“Roger that.”
The truck pulled into a convenience strip mall consisting of a beauty store, a liquor store, a nail salon, and a massage parlor. He parked his car in front of the liquor store but walked into the nail salon.
“Now you don’t see that every day. A Latino cowboy going in to get his nails and toes done. Why, those boots are going to wreck anything—”
Just then, the cowboy reappeared from the door and looked straight at them, as he chewed on a toothpick.
“Fuck,” mumbled Brady. “We’re going to have to move on.”
“No shit.” Riley made a point to nod to the other side of the street using his forehead to indicate something Brady should look at. But he did it just to deflect whatever interest the cowboy had in the two of them.
It was obvious they’d been made.
After Brady took the turn, he doubled back and headed in the opposite direction so they could find the home Mr. Esquivel lived in. It didn’t take long before the dusty brown fields and warehouse districts turned yet again. This time it was lush 100-year-old trees, well-manicured lawns, and tremendous estates behind tall fences.
One by one, they passed mansions built on several acres, practically larger than their team 5 building on Coronado, in a subdivision with streets wider than most freeways. Brady liked the area, and in the hot weather, the lush foliage and tall shady trees were very attractive. The whole neighborhood seemed pleasant and peaceful. It was hard to imagine that a sex trafficker and murderer would be living in one of these homes.
They slowly drove up and down several streets until they found the unmistakable rust-colored home with the shiny black gates in front, inlaid with a crest in the outline of a dragon, fire and all, in the center of each side. The concrete walls surrounding the home made viewing the activity inside impossible. But they did see an armed guard off to the right. They also saw two other men having a cigarette in the opposite corner, long guns strapped across their shoulders. Their white cowboy hats obscured their faces in shadow.
Brady made a note of the address and called it out to Riley, who wrote it down in his notebook. They drove around the block, which was how big the property was—one huge city block. A rear entrance in the back had a sliding steel door, like Brady had seen in South America and parts of Mexico.
It was clearly a fortress, designed to protect the occupants from any nosey neighbors or hapless salesman. Even though it was a ranch-style home, the sprawling design contained an upper level off to the right side with a balcony all around it. It was a perfect vantage point to survey the flat landscape and the houses and neighborhood nearby. The balcony appeared empty.
The ground floor was larger than the upper wing and appeared to have multiple bedrooms and probably a private interior courtyard. Several huge palm trees grew right from the center of the house. Brady figured it was a small patio where whoever was there could be totally protected from everything but the air.
“We’re going to get some drones. We need to take a closer look. If we’re lucky, we might catch some sightings of Mr. Rojas, don’t you, Riley?”
“I think you’d be right. Only two ways in, quiet neighborhood, easy to get out if you had to in a hurry. You could tear down this road at sixty to seventy miles an hour and probably never see a soul. During the hot weather, I’ll bet everybody just stays inside with air conditioning. But if you had to get out of Dodge, you could do it here.”
“Meaning him or us?” asked Brady.
“Either one.” Riley shrugged again and took out a small pair of binoculars he had tucked into his shirt pocket, examining the trees inside the concrete perimeter wall.
“I’m seeing some cameras, a lot of wiring going on, and looks like they got a basket or two up there. Yeah, I see a ladder and a little guardhouse inside one of those palm trees. See that cluster over to the right? They got a little observation tower there. I bet at night he goes infrared.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me. So we got to be ready for that then,” added Brady. “Let’s shoot some pictures and get out of Dodge.”
As they drove home, the two SEAL buddies made lists of things they were going to need. Mostly, they needed night vision equipment, some explosive devices, knives, some equipment for close contact hand-to-hand-style combat, some zip ties, and sidearms. Brady indicated that they’d have to try to find a rooftop somewhere so they could be covered. He didn’t want to break in if they had a sighting of Rojas without protection from cover fire, if needed.
Riley said he noticed several second-story additions on homes that might work, and he made a note to scout those out on their next trip.
“When do you think we’ll bring everybody back down here?” Riley asked.
“I’m thinking two days, maybe three?” Brady turned to face Riley. “Sort of depends on when everybody arrives. I’m hoping they’ll get to Sonoma County today or tomorrow at the latest. Gives us a day to gear up and strategize. We’ll draw out both locales, and then we’ll toss it around. I want everybody’s eyes on this before we do anything. This isn’t going to be my op. I need everybody’s input. And I don’t want to make a focused plan without it.”
“Music to my ears. We can do it.”
When they returned to Healdsburg, Riley got out his computer. He’d been tasked with running property searches and wanted to research owners’ names of both properties. The house was registered to a corporation called Dragon Limited.
“I got your dragon, Brady.”
Brady joined him at the table. Looking down at the screen, he whistled. “So there he is, huh?”
Riley had researched the name, and the county records showed a nonprofit organization using the address of the house as its office. It was a center for orphaned and exploited children. A smiling picture of Esquivel Rojas himself was plastered in the middle of a Fresno Bee newspaper article about his foundation, Angelfind.
“Can you believe the nuts on this guy? Here he goes and steals kids and women, sells them into sex slavery, and then opens up an orphanage, for Chrissake?”
“My guess is he doesn’t think he’ll get caught. Wonder why he thinks that?” mused Brady.
“Yeah, that’s odd, isn’t it? Most those guys, they hide in the hills. This guy’s right out in plain sight. I mean it doesn’t take long to find him. We found him right away, and we didn’t even do much of a record search. He’s just right there,” stated Riley, pointing to his computer screen.
“Maybe somebody else is protecting him. Do you suppose that could be?” Brady asked.
“It sure would be a whole lot better if your gal on the phone would give us some background. Can you reach her?”
“Haven’t tried. Something tells me it’ll go to a non-working number or disconnect or something. I’m sure her phone is scrambled. No, we’re on our own.”
“Well, hell’s bells, as long as the money keeps flowing, I guess we just forge along, right?” Riley asked.
“I can’t say as I like it that way. That’s why I want to make sure we know what we’re doing. I don’t want to go kick a hornet’s nest over, spook the guy, and then have him hightail it back to Mexico.”
Riley looked up at him. “Do we have authority to go to Mexico?”