Chapter 1

POV to become known

I was tired, hot and sweaty as I lay down in the undergrowth. It made me wonder what the hell I'd been thinking when I could be in a warm comfortable bed with access to a hot shower. Was the life that I'd had so bad? I mean I'd had a steady income from a steady job, which to be fair wasn't that bad. It was certainly better than what I was doing now. Okay, it was a boring job which to be honest had started to piss me off, but did I have to walk away from it? I knew in my heart that I did. My boss had become a pain in my arse with how he would skewer with my work.

"We need headlines, news that people want to read. Not some cock and bull story that you think that you've found"

Headlines. I could appreciate that he needed to sell papers but at what cost? Okay, it brought in the money but to be honest it was eating away at my soul. I wanted more than chasing petty incidents, more than stirring up trouble for people, more than bolstering up the images of petty politicians or in some cases slandering their names.

"Take a vacation. Sort out your head then you'll be back to doing the job that I need"

So that was what I'd done. The problem was that it gave me time to think, really think. I'd done well at university studying journalism and photography with high hopes for what the future might bring me. I'd been naive in thinking a job at one of New York City's newspapers would be the door to my success. After battling with the obituary column then the heady heights of reviewing gourmet restaurants, I'd actually welcomed the opportunity of reporting on the rich and famous. I was basically demoted to one of the paparazzi who stalked the lives of wannabe bimbos, something that I really hated.

I thought that the job at the Trenton Times as a journalist would give me more opportunities. How wrong I was. Yeah, maybe I'd never win the Pulitzer award, but I just felt that I was underselling myself. I could see my name, Francis Gaunt, as the latest great investigative journalist, giving interviews and being on the TV. No, scrap that. Frank Gaunt, because the name Francis conjured up those hated days at school where the bullies always called me sissy. I was in my mid thirties and single with few women who would date me once they knew who I was. I didn't think that I was a bad looking guy and had always made the effort to keep in shape, so where had I gone wrong? The opportunity of a vacation cemented for me that I had a damn good lead on what could be the biggest news to hit Trenton and no newspaper boss was going to stop me from following up on that.

So here I was in the south of Texas a couple of hours away from a town called Uvalde. Laid down in the undergrowth with binoculars and a high powered lens on my camera. How did I get here? Well, that was an interesting story and there were times, like now, when I questioned my sanity. The story that I'd taken to my boss, which he outright dismissed, was the starting point, so that was where I had gone back to. It all started when I went to the bank for some smaller bills than the $100 notes that came out of the hole in the wall. I tended to use those smaller notes when I felt some kid or vagrant gave me information. There was no way that I was going to start doling out $100 for piss poor information. The teller at the bank was one of those women who just kept talking though after five minutes I did start to take notice of her and listen to what she was saying. Apparently, there was a shortage of 1 dollar bills, they just weren't being deposited at the bank.

According to her the people who usually deposited them were the men that worked for the many gambling joints that seemed to be appearing on every street corner. That had had me curious. What were those owners doing with their 1 dollar bills? Surely, they'd want to cash them in, if only to have less bulk to carry around. I spent several days watching one of the bigger places on Slate Street, one purportedly owned by none other than Vito Grizoli. Yeah, even I knew his standing within the Trenton community. If Grizoli was up to something, then I had wanted to find out. Follow the money, was literally what I'd done, not that it was easy. To be honest there were times when I questioned my sanity, but the adrenaline high far outweighed that.

I'd been discreet and I think stealthy as I watched that place for a couple of nights. Then I'd used the anonymity of my bike to tail the dirty and old panel vans that always seemed to be making a pickup at some unearthly hour in the morning, with all of them eventually winding up at a disused warehouse on the banks of the Delaware.

Maybe I should have been put off by the sight of the men with guns who looked to be guarding the place, but it just tweaked my interest even more. Bags went in and boxes came out and that was the photographic so that had been the evidence that I was going to be taking back to my boss. I spent the first couple of days of my enforced vacation deliberating what to do. The sun and beach down in Florida sounded like a good idea. Time to relax and eye up the talent had sounded like an enjoyable way to spend a vacation. The problem was that I couldn't get the idea of those 1 dollar bills out of my head. Following the money electronically wasn't an option especially as we were talking about cash and the mob, plus I just didn't have the skills for any financial shenanigans.

So, I did the next best thing and began the task of following the boxes. I have to say that Grizoli had a fast turnover going on and certainly had the organizational management to make following the notes extremely difficult. The truck that I followed didn't follow main routes, sticking to the slower roads instead which made tailing it nigh on impossible if I wasn't to be seen. I'd used my bike for that first journey, stupidly assuming that the truck wouldn't travel very far. Six hours later I was on the outskirts of Pittsburgh and had watched that truck pull into the loading bay of a unit in a large industrial site. By that time, I was cold and stiff from riding the bike such a long distance and by the time that I got back to Trenton I was nearly comatose. I just hadn't thought through what I was doing, as simple as that. I'd gone about the whole thing totally unprepared for the unexpected.

I'd needed to plan out what I would need. Money, phones, cameras, binoculars and clothes, oh and let's not forget a better mode of transport. That took some organizing and it was four days later when I was back at that warehouse in Trenton following yet another truck. This truck was smaller and older but instead of heading to Pittsburg it eventually arrived at a farm supplier in Knoxville, Tennessee. The driver of the truck had the comfort of an overnight stay in a motel while I wrapped myself in a sleeping bag inside my POS car, but at least I felt that I was prepared for that. What I wasn't prepared for was the truck being empty of any boxes. I'd sworn a lot when I'd discovered that during an early morning search of the truck, but then was curious why sacks had been loaded into the truck.

It was then that I had the dilemma of what to do next. Two trucks had left that warehouse for two totally different reasons in two totally different directions ending up at two totally different locations. Maybe the third time was a charm had been my reasoning for a decision, maybe if I followed a third truck from Trenton then I might get more answers. How wrong I was. When I managed to return to Trenton and find an advantageous place to spy from, the warehouse looked abandoned. No vans going in or trucks coming out and definitely no men with guns. Maybe moving their base of operations was a regular thing, maybe a way to ensure that they didn't attract attention? I think that I sighed a lot that night. Decisions, decisions. Just forget what I'd been doing and go back to work or look for another way of solving the mystery.

It took me another week to work out what Grizoli was doing. A whole week where I didn't eat or sleep properly, a week of swapping out vehicles so as not to attract attention, but I worked out what the son of a bitch was doing. Instead of having a nondescript van picking up the bags he was using the damn skips that were sat outside in the alley. It took me awhile to figure it out because I couldn't work out how one gambling joint could amass so much rubbish. So, I was back to trailing some arsehole and just as I guessed the truck didn't end up at the landfill. This time Grizoli was using an old quarry, dumping any genuine rubbish, and then loading the rest of the bags into a trailer on the back of a tractor.

Let me tell you, it isn't as easy as you think to follow a slow moving vehicle. Sometimes I thought walking would be easier, but I had to think of the goal and endure these tests sent to deter me. Okay, I was never that virtuous, but I was excited with my new lead and come on, I deserved to vocalize myself with grandeur, I was a journalist. I was lucky that it was getting dark when the tractor turned into what looked like a farm yard. I was pleased that I'd splashed out on an infrared lens for the camera because it gave me a clear view of the bags being unloaded into a barn. I'd been pretty sure that a truck would arrive by morning, and I'd see boxes coming out of the barn. This time I was going to be staying with those boxes.

Four days later and here I was. I'd kept my eye on the boxes regardless of what transport they'd used but was mystified why they'd ended up here in South Texas. I mean I could understand Grizoli wanting to hide money or even move money but why here and why 1 dollar bills. Unless of course it was another distribution center. I'd done my homework on the place and everyone that I spoke to told me that the whole set up manufactured cattle feed. Weird, I know.

So here I was laid in the undergrowth as I watched for what was going on at that ranch. It seemed a busy place and the work that the men were doing there seemed pretty mundane and I suppose typical for a ranch. There were some who were tending to some calves that were caroled in an enclosure and others going back and forth into a large barn. Probably that was where the main operation was happening. Surprisingly the truck that I'd followed bypassed the barn and pulled up to a stop in front of newly constructed building. I was keen to see what they did with the boxes that had been loaded into that truck ever hopeful of some sort of explanation that would make everything that I'd done so far worthwhile. So when two of the guys started to unload the boxes and then used small knives to open them the anticipation inside of me was riding high. Though why open them out in the open was beyond me.

Shit, shit, shit. Ran through my head when two more guys came over to help and they were lifting out sacks, not of money, but plastic bags with some sort of white powder inside. What the hell. How had I screwed this up so badly? When had they done the switch or had I made a humungous cock up. Had I ended up following the wrong truck at one of those transfers. I know that I'm not good out in the field but to make such a rookie mistake had me wanting to scream. I suppose those men had to be careful of people like me and boy had they fooled me.

I looked up as another couple of men came out of the building and began to pick up the bags and take them inside, no doubt the contents being needed for the production of the cattle feed. Once they'd done that there were fist bumps for a job well done and I watched as the men working the farm slowly disbanded heading toward some trucks that were parked just beyond the buildings. I was envious of them because no doubt they were going home to a hot shower, a drink of cold beer and maybe a warm body to snuggle up to in bed.

I blew out a breath because it was definitely time for me to get my shit together. Get back to my job, if I still had one, go back to something that I could probably do, even if I hated it. It was starting to get dark so my departure hopefully wouldn't be noticed. I knelt up and was just about to dismantle the lens from the camera to pack them away when I was aware of movement coming from the double doors of the new building. I'm sure that I was frowning because I just couldn't compute what I was seeing. There must have been about twenty women making their way outside, along with four men that were holding sticks? My camera was to my eye as I focused in on those women, snapping images as I panned across the area. The women and maybe some that looked to be more teenagers were dressed in a variety of clothes, skirts, jeans, shirts and T-shirts. What they all had in common was a scarf wrapped around their heads and how they seemed to move. Arms folded tightly across their chests and shoulders slouched.

Were they workers? But why no uniform or at least coveralls? And what the hell work were they doing? Why only come outside after most of the workers had left? They kept apart as though afraid to interact with each other and that was when all hell let lose. One of the women collapsed with two others suddenly rushing to her side and trying to raise her to her feet. Three men circled them seeming as though they were saying something to them. Then one woman very slowly inched her way away from the fallen woman but the other stood up, hands on hips as though arguing back. That was when I realized what the sticks were as a flash lit up and that woman was prodded in the stomach. Cattle prods, the men were using cattle prods on them. Why? I suppose I was being naïve, I mean I assumed the women were just workers at the end of their shift, but then why threaten them with cattle prods?

I soon changed my mind on that one when they were surrounded and threatened with the cattle prods and ushered back inside the building. The body of the fallen women was just left there which puzzled me. Surely someone would come and help her, wouldn't they? Two of the men appeared from the inside of the building, both of them carrying guns in their hands. I literally jumped as one of them pointed a gun at the woman and just shot her. It was another oh shit moment for me and for the first time I was scared to death. After all of the trailing and snooping that I'd done I had never really given it a thought that I was heading head first into something that was dangerous. No one knew what I'd been doing or where I'd been or where I was now. My immediate reaction was to get onto my feet and run very quickly, far away from here, but I didn't. Did I freeze with fear? No. Suddenly I felt very calm as I knelt there looking at the scene ahead of me.

Trafficking was what came to my mind. We were close to the Mexican border so maybe the women and girls had been smuggled over the border? Whatever was going on I couldn't do anything for them on my own so I knew that I needed to report this, and get some help. Hearing a vehicle approaching and seeing the headlights I instinctively ducked down because I had no idea if there were more bad guys on the scene. I almost stood up and shouted when I recognized that it was a police car with two officers getting out. The cavalry had arrived which had me heaving out a sigh of relief. So why were they just stood looking down at that woman's body and chatting to the armed men. Why weren't they arresting them or calling for backup? That was when I realized that the cops were well aware of what was going on, their laughs were loud enough in the still of the night to carry across the space between us.

It was so hard to turn my back on those women and slowly crawl my way back through the cover of the long grass and shrubs toward the cover of trees. I had no idea what had just happened, calling the police wasn't going to be an option, they were obviously in on what was happening. As soon as I made a call everyone in that building would disappear and there'd be no evidence left. Plus, I had no idea how deep this went or who was in on it. I needed to regroup, get back to Uvalde and try to decide what to do next. I wasn't that stupid as I made my way back to my car. I kept stopping and checking around me to make sure that there was no one following me. The car was covered in branches and so well camouflaged it took me a while to find it in the dark and then I drove very slowly without any lights on along the dirt track. By the time I reached a main road the sun was just coming up. The warmth and the light almost had me thinking that I'd made a mistake, that things weren't as they appeared but I'm not good at denial. I accept the things that happen around me and deal with them.

Being back amongst cars and people settled me, I suppose that I felt that I could lose myself within the crowds, but at the back of my mind was that niggling idea that just maybe someone had seen me somewhere along the line. I found a mid priced motel and once inside my room locked the door and took a breath. I wasn't sure that I was ready to acknowledge the scene of those women just yet, so I undressed and stood underneath the spray of the hot water in the shower. I just stood there with my hands in a fist against the wall trying to wash away the emotions that were rushing through me. Anger and guilt swept away any feeling of fear and that was what I locked onto. I may not have found what I was looking for but what I had found was so disturbing that come hell or high water I was going to try and help those women.