Special Agent Witness
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R. Barri Flowers
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Prologue
Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Rosamund Santiago was on an undercover assignment with her HSI partner, Special Agent Johnnie Langford, in Dallas, Texas. They were on their way to an important make-or-break meeting this evening. We can’t afford any slipups, she thought, as they headed south. If things went as planned, after a six-month investigation, they would soon put a major human trafficking, sex trafficking, and money laundering operation out of commission. In this undertaking, they were working in conjunction with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Federal Bureau of Investigation, North Texas Trafficking Task Force, and the Dallas Police Department. The primary target and ringleader of the criminal enterprise was a man named Simon Griswold, who pretended to be a reputable businessman, importing antique and contemporary furniture from Mexico and South America. In fact, this was nothing more than a facade for his real mission, which was the human trafficking and sexual exploitation of noncitizens and vulnerable American women and minors, enriching himself and his operatives in the process.
For Rosamund, as important as taking down human traffickers and other criminals was for her career, it was also personal. As a thirty-two-year-old Latina, born and raised in El Paso, Texas, she had witnessed firsthand as a girl the smuggling of humans against their will across the Rio Grande and U.S.–Mexico border, and the even greater cruelties that often awaited them in the states they were dispersed to. She knew then that she wanted to do something to stop this when she was old enough and the opportunity presented itself. It did, once she had completed her Master of Arts degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Texas at Arlington and went to work for the Department of Homeland Security’s Center for Countering Human Trafficking seven years ago. With literally tens of thousands of human trafficking cases documented in Texas every year, ranging from child trafficking and domestic servitude, to forced prostitution and sexual exploitation, to human smuggling and labor trafficking, Rosamund admittedly had her hands full.
With such a workload, it didn’t give her time for a meaningful social life, much less the opportunity to have a serious romance. But this didn’t mean she did not long for both at some point. Who wouldn’t? As for a love life, she had to believe that if the right person came along, she would know it, and everything else would fall into place. Wouldn’t it?
“How you doing over there?” Langford asked as he drove them to the destination in the black Ford Explorer. Part of their work together was their undercover life, posing as an unmarried couple who had gotten comfortable building a lucrative business as human traffickers. In truth, thirty-five-year-old Langford, a ten-year veteran with the Department of Homeland Security, was happily married to a lovely woman named Katie and was the father of two cute and energetic little boys. And the only real involvement between her and Langford was their shared desire to make the world a better place in the small way they could contribute to that happening.
Rosamund realized she had been silent in her reverie. Or feeling slightly tense, as always, whenever an operation was about to go down. She eyed him from the passenger seat. African American, he was as fit as she was, four inches taller at six feet, and had short black hair styled in waves and a line-up cut. His brown eyes were deeper than her own, which were a softer hazel. She forced a smile and said convincingly, “I’m good. Just want this to go without a hitch.” She knew they would be meeting Simon Griswold alone, hoping to catch him in a moment of weakness and get just enough additional evidence to what they had already accumulated to make an arrest. At which time, they would really lay the hammer to him in the hopes of breaking up the entire human trafficking ring.
“It will,” Langford assured her. “Griswold has no reason to believe this is anything other than business as usual. Whatever he gives us to hang himself, we’ll take. And if he has brought any trafficked victims along for the ride, we’ll make sure they’re taken care of without blowing our cover.”
“Okay.” She smiled again, realizing this sense of dread she was feeling was nothing more than wanting to get this over with, as always. Griswold was supposed to give them the time and place for the arrival of a tractor trailer that was being used to smuggle noncitizens into the country. Rosamund and Langford would pretend to aid in getting them fake identifications and otherwise helping with integrating them into society and introducing them to would-be exploiters of the trafficked victims. In reality, these were fellow HSI and ICE agents removing them from harm’s way.
But should there be any hiccups, there were other investigators on standby, ready and able to come to their assistance, when and if they gave the signal. Beyond that, Rosamund knew she and Langford were armed with Sig Sauer P320-XTEN 10-millimeter striker-fired pistols and wearing ballistic vests. Then there was the fact that she had recently taken up Thai boxing as a means for self-defense and as a combat sport. So, really, what was there to worry about?
They arrived at the Bricks Motel on Appolane Road and parked in the lot. Langford said with a quiet sigh, “Let’s get this over with.”
“I’m ready,” she said calmly and flipped her curly black ponytail for effect. They exited the vehicle and approached Room 110. As they did so, Rosamund got an uneasy feeling. Something’s not quite right, she thought. The parking lot was lowly lit and there were a few other cars in the lot. She did note the familiar metallic gray BMW iX parked in front of the room. Once they neared it, the driver’s-side door opened and the man they were meeting stepped out.
Simon Griswold was forty years old and just under six feet tall with a medium build. He was wearing a dark suit with dark shoes. His salt-and-pepper hair was styled in a pompadour fade. “You’re late,” he said brusquely.
“Traffic,” Langford told him tonelessly.
“In fact, we’re actually ten minutes early,” Rosamund said, suspecting Griswold was simply pushing their buttons for whatever reason.
“Why don’t we go inside?” he said tersely, his blue eyes landing on her briefly.
As they followed him to the door, she again had the sense that something wasn’t right. She wondered if they should abort the meeting. But before she could act on this and alert Langford, the door was opened and Langford went inside, along with Griswold. The moment she stepped through the door and Griswold shut it behind her, Rosamund saw he was holding a gun. It looked like a .357 Magnum revolver. The weapon was pointed at Langford, who said angrily, “What is this?”
“You tell me,” Griswold responded gruffly. “I don’t like doing business with feds.”
Langford looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know where you got your intel, but it’s wrong.”
“I don’t think so,” the human trafficker spat. Before Langford could go for his weapon, Griswold shot him point-blank in the head. She watched with horror as her partner fell to the floor, feeling both helpless and shaken to the core in that moment.
Then out of the corner of her eye, Rosamund spotted movement. A tall and stocky bald-headed man had come out of the bathroom. She turned to see him reach for something inside his leather jacket. A gun. He plans to kill me too, unless I can beat him to the draw, she told herself. Instinctively, she pulled out her own weapon and immediately fired at the man, twice, putting him down. She turned back to Griswold to see he had lined her up in his sights for the kill before she could aim her gun at him.
“Goodbye, Special Agent Santiago,” he said with a sneer.
As her life flashed before her eyes, Rosamund couldn’t see any way out of this. No future to look forward to. No romance with a loving man waiting in the wings. But as she stood there, expecting to be shot in the head like Langford, she saw that Griswold’s gun had apparently jammed. As Griswold muttered an expletive, Rosamund realized she now had the upper hand. But before she could use it, Griswold charged her, dislodging the gun from her hand as the two went down.
“I’ll kill you with my bare hands,” he said.
But as he tried to wrap his thick hands around her neck, Rosamund felt just as confident in her ability to take him in hand-to-hand combat. I have to fight back or die trying, she told herself. Relying on quick movements she had learned in her Thai boxing classes, Rosamund slammed both fists into Griswold’s temples as hard as she could and then smashed a fist solidly into the top of his bulbous nose, breaking it and rendering him unconscious as he slumped beside her on the hard tile floor.
After quickly handcuffing the man, Rosamund scurried over to her seriously wounded partner and gasped. It didn’t take much to realize that Johnnie Langford was gone.
THREE DAYS LATER, Rosamund attended the funeral of Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Langford, who was laid to rest in a cemetery in his hometown of Beaumont, Texas. His beautiful widow, Katie Langford, was overcome with emotion as the pastor paid tribute to the slain investigator at the graveside service. Standing on opposite sides of her were Katie’s sons, Johnnie Jr. and Desmond, ages seven and five, respectively. Both reminded Rosamund of her fallen partner. She couldn’t imagine what they must be going through, having lost their dad before ever having enough time to truly get to know him as a father, man, and someone who gave his life fighting crime and victimization.
Rosamund felt both grateful and uneasy that his killer had failed to take her out. Instead, she had turned the tables on him and stopped him from his lethal mission. But even with that victory, she realized there was still much work to be done to destroy the human trafficking operation that had resulted in so much suffering and exploitation. Until she was able to finish the job by testifying against the trafficker, Rosamund knew that Johnnie Langford would never be able to rest in peace.
