A/N: So I found some time, and inspiration for an additional chapter...Thanks to readers who have stuck with the story so far!
Chapter Twenty Seven:
Wednesday, October 29, 1997 – Los Angeles, CA – 6:00 a.m.
Surveillance of the residence in Hollywood Heights had identified two of the four missing teens taken from Belarus and an additional three among the photos from Interpol as children missing from the Ukraine. A high-risk warrant had been issued covering everything but the kitchen sink. The evidence haul alone would take a week to catalog and document.
Deciding they made a pretty decent team when they weren't sparring over method, and surprising both Inez De Pina and Captain Mallory, Enos had requested that Thompson be included in the raid. The only point on which they had been at odds was the timing. Thompson argued that waiting would net more evidence and more suspects. Enos argued that there was enough in what the surveillance revealed. The most important thing was to rescue the victims they had identified as soon as possible and hope they would be able to find evidence that would lead to the rescue of more victims. Enos, who had point on the case, won the argument and the raid was set for early Wednesday morning.
The SWAT van rolled quietly into the neighborhood, with Enos and Thompson in their Crown Vic close behind, to serve the search and seizure warrant. Several patrol cars cut off access to the section of streets in front of and behind the target house which was situated between two vacant lots.
Kate Broussard and two nurses in an SUV from the NGO that specialized in helping survivors of sex trafficking parked just outside the police perimeter.
Officers quietly warned curious residents in the few other houses on the street who had seen the activity from behind their curtains to shelter in place.
The contingent of SWAT officers split into two snake lines with John Graves on point advancing on the front, and Salvador Alvarez on point advancing on the back. Only a few minutes elapsed from the time the battering ram hit the front door, the flash-bang grenades tossed in, to subduing the suspects.
While SWAT officers cuffed three men and two women found on the first floor, Enos and Thompson, both with their Beretta M9s at a modified low-ready position advanced up the stairs behind Graves and another SWAT officer.
The two rooms on the split-level upper landing appeared to be occupied by the missing children. Enos counted four. There should have been five. The stakeout team in the house across the street had reported five of the girls in the photos they had been provided had been returned to the house the night before by their captors and none had left before the SWAT team arrived. Kiryla Ivanova, one of the Belarusian girls, was not there.
While the four girls were quickly removed from the rooms, Enos and Graves took the tiny closet in one room and Thompson and the other officer hovered outside the closet in the other room. When Graves opened the door, Enos pointed his weapon into the closet and found an unidentified man holding onto Kiryla as if protecting her. He looked frightened. He put his body in front of her, soundlessly, and reached out with his hands, pleading.
Thompson and the other officer came back into the room.
"Strate, we got nothing…" He had stopped short and lowered his Berreta when he saw the unfolding scene.
The man was signing letters, 'd.o.n.t-h.u.r.t.-h.e.r.'
Enos signed back rapidly, 'i.t.s.-o.k.-w.e.-a.r.e.-h.e.r.e.-t.o.-h.e.l.p.'
Wednesday, October 29, 1997 – Los Angeles, CA – 10:03 a.m.
The emergency room at Cedars-Sinai was busy every day of the week, but a pile up on the 101 had left Thompson waiting for treatment for his broken arm, and Enos just waiting, for at least an hour already.
Enos walked into the corridor to see if he could find someone to look at Thompson's arm and ran afoul of a nurse who herded him unceremoniously back inside receiving. "Detective Strate, you have to stay here. You've been in an accident."
"Yes, ma'am, I know that. Nothin' wrong with my memory," he said, remembering all too well what had landed them in the emergency room.
While Kate and her associates accompanied the children to processing, Enos and Thompson, in their car, left the scene behind the patrol cars that were taking the suspects to booking. The patrol cars made it through the light but Thompson had to stop. When the light turned green, they had nearly made it through the intersection, headed for Santa Monica Boulevard, when Thompson floored the accelerator and yelled, "Brace, brace!"
In the next half second, they felt the impact on Thompson's side to the back passenger door that sent the car into a spin. Thompson had tried to correct and avoid oncoming traffic at the same time. The car was slammed into the curb and then into a parked vehicle.
"But when are you gettin' some help for my partner?" Enos continued, impatiently.
Thompson, with a broken left arm, had pulled Enos, dazed from hitting his head before the airbags deployed, out of the car when he smelled the gas leaking from the tank and just before a spark ignited the gushing fuel, setting the car on fire. By that time, the news vans, who had caught wind of the raid and were following the police cars to the station, had caught the accident on video.
"There's somebody from orthopedic on the way down for Detective Thompson. His pain meds are probably kicking in about now and should be good for another hour or so," she said forcing Enos to sit down in the chair next to Thompson's ER gurney. "I'm sure we'll be freed up by that time and you know I can't let you leave until you get some more tests and a doctor releases you. LAPD regs – we all know them and so should you."
"X-rays said there's nothin' wrong with my head either."
Thompson, who was feeling no pain at the moment, said, "His head's too thick to cause any real damage."
Enos leaned back in the chair next to Thompson's bed and wiped the exasperation off his face.
"So I've been told. Can you hold on another hour?"
"Yep, long as the meds hold out, no problem." When the nurse finally left, Thompson asked, "Have they told you how the other driver's doing?"
"Nurse wouldn't tell me much, just said he's in surgery. I do know his wife and kids are up in the waitin' room." Enos hit his forehead with his hand. "Holy ding-dang!"
Alarmed, Thompson asked, "What?"
"I didn't call Soonie. There were reporters and news trucks everywhere."
Enos grabbed Thompson's cell phone from the side table and dialed Soonie's number. While he heard the ringing on his ear, he also heard a ringing just outside the curtained ER stall to which he and Thompson had been relegated. He pulled back the curtain to find Soonie standing there, arms crossed and a ringing phone in her right hand.
Her hair was pulled back, away from her face, into a high pony tail that had been swirled into a neat bun, carnelian teardrops dangling from her earlobes and a string of peach colored freshwater pearls circled her neck. She was dressed in an ivory calf length pencil skirt, matching heels and a tailored scoop-neck light coral top. Thompson was stunned. He had noticed she was pretty that night at the Bloody Bucket. But she was beautiful, in spite of the fact that, or maybe because of it, she was definitely not in a good humor.
'Whatever Strate lacked in sophistication,' Thompson thought, 'he more than made up for in whatever the hell it was he had that attracted strong, capable women.'
De Pina he understood. Captain Mallory had spent an hour relating their history to him. But Kay, Elektra (who he'd discovered had an IQ just under the Mensa requirements), and Kate Broussard (he was still trying to figure that one out). And those were just the ones he knew about.
"Hello, Detective Thompson. I understand I have you to thank for saving Enos's life?"
"Yes ma'am," he said in his best Strate impression.
As much as he was enjoying the discomfort on Strate's face, Thompson was glad when a doctor finally arrived and he was moved to an exam room. While they were wheeling his gurney away, all he heard was angry Korean and almost felt sorry for Strate. Almost being the operative word.
Soonie was still pacing up and down quietly, but emphatically, spouting in her native language at Enos when Inez and Captain Mallory came into the ER. He hadn't needed to understand everything Soonie was saying, only how she was saying it. He'd heard her speak Korean on the phone with her Aunt Soon-hee, or when she was upset with a news story on TV, or even when she was playfully chastising him for sneaking food out of the pot before she could put it onto the plates. But never in anger at him.
Mallory said, "We can wait outside…"
"Captain Mallory, this is Kay Mun," Enos said, hoping they would not leave him to more tongue lashing. His head was throbbing but not from the bump on his noggin.
"Pleasure to meet you Ms. Mun. Wish it was under different circumstances. I'm sorry to interrupt, but we do need to speak to Detective Strate. It won't take long."
Not wishing to embarrass Enos in front of his Captain, Soonie said, "It is fine, Captain. I would not want to interfere with police business. I must return to the office anyway." She turned her attention back at Enos. "We will finish this tonight."
She said her goodbyes to Inez and Captain Mallory and left the ER.
Inez bristled at the proprietary way Kay had said 'we will finish this tonight' and watched her disappear into the corridor.
Wednesday, October 29, 1997 – Los Angeles, CA – 10:17 p.m.
It was late when Enos was able get to get to Soonie's apartment. He sat in his truck outside the complex mulling over whether or not he should knock on her door. Considering how mad she was that he hadn't called her this morning, he half expected her not to answer. Having known about the raid, she hadn't been mad about that. It was having to hear about the accident and the resulting police-car-in-flames played up on the news that had angered her.
He keyed in the code on the entrance door and took the elevator to the fourth floor. She was awake. He could hear her playing. He closed his eyes and leaned into the door, listening to the sound of her violin as she played a piece he had never heard before. While the Schindler's theme had been the saddest music he had ever heard, this was the most beautiful.
It reminded him of the way she smiled, the way she moved, the taste of her, and how she felt in his arms - as if everything about her had been set to music.
Soonie answered the door in a jade, floor-length linen shift and the same pearl necklace she had been wearing when she arrived in the ER. Her silky black-brown hair flowed down her back like a waterfall with tiny red highlights shimmering in the low light of the apartment.
He blurted out, "I'm sorry I didn't call you, there was just so much going on that I…"
Before he could finish the sentence, she threw her arms around him and buried her face in his neck.