"You want to go in from the water?" Joe didn't seem too surprised.

"Yeah. If I can find a member with a boat, I can anchor it nearby, and let the girls stay on board while I work. I can get some snorkel gear and check any other boats before I start so we have a clean getaway in an emergency. Even better, stash a car in one of these nearby places if it goes well." I pointed to several restaurants in the area. "Either way, they stay safe and available to back me up, or run. How many girls are we expecting to find there? Is there a chance we can get a bus of some sort nearby to get them to a hospital?"

He nodded slowly. "I can handle the bus, don't worry. Will you be able to carry all the equipment you need in the water?

"Absolutely. I can bring a little float for some of it, but a lot of it will be explosives I use with a remote detonator in case of emergencies. I don't want to use them near the girls, but they're good to have. I'll also need to make sure your transmitter is in a waterproof case, but the rest is just weapons, and I've swam with those many times." On a lot of the missions that I'd been on, I was coming ashore in a similar fashion, and I needed to carry multiple days' worth of gear, and it added up. Yes, the body armor would take up weight, but I could go in with my knives, a couple guns, and a bunch of ammo. Worst case, I could pick up weapons from the bodies of the fallen guards. That was something I'd done many times as well and was one of the reasons I never got attached to a gun. I'd used to many over the years, that one was as good as another in most cases.

My knives were an entirely different matter. I'd had those hand made in Toledo, Spain and never wanted to use another. They'd been custom fitted to me and were like an extension of my arm. Those were personal.

"That makes sense then. Going in by air would be too risky, and a car leaves your friends more exposed."

"Exactly. So, what kind of weapons do you have for me?"

He rubbed his hands together like he was opening a present, then popped the lid of the second container. He took out the first gun and handed it over. "This is an USAS-12 automatic shotgun made in South Korea. It has a 20 round drum loaded with 12 gauge slugs, and I have 5 spare drums. I didn't want to give you a machine gun in close quarters, and the shells are loaded with slugs instead of buckshot to minimize the chance of bystanders getting hit."

I nodded quickly, as I could understand the thinking there. With captive girls, I didn't need any of them to be hit by stray bullets or pellets. I loved it! "Looks perfect to me. Good start!"

He pulled a pair of pistols out, and to my surprise they were both Smith and Wesson M&P 45 calibers. I loved them because the grips were solid when wet, and they were more compact in design, so they tucked away easily. Joe was giving me some good stuff today! "I know the magazine capacity is a little smaller, but I seem to remember you asking for these a few years ago." I didn't mind the smaller capacity. 2 less bullets might be an issue if you were firing blindly and were trying to keep someone's head down, but I was usually trying to shoot that head instead of making it duck.

"This is exactly what I needed. Keep everything nice and controlled, and hopefully get all the girls out of there. You're probably going to want to get a clinic or hospital in the area set up to handle multiple victims of abuse." I had to pause for a moment, remembering what Lessa had looked like, and then the girls I'd rescued from the first house. "They're going to need a lot of treatment, and you might need several therapists on hand. We don't know how many girls will be there, but there were more than 2 dozen last time."

Joe quickly held up a finger, and then started typing up a text. "That's a good idea. We'll make it happen." He paused for a moment. "When do you think you'll go in?"

I did some mental math. Today we were watching Lexie and Bella. They seemed okay so far, but I had a feeling they would still get tired quickly, and potentially have other symptoms too. But that meant tomorrow we could start driving, then add a day to find an acceptable boat. If that all worked, then the day after that I'd be making the move on the club. "Three nights." It killed me to wait, because every day we waited was another day those girls were being subjected to what was happening there, but I couldn't do much about it. Involving the authorities would just mean that the girls all disappeared thanks to the political connections of the club.

He finished typing, and then pressed send. "Okay, that gives us more time to get things set up."

We spent the next hour going over the list of members that we had, and then looking to see if any had boats, then went further to see where those boats were berthed. When we were done, we had a half dozen options. 2 were in Chicago, 2 in Milwaukee and then another pair on the west coast of Michigan. Milwaukee seemed too far away, since we'd have to go through Chicago to get to it, and the ones in Michigan were both in smaller towns and not together. So, Chicago was the plan, and we'd see if we could get on one of the boats there. It was close enough to the club in Gary that it would be an easy trip once we were aboard.

"I think I need two vehicles," I said absently. I'd been reviewing the plan, and I needed to drive to Chicago, but if things worked well, I'd want my actual car by the club so we could just leave from there, without having to go back to Chicago. This is probably going to get loud, and we might need to leave in a hurry when we're done."

"Wouldn't the boat be better for that?" Joe wondered.

"It would, but I don't want to limit myself to a single exit point. I want a car if things go well, and the boat if they don't. If there can be a distraction away from the area beforehand, that would help. I don't think that the club will call the police, they probably don't want any officers that aren't on their payroll seeing the girls, but that doesn't mean that the local residents won't. Even if they discount the gunfire, if I have to trigger the explosives, those will be big."

"We can do that. I'm sure something can be arranged to keep the police busy and delay them from responding."

At this point I had a good outline for the plan, but it was a bit sketchy since I wasn't sure about the number of people in the club. It would be the weekend, so there was a good chance that they'd be very busy. Strangely, that was good for me, because more people meant more confusion. Anyone with a gun wouldn't be able to shoot indiscriminately at me as they may shoot a member by accident. On the other hand, I could shoot pretty much anyone. If there was someone that wasn't one of the prisoners there, I was counting them as fair game.

I was happy with that, and while it would be very dangerous having so many people shooting at me, I was still confident. As bad as I felt after losing Lessa, freeing that first batch of girls was one of the proudest moments in my life. I wanted to save the new batch and I hoped that I could.

"Hey! I just remembered to ask; do you have any information on Bella's mom? I'd like to pay her a visit someday." I meant to ask that earlier but didn't want to while Bella was here for fear of having her upset.

"Broke. Petra transferred all her money out of her accounts, put it through a series of fake accounts, and into an account for Bella. There isn't a ton, I guess the bitch spent a bunch of it, but it is all Bella's when you're ready to settle down," Joe explained. "She still owes taxes on the inheritance, and won't be able to pay them without selling the house, and when that happens, then we'll make sure that money disappears too."

"Just keep tabs on her please. One of these days she's going to face justice for killing Bella's father and then selling Bella."

'Of course. You don't want to try getting her arrested?"

I just snorted. "Bella said they had no evidence on her father's death, and I don't see how we could get anything but circumstantial evidence for selling Bella. No, killing one person and trafficking another gets her a death sentence. Maybe I'll let Bella make that call though."

Joe nodded sagely, understanding my logic. If I wanted to jump through hoops, I could use phone records and financial transactions to show what she did, but it would be hard since the men that picked up Bella were dead now. It was easier to just kill her, and it would be well deserved.

When the girls came back, they were in good spirits. They even brought us some delicious Pad Thai for lunch, for which I was grateful. All of them quickly came and gave me a hug, which was very sweet of them and something I was getting used to. Until the last few days, the last 5 years hadn't given me the opportunity for many hugs. Now, I was having a hard time imagining losing them again. It was going to be hard saying goodbye to them all once I got them settled, and that was another reason to maybe stick around with them.

"You had a good time?" I asked them all.

"We did," admitted Lexie. "Petra is really sweet. I can't believe she runs your organization."

"And she got us phones too, so we can all keep in contact!" Willow added.

"Thanks Petra, you didn't have to do all that," I told her while she stood next to Joe.

"I did. You may not realize it, but you've done so much in the last few years, that you deserve that and much more. Joe and my other operatives are usually around the world dealing with other issues, but you're the only one really working here in America, and doing much dirtier work. Maybe we need to change that, because there is obviously a lot to fix here, but you've already been working so hard to keep up on things that I might need several teams to do the same work."

"Are you trying to butter me up here?" Seriously, that was laying it on thick!

"No, no. But after this mission, I want you to take time off, as much as you need. You're not allowed to turn that down. If you're serious about helping Willow and Lexie have kids, I want you there through the pregnancy and beyond."

I looked over at Bella, who was more than likely the one who mentioned that to Petra, and she was carefully avoiding my gaze. But I nodded, nonetheless. Regardless of how we did the pregnancy, they would be having my kids, and I should be there. Maybe it would be nice to have the time off too. I hadn't had more than a few days off in a long time, so I would have to get used to it.

"I can do that."