Page 33 of Sticks and Stones (FBI Romance/Thriller #65)

Greyson sighed.

Here they went.

Gene was about to blow, and he knew it. So much for keeping his cool. The only thing that was saving Gene in relation to getting all of the upcoming cop cases was Greyson knew that he and Ethan would close them.

And make him, and the FBI, look good.

So despite the talk in the car, they were going to be theirs. Greyson wasn’t an idiot.

Gene went there.

“Oh, well, I don’t know,” Gene said. “Maybe he’s in hiding now after being left for dead in the alley outside of a biker bar. You know…after being pulled into something he wasn’t qualified to do.”

They didn’t move.

Instead, they both stared at him like the man said something so profound that it blew their minds.

Word was NOT out.

“What are you talking about?” Rip asked, finally.

Gene was to the point.

“I think you heard me, Detective. Corbin Price was found knocking on Death’s door yesterday.

He was chasing a trafficker and ran headlong into a bunch of asshole bikers.

They beat the hell out of him and put him in the hospital.

Oh, and that’s need to know, since he’s in danger and we can’t let the assholes know he lived. ”

Gene hoped that worked. With Vice cops, who knew how important silence was, he assumed they’d keep their mouths shut.

It wasn’t lost on them that both men looked surprised, and upset.

“Oh, Jesus Christ. I’m sorry he was hurt,” Kip said. “Is he at the hospital?” he asked. “I want to see if he’s okay. I can swing by with my partner.”

The only thing that kept him from blowing his cool was the man seemed genuinely sorry about it.

“No, he’s not okay, and no, he’s not at the hospital.

He’s been moved. Right now, Corbin is in protective custody because they got his gun, badge, car, and wallet after he took a little UC mission, alone to that shithole dive.

They don’t know he’s alive, and we have to keep that quiet or he’s going to be hurt. ”

Payton closed his eyes.

“Goddamn it,” he muttered, his worst fears coming true. Deep down, he didn’t want the cop working it, but the commissioner’s office demanded it. “We’re so sorry he was hurt. Why the hell did he go into that bar alone? He could have tagged us with the leads, and we could have watched his back.”

Well, Gene knew that answer.

It was because Corbin was delusional when it came to his skills as a detective. Oh, and that he’d become that way when people stroked his ego.

“I have a better question. Why didn’t you call the FBI to handle it?” he asked. “We would have pulled the case, and we would have worked it,” Gene admitted. “We’ve done undercover in there, and you had three bodies. That’s on the cusp of FBI intervention.”

Kip shrugged.

“When we found the remains, and the ME ID’d them as three of the missing men, we went to the commissioner’s office, and we were told not to use the FBI if we didn’t need to.

The commissioner said keep it in-house. So we went to Captain Guy, the homicide division captain.

Corbin was picked because he’d been itching for UC work. ”

Jesus Christ.

The commissioner’s office fucked that up.

Big-time.

“The commissioner was impressed with his closures, and the attention he was getting as he climbed the ladder. He wanted to give him a chance.”

Well, he didn’t give him a chance.

He gave him a big swamp of nastiness.

“We were following orders,” Payton admitted. “We had four other cases in our laps, and we don’t do homicide. We’re Vice. We asked, we were instructed, and we did what we were told. Shit rolls downhill, Agents. You know that.”

Unfortunately, they did.

Look at their lives, as they were now trapped for three years under Gabe’s thumb.

Greyson jumped in because he knew Gene was fuming. It was best they focus on the case, and stop thinking about Corbin before the man stabbed them with his plastic straw.

“What can you tell us about the case that you worked prior to Corbin picking it up?” Greyson asked. “Gene, Ethan, and I will be working it, and like Gene said, Corbin is in protective custody and not accessible,” he said, covering where they had Corbin stashed.

In case the men had big mouths.

Kip shared what he knew.

“We filed a report,” he began. “Everything is in it,” he added.

Greyson stopped him.

“We have that. We want your impressions, and to know what you know. That’s the shit not in the file. We all know how this works, gentlemen. This is none of our first days on the job.”

They got it.

They likely did have information that wasn’t in the file.

So, they shared.

“Someone with some money is trafficking men. We haven’t been able to get a bead on who it is. All we know is they disappear in clusters. Three here, three there, and we can never tie them to anyone. It’s like the person running this ring is super sneaky and well hidden.”

Gene was making notes and letting Greyson run this one. He, technically, was higher up on the food chain with tenure as an agent.

What did pique his attention was that they needed to get missing person reports to start connecting the dots. Corbin hadn’t.

That was a thread that needed to be tugged.

“Do we know where they are being trafficked to?” Greyson asked.

The one detective shared.

“They seem to be staying in the US and not treading internationally. It seems local. All of the victims were here in the city, and found here.”

That was a good point.

“We had a stack of missing person reports and only a few sets of bodies. Corbin would have seen that had he pulled them. What we do know is that it’s ALWAYS men.”

Well, there it was.

Corbin’s file didn’t have other MPRs. It only had the three victims he’d been interviewing friends and neighbors about.

Yeah, now, Gene knew this was going to be a bitch to handle. They were just scratching the surface.

Sex trafficking cases were seldom easy. There were layers, and you’d handle one, and as you pulled back the next layer, there’d be someone else running it.

And more victims.

The people behind this wouldn’t be dumb. They did layers and changed their names to protect the business.

Instead of saying anything, Gene listened.

“There’s a big market for flesh,” Kip stated.

“We got close, but we kept missing. Somehow, we were always off the mark. That’s when we found out about Bull’s Biker Bar, and put it under surveillance.

Word was that the patrons are the transporters and hang out there.

Only, we couldn't get inside without risking it, and we couldn’t confirm it. That’s why we never followed up.”

Oh, but they didn’t warn Corbin of that?

Seriously?

Kip kept talking.

“We think they used the bikers because they move from city-to-city, and they transport the abducted victims to wherever they are going. They’re likely making money, or something, doing it.”

Oh, he bet.

Gene recalled from when he’d been there with Ethan. They had some broken men being used in there by the whole bar.

The guy Renegade had been using looked strung out, and used up. Now, he wished he’d done something. Who knew where that guy was now?

What perplexed Gene was how no one ran for it. Not one of the men in the bar being used for sex tried to escape. How did Renegade make that happen?

There was only one thing he could think of to accomplish that.

“Are there drugs involved?” he asked, taking a stab at it.

Payton nodded.

“Yeah, but again, we can’t confirm it. Word on the street is that the men were mules. The bikers were using them, and giving them to their buyers, packed full of drugs. Again, that’s not corroborated.”

So that made Gene curious.

Did the three sets of remains belong to men who were killed for shits and giggles after they were repeatedly used for sex, or had some of the drugs that caused this?

Again, they needed toxicology.

And soon.

Reed Peterson was getting a visit next.

Rip picked up where Payton ended.

“From what one of our street sources said, the bikers used the hell out of the men, and if they died, they dumped them. If they didn’t, they were passed off to a buyer, where they would retrieve the ‘package’ .”

Greyson went there.

“How are they being used as mules? Willing ones with the drugs on them, or in them?” he asked.

Rip shared what the street sources were saying.

“Chances are, they are swallowing lubed-up balloons filled with the drug. It’s an old-school technique used by Colombian drug lords. Again, that’s only what the other street sellers are saying. Is it true? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t put it past them.”

God.

This was a mess.

Corbin’s case was just scratching the tip of the iceberg on this one, and most of the information was hearsay.

“What’s the drug of choice?” Greyson asked, curiously. “What are your informants saying?”

Kip pulled out his phone, and scrolled through the pictures. Then, he handed it to him.

“That it’s a new drug that is coming out of South America.

It’s like cocaine, but it’s got a meaner side to it.

Think roofie meets an aphrodisiac. It’s called Snow, or that’s what our street sources are saying.

When people are on it, there’s a euphoric feeling and lack of any kind of willpower.

We haven’t come across it yet, personally, but supposedly, it’s here. ”

Gene lifted a brow.

“An aphrodisiac?” he asked.

Kip nodded.

“Yes, but worse. Apparently, the drug makes you numb, and all you want to do is fuck. Word on the street is that it’s getting easier to get. Can you imagine what will happen if that goes mainstream? We’re looking at a shitshow in Vice.”

No, he couldn’t, because he couldn’t imagine being a scumbag who raped drugged up victims.

Unfortunately, it fit what he and Ethan saw at the bar. The men who were servicing the bikers looked like they were on something. You had to be to take all that dick from those bikers. They’d seen men lying on the pool table ready for more.

Why did this sound like something the FBI should have known about?

Well, he was about to ask some questions, just not to these two.

Gene glanced over.

“I need to make a call,” he said, knowing who he could reach out to for any information. There was one person who would know about this drug, and sex trafficking.

His partner in this got it. Something the cops said got Gene thinking, and that would only benefit them going forward.

Greyson would handle the rest.

“Go,” he said. “Make the call.”

Gene pushed away from the table, grateful to get away from the two detectives.

If there were drugs this bad on the Philly streets, they should have notified the FBI. This was not how to do this, and they’d dropped the ball.

AGAIN.

When he was gone, Greyson kept talking about the cases.

“Were all the victims college kids?” he asked, already knowing that answer, but he was hoping to rattle their brains and get anything he could that they might have not told Corbin, or that he found.

Kip shook his head.

“The ones we passed off to Corbin were, but like I said, we printed out a pile of missing person reports. There were likely more taken.”

This felt problematic, and he knew it.

If there was an influx of drugs, that meant that shit was going to be everywhere. It also made it more difficult to find the people behind the drugs if few victims turned up.

Gene and Ethan were mixed up in one hell of a case. That was for damn sure.

“And you said it was coming out of South America? Do you know where exactly?”

Oh, Kip wished he did.

“Not the original location, no. This stuff is new on the scene. From what my source says, the shit is so bad all you have to do is get it on you. We’ve been instructed to wear gloves if we are arresting anyone who we suspect is on it.”

Well, Greyson just loved this one.

When the hell was the FBI going to send out alerts to all the offices giving them a heads-up about it?

Never?

That was typical FBI bullshit, and he was willing to bet it had everything to do with the last director who ate his gun, and the new corrupt one who he wished would follow suit.

Great.

He was going to hell for that one.

“Here’s something you should know about,” Payton said.

“You’ll know it’s that sex trafficking ring if the victims are branded.

They burn a skull into their body. That’s how they know who is property, and who isn’t.

Before we passed it off, the ME saw the brands on the remains.

Luckily for us, that part of the flesh remained. The rest…not so much.”

Jesus.

That was gross.

Now, they definitely had to visit the city ME.

“What the hell is wrong with people?” Greyson asked. “This is getting worse and worse.”

Yeah, they were well aware.

They were barely holding back the floodgates to the crime as it was, but then add in a rape drug?

It wouldn’t be pretty.

Greyson was curious.

“And you know all of this because of your source? Would you be willing to let us talk to him?”

He laughed.

And laughed.

And laughed.

“Uh, he’s a street weasel, and he’s not going to talk to a Fed. He barely talks to me. You’ll have to take our word for it.”

Well, that sucked.

In that case, he had more questions.

“Where is this shit showing up?” Greyson asked. “Is Snow localized or…?”

Kip shared what he could since their division was in touch with other city cops in big cities to share information.

“NYC is having an issue, and one of the victims actually slipped away from the biker gang. He managed to get to a good Samaritan, and they got him to the hospital.”

That was good.

They could talk to him.

“He managed to tell the doctors about the drugs, the branding, and the gang affiliation.”

Hell, yeah!

“I’ll need to talk to him.”

Payton gave him the bad news.

“He died from the drugs. They sedated him, and it overloaded his system. He was trying to hump anything with a heartbeat. He’s dead.”

Well, shit.

That was bad.

Kip sighed.

“Apparently, it’s big in the port cities, or it’s going to be. We’re being flooded. If we don’t get it stopped now, in ten to fifteen years, we’ll have a shitstorm.”

Terrific.

How could that get worse?

It looked like they were going to find out.

There was a storm coming, and Philly was in its path.

This sucked.