Page 109 of Strays
Below, a narrow wooden stairway leads down into the blackness. An agent passes me a flashlight. I click it on and lower myself down the precarious stairs.
The tunnel is low; I have to duck to keep my head from hitting the ceiling. The walls are raw-packed dirt, reinforced by vertical posts driven into the ground every few feet. Rough-cut boards span the ceiling between them, barely enough to keep the dirt from sloughing down.
I’m already at the other end by the time Shane and Jay drop in behind me. Another wooden stair rises ahead. I flash my light upward and catch a battered wood panel wedged into place above. I shove it aside, and light floods in. I climb out into the open, right behind the overgrown bushes, with Shane and Jay tailing me quickly.
From the outside, the panel’s covered in a thin skin of earth and grass. When we push it back into place, it fits so perfectly into the ground that it disappears unless you know it’s there.
Scouse is already making her way around from the street. She spots us and heads over. When she approaches, she pauses for a moment, looking down at the ground where we just climbed out. “We need to flag this place for potential human trafficking,” she says.
Recovered Internal TGH Driver Comms — Partial Log
(Device: TGH-NJ-874)
— TRAVIS: Arrived dock. Cold loaded, hot ready.
— CHUCK: Same count slip?
— TRAVIS: Minus one. Failed chill check. Doc ordered scrap.
— CHUCK: Shit. Been on hold for mine since 0400. Clinic slow today.
— TRAVIS: One drop or two?
— CHUCK: One. Same puller on lot.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Cold and The Hot
When we finally head to our truck, federal vehicles still block half the street. We don’t leave until just after eight, long past sundown. I’m exhausted in a way I’ve never felt before, not even after training. Shane hasn’t spoken in twenty minutes. Jay drives with both windows down, trying to stay alert.
But we did it.
After we flagged the false wall and the hidden exit, Scouse called in a full forensic response. Two more DEA units rolled up, then Homeland sent a team to observe, and not long after that, a tactical van from FBI Organized Crime parked across the street.
They photographed everything: the freezer, the gel capsules, the packets, the coolers. Each one was logged with a field ID and sealed in a dry case for transport. The drugs were gone within two hours, headed to a DEA lab under armed escort, and the hidden room was flagged as a suspected site of unlawful confinement.
After that, we spent hours sitting on concrete steps, answering questions, pointing at things, logging timestamps. They made us repeat our positions before entry, during the wall discovery, and again during the freezer search. Standard procedure, but exhausting.
Unexpectedly, Scouse credited us in the task force file, treating us with the same fairness Sergeant Wilsbone had back in the High-Risk Unit. I don’t know if we’re just in a lucky streak with humans, or if six years under Balls warped our expectations more than we realized.
When we finally arrive home, the lights are on. I catch Jo’s scent the second we walk in — warmth, comfort, relief. Her.
She waited for us to have dinner together. We sit at the table, our voices rough with tiredness as we walk her through everything, and she listens without interrupting. The look on her face when we finish, all pride and quiet awe, makes every second of the day worth it.
After dinner, we fall into the nest, and this time, I don’t fight sleep.
Monday morning, the DEA’s squad room is barely recognizable. Desks are pushed to the edges, and chairs are arranged in tight rows facing a projector. Half the walls are covered with pinned maps, freight logs and customs manifests. Red string and yellow tape tabs run from Argentina to Jersey to here. At the center is a port layout map of Newark pinned wide across thewhiteboard, scrawled with shipping lanes and container numbers in black marker.
Scouse stands near the front, arms folded tight, with a legal pad tucked under one arm and Lowell at her side. She looks like she hasn’t slept.
The whole Bridgeport team is here, plus two people in jackets with DHS patches. This isn’t a routine meeting; this is war-room shit. We take seats near the back, but Scouse spots us and jerks her head toward the front row. We move.
Lowell clears his throat. “All right,” he says. “Let’s get everyone up to speed.”
Scouse clicks the remote. The screen flashes to a 3D chemical diagram, angular and ugly, spinning slowly. “This is what we pulled from the freezer last night,” she says. “Compound name: Acetyl-nitazene-Δ9F.”
She clicks again, and the diagram zooms out to reveal structural comparisons. “It’s a synthetic opioid, part of the benzimidazole class. Structurally related to etonitazene. That one was abandoned back in the fifties for being too dangerous, never made it to market.”
