She registered the two minors in a bed, two adult males, one adult female.
“Move, I put you down. Take the girls, Shelby.”
“We’re the police,” Shelby said as she moved toward the bed. “You’re okay now.”
“On your knees, now!” Eve snapped. “Hands behind your head.”
The woman with a shock stick in hand flicked it toward Eve, then jittered and fell when the stun hit her mid-body.
The videographer swung the camera and tripod at her while the other charged. To avoid the blow, she dropped into a crouch, fired up. As the camera flew across the room, and he toppled, she pushed up to deliver a kick to the next. He went down before she gained her feet.
She glanced back at Shelby and the weapon in her hand. “Thanks. Good reflexes. Rescue and containment, first-level studio,” she ordered. “Two minor females, three suspects. Suspects are down. Stay with the girls, Officer, until Rescue takes them.”
“Lieutenant—”
“Don’t leave them,” Eve ordered as the two girls clung to each other and wept. “We clear this floor, then move up.”
She ran out, sweeping her weapon, separating the voices in her ear—tunnels secured, main level secured, Willowby’s team in action on second level, Baxter’s team responding there—from the sounds in her ear.
Girl kid screams and wailing, cop shouts.
She found Peabody with two suspects down and restrained, and Officer Marshall trying to deal with the panicked girls. She saw the look of pain on Peabody’s face.
“Are you hit?”
“Shock stick—just a graze. Hurts like hell, but I’m good.”
“Listen up!” She shouted it, and most of the wailing eased off. “We’re the police, we’re the good guys. You’re safe now, and we’re going to get you out.”
“Rescue’s heading up, sir,” Marshall told her.
“Hold here until. Shelby’s got two more girls in the studio, and three suspects down. Peabody, with me. We clear the floor.”
“You can’t leave us! You can’t leave us,” one of the girls screamed. “I want my mom!”
“We’re not leaving you,” Peabody said in her Peabody way. “Nobody’s going to hurt you anymore, and we’re going to get you to your mom.”
Fuck it, Eve thought. “Stay, stay with Marshall until Rescue gets them out.”
“Dallas.”
“Stay.”
She cleared as she went. Empty rooms, hardly more than cells, locked storage areas holding shock sticks, collars, batons, stunners.
A lot of weaponry, she thought, against a bunch of kids.
She came to another locked door—a double set. High probability, she remembered, for Auntie’s office.
“Roarke, do you read?”
“I do.”
“I’m at Beaty’s office door. Can you deactivate the lock? No access at this time to a ram, and it’s secured like the stair doors.”
“Not anymore it’s not.”
“Oh, okay then. Stand by.”
She pushed in, swept.
Efficient luxury, she decided. Fancy desk, high-end D and C, cushy furnishings, private bathroom, she recalled from the blueprints.
And with the office door shut behind her, she heard nothing from outside the room.
“EDD, give me a read on heat sources, my location.”
“Just you, LT,” Jamie told her.
“Read on top floor.”
“One.”
“There you are,” she murmured.
“Willowby, second level. We’re clear. I have an injured officer, twenty-six girls, thirteen motherfuckers. Baxter’s team on assist and now moving up to the next level to assist McNab’s team.”
“First floor clear and secured. Heading up. Jamie, monitor that heat source. I want to know where she moves if she moves.”
On the second floor, she found Rescue escorting girls out, weeping girls, silent ones with glazed eyes.
“Dallas.” Willowby swiped a hand over her forehead. “Permission to bring in two more from SVU. We’ve got a lot of vics here.”
“Granted. The injured officer?”
“She took a baton hit to the arm. Looks broken. Medical’s on the way.”
“I’m moving up.” She held up a finger as Jenkinson spoke in her ear. “Copy that. Have medical take her, call for removal of the suspects. Infirmary level’s clear,” she told Willowby. “We got the doctor, another so-called medical, and an unconscious girl strapped to the damn table. Brought her in this morning—that vehicle driving out of the tunnels.”