Chapter 31: Documentation
"I had no idea they kept all of this."
Allie, Alex and Liv were sitting at the table, staring at the pile of journals and paperwork Cam had pulled out of the trunk. "I took some time to look through a lot of this. I don't really know a lot of Korean, so you might want to get a translator to take a look at it and verify what it says, but the dollar figures in the far columns are unmistakable. I took the liberty of taking a colored pen and writing English translations next to some of the words for clarification."
Alex reached for a black-cover ledger and opened it. Inside, next to the Korean writing, were English words written in colored pen; she grabbed a pen and a yellow legal pad and started to take notes.
Cam sat quietly in her seat, her face impassive as Olivia and Allie started to pick through the remainder of the material Cam had pulled out for them. As she picked up a file folder, Allie saw a brightly-colored glossy travel brochure fall out, and she picked it up. "'An exclusive upstate New York mountain getaway, designed for the discerning traveler," she read from the brochure. "Nine acres of pristine, almost untouched wilderness, the closest neighbor nearly a mile and a half away. Bordering the Cattaraugus County Indian reservation with boundaries clearly marked for privacy, it offers the best of locations for hunting, fishing, camping and outdoor hiking in privacy and solitude."
"They took me outside for some of the clients' activities. Even though sound can carry—if I was well gagged they would take me out and turn me loose in the fenced area."
"Fenced area?"
"For hunting—there was an electric wire run under the ground, and my collar was fitted with an electric shock device. If I stepped outside the wires, I'd get an electric shock that would paralyze me long enough for them to find me, and I would be punished for trying to escape. But inside that electric fence I could run wherever I wanted to; they would 'hunt' me with a dart gun equipped with darts tipped with a paralyzing agent."
"Jesus." Allie croaked, staring at the brochure. The front of it showed a elegant littlewooden cabin/house, and other pictures showed pastoral, scenic views of western New York.
"Not all that far away behind the house—you can't see it in the brochure there—is a pier extending out over a small lake. The end of that pier was equipped with a pulley and rope system. They could 'fish' by tying me to the rope at the end of that pulley and lowering me under until I was drowning, then pull me out and wait till I got my breath back, then drop me back in."
"That's barbaric." Liv's face was a mix of anger and disgust.
"'Camping trips' involved them taking me outside and tying me between two trees then doing whatever they wanted to do. 'Outdoor hiking' was when they forced me to hike through the woods, with weights tied to my arms and legs."
"Excuse me."Allie dropped the brochure and ran from the room.
Cam's face was expressionless as she spoke, as Alex took notes and Olivia quietly looked through more journals. "There are pockets in the back of those journals with a few pictures here and there, and there are more in the trunk but I tried to weed out the worst ones. I think you have everything you need there to put out an arrest warrant, but I'll submit written testimony if you need that too."
Olivia flipped to the back of the journal she was looking at and looked through the pictures. "What do you think, Alex?"
"I think we won't need testimony initially. In fact, I wouldn't advise it until later." Alex leaned forward, folding her arms on the tabletop, her expression sober. "I'm not sure what the statute of limitations is on human trafficking, so if we say that we've just come into possession of child porn and it has his name and address on it somewhere, then we can say later that we didn't know the statute of limitations had run out, if there is one. And in the process of questioning him, he'll likely be able to give us details of other crimes, and hopefully at least one of them won't have a statute of limitations."
"After he gives us what we need to get me in so I can find Shana and get her out." Cam was adamant.
Allie returned to the conference room, sipping a cup of water. "Cam, are you sure you've thought this through? I know you want to get Shana back, we all do, but this is going way beyond what anyone would expect. If we do get Shana back but we can't find you, she'll never forgive herself. I know you and she have gotten very close in the last few months—"
"You don't understand. She's my best friend—she's the first female best friend I ever had, and I owe her so much—her patience, and the time she spent working with me through my PTSD. I can't even begin to figure out how to repay any of that."
"She wouldn't want you to. Shana doesn't do things because she wants people to pay her back, Cam, she does them because she thinks it's the right thing to do. She's a lot like you in that respect."
"I know that. But I still owe her, I know what she's going through and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, let alone my best friend. And as far as I can tell, this is the only way we're going to be able to get her back. You really think those damn Homeland Security guys are really putting forth their best efforts on this? They don't give a crap, and if we just wait for someone to recognize her from the Interpol pictures we're going to be waiting a long time. If ever."
They were all silent at those words. Unfortunate, but true—by now word had gotten out around base about what the interview with the FBI and Homeland Security had been like, and how even Cam—patient, mild-mannered, quiet, even-tempered Cam—had lost her temper. She had been the first one to say that those guys didn't give a crap about what happened to Shana and they were certainly not going to go out of their way to try and find her, and general opinion on base had agreed.
"Well, Clayton said we would revisit the issue if or when we found this guy. I'll tell you, although I initially didn't really want to find him, after seeing all of this and knowing he arranged it—I do what to put him in jail." Olivia sighed. "This name and address: Leo Yu, Chinatown Apartments, Bowery, in the back of this ledger, with the photos—is this him?"
"Yes. There's also an address and phone number for his travel agency on the brochure: New Horizons Travel Agency, Canal Street New York, NY. It's on the southern tip of Manhattan. I looked it up on the base computers, and it's still in business."
"We know where it is; Chinatown isn't all that far from the courthouse." Alex sounded grim.
Olivia pushed herself up out of her chair, groaning. "All right. I'm going to play my part in this and go track him down. Alex, you do your part and figure out what you can charge the son of a bitch with. Cam, sit tight. And remember—once we arrest him, Cam, whether he helps us or not, you're going to have to testify against him."
"I know." Cam's gaze and voice was steady.
"We're going to have enough of a hard time as it is. I don't know how he's regarded in the community, but if he was well-regarded there's going to be some racial backlash and we may have to pull you out to go public against this guy."
"I can't do that. Not until I'm back with Shana."
Alex interposed quickly as she saw Liv get that 'stubborn' look on her face."Stop. Let's get this guy first. Liv. This ledger says he received payments 'for procurement services' from Cam's aunt and Uncle, and we have enough documentation here to prove they trafficked her in-state and then sold her services as a child prostitute. We can get him on white collar income tax evasion, and that will give us a little time to get a warrant to search his business. If he arranged for some of those clients to rent this upstate 'vacation lodge' there will be paperwork with the clients names on them, we can compare his client list with the logs that Cam's aunt and uncle kept. If some of them match we can argue in court that there is reason to believe that he did 'procure' clients for the human traffickers and makes him an accessory—at which point we'd hand him to the Feds for both the tax evasion and the human trafficking." She sat there for a moment, staring abstractedly at the paperwork, thinking; then she said, "Cam. Do you know if this guy has any pictures of you, or if he might have had pictures of you at one time?"
"He does. He had to in order to advertise me as a luxury commodity for the cabin visitors." Her voice went flat.
"Liv, if he still has pictures of her we could get him on possession of child porn too, which will let us hold him for a while. Long enough for Cam to do whatever she needs to do. And if she…isn't back…by a reasonable amount of time, we've still got a case against him for tax evasion on his 'unreported earnings' plus whatever we turn up in his possession."
"Fair enough. Let me get started on tracking this guy down." Olivia had her cell phone out and was busy sending a text message.
The Judge's Chamber was a little bar-and-restaurant place not too far from the courthouse, which made it an ideal hangout for cops and lawyers after work. This time was no exception as Alex and Liv walked in and spotted the two people they wanted to talk to in the back of the dimly-lit restaurant section; they headed for the small booth.
Odafin Tutuola, known affectionately as 'Fin' to his coworkers and friends, looked up as Olivia and Alex approached, and slid the table back. "Whoa, Liv. I thought it was just you and Alex, if I knew you were bringing a third person I would have gotten a bigger booth."
"He's not a full person yet, he's like, half a person." Alex joked as she slid into the booth first.
Olivia gave Alex a look filled with mock insult. "I'll have you know the last sonogram shows him having all ten fingers and toes and all legs and arms and everything a baby is supposed to have, so he is a whole person, thank you very much."
Alex laughed at her. "Well, but in size he adds another half a person. So he's a half a person." She held up her hand as Olivia started to remonstrate. "All right, all right, I'm not going to argue."
Olivia glared at her, but refrained from further comment. Instead, she turned to John Munch, and the levity vanished. "John. Do you remember, eight years ago, you handled a case with a little Asian girl who was removed from her aunt and uncle's house? She refused to talk, and you had to give her back—and a few years later, she surfaced in some violent child porn?"
"Yes. And earlier this year you pulled her folder out of the back of the victims' drawer and said she'd been found." They all knew about the 'victims' drawer'; a collection of photos of children being abused, victimized, children who hadn't been identified; the files were then dated and put in what was called the 'victims drawer' at the SVU. It was actually more of a whole file cabinet now, than a simple drawer, and a lot of the earliest pictures were of children who were now no longer children—but although the number of children's pictures that went into the drawer were a lot higher in quantity than what went out, each time they could pull a child from that drawer and label the child 'found' was a small victory.
"Yes. Her name is Cameron Arlington, and she's now a Ranger in the US Army. She's a subordinate of my boyfriend's, currently assigned to his top-secret project, and she's a wonderful young woman. She recently got married." It was a vast oversimplification of the story, but this was easier than telling them the whole story; Liv didn't know how much of it would be considered 'classified' anyway.
"Is this that young woman you wanted to interview at Sealview earlier this summer?" Fin interjected.
"Yes. I can't go into it now, some of it is sensitive, but we turned up some evidence that might lead to the person who arranged for her to be trafficked and victimized." She handed the travel brochure to John. "Hunting involved darts and a paralytic agent specifically measured for the weight of a fifteen year old girl. Fishing involved repeatedly nearly drowning said fifteen year old. I think you get the point."
"New Horizons Travel Agency, Canal Street." John read. "Can we go after him?"
"We have a ten year old ledger that has his name, a bank account number, and various dollar amounts listed as 'payment for procurement of clients'." Alex pushed over the ledger. John looked at it like he couldn't decide, for a moment, if he really wanted to look at it, but finally picked it up.
As his eyes roved over the page his frown got deeper and his eyes stonier. "This guy made thousands of dollars off 'procuring' clients to molest her."
"Yes. And what are the chances that he reported all that income?" Alex nodded grimly as the light went on in his eyes. "Now don't say anything yet because you haven't heard the second part of the story. One of the soldiers on our classified base, Shana O'Hara, went missing in the Congo when we went a couple weeks ago. There was an accident, a bridge collapsed, she was washed downstream and picked up by rogues, who subsequently sold her to human traffickers. We don't know where she is right now, and the only plan so far come up with is Cam Arlington's own, which involves arresting Mr. Leo Yu and then legally blackmailing him into helping insert Cam herself as a slave into the human trade underground to try and find Shana."
"Wait. She's a former victim herself and she came up with a plan that involved her going back into that life to get her friend out? I haven't met her but I don't know if I could do that for anyone." Fin interjected.
"Not even me? Thanks, partner," Munch said in mock hurt.
"Can it, John. Your bony ass wouldn't be appealing to anyone anyway."
"I'll have you know that my 'bony ass', as you so lovingly call it, has been married to four different women who apparently found it pleasing enough to marry me at the time—"
"Yeah, so tell me how that turned out?" When John was silent, Fin turned back to Liv and Alex. "So you want us to go find this Leo Yu and bring him in for a white collar-crime so you can shake him down for information about the human trafficking? What if he won't cooperate?"
"That ledger shows a lot of income that was possibly not reported. When you arrest him we can get warrants for his business records and how much he was paid to arrange trips for his clients. I'm almost positive that at least a few of the names on his client list are going to match the ones in the front of that ledger—" John flipped it to the front to have a look, "And once that happens we can get him on procurement. In the process of getting him on procurement we can get warrants for his personal documents, particularly relating to his income and finances, and Cam herself says that she's nearly certain that he has pictures of her—he visited her personally on two occasions that she can remember. That will allow us to get him at least on tax evasion and fraud, possibly on child porn. After which I'm pretty sure we can cut him a deal, some legal blackmail to get him to cooperate."
"And after that? Don't we have to have Ms. Arlington herself testify?"
Liv sighed. "We're still working on that. Cam's going undercover to pose as a slave—the plan is to insert her into the slave underground with an implanted tracer; when she finds Shana she'll stop moving from owner to owner and stick with Shana, and at the point where she's stopped moving for two weeks we can go and extract both of them. Once they're back she says she's perfectly willing to testify."
"How does she plan on finding Shana?"
"Shana's physically unique and Cam is…damaged meat, in the language of the slave trade. Her body is extensively scarred from a fire. According to her, because Shana is so physically unique—natural red hair and green eyes—whoever buys her is going to need 'damaged meat' around to coerce Shana to cooperate."
Silence around the table. Fin broke it first. "I can't say that I like the idea, but I also can't find anything wrong with it too. I just hope that Cam knows what she's gettin' into."
"She knows," Liv said quietly. "Fin, she was taken to western New York when she was fifteen and kept captive in a concrete basement for three years while a variety of 'clients' paid incredible sums of money to 'vacation' at the cabin and molest her. When she finally was able to slip out of her bonds in an unguarded moment, she didn't run away; the thought of the world outside didn't even cross her mind. She poured gas all over the house and set fire to it, then stayed. She fully intended to die in that fire herself because she didn't want to live, that's how she became so badly scarred. The difference is that this time, she's not fifteen, she knows exactly what to expect, and she is also a highly-trained, elite US Army soldier. She is fully capable of taking out anyone who tries to do something to her that she doesn't allow, and also is aware of the fact that suicide is a viable alternative should things go south and she can't handle whatever happens."
She pinned both of them with a pleading gaze. "If he doesn't cooperate we can throw the book at him and bury him in jail for the rest of his life. If he does cooperate and Cam survives, she can testify and finally get some closure. If she doesn't come back, we can prosecute him for murder even without her body. If we don't find anything to pin the human trafficking on him, we can still give him to the Feds for tax evasion and fraud. It's a win-win situation—if you agree."
John sighed heavily. "We agree. We'll go pick him up tomorrow. You gonna explain all this to Captain Cragen or should we?"