Silk Road

by Lynda Filler

  In their embrace, David’s friend handed off a thumb drive. They grabbed two rusted metal stools and ordered a beer.

  Luke smiled at Luci, as lovers do, and chatted about nothing of importance. Meanwhile, both keenly observed their surroundings. Luci caught the eye of a buff Asian dockworker. He kept glancing her way, watching her movements, and occasionally smiling in her direction.

  Since South Africa when she’d had a ‘change of face’ her features were modified; but inside she was still a young girl of foreign mixed European Middle Eastern parentage. She was a victim of too much death, deceit, and fear. When men looked at her like that it creeped her out.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “Remembering.”

  He waited.

  “Sometimes, when I’m around this strong masculine energy, I get flashbacks. Not pleasant. You know some parts of my life, but not everything.”

  Luke would have disagreed, but it was best if he accepted her comment. The moment he first met her in training with the Mossad, after the death of his wife and daughter, he’d made it his business to learn everything he could about Luci. He figured he had more information than Israeli intelligence even though they had enough to understand why she’d chosen the Mossad over Graduate school in London. Revenge for the suicide-murder of her parents was a powerful motivator. What Luke never quite understood was her relationship with the Arab journalist. He wondered how she could separate her hatred for Hamas and all things terrorist and yet take a lover of the same ethnicity. It’s not that he was narrow-minded, but his understanding of the Muslim culture is that death to the infidel was paramount to their religion. Some hid it better than others. But maybe he was too jaded.

  “Luke don’t look now. The man who just came into the bar is familiar. The photos on Interpol have him listed as the drug dealer/crime boss in Kyrgyzstan—Ivanov.” Luci remained cool, but she could feel the beginning of a thread, a lead that could take them somewhere. “He’s talking to the man who’s been leering at me. I don’t like this.”

  Luci raised her beer to her lips and smiled at her lover.

  She continued in Spanish. Luke picked up a word here and there. “Pull out your wallet and offer me money.”

  Luke looked at her strangely but did as he was told.

  She stood up abruptly, took the money and slapped Luke in the face.

  She knocked over her stool and headed out the door. Luke looked on amazed and caught David watching from the back of the bar. The dockhand who’d been lusting after her all night spoke a word to the crime boss and moved quickly after Luci.

  “Damn she’s good.” Luke murmured to himself signaling to the bartender that he wanted to pay his tab. David finished up with the informant and walked casually by Luke’s table. He slipped on something, stumbled and dropped the thumb drive into Luke’s pocket. Then exited in the opposite direction back towards their yacht.

  Luke nursed the balance of his beer. With Luci gone, no one paid any attention to the jilted john. He waited to see what Ivanov would do.

  14

  Kyrgyzstan, Asia

  T he damp and the darkness blocked out her perceptions of time and space. Zaria was no longer in her body. From the first punch to her face, she had known what was coming. The man wasn’t old, and he wasn’t the one who’d taken her. This one reeked of alcohol and cigarettes.

  He was cruel to her. He slapped her, tugged at her clothes and forced her face down on the floor. He pulled at her clothing until she was naked under her dress.

  When he was finished, he grunted, slapped her head one more time and left the room.

  She spit out a tooth. Her body ached in unfamiliar ways.

  Blood trickled down between her thighs. This was not her understanding of ala kachuu. She had heard stories, but never would a kidnapped bride be raped by a strange man unless he was her betrothed.

  She whimpered her mamma’s name.

  Then the door opened again.

  Another man entered the cell.

  15

  Malé Marina, Maldives

  He caught up with her a hundred feet from the bar.

  L uci played the offended lover card. The dockworker nodded and offered to buy her a drink. She accepted. He said he knew a place with more privacy. Luci smiled encouragingly and said privacy is perfect.

  She could see the beginning of excitement in his pants and knew he’d control it until they were away from the pier and alone. The question in her mind was where he would take her?

  David followed at a casual distance. They had each other’s location on their cell phone maps. He could afford to lose sight of her, so he wouldn’t draw the attention of her pursuer. No one inside the bar would connect the two.

  He felt his phone vibrate with a new message.

  "Wait. Luci's being followed by Ivanov, the fugitive in sex trafficking." David quickly cleared the message.

  The Raven operative stopped to light a cigarette, a nasty habit he’d picked up when he got clean from pain-killer substance abuse. In his peripheral vision, he glanced at a man who matched the photo attached to Luke’s message. He waited until the thug had passed by.

  Luke left the bar and turned in the opposite direction. He could see the yacht in the distance and waited in observation for ten minutes before he boarded. He watched Luci’s movements on his cellphone. David was close behind on a parallel course. He debated his next move.

  His phone alerted him to an incoming video request.

  “Luke, I mith you Luke!” a tiny little person smiled onto his screen. Luke’s heart burst open.

  “I miss you too Alice.” He got up from the rough bench on the dock and electronically unlocked all the safeguards in place on his yacht.

  “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

  “Uncle RB said I could watch movies with him.” An impish smile told Luke what he already knew. Alice had everyone wrapped around her fingers.

  “Give me a kiss.”

  Alice giggled.

  “Kith the phone?”

  “Yes.”

  Luke laughed out loud, fumbling with his phone and the remote door lock to the cabin.

  “Goodnight baby girl. I love you.”

  “Luv you too Luke.”

  He closed the connection before his whole world went black.

  16

  Malé Marina, Maldives

  D avid went down kicking and punching. But he was outnumbered and allowed himself to be taken. Within ten minutes he was being forcibly restrained and moved towards a large industrial warehouse bordering the ocean.

  Cartons and pallets stood in rows stretching to an open loading dock to the sea. It was after one o’clock in the morning, yet a full crew was moving containers down to load onto massive cargo ships. David recognized the faint odor of hashish. Weak, but perceptible to someone who’d spent years fighting in the caves and mountains of Afghanistan. He kept his head down, and his body lose. As far as his captors were concerned, he was groggy and still out of it.

  “Put him in there, with the woman.”

  “What’s going on? Why are we here?” David appeared groggy but awake. No one answered.

  He counted five men, three assault weapons and two handguns. Luci looked downwards letting David know they also had knives on their person. The warehouse staff seemed unconcerned and pre-occupied. They didn’t likely pose a threat. David saw a group of Chinese in a room with a door that could be padlocked from the outside. Modern-day slaves, no doubt.

  The energy changed. David looked around slowly and recognized the man he and Luci knew as Ivanov.

  “Welcome my friends. Let’s have a party! We have your beautiful companion. I’m sure she can entertain all of us!” Guffaws, catcalls, and hoots met his statement.

  They were interrupted again. Luke was shoved in, grabbed by two of Ivanov’s men.

  “Tell me, who is the leader of your group? Who are you and what do you want?”

  No one spoke.

  He grabbed Luci
by the hair. It took all her discipline not to respond. She played the weak girlfriend or annoyed slut, whichever scenario they wanted to believe.

  “It’s no use pretending. Look.” He pointed to another doorway. “Come.”

  He opened it in time for David to see his police informant with the rest of the crew, drinking, smoking and laughing.

  David wasn’t surprised.

  “You think I don’t have everyone on my payroll? Who are you? Interpol?” His thick accent became more pronounced as he screamed at his captives.

  “We work for the United States Military Intelligence. We heard you are transporting nuclear energy.” Luke spoke up.

  “What? You think we are crazy?”

  “That’s our intel. Why? What are you doing here?”

  “We just smuggle banned substances into Russia and China. We are not interested in weapons or nuclear products.” He laughed; his men laughed with him.

  “We don’t care what you do in this country as long as you’re not part of the problems with the USA.” Luke watched the confusion on Ivanov’s face. He spoke to his second in command in Russian asking his opinion. The guy shrugged. Luke understood every word.

  “Speak English please.”

  “Hah, I speak whatever I want. You are in my place.”

  “Look, my mandate is to find the source of the problem we have with nukes. We’re not DEA or CIA, we don’t care, and we have no jurisdiction for those things.” Luke’s glance told him they were 50/50. He could see that Luci had played this right. She was not bound, merely trying to look like the stupid girlfriend or date. She took her cue.

  “You told me this would be a vacation! You son-of-a-bitch!” In five-seconds she was all over Luke scratching at him while the others laughed and cutting the rope on his wrists behind his back. In the meantime, David had managed to wiggle out of his poorly tied arms while everyone was focused on Luci.

  All three turned on their captors at the same time.

  Luci high-kicked Ivanov in the groin, he toppled in pain. Luke had the weapons from two men who now lay sprawled on the floor. David brandished a knife. They had neglected to check what was tucked inside his boot. And within five minutes, everyone was passed out from kicks or chops to crucial areas of their defenseless bodies. And Ivanov had disappeared.

  “Quick, slip this into the hard drive over there and send their files into the cloud. We can go after Ivanov later.”

  They found rope and tied up their captives and stuffed their mouths. They hit each one on the head again to make sure they’d stay out, then cautiously opened the door to the back of the warehouse.

  The policeman was gone, and the balance of the workers were outside. The warehouse was now in darkness. They worked their way room by room to see if they could find any kidnapped victims on site.

  In the third room, Luci called them over.

  It was empty, but she shone a light around the room and could see an object on the floor. She moved in and picked it up. It was a tiny woven bracelet with the symbol of Luke’s ocean villa. All it said was Love.

  17

  Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

  I t was day ten. The couple had decided last night. They dropped their children with a neighbor. They recounted the disappearance of Zaria and begged them to watch their little ones until they returned later in the day.

  They had never been inside a police station before. Zaria’s mother wrapped her headscarf securely around her head. The last few years since the forming of the Republic of Kyrgyz, fundamental Islam was gaining in popularity. Women were being watched for the smallest infraction against modesty, so all precautions were being taken by the couple.

  Civil servants hurried back and forth, ignoring the couple who’d been waiting for three hours for the magistrate to speak with them.

  “Sir. How can we be of service?”

  Zaria’s father spoke up. He handed a photocopy of a family photograph to the public servant. It was the only one they had of Zaria. A family friend had taken it a year ago at the Church in the village in the mountains.

  “Is this a church?” The functionary pointed with disdain at the building in the photograph.

  “Yes. A neighbor’s wedding.”

  “You are Muslim, yes?”

  “Yes.” Zaria’s father responded, his nervousness palpable.

  The clerk smiled, a nasty unbelieving smile.

  “And what of this photo?”

  “It’s the eldest, our daughter. She is missing.”

  “But she is of marriageable age, no?”

  “Yes. Zaria is fifteen.”

  “Then it is an ala kachuu, a meeting of bride and groom.” He turned to walk away.

  “Wait! No. Sir.”

  He turned back.

  “We have not received the white handkerchief! No one has come to ask forgiveness for taking our daughter without our consent. No one has offered payment for her as is the custom when a member of the family works for the farm.” His words raced from his mouth, but even he felt ashamed that he appeared to care more about the money than his daughter. That was not the case.

  “Sir. I’m sure your daughter will come with her new husband soon. Maybe he is having problems convincing his family that she is worth the investment.” The smile on his face was more a leer than the kindness of a stranger.

  Others were giving them plenty of space to converse. This part of the world still allowed these bride kidnappings to happen. Even though it was forbidden by law, it was rarely prosecuted. It was shrugged off as a cultural custom and generally accepted by a family that couldn’t change it anyway. Once a daughter was out of sight even overnight, it was assumed she had been defiled and was no longer fit for a proper marriage—no longer a virgin.

  A steely look came into the eyes of Zaria’s father. In that precise moment, a man of large proportion strode through the room. He nodded to the civil servant and asked after his boss, the mayor.

  “He’s upstairs, sir.” He bowed slightly in deference to an influential person.

  It took Zaria’s father a few minutes to remember where he’d seen him. It was on the front page of the Bishkek paper two years ago. Shortly after the Republic was declared it was said that the city was being run by the mafia. Russian mafia to be precise. This man was the head of the Russian mob in Kyrgyzstan, Ilya Ivanov. He was a notorious smuggler of drugs and humans.

  The civil servant turned back to the people in front of him.

  “Would you like us to open an investigation? We will make a report, and my boss will send someone out to see you in your home and look for evidence. We will send a team of experts, led by the gentlemen who is on his way upstairs right now.”

  Zaria’s father attempted to hide the horror he felt. He reached for his wife’s shaking hand and held them still.

  “No. I’m sure you are correct.” His wife began to speak, but he turned to her with a stern look that told her to remain quiet like a good Muslim wife. She glanced down at her lap.

  “We will return to our farm and wait. Thank you for your time.”

  The civil servant watched the couple get into the old truck parked on the curb. He carefully wrote the number of the license plate as clearly as he could make it out. Unfortunately, it was partially obscured by mud.

  He clasped the photo of the missing girl. She was beautiful; he remembered how she had screamed when he penetrated her. He also liked the looks of her sister and even her brothers. They were young, and there were specific markets in Amsterdam for them.

  This license number and photograph could be worth a lot of money to him. Ivanov paid well for his ala kachuu prospects, and he received a lot of money when he sold them at the other end of the Silk Road.

  18

  Malé International Airport, Maldives

  A private plane with ambiguous markings taxied out on the runway of the Malé International Airport on the North Malé Atoll at precisely 2:22 a.m. Its unique construction allowed it to rise quickly into the sky and disappear
from the visual view of air traffic control down below.

  Luci tuned out Luke and David’s strategizing in the cockpit and began her own careful study of the various possibilities for the disappearance of the caretakers’ children.

  It seemed she’d missed out on some significant development issues coming out of China. Her life in Paris was carefully constructed to avoid the news. For the first time in her adult life, Luci had allowed Samaar to live a normal life. She’d shopped, cooked, played with her child, worked out, remained fit and put on a pound or two, mostly on her hips.

  She looked up to see Luke in profile. Distracted for a moment, was it possible she was allowing herself to fall in love?

  Luci’s mind returned to the matter at hand. She began a search for any information she could find online about recent events in Asia and Europe. She was looking for a thread that she could pull and see where it took her.

  The big news was the projected arrival in London of the newly constructed East Wind freight train that would link Yuwi on the East coast of China along the old Silk Road route directly into Barking, a depressed suburb in London, UK.

  According to the China Railway Corporation, the service will improve China-Britain trade ties and strengthen the rising superpower's links to western Europe. Luci could see how Britain would need it with Brexit.

  “Luke.” Samaar looked up from her reading.

  “Yes?”

  “What do you know about the Silk Road?”

  “Are you referring to the old Silk Road trading routes? If you are, the Silk Road was an ancient network of trade routes connecting the East and West which for centuries was central to the cultural interaction between them. The Silk Road also refers to both the terrestrial and the maritime routes connecting Asia with the Middle East and southern Europe. Today, of course, it’s the new China Railway Corp route to England. It will cut ground shipping to half the time of the maritime routes. The cost of shipping goods into Europe will fall considerably making Chinese exports/imports even more viable to its trading partners in Russia and Europe.”