The Profile Match Read online

  Dodger’s woman was standing about twenty feet away, watching me. Weird.

  The door opened, revealing a pretty girl with big eyes and long black hair. She was barefoot and wore a pink T-shirt and jean shorts.

  “Come in, come in,” she said, opening the door wide.

  I ducked through the door. The other girls were young too, sitting on the floor in a circle, looking at their cell phones. The girl shut the door and reached toward a slot on the wall. She pulled out a laminated menu and handed it to me. It was a list of types of massages and prices.

  “Which you like?” she asked.

  My cheeks burned. I didn’t like doing this. “Any American girls here?” I asked.

  Her brow wrinkled. “This our massages.” She pointed to the list. “You want foot massage? Back massage?”

  “Uh, no,” I said. I pulled out my phone and showed the girl a picture of Grace. “Have you seen her?”

  “Very pretty,” she said.

  “Is she here?”

  Again the wrinkled brow. I stepped past her and walked toward the other girls, showed them the picture of Grace. They all crowded around and commented on her, saying she was pretty and cute, but they didn’t seem to recognize her or know what I wanted.

  I thanked them, gave the girl in pink five bucks, and left. Dodger’s woman was still there, but she didn’t speak, just watched me like a hawk. I walked away from her, passed by another bar, which was open to the street. The tables were all empty, and when I called out a hello, no one answered. Next door, a man was using a hose to wash down a black Lexus. Behind him, the place was an open cement room. Perhaps a garage? Next was a place called “Suomi Bar and Guest House, Laundry.” After that, something about Cambodian medicine, then two more restaurant bars, and a locked security gate.

  I was almost to the end of the street and getting frustrated when I came to a place called “Angel Spa,” which stretched out over the next three spaces and around the corner. A sign extending like a blade from the second story promised rooms with AC, hot showers, and massage services. Sounded fishy to me. Two wicker and glass tables stood on either side of the entrance. A woman sat at one, filing her fingernails. She was wearing a tight yellow and black dress. When she saw me, she jumped up. “You want massah?” She held up all five fingers. “Five dollar.”

  I sighed. I had to deal with that again? “I’m looking for a girl,” I said.

  “Many girl.” She gestured me to follow and went inside.

  The place was open with a concrete floor. Two motos leaned against the left wall. On the right, four women sat on two low beds that were covered in fitted, purple flowered sheets. The girls were playing cards. In the very back, an archway covered in wooden beads led deeper.

  My vision blurred. Tito walks across this same concrete floor, Grace, unconscious, over his shoulder. He passes under the beads and disappears.

  I walked toward the beads, but the woman got in front of me.

  “You want massage?” She gestured behind me to the beds.

  “No,” I said. “I want to go in there.”

  “You got money?”

  I pulled out my wad of cash. Her eyes lit upon it, and she smiled wide. “Ah, yes. You come back. What you like?”

  I didn’t answer, wanting to see more of the place first. I was hesitant to bring up Grace too quickly, worried she might shoo me back out the door. We passed five more beds, each cordoned off with curtains. Some had posters taped on the wall. I saw one “room” with five horse posters, another with a poster of Buddha, and one with some Asian cartoon character.

  “You like young or old?” the woman asked me.

  I felt sick. “Uh . . . young.”

  “Girl or boy?”

  I stared at her. And here I thought I couldn’t get more shocked than I’d already been. “Girl,” I somehow managed to say.

  We turned a corner and went up a flight of stairs. The air turned dank and smelled of BO and sweat. A twinge grew steadily in my stomach. At the top of the stairs, I followed her to the right and into a narrow hallway, lined on both sides by skinny doors, like a bunch of bathroom stalls. The hair on the back of my neck rose. There was evil in this place.

  “Hey!”

  We turned. A plump woman no taller than five feet strode toward us. She was wearing a red and navy striped polo that clung to her belly and jeans.

  The woman spoke Khmi to my guide. She seemed unhappy. They began to argue, and the short woman sent my guide packing.

  “She work downstairs,” the pudgy woman told me. “I help you find girl.”

  If only we were talking about the right girl.

  She brushed past me, fumbling with a key she’d pulled from her pocket.

  I dug out my cell phone and pulled up my picture of Grace, but I wasn’t fast enough. The woman had opened a door about halfway down.

  “This Ponnleu. Twenty dollar, half hour. Pay now.”

  Twenty bucks? Was she kidding me?

  Curiosity got the best of me and I walked toward her and looked inside. Ponnleu was a child, sitting cross-legged on the floor. She couldn’t have been more than eight and had the look of a frightened animal. One look at me and she dove to her stomach and wriggled under the bed.

  Shock and anger pulsed within me. My eyes must have given me away because the woman shut the door. “You no like.”

  No, I didn’t. I fumbled with my phone. Held it up. My hand was shaking. “I want this girl.”

  She looked at the image of Grace, and her eyes shifted in recognition. She sighed deeply. “She gone. They take her to mamasan.”

  Despair weakened my knees. “Who?”

  “American woman.”

  Diane. Relief washed over me that Grace’s detail had likely already rescued her. “Thank you,” I said. But now what? Could I just walk away? Find the other guys and leave that child here? And what about the other rooms? How many more children were in this place? I traded my cell phone for my cash and counted it. I had a hundred and twenty dollars.

  I shoved it all at the woman. “I want Ponnleu to come with me.”

  She shook her head. “Not for sale.”

  “Please,” I said. “She’s a child. She shouldn’t be here.”

  Her eyes narrowed. She walked away from me, back toward the stairs, glanced down, then lowered her voice. “You help her?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  She held up her keys. “Numbers match doors. Small one for chains. You must strike me.”

  “What?”

  “Like I fought you. The papasan is away, but he will come back soon.”

  Oh figs. I held up a finger. “Give me a minute.”

  I traded the cash for my phone and texted the group: Grace is with Diane. I need help at the Angel Spa. It’s on a corner. Go inside, past the bead curtains in the back, and up to the second floor. We’re going to rescue some kids. Hurry.

  I took the keys from the woman, not sure the best way to go about this. My phone buzzed. It was ringing. I answered.

  “What is happening?” Pok asked.

  I told him about Ponnleu, the other stalls, and the woman who’d given me the keys.

  “Stay there,” he told me. “Pay for an hour and wait. You might have to pay for longer. I will call SWAT team. We must catch the papasan when he comes. Let me talk to the woman.”

  I passed her my phone, and she had an animated conversation with Pok. When she returned my phone, Pok reminded me to stay put.

  “We must catch them and have evidence,” he said.

  I gave the woman sixty bucks and went back into the room with Ponnleu, who was still under the bed. I sat on the floor and opened a video game on my phone, slid it across the floor so she could see it. She didn’t move.

  “I’m not here to hurt you,” I said.

  I wasn’t surprised when she didn’t believe me.

  ● ● ●

  I sat in that room for two and a half hours before the door opened and a SWAT guy motioned me out wit
h a rifle. By then Ponnleu had ventured out enough to play with my phone. She never once met my eyes. When she saw the soldier, she jumped on me, hugging my neck.

  “You Spencer?” the man asked.

  “Yeah,” I croaked. Ponnleu had a death grip on my throat. I grabbed my phone, got my feet under me, and stood. I told the guy thanks as I carried Ponnleu out.

  The woman in the red and navy polo was unlocking another door. I saw two girls who looked to be about thirteen hugging each other in the hallway. Behind them, a boy about Ponnleu’s age. Horrified, I headed for the stairs.

  Downstairs was crawling with cops. I spotted my dad straight off since he was so tall. I carried Ponnleu over to him, and he told me I needed to leave her with the cops.

  “They’ll take the kids to the police station, then to a rescue home,” he said.

  “Spencer, give girl to this woman.” Pok approached my side with a Caucasian woman who looked a bit like Kerri Stopplecamp. “She works at rescue home. We bring many of their children to our orphanage.”

  “I’m Melissa,” she said. “I work with Agape International Missions.”

  “This is Ponnleu,” I said. “Ponnleu, this is Melissa. She wants to help you stay safe.”

  Ponnleu loosened her grip enough to turn her head and get a good look at Melissa. The woman smiled and held out her arms.

  Ponnleu dove into them.

  I felt both relief and sorrow. Or maybe it was a mashup of overwhelming emotions.

  My dad grabbed my shoulder and squeezed. “You did good, son.”

  Son. It felt weird to hear someone say that. Nice, but weird.

  I gave a statement to one of the cops, and Pok promised to bring me to the station later for more questions. Then we left. My dad had moved the van, which was now parked outside. We piled in, and Pok gave us an update. There had been five kids locked up in that hallway. Besides those I’d seen, there had been a ten-year-old girl. They’d also rescued the four teenage girls I’d seen on the first floor, and three others who’d been found upstairs. The woman in yellow had been Ponnleu’s aunt. She’d been arrested as a trafficker along with a man named Davuth Khom.

  “What about Grace?” I asked. “Any word from her team?”

  “I’ll call them,” Isaac said.

  “How did you get upstairs, anyway?” Viktor asked.

  “I had a vision,” I said. “I saw Tito carry Grace through the beads in that doorway. So I just walked though. That trafficker woman tried to stop me until I showed her my money. I can’t believe she was Ponnleu’s aunt.”

  “A common story,” Pok said. “People are poor and desperate. Many children are sold.”

  Isaac lowered his phone and sighed. “We need to head over to Diane MacCormack’s,” he said. “Two of our guys went in and didn’t come out.”

  “Which agents?” I asked.

  “Dominguez and Ricks,” Isaac said. “There’s more. McCarey and Noy have been following Brittany Holmes. She went into the same building Friday afternoon. Never came out. Diane gave the keynote at the convention last night. The story is Brittany isn’t feeling well. They think it’s food poisoning.”

  Spencer doubted that very much. “Is Grace there too?” I asked.

  “We assume so,” Isaac said. “McCarey is calling the local Special Forces team, but they’ll have to work out a new strategy for getting inside. Apparently, Diane’s apartment is on the top two floors of a sixteen-story building, and the place is well guarded. They might need to go in from the roof.”

  REPORT NUMBER: 33

  REPORT TITLE: I Wait in the Van . . . Then Don’t

  SUBMITTED BY: Agent-in-Training Spencer Garmond

  LOCATION: 12207 Samdech Mongkol Iem St. (228), Phnom Penh, Cambodia

  DATE AND TIME: Friday, May 3, 12:52 p.m.

  Agents and police had surrounded Diane’s building. She didn’t stand a chance, though I doubted she’d give up easily. Isaac made it clear I was not to leave the van, then he and Pok took off. I watched them go, frustrated to be so close to the end only to be told to sit tight and let the big boys handle things.

  “I wish I could help,” I said.

  “I know, son,” my dad said, “but it’s best to let them do their work.”

  While we sat there waiting, I asked my dad what he’d been doing the past fifteen years. “Why’d you run?”

  “The Mission League had put out a warrant for my arrest. Viktor told me the Field Office had evidence against me. I was terrified and shocked that Lisa was gone. I knew you’d be safe with Lorraine. I thought it would only take a few weeks to find what I needed to clear my name, but Liam . . . he’d been very careful. I couldn’t find any proof to defend myself. So I’ve had to keep a low profile, especially in California. Thanks to Viktor, I’ve been able to travel. He has a pilot’s license and flies me down to Mexico every-so-often. From there, I can go wherever I need to.

  “The first few years were the hardest. There was much to grieve. So much had been taken from me: your mother and you, my home, my career . . . Viktor helped there, too. He found me a place in Hermosillo to hide out and heal my heart and my face. The burns almost killed me.”

  “How did you get burned?” I asked.

  “Trying to get to your mother. I didn’t make it.” He stared out the window for a good thirty seconds before continuing. “I kept looking for evidence that my brother had been the one to steal the intercession files. It wasn’t easy to do from Mexico, but Liam was still in the League, and he’d always been lousy at computers, so it wasn’t terribly difficult to hack into his stuff and learn his passwords. Our voices were similar, so I was able to make some discrete phone calls pretending to be him. I started piecing things together. I was still bitter, though. I thought about revenge constantly. I think that’s why God didn’t open the right doors for me to figure out everything. He was waiting for me to trust him, but I was too angry. I wasted a lot of years, focused on my anger. For that, I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to apologize to me,” I said.

  “Yes, I do,” he said. “I might have solved this long ago if not for my stubbornness.”

  Isaac knocked on my dad’s window. Dad nodded, started the van, and pushed the button to roll down the window.

  “Wanted to give you guys a report,” Isaac said. “We’ve secured the lobby and entrance to the elevators and stairwells, but we can’t access the fifteenth floor. The elevators aren’t stopping there, and only one stairwell goes to fifteen. Gunmen are guarding the access points. We’ve called in an elevator specialist, but he’s not here yet. Special Forces is considering whether or not it’s a good idea to force the stairwell, guns blazing. We don’t want any loss of life.”

  “Do they know how many gunmen she has in there?” I asked.

  “Not many,” he said. “We used our tech to pull up a schematic of the building. There are six people in the apartment, three more on the roof, and three by the elevators.”

  “Won’t be long now,” Viktor said.

  “You guys hungry?” Isaac asked. “There’s a cafe across the street. I’m starving.”

  “Let’s all go,” my dad said. “It’ll give us something to do.”

  So we walked across the street and ate lunch. I inhaled some kind of chicken and rice bowl that was good but way too salty. I’d been so worried about Grace, I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. That Ensure shake at the hospital that morning hadn’t done much to tide me over.

  We eventually walked back to the building, and Isaac took us over to some agents. Nita Noy was there with McCarey and Pok. Isaac introduced Viktor and my dad. They all got to talking. Nita pulled me aside and gave me an update on the children we rescued that morning.

  “They’re already being moved to one of the Agape mission houses,” she said. “They’re going to be loved and cared for from now on. You saved their lives.”

  Just thinking about Ponnleu got me misty. I imagined her playing with dolls. Maybe even a basketball. I hoped she could recov
er from the horrors she’d lived through. I hoped they all could, and that they might still have a chance at some kind of childhood.

  A guy in a Special Forces uniform called Nita away, leaving me standing alone. I wandered around, looking up at the building from several places, knowing Grace and Brittany were probably up there along with the two agents. I hoped everyone was alive.

  I caught sight of my dad, walking along the building, away from the crowd. I jogged to catch up with him, but he disappeared around the corner before I could reach him.

  When I rounded the building, I saw two of our men on the ground. My dad shot a third in the neck. Shot him! The whoosh had sounded like a dart gun. Then he went inside the door.

  I couldn’t believe what I’d just witnessed. My heart was racing as I walked toward the downed men. I pulled out my phone and sent a text to Isaac.

  My dad just took down three guards and went in a side door. I’m going after him.

  The door led to a dark stairwell. I went slowly, trying to keep at least two levels between me and my dad. What was he doing? Had all the goodness I’d seen in him been a lie? And where was he going? Isaac had said the stairs were blocked off by Diane’s men.

  I had just passed the ninth floor when I got a text from Isaac. Your dad is with me. Come on down and let Special Forces take care of this.

  I paused on the stairs. I was following Kimbal. Not my dad.

  I kept going.

  I realized it might have jeopardized my future in the Mission League. I’d already lost the Pac 12. I hated to lose this too. But Grace was no less important than those kids we’d rescued from the brothel. I had to do what I could to free her. To bring down Diane and her operation. And so do what I could to keep my uncle from being shot.

  When Kimbal got off on the fourteenth floor, I realized he’d been in this building before. I opened the door and peeked out just in time to see him disappear into a room two doors down. I waited, then remembered my schematics app. I fiddled with it until I was able to select only the current floor. I also turned on the heat signatures. A red dot lit up just inside the stairwell, right where I was standing. Two doors down, another red dot was making its way across an open space. Kimbal. He stopped and remained in the same place for a very long time. I wondered what he was doing, until he disappeared. I switched the app to horizontal view and found him on floor fifteen.