke squelch on the radio. “Six more of the same moving in from the north. There’s a redhead leading the pack. She’s Bureau, no doubt about it. I saw her belt badge when she got out of her car. I’m guessing this is some kind of task force.”
Clark’s voice was tight, agitated. “Ding, Ryan, haul ass out the back. I don’t want you caught up in some whorehouse raid.”
“Copy that,” Chavez said, nodding toward the dark hallway at the rear of the building. “You lead the way, ’mano,” he said to Ryan. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Jack was already on his feet, slouching between the row of tables and the stage toward the back door, as if he was looking for the restroom. He wasn’t the sort to run from a fight, but his getting caught in a place like this would cost his father a great deal of political capital. Not to mention the fact that the resulting media attention would severely damage Jack’s ability to continue working in a covert capacity.
Even so, he turned to Chavez as they reached the end of the stage, stopping in his tracks. “What about Fee Fi Fo Fum?”
Chavez groaned, having already reached the same conclusion. “He’s gonna hurt somebody.”
The two men had worked together long enough that they generally knew what the other was thinking in any tactical situation. Neither wanted to leave approaching law enforcement to stumble into the strip club blind and come face-to-face with the armed behemoth. The task force agents would eventually gain the upper hand, but one of them was bound to get injured — and possibly even killed — in the process.
Ryan and Chavez each took a twenty-dollar bill from their pockets and stepped up to the stage. The two tired-looking girls turned, lowering their gyrating bodies to allow the men to stuff the money into their G-strings. The girl nearest Jack looked even younger up close. She had to be in her teens, probably the reason the cops were here. Throwing a quick look over his shoulder to make sure the giant by the door was watching, Jack gave an exuberant catcalling whistle, then put both hands flat on the stage as if to climb up and dance with the girl. Though not unheard-of behavior in a titty bar, it was exactly what Fee Fi Fo Fum had warned them not to do. They had not paid for the privilege.