Page 53 of Secret
Both men ran down the hall, everyone aware when Bryon raised his voice it was important.
"What's up?" Carter's eyes looked over Kasey. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." Kasey nodded. "I found some stuff."
"Stuff, hell, you found gold." Bryon handed half the papers to Trenton and the other half to Carter.
"What is it?" Becca finally approached them.
"Names of children and their buyers," Carter said in shock as he looked at Kasey. "How did you find these?"
"He was sorting through them when I got in there. They were on the table in front of him. Probably stuff he doesn't keep a digital footprint of, but thought he was safe keeping a written one. I had to use his printer to copy off the originals. I know it's against the rules, but I couldn't leave this kind of information behind." He was ready for Bryon to yell at him, but it was worth any anger he might have to endure.
"So, the cops have all this too?" Carter asked.
"They have the original. Color photos of each child and handwritten information. I debated on taking it all, but honestly, I was so shocked to find it, I didn't know what the right thing to do was."
"No, you did right. Hopefully, the cops will follow through on this and won't fuck it up." Bryon glanced over at the papers. "Fuck, look." He pulled one sheet from the stack Trenton was holding. "Anthony Libbons. The little boy kidnapped a couple weeks ago." He held up the picture for Kasey to see.
Kasey didn't know if he should be happy about it or not. It meant the boy had been sold. Sure, they had information now on who bought him, but that didn't mean they could find him. He thought about Noam and how this would affect him and his case. He'd have to tell the family what he'd found.
The thought of leaving town was now even more unsettling. He wanted to be there to support Noam, even if that meant just holding him when he got home after a long day. The guilt was growing at having to keep secrets from him.
When Noam had brought up someone going after the pedophiles while they were talking at dinner earlier, he wasn't sure how to respond. He tried to keep it as basic as he could without lying to him about anything, but it was hard. He wasn't sure how much more of this he could take.
Why was it fate threw the perfect man in his path, but made their lives cross professionally also? Why did they both have to be connected to the same cases, the same darkness that was in the world?
"You okay, Kase?" Bryon narrowed his eyes at him.
"Yeah, was just a rush of adrenaline trying to figure out what to do, how to get those copied. I didn't know if I should leave the originals or not for the cops, let them go after the others. I just had to stick to the rules of the team and make my own call on bringing us copies back." He shook his head. "I need a beer."
"You've earned yourself a case of beer." Trenton held up the papers in his hands. "Do you know what this could mean?"
Kasey nodded as he went to the fridge, the whole group following him into the kitchen. "It can open all kinds of doors, give us people to search and hopefully others linked to them. It means that hopefully all of those kids can go home finally." He prayed they were all still alive or hadn't been resold to others.
"Fuck, I hate we're leaving town with all this new information coming in." Bryon sighed.
Hope surged through Kasey. "We can still call it off. Let the cops go in."
"I told you, one of the pedophiles is the Mayor. I don't trust the cops to handle this without a huge cover-up. We're going in, then we are going to call the sheriff in the next town to respond. It will be a mess, but I'd rather know for sure those kids and women that are being held there will be saved. All we need is the mayor getting there and commanding the police. I'd like to say it wouldn't happen, but we all know how politics and money can get in the way." Bryon shook his head. "No, we're still going. Trenton, Matt, and Carter will handle this stuff. There's enough there that they won't get through it all before we get back."
"Says you." Carter glanced up from the page he was reading. "This shit calls for some long hours and lost sleep." He nudged Trenton. "You with me?"
"Yeah, we can take turns napping if we need to." Trenton glanced over at Kasey. "Be safe in Nevada. We'll be here following along best we can on the surveillance we've hacked."
"Thanks. You guys find those fuckers, so we can go after them when we get back. I'm not waiting for the police to go through the courts and get warrants." Kasey was ready to bring them all down, ready to bring the kids home.
"We'll be ready." Carter smiled as they turned and walked back to the geek cave.
Bryon sat down at the kitchen table. "Lucky find tonight."
"Freaked me out. I wasn't sure what to do."
"Maybe we need to think about upgrading the burner phones to ones with cameras. It will be a bigger expense, but might be worth it. Maybe add small cameras to your tools. I don't know. It's something I'll have to think about and we'll talk about in our next meeting. You okay for this sting in Nevada?"
"Yeah, not happy about it, but it needs to be done. We can't leave those women and kids sitting there any longer. Every day we wait, we risk losing some of them or having more taken." Kasey downed a few gulps of beer. "I just hope we know what we're getting into. That many being held and only six or seven guards, it seems odd to me. How good is your intel?" He knew better than to question Bryon and Carter's intel. They had never let him down, but this time, he just needed a bit more security that they knew what the fuck they were doing.
"We've used every source we have. We've had satellite imagery of the place for a week now. Carter's using every resource and has talked to every source he has in the government who will help him. We are sure. There will likely be six to seven guards when we go in, armed, but not trained. These are nothing more than hired hands. Carter will loop the surveillance feed, so we can get in unseen, the alarms will be turned off before we get there. I've worked with Carter for weeks on how to get us into this place. It's why we didn't go sooner. As much as I want to save the women and children, my team's safety comes first. We have done everything we can to ensure we get in there without a problem. We've learned their habits, watched where they sit. I'm confident that we can do this successfully." Bryon smiled. "Our team is the best. We can and will do this."
Kasey nodded, confident that Bryon and Carter had worked hard to make sure it all went smoothly. "I trust you. I trust the team."
"Good, then go get a little sleep. Stay here if you want. We'll leave at eight." Bryon stood.
Kasey finished off his beer and tossed it in the trash. "I'm going home. I'll be back by seven-thirty. You sleep too. Let them handle what we found. We're taking your car. You'll get first shift driving." Kasey slapped him on the shoulder as he walked out of the room.
As he got into his car, he took a minute to collect his thoughts. So much was going on, but that didn't change the fact people needed to be saved, and it was his job to make that happen. No matter what, he would do his job and trust those around him to do theirs.
