This is Part II of a two-part series on dismantling human trafficking networks. You can read Part I here.
And then it happened…
A car slowly pulled up right in front of the dental clinic (surveillance location) and came to a complete stop. I was right away on comms with the boss.
“Not good; not good at all — do you want us to come pull you out?”
“Well, I mean not now, not yet, right? I’ll lay quiet and low and see how it pans out, and you can stay ready to deploy to back me up.” (I just didn’t want ninjas in black bodysuits scurrying across the neighbors’ block walls in the broad of day. So far they just sitting there, but I couldn’t think for the life of me what they would be doing parked there so close to the main entrance — perhaps studying for a final… or interested in renting the building?
It was ten-ish minutes later when the unidentified car departed. General George S. Patton’s Third Army would not have to deploy to my rescue after all. It wouldn’t have been such a big deal-io in the slightest other than damned if it didn’t happen again, but this time with a different car. I kept the boss updated but never hinted at a desire to pull off the objective.
The fear factor fervently flourished as the second car also left at about the 10-minute mark, eventually to be replaced by yet a third car around noon. I called it in and held the boss on the line while I attempted to gain a decent photograph of the car and especially the plate — no joy!
Three lost opportunities for plate and/or facial identification sucked all the air out of my lungs like a black hole. I was an ordained Photography God by papal decree… yet these cars I truly distrusted, these cars I did strangely mistrust.
A low groaning sound emanated from a direction, though I am loath to admit I knew not from where — from everywhere — and it chanted on like the long slow violins of autumn. In fact, it was saying “BOOOOOO!” — to ME — in taunt of my poor performance… It was time to get back to the hard-knock school and get at least a B.
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At the noon hour, my phone rang. I mumbled something about the definition of a boss to be: “as of or pertaining to being an ass.” However, a nice surprise awaited me, as it was my son at the other end of the line on his lunch break at school.
“Hi dad, can we play my new video game some more when you get home from work this evening.”
“Sure we can, Geo… enjoy your lunch and I’ll see you this evening.”
Mine was the same ol’ maneuver each time a different car showed up: I tried to capture the make and model of the car, the color, sedan vs two-door, and photos of the driver and license plate if at all humanly possible.
Automobile identification was a distinct handicap of mine; if I never owned a particular make/model vehicle then I didn’t know what it was, and then I was in danger of even losing identification with those cars as the years went on and the styles/profiles changed so much.
“Geo, did you see the car that pickup up the victim — what’s the skinny?”
“Yea, yea… it was blue, light blue…”
“Geez, can you tell us anything more about the car, anything??”
“Well, engine kinda sounded like: ‘budda-budda-budda — chitty-chitty bang-bang vroooooom! I’d put it at a ’98 light blue Volkswagen Soprano with extended cab… and probably airbags.”
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It was long about the evening on that surveillance stare, and I had not produced a single legible license plate photo yet.
However, I eventually noticed that in each car that stopped the driver or passenger would immediately hold their phone up to their face and crane their necks to look up through their windshields toward the roof of my observation building, somehow expecting Roger Rabbit to appear.
Fearing that we had been compromised, my boss was spooked enough to send me flailing out of the building and headed for the homestead. We aimed to pursue the matter after we had had a chance to brood over it and come up with some courses of action.
I was fine with that as I snaked along the hood’s masonry walls trying not to topple forth onto oversized red, yellow and blue plastic toy sets. Yet, I felt ridiculous as if I deserved to get shot off that-there wall for being stupid.
The phone rang as I drove off. This time it was my small daughter who wondered when I was coming home so we could play her new video game.
“Sure, Little Pea; in fact, I’m on my way home just now. Tell brother to be ready.” I reckoned if I gave them at least one hour of playtime I would not be a horrible father.
It cold-cocked me as odd, that to play their new video game we had to be mobile in a car and driving around town. With both of their iPhones opened to a legitimate map of the City of Las Vegas, my kids gave me directions to where they needed me to take them.
“Turn here, dad, keep going, turn left here and take the next left too.”
“There” was a 7-11 convenience store. When we arrived, a bonanza of clicks and clacks emanated from my kids’ iPhones who were doing battle with a video game monster. The light bulb in my head fizzled pallidly.
Our next stop was a fire department and the kids were click-clacking away to fell the beast that, according to the game, was perched there on the roof of the fire station building… and the fizzled bulb in my head grew slowly to 65 watts, and then nearly 100 watts.
Kids, stand by for the next attack; I’ll lead the way!” And I shot off for the third stop this time of my choosing. Yes, I pulled up in front of our donated surveillance building and came to a stop.
My skirmish line of chill-ins peered up toward the roof of the nothing-to-see-here building and immediately started to battle away at the imaginary monster that existed only on the screen of the kids’ telephones.
“Boss, it’s geo… the surveillance mystery is solved, we have zero compromise, and am going to resume persistent stare operations as normal tomorrow.
“What was the mystery?”
“It was a case of Pokémon GO.”
“Make sense, please”
I explained Pokémon GO to my boss the best way I could as we rolled back home, the kids sounding off clicky-clack, clickety-clack, all the way back.
“Dad… did you play any Pokemon GO on your phone at work today?”
“Yes, son… yes I certainly did play Pokemon GO all day at work today… I just didn’t know I was playing it.”
By Almighty God and with honor,
geo sends
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Thank you, Geo! I imagine surveillance involves a whole lot of mind-numbing nothingness and the constant challenge to stay switched on.
I did not see the Pokémon Go challenge coming! 😂😂
I remember when that Pokemon thing was a big deal, I’m just glad that my kids never got into that particular game. Living across the way from a park, there would be lots of kids running around looking for it and big kids too. Thanks Geo for that interesting twist.
Ms. Joie,
I am amazed by so many of the new video games and can feel them draw me in at times, but I always overcome the temptation to get accustomed to playing them with a little willpower.
geo sends
RGR Ms. Joie
There is a lot of power potential in some of these avant-guard games and such. When I worked human traffic, the iPhone and some pretty select programs were all the communication. People who say they are using a burner phone are a trite behind the learning curve; burner applications are the modern way to burn your comms path. I still have my application installed on my phone since I was in CHT, in fact, I still have a couple of messages I haven’t listened to… ha!
OMG, We should have a Pokémon Go event! My kids and grandson were grown before the launch, so I guess big kids should play. Great story, Geo. I love your creative writing, always have, and always will.
LMAO! Of all the things to possibly compromise an op! Those Pokémon go games were insane. They put monsters in the backyards around my house for one day and I had kids sneaking around to “collect” them. I had a lot of visitors for my dogs to bark at.
Thank you, Mic-Mac,
It is ironic to me that only a very few days prior to that event the kids were showing me how to play Pokemon Go and I even had it downloaded on my phone. It is definitely their input that solved that case.
geo sends
I would be interested to know if any fatal instances were spawned by kids playing that app. When it comes to sneaking around these days that could be dangereux. It makes sense to me that there was a monster over my building because it was on the list with the city as abandoned and bore no liability.
That first night it also rained heavily. I made the mistake of going to white light for some moments and next I knew my building was crawling outside with homeless dudes and flashlights going around and around the building trying to find a way to break in. From all the hollering I could hear from there they knew someone was inside and they were pretty hell-bent on getting inside there out of the rain. The rain died and they moved on.