We spend the next few days getting ready for an undercover sting on a sex trafficking ring. It's finally the night of the sting and we sit in the vans ready to move. "Benson, Grey and Rollins on Howard street." Benson says into the radio. "Party in progress. Street is quiet. What do you have on Lafayette?"
Finn responds back, sitting in with Amaro "car 1, all quiet here. Still freezing our nuts off."
Another office responds "funny, it's 70 degrees in Balmy a block west on Crosby."
"I'm not asking for a weather report, guys." Benson tells them, wanting the radio clear.
Rollins utters out "Carisi hasn't moved in 20 minutes."
"I'll goose him." I respond, pulling out my phone to text him. I send him 'Is that all you can look at?" I tease him, having eyes inside on him. He reads the message and texts back.
"Carisi says girls are on their way." I say to Benson who relays the message.
A few moments pass when Finn gets on the radio "I got a minivan with blacked out windows."
I call out what I see as they pull up and get out "minivan, two in the front."
Benson is the first to notice "wait a minute. We know this woman. That's Selena. We got her son out of Mexico."
Rollins respond "she's back to doing what she knows."
"Fin, Amaro, all units. The female handler is known to us." Benson directs. "We'll have to secure her before she gets upstairs."
"Copy that." Amaro calls back. "Targets are in position on Howard street."
"Copy that." The third car answers.
"We'll get the girls, you go up" Benson explains and we move out. All of our cars pull up quickly as we run out of our van and head towards Selena. "NYPD! Let's go!" I say into the cold New York air.
"Ladies, hands up. Hands up, you know the drill." Rollins and I go for the young girls first, not wanting any to split up.
"Come on, get your hands up. You know the drill, come on." I direct, starting to move them away from the house.
I stay with the 5 girls we arrested until their defense attorney comes. I hang out outside the interrogation room just watching, feeling every kind of sorry for the lives they've been forced to live. Some time passes before Rollins comes in to tell me "that madam we arrested went U.C. for 3 years on her own to get her daughter back."
"That's a lot of dedication." I tell her, still staring ahead. Most of the girls are dazed, and unfazed by the arrest that happened tonight. Showing how all too common of a occurrence it is in life.
Rollins shrugs from next to me "or she's lying. Finn and Benson are on their way with her right not to her apartment."
"Hmm" I hum out, not really having anything else to add on to the conversation.
Finn sends us a video of the wall the women has put together and the three of us begin to work on recreating it using our own tools and information at hand. By the time Barba gets to our office, we have the complete run down. He looks over the information, eyeing the board of evidence and links. "So, this woman was pretending to be a sex trafficker. That's a new defense."
"But the Toronto police confirmed that her daughter Ariel went missing three years ago." I tell him, starting to believe this women.
"Police suspected her boyfriend at the time of Brian Marks." Aamaro explains, going further into detail for him "he was a pot dealer."
"Then Marks died of a heroin overdose last year. Police were never able to implicate." Finn wraps up that trail.
Sonny adds on "trail goes cold. So Martha keeps searching. She follows leads from Toronto to Indian reservations on the border, Minneapolis, Chicago, then Buffalo."
Benson steps closer to the board, full of young faces "I mean, local precincts just blew her off. So she goes deeper into the life, right, completely putting herself at risk and pretending to be a madam so she could get closer to these girls."
Barba doesn't budge "touching story. Tell me how posing as a criminal and engaging in criminal activity doesn't make you a criminal?"
"She's recorded every single job that she's ever done, every single pimp who's ever supplied girls to the houses that she's worked for." Benson tells him. "I mean, she's better than any UC we've seen."
"That's because she wasn't undercover. She's an actual trafficker, and she's done." Barba stands up to leave.
Benson stops him "hold on, she's been searching for her daughter."
"I understand. And assuming that she hands over all her records and turns states evidence, I might take that into consideration." He says might as if it's a stretch.
"Oh, you might?" She asks, knowing how he meant it and he nods. "It's taken her three years to get this far. She's not gonna work with us unless we help her get her daughter back."
"She's not going back in." He assures her.
"Well, then maybe we go in for her." Benson tells him, looking back to us. We all nod, wanting to do what we can for these girls.
"Please, we can help you." I plead to the young girl I am talking to. She sits on the motel bed, tired from the nights events.
"You can't keep me here. You said I wasn't under arrest." She snarls back at me.
"You're 16 years old. There's a missing persons report out on you from West Virginia." I say to her. She doesn't say anything back to me so I add on "we can send you back home."
This gets her attention "home. My step-dad pimped me out to begin with, so-"
"Okay, well, we can put you someplace safe. We're not gonna put you back out on the street." I tell her, wanting to actually help her.
"What are you gonna do? Nail the windows shut? Lock the doors?" She asks sarcastically.
I respond "like Timmer?"
I can tell I caught her off guard as she asks "who?"
"I know he's rough with you." I say, as she stands up to walk away from me. "Timmer, Timmer. I've seen the photos." I let her know.
"Hmm, this?" She asks, lifting her shut up to show me the bruise on her side. "Yeah, that's nothing. Just let me go back, okay? I've got nothing for you."
I exhale slowly, taking a seat on the bed "okay, listen, come here. Help me out. Do you know this girl?" I open the file I brought with me to show her the photo "Ariel? She still alive?"
The girl bites her lip and her fingers before answering "maybe, she was pretty beat up last time I saw her."
I nod my head, closing the file and thanking her for the help. I meet Sonny out in the lobby "she was hurt last time she saw her, couldn't get much out of her." I tell him once he walks in.
"Pillar said the same thing, she was bootstomped." He shakes his head and I look down, only imagining what she and all these other girls went through.
We get back to the station and meet up once more once Finn and Amaro get back from visiting Selena in prison. "After we walked out on Selena, she had a lawyer call. She wants to see her son again." Amaro tells us.
"Well, I hope you didn't make her any promises." Is Benson's response. "Did she give up Timmer?"
"No, but she did give us an address to a party house in queens, Hollis Court Boulevard, says she and Timmer rotate girls there." Finn tells us and Amanda rights it down.
"Okay, anything on the owners?" She asks.
"LLCS within LLCS, you know how it is." I respond, already looking at it that way.
Benson turns around "Martha, do you recognize this?"
Martha steps up a bit and nods "I've been there. The madam's name is Tracy."
"Okay, do we run the block?" Benson asks next.
"Yeah, well, it's a rough crowd." Rollins elaborates "in the last six months, five 911 calls for assault, for drunk driving. They were all investigated, but no charges were filed."
"Somebody's paying off that precinct." Finn calls it.
Sonny eagerly suggests "how about I go in, I get eyes inside?"
Benson slows him down "how about we stake it out first so we know what it is we're dealing with?"
Martha spits out "but if you see Ariel, you move in."
"We will, if we can." Benson assures her.
The next day Carisi and Finn take the front of the house while Amaro and Rollins take it from a bit down the road. I stay at the a local station, ready to process any information at any given notice. Amaro and Rollins give me a license plate on a beer truck, and I start running the plate. Sonny and Finn return before the other two and we get the photos uploaded and sent to the tablet right away. Benson has me go in with her to talk with Martha as she looks at the photos. She begins at the start, quickly identifying Timmer. "That's Timmer" She says at the third photo.
"Okay, Martha, anyone else?" I ask slowly, wanting her to take her time and really look.
"I know that Asian girl." She slides through 2 more photos "and that's Nina. That's Ariel's friend." She looks at us "that's who I gave my number to."
"Okay, good, keep going." Benson encourages her.
"Um, No Ariel." Martha says distraught. "Nina says Timmer uses her a lot. Either she's injured, or-"
But Benson doesn't let her finish the sentence "listen to me, Martha. We're doing everything we can, all right? I'm gonna get started on these. And I want you to keep looking to see if you recognize anyone else. We'll be right back!" She nods her head at me and we leave the room to meet with everyone else.
"So Martha identified two of the girls and the pimp, Timmer." She tells them. "What's on the plates?" She asks.
"Upstate rental minivan. It's licensed to a nonexistent church." Rollins explains on the blue van Timmer was driving.
"The guy's cautious. He makes sure no one can follow him." Carisi adds on "so far, he hasn't crossed any Bridges or tunnels."
"Okay, so we know that the girls are housed in queens. But no sign of Ariel?" Benson asks.
"Not even in a disguise?" I push, hoping for something.
Rollins responds "no, most of these girls were ethnic. I mean, it's a lower-rent crowd than the loft."
"A little white girl like Ariel would be considered high-class." Amaro adds on "could be a special request."
"Snow bunnies bring in the big bucks." Finn comments.
Benson shakes her head "we need to get into that house."
"Tomorrow's super bowl Sunday. And we grabbed half of his girls at the Manhattan loft. So he is going to be working every single one of them that he's got." Rollins tells her.
"It's also a big day for beer delivery." Finn kind of smirks, knowing the game she's getting at.
"Your friend Tommy, he lawyer up yet?" Benson asks.
"Not yet." Rollins answers "I think he's afraid of calling his wife." Benson nods at her so her and Amaro go in to interrogate him.
