by Kevin Fox
“And that’s why he brings them in through here, a boat graveyard?”
“He says it’s Congress’s fault. They can’t pass a damn immigration bill. Better all these white kids than the spics and Africans, that’s the way I figure it. Besides, why would a billionaire have to traffick kids?”
“For the money?”
“He’s a billionaire, not a criminal,” Weinberg said simply—and I realized that he was either an extremely simple human being or in deep denial. Either way, he was stupid.
“Billionaire criminals are the worst kind.”
“I don’t buy it. If he was a criminal, wouldn’t we all know? And my girl there? Markov saved her from the street… Said she’d be hooking if it wasn’t for him.”
“So, she’s doing you for him instead?”
Weinberg looked at me sharply, and I think if we weren’t already in the shadow of the Eldia, he might have come at me. He knew that his “girlfriend” was part of Markov’s livestock—but we were already looking up at three silhouettes hanging over the rail of the ship and he couldn’t.
“You got a smart mouth, you know that? I’d keep it shut if I were you,” he told me, letting the motor idle as we coasted into the side of the Eldia, just under a rusty steel ladder. “Now get the fuck up the ladder.”
“You got it. But, Sarge, word of advice? Don’t be here in twenty minutes. Not if you expect anyone to believe that story.”
Weinberg’s eyes met mine and I saw a flash of the instincts that allowed him to survive on the job. He’d be halfway to the Poconos in twenty minutes. Maybe he was dirty, or maybe he was the dumbest cop on Staten Island—which, as you might guess, is a highly competitive category—but at least now he got it.
I grabbed the ladder, but before I could even get out of the life raft, Weinberg gunned the engine and took off, spraying me with the oily detritus of the dying ships. One last fuck-you. He couldn’t help himself.
With nowhere to go except up, I climbed the rusted and flaking side of the Eldia. Looking at the three men hanging over the side forty feet above me, I could make out that at least two of them held guns. Despite the fact that they were barely even silhouettes, I recognized both Pete, the man with the mangy mustache, and the Russian who had fled with Alina after Kat killed his partner.
It was nice to have familiar faces greet me.
As I got closer, I took in the PP-2000 submachine guns both of them held, complete with the spare forty-four round magazine. It was the standard of most Russian police forces because it was compact and light, and the ammunition loaded in them was probably armor-piercing or hollow-point rounds. That was the good news, in a way. If they decided to shoot me, I wouldn’t need to worry about my wounds since I would be very dead. The third man had no gun, possibly because his right hand was heavily bandaged. He was missing a pinky. I decided not to tell him that I knew where it was, or comment on its unusually hairy nature, but I did smile as he winced in pain, helping me roughly over the rail.
“How stupid are you to come here?” asked Pete the Mangy Mustache.
“Don’t know. How stupid am I? Do I get a prize if I answer right?”
“What do you want?”
“I know where the Swamp Pink is,” I told him in a faux whisper. Guys like Pete hate it when they’re trying to intimidate you and you joke with them. That’s why I do it.
“What the hell does that mean? What the fuck is ‘Swamp Pink’?” asked the pinky-less Russian.
“It means he knows what we’re looking for and can get it, right?” asked Pete.
I smiled, mostly to annoy him. “You’re smarter than you look, which is obviously very easy, but still—” I stopped, cut off by a jab to the gut. I probably deserved it.
“Shut up. Where is it?” Pete asked.
“I’ll tell Markov. No one else.”
“You’ll tell us,” said the wannabe-rapist Russian, the one that had been groping Alina.
“Nope. Sorry. Can’t tell. You can shoot me if you want, but Markov will just shoot you for being an idiot, because you’ll never find the cash his Uncle Mikhail was accused of stealing. You won’t find his uncle either, for that matter.”
The three men traded looks, knowing how important his uncle and the money were. They were all more afraid of fucking up for Markov than they’d ever be of me. It must have pissed them off that I was holding out, because I got a boot to the knee that sent me to the deck. I landed on my elbows and face, hard. A second and third kick caught me in the ribs in quick succession, and I swear I heard a couple of ribs crack.
I just lay there, since my lungs refused to inflate. When they finally did, it felt as if the splinters of a cracked rib were trying to punch holes into my left lung, and the heavy, moist air made it hard to breathe.
I swear to God, I hate the rain.
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe I could have come up with a better plan than meeting with Markov alone at night on an abandoned freighter without backup. I was never great at plans. I started to get up as I caught my breath, and then saw a boot swinging again, this time aimed at my head. I rolled away, grabbing it and twisting it sideways. I heard the cartilage in his knee tear as the idiot with no pinky fell hard to the deck. I had a split second of satisfaction as he screamed, and then two guns were shoved in my face.
Thankfully, we were interrupted.
“Enough. Search him. Bring him downstairs where it’s warm,” I heard Markov say. He was standing by an open hatch, watching us calmly. Then he was gone, knowing his orders would be followed. They were. They patted me down, but luckily I disconnected Kat before they found the phone. I didn’t want them to know anyone was coming.
I just hoped Kat called Burke as soon as I got cut off—like before my phone even hit the water.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Detective Collins. Good to see you again… I was told that you were, how do you say? ‘Half-a-retard’? But to come here, alone, at night? I think maybe half is too little a retard,” he said with a smile.
“My mother would probably agree with you. But you shouldn’t say ‘retard’—it’s not polite.” I smiled right back. Fuck him.
“This is funny?”
“On Staten Island it is. It’s a local sense of humor.”
“So I should laugh now?”
“Or cry. They’re in close competition here,” I told him, looking around, hoping to be inspired about what to do next. There was nothing. Nowhere to run, no cover if a gunfight started. Markov had the hold lit with portable lights and a gas-operated generator that powered heaters and stank up the place, but hadn’t yet built up enough carbon monoxide to kill the fucker.
The fucker in question was seated incongruously in a canvas camp chair with a drink in his hand. The heroin, in the same crates I had seen on Markov’s yacht during the storm, was also there. Anton had told Markov where it was before he died, obviously.
“Why are you here?” Markov asked, cutting through the bullshit.
“Morrigan Kelly and the two girls. You have them. I want them. You give me them, I’ll tell you where the cash is.” Saying it out loud made it all seem so reasonable. It was a simple trade—a long-lost payment for an arms deal in exchange for two teens I’d met just before they stabbed me—and a woman I dreamt about my whole life and slept with once before she ran out on me.
“You have the cash with you?” Markov asked, hopeful.
“Do I look like that much a retard? I hid it a long time ago, but I remember where now.”
His face gave me the answer. He thought I was that much a retard. “What makes you think the cash is worth three women?”
“It’s almost ten million from what I understand, and you’ve risked everything to find it. Is that because it will clear your uncle? He’s dead, you know,” I told him, purposefully taunting him.
“You don’t know that.”
“I saw him die, when I was just a kid, right here in these woods,” I said simply. “Your father spent seven yea
rs in jail because they thought your Uncle Mikhail defected with that money. He lost seven years for nothing, and you can prove his innocence if you deal with me.”
“Fair enough. But why do you care? Women are the most renewable resource on the planet. Twenty women are not worth that much in cash. This trade makes no sense.”
“Maybe I’m a full retard—or maybe I think that money is cursed and fucking with the Markovs isn’t worth it,” I answered honestly.
“Get me the money, and then you can have them. Do whatever you want to them.”
“Fuck you. I want to see them first.”
Markov smiled and nodded toward Pete the Mangy Mustache, who disappeared into the shadows. I heard his footsteps echo on the steel deck after he’d gone, and then I heard a hatch open. I heard a slap and a short gasp, then:
“Touch me again and you’ll lose more than a finger, fucker.”
So, Dariya was fine, at least. Four sets of footsteps shuffled across the metal deck, as if tired and beaten down. Gradually, the soft penumbra from the work lights illuminated Rigan, Alina, and Dariya, all three of their faces so similar in structure and coloring, and all wearing the same expression of wary vigilance. Alina looked the worst, with a black eye, a nose that was almost surely broken and one side of her face so swollen that she was hard to recognize. Rigan was limping and holding one arm close to her side, as if her ribs were sore, but her face was unblemished except for a cut across one high cheekbone. Somehow the injuries made her look younger and more fragile, closer to the way I remembered her from my dreams.
Dariya, in comparison, looked much better. Her hair was as wild as a banshee’s and her eyes glowed with fury. She appeared to be completely unharmed, and Pete was keeping well out of her reach.
“What was done to them?” I asked, knowing all the dark possibilities. I didn’t really want to know, but I had to know. There is a difference.
“Nothing. Torture wasn’t worth the bother,” Markov replied flatly. “Jakob lost a finger, and none of us wanted to lose any other pieces to these lying bitches,” he said. I wasn’t sure that I believed him, but I was relieved anyway.
“I never lied to you. We had a deal, and you didn’t deliver,” Rigan snarled at him, her speech mumbled as if her mouth was swollen.
“You stole my drugs off the Chistota,” Markov answered. So, Burke was right. Rigan had known what was on board, and she’d dumped me at the hospital before going back to get it—but it seemed like Markov didn’t know she had a partner who had actually taken the heroin off the Chistota.
“Wait, you were buying the kids?” I asked, trying to follow what was going on.
Rigan turned to me as if I was both an idiot and a distraction.
Markov chuckled, amused that I was so far behind. “Your friend here has contacts in international trafficking, it seems. She’s the one who contacted me. She knew I had these повій, wanting to make them disappear from the Ukraine as a message to the others. A side business to the heroin you Americans love. She said she would return the money my Uncle Mikhail had lost and would tell me what happened to him if I brought them to her,” he explained, amused that I didn’t know.
I looked at Rigan, confused. Why was she trafficking kids?
“I told Markov he could keep the money and I’d tell him where Mikhail Markov was if he delivered the kids safely. He didn’t. He killed them.”
“I didn’t kill them. It was carbon monoxide. You stole my drugs before I could deliver the survivors.”
“Those children were handcuffed. Abused. I said I wanted them untouched,” Rigan snarled. Pete and the wannabe-Rapist Russian stayed between the two of them, wary.
“That little bitch killed four of my men. Would have killed me, too, if she could have. I should have sold them as whores. Fucked them all when I had the chance –”
Rigan exploded at that, furious, but before she could get close to Markov, the Russian stopped her cold with a fist to the ribs. I went after him, launching my right fist to his head, connecting just behind his ear. He went down hard, sprawling on the cold metal deck. I was about to kick him in the ribs when I caught Pete out of the corner of my eye, his gun pointed at my face.
“Enough,” Markov muttered, “If I get the money, I’ll let them live.”
“He doesn’t know where it is,” interjected Rigan.
I glared at her, but she didn’t seem to care that she was screwing up my negotiation.
“It seems he’s begun to remember,” Markov smirked, happy that Rigan was angry.
She turned toward me pointedly as she spoke to him. “No. He doesn’t. If he really remembered, he’d never give it to you.”
“So. She thinks you are half-retard too.” he said, smirking.
“I don’t care,” I answered honestly. “Get the rafts, but those three go free before I show you anything,” I told him. Markov just smiled.
We all fit in two life rafts. Markov, Pinky, Rigan and Alina were in one—and me, Pete, the Wanna-be-Rapist Russian, and Dariya in the other. As we approached the shoreline, I scanned in vain for silhouettes and movement, hoping that Kat had called Burke and he had arrived while I was having my friendly chat.
Sergeant Weinberg’s guard shack was now dark, and I assumed he’d gotten smart and taken his little perk home with him. The rafts both grounded in deeper water than when we left, due to the extra weight in each one. We had to get out and wade in through the reeds and muck. Nobody was saying much, which worried me, since it’s a proven fact that you generally don’t make idle conversation with guys you’re about to kill.
So I made some.
“When we get into the boatyard, I want Rigan and the two girls to go ahead of us to my car. Until they do, I’m not telling you anything.”
“They stay with us through the boatyard,” Markov ordered.
“Fine, but my car is right on Arthur Kill Road. I’ll watch them get in and drive away. The four of you will stay with me. Anyone goes after the women, you’ll never get the money, understand?” I looked over at Markov, who didn’t seem very impressed with my idea of how to negotiate this.
“You’re not in a position to make demands,” Markov snarled. “But it doesn’t matter. I can find them again if you let me down.”
I was sure that he could, which meant that either Burke had to show up with the cavalry soon, or I needed to find a way to overpower these four in the woods before they killed me. Somewhere in that damaged place inside my head that was wired to be optimistic, I expected to get to the road and find Lieutenant Burke waiting with a dozen uniforms and an Emergency Services Team armed with automatic weapons.
I was highly disappointed.
The road was empty. My mother’s car was where I had parked it. I stopped in the middle of the road, under a streetlight, about twenty feet away. Turning back to face Markov, I put up my hands.
“I’m going to reach in my pocket slowly to get the keys. Then I’m going to toss them to Rigan, all right?”
“Stop talking. Do it.”
I put my hand in my pocket, catching Rigan’s eye as I did. “Just go. Get to somewhere safe. He won’t get out of the country,” I reassured her, tossing the keys at her.
She snatched them out of the air without missing a beat. “Killian, please—”
“Just go.”
Rigan didn’t listen. She was distracted by the sound of an engine approaching—the high-pitched hum of a performance machine, not the sound of any of the cars used by the NYPD. That meant it was not Burke. I pegged him for an American-made snob, even off duty.
“Off the road, all of you,” Pete snapped, pushing Alina with the barrel of his gun. The girls shifted to the soft shoulder of the road without a word as Markov and Pinky herded me to the other side, away from the Accord.
“Don’t move, and don’t say shit,” Pinky warned me.
“Can’t I say damn or fuck?” I asked without thinking, and got the butt of his gun to my right kidney for my trouble.
“I s
aid shut up.”
The high beams of a black BMW were already illuminating us and reflecting off the fog as I got my breath back. Markov was staring at it, his pistol slowly coming up, aiming right at the driver’s side.
“Beamers automatically call nine-one-one when they’re in an accident. You’re better off letting it pass,” I warned him, hoping he’d listen and that this particular BMW would just pass us by. Markov grunted but lowered the pistol. The BMW wasn’t slowing down at all. It would either pass us in a second—
– Or it would plow through us. When I heard the engine race, I knew which way it was going, and I knew exactly who was behind the wheel. Before I could react, the BMW swerved suddenly—
– Right into Pete and the Russian, just missing Rigan and the girls. It never braked, just plowed into Pete, cracking his legs at the knees and sending his body up over the hood, his head smashing through the windshield. The wannabe-rapist tried to dive out of the way but went down, underneath the car, a front wheel rolling over his head, his body dragged along until the underbrush scraped him off. The car finally stopped with the help of a sugar maple and everything settled into an uneasy silence.
The brake lights had never lit up. Maybe if I hadn’t been so stunned, I could have taken advantage of the distraction, but by the time I moved, Markov had his pistol pointed at my head.
“Who is that? What did you do?” he demanded. I shrugged, and he pushed me into the road as the Pinky-less Russian limped over to the wrecked car. I noticed then that Rigan, Alina, and Dariya had disappeared, fleeing into the woods. I felt my shoulders relax, sure that Rigan would get away, and crossed the road in front of Markov, approaching the totaled BMW. I had to step over blood smears and bone fragments, but that wasn’t the worst of it.
I could see Pete’s head, inside the car, the windshield around his neck like a glass collar. His mangy mustache and entire upper lip had been sliced clean off by the glass, and his dead eyes stared at the driver, who had multiple piercings in her ears and dyed jet-black hair. She sat motionless, dead or unconscious.
