Passenger List

by John Scott Dryden

  In Tompkins Square Park in New York, shaven-headed priests in saffron robes chanted Hare Krishna in the pool of shadows under the spreading elm. The sun slipped down over New Jersey, turning the cross streets into rivers of ruddy light. Kaitlin breathed in that stew of traffic fumes and spicy food scents as she hurried under the street lights flickering into life. Her new burner phone was in her backpack. She was ready.

  Amelia’s family’s apartment was on Avenue A, three storeys up above a bagel shop with a fire escape overlooking the park. Inside, Kaitlin’s nose wrinkled at the smell of stale air. It was clear that nobody had been here for a while, but it was as functional as Amelia promised. After a quick shower to wash the grime of the bus journey from her skin, Kaitlin tossed her backpack on the bed, pulled out her laptop and got to work.

  A message from Dylan was waiting:

  Done some digging. The kid abandoned at Heathrow – looks like his mother is Maria Elian, Bulgarian immigrant. Had a place in Queens. See what you can do with that. The usual warning: tread carefully. Don’t try to draw attention. Always think there’s somebody on to you. That’s the best way.

  Kaitlin felt a shiver of unease at Dylan’s warning. She tapped in a reply with the number of her new cell and then began her search. A couple of hours later, she’d learned Maria Elian’s sister, Ana Dragov, also lived in Queens, on Salerno Avenue. Once she had the number, Kaitlin punched it into her burner and listened to the ring.

  A woman answered promptly with a thick European accent.

  ‘Hi, is this Ana Dragov?’

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘I’m sorry – you don’t know me. My name is Kaitlin Le. My brother was on 702.’

  A pause, then: ‘Yes?’

  ‘Your sister was on the plane as well. That’s right, isn’t it? I was hoping that we could—’

  ‘I can’t help you.’

  The line clicked dead.

  Kaitlin stirred in the dark before dawn, showered and then gnawed on the bagel she’d picked up the previous night. Ana Dragov didn’t want to talk. That wasn’t going to stop her. She waited until a thin silvery light began seeping through the window, then she ordered an Uber.

  Salerno Avenue was just south of Cunningham Park. Big houses, lots of trees, some money there. Kaitlin asked the driver to drop her off a little down the street from Ana Dragov’s house and she walked up through swirls of golden leaves, keeping her head down. As she drew nearer, she eyed the place without looking up. No point drawing attention if anyone was watching from the windows. She wanted the element of surprise.

  The house loomed up, white SUV in the drive. Kaitlin sucked in a few deep breaths and steeled herself. The last thing she ever expected to do was confront someone on their doorstep. She hoped she was up to it.

  After swinging onto the property, she raced up the steps before she lost her nerve, yanked open the screen door and knocked. She tensed as footsteps approached and then the door swung open to reveal a thin woman with jet-black hair and pale skin. No doubt this was Ana Dragov.

  ‘Who are you?’ the woman demanded.

  ‘I’m … Kaitlin Le – I called you—’

  ‘Get out of here. I have nothing to say.’

  Ana swung the door. Kaitlin slammed her palm against it to try to keep it open.

  ‘Ana, please! Just … just wait a second.’

  The door banged shut.

  ‘I lost my brother,’ Kaitlin shouted. ‘And you lost your sister. What the authorities are saying, it doesn’t add up. All of us, we’re in the same boat. We all want answers and I-I think we can help each other. Just give me fifteen minutes. Please …’

  Kaitlin held her breath, but there was no response. She hammered on the door again.

  Don’t go crazy. She’ll call the cops. That’s the last thing you need.

  Taking a deep breath, Kaitlin pressed her face close to the wood and lowered her voice. ‘Ana, listen. Bratva – he’s your nephew, right? Bratva? I know where they took him.’

  After a long moment, the door clicked open. Ana’s bloodless face appeared in the gap.

  ‘Where they take him?’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘We can’t talk here – my parents … they get upset. There is Starbucks on 188th. We meet there.’

  The door slammed shut again.

  Kaitlin settled at a table in one corner, where she could see the whole of the Starbucks. She was getting as paranoid as Dylan. She sipped on a tall latte, tracking every customer who came and went. Finally, Ana walked in. She was wearing a black belted coat, her hair scraped back into a ponytail. She glanced around, saw Kaitlin and marched over as if she were going to arrest her.

  Kaitlin smiled, hoping she appeared disarming. ‘Can I get you a coffee?’

  ‘Where is Bratva? Address. You give now.’

  ‘I need to ask you about your sister first.’

  Ana shook her head. ‘I cannot. If you won’t tell me what I need to know, I leave.’ She turned.

  Kaitlin thought she looked scared. That unnerved her even more.

  ‘Ana,’ she pleaded, reaching out. ‘Ana. I promise you, you can trust me. I’m not a reporter or anything. I’m just … I’m trying to put all the pieces together.’

  Ana glared. ‘I no believe you.’

  Kaitlin snatched out her student ID and thrust it forwards. ‘See?’

  Ana leaned in to examine the card, her eyes narrowing as if this were some trick.

  ‘That’s me. Kaitlin Le. My brother is Conor Le. He’s a computer scientist, one of the best, and he …’ Show a human side to put Ana at her ease, that’s what she’d told herself, but she could hear the words tumbling out too fast as her emotions surfaced. ‘He lives with his boyfriend, Thomas, and a cat named Tova. We used to sneak out just so we could drive around and listen to Willie Nelson on the stereo. He’d stay up late to teach me how to program in JavaScript. He’s my favourite person in the entire world … was my favourite person … and I want him back more than anything.’

  Ana stared at her with those unreadable eyes. After a moment, she dragged out a chair and sat down. Kaitlin felt a rush of relief.

  ‘I’m sorry for your brother.’ Ana’s voice had softened, though her face hadn’t.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Where you from?’

  ‘Kansas. Missouri.’

  ‘That’s a long way.’

  ‘That ID. I’m a student here. Just outside the city.’

  Ana nodded. ‘You said you had information about my nephew.’

  ‘I do. I’ve been doing some research. And the official explanation – the bird-strike – it just doesn’t make sense.’

  Ana continued to stare. Kaitlin shifted, felt herself start to babble, unable to contain it.

  ‘So, first of all, there’s no physical evidence that the plane even crashed. There’s no wreckage from the flight, no black box, the final transmissions all seemed normal.’

  ‘Spaceship.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Spaceship came and took them away.’

  ‘That’s not—’

  ‘Or it was Russians. North Korea. Lost world of Atlantis,’ Ana sneered. ‘I don’t care. Tell me about my nephew.’

  Kaitlin nodded. Recalling the information Dylan had sent over, she replied, ‘At the moment, the case is still in the hands of the British social services. I imagine they let you know that already, being the next of kin and everything.’

  ‘Yes, but we only get official letters. They want us to provide so much information. And my husband is away, so … it’s difficult for me.’

  ‘I understand.’ Kaitlin smiled, but she could hear something in the other woman’s voice. A hint of a secret, perhaps. ‘Where’s your husband?’

  A moment of silence as Ana considered her response. Then: ‘Away.’

  ‘Away where?’

  ‘Business.’

  ‘What does he do?’

  ‘He does … business.’

  ‘What kind of b
usiness?’

  ‘You ask too many questions,’ Ana snapped. ‘And you still haven’t told me—’

  ‘OK, OK,’ Kaitlin jumped in. This woman seemed like she was permanently balanced on a knife edge. ‘Bratva – he’s been taken to a home in Oxfordshire. About ninety minutes north-west of London. The court’s appointed an official guardian.’

  ‘I know all this.’

  ‘Yes, but I’ve got the address.’

  ‘You give to me.’

  Ana swallowed. The first flicker of some emotion crossed that hard face.

  ‘I was like his mother. He stayed with us. Maria was never there. I was with him all the time. When he woke up crying in the night … it was me … it was …’ She choked back a sob, fixed that unwavering stare again.

  It was a front, Kaitlin understood that now. It was a tactic she was all too familiar with.

  ‘Where was Maria?’

  ‘Parties, rich men, I don’t know. And then she came one day and just took him away.’

  Kaitlin pushed aside her latte and reached across the table. ‘Why would a mother leave her son at the airport? Why would she get on a plane unless there was—’

  ‘Unless she was going to blow up that plane?’ Ana’s voice dripped with contempt.

  ‘No, that’s not what I’m saying. I just … Maybe she knew something was going to happen and so she—’

  Ana smacked her palm on the tabletop and Kaitlin jumped. All around the Starbucks, heads swivelled towards them.

  ‘Look, you tell me nothing, I tell you nothing. I have to go.’ Ana stood up.

  ‘No! Listen, I have the address. The house where they’re keeping Bratva. I have it.’

  ‘So, give it to me.’

  Kaitlin bit her lip. ‘I don’t have it with me.’

  Ana sneered again. ‘This is fucking joke. Goodbye.’

  Kaitlin jumped up. Everyone was still staring, but she found she didn’t care.

  ‘Ana, please! Please. I need you. We need each other.’

  Ana turned to leave.

  ‘Come on,’ Kaitlin pleaded. ‘I’m just trying to put all this together and find the facts! No one’s telling us anything. If we help each other, we can figure out—’

  Ana whirled, her eyes blazing. ‘Figure what? Listen, in Kansas you have tornadoes, yes? You have big wind and storm. It comes down from sky and smack! Your house: gone. Your whole life: ruined. What is reason?’

  ‘I … it’s …’

  ‘Exactly. You don’t know. And you will never know. It just … happens. No reason. Just like plane. That plane is gone. My sister. Gone. Your brother. What is reason? I go on Facebook, I join support group. Everybody want to say they know secret, they know what happened. But they don’t! No one does. No one will ever know.’ She pressed a hand against her chest to calm herself. ‘You love your brother?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You remember that. Forget the rest.’

  Ana marched away. Kaitlin slumped back in her seat. She’d failed.

  Kaitlin slipped out of the Starbucks into the chill, grey late morning. The last of the late summer was fading fast. As she marched away, she felt her determination rekindling. Ana was her best lead right now. She couldn’t give up on her. As she turned over all the scenarios of why a mother could possibly abandon her son, she paused at a crosswalk and glanced back along the street.

  Her instinct prickled. A woman was walking towards her, late twenties maybe, hood pulled over her ash blonde hair, head bowed, sharp features, hands shoved into her hoodie pockets. Kaitlin had seen her sitting in the Starbucks. The woman stopped to look into a store window, but her body language suggested she was feigning interest, Kaitlin thought.

  You’re paranoid. Dylan has got into your head.

  When the Walk sign blinked on, Kaitlin hurried across the street. On the other side, she looked back. The woman was crossing, too.

  Kaitlin’s heart thumped faster. Picking up her step, she weaved among the flow of bodies. The blonde woman increased her pace. There was no doubt now.

  Snatching out her phone, Kaitlin ordered an Uber with a collection point further along the street ahead. When she saw the car arriving, she threw herself into a run and dived in the back.

  As the car pulled away, she locked eyes with her pursuer. The woman watched her pass, easing down her hood, and she continued to stare as the car rumbled off into traffic.

  4

  Night came down hard. Kaitlin crouched by a chain-link fence among the yellowing grass and beer cans. She looked past the pool of light surrounding the street lamp to the shadows cloaking the warehouse. This part of Queens was deserted after business hours. Empty lots, storage units and crumbling factories waiting for redevelopment, the air heavy with diesel fumes. Sirens whined in the distance, but silence lay heavy in that place. Not somewhere she wanted to be caught out.

  She shivered in the chill. Her fingers were already going numb. After her disastrous meeting with Ana, and the strange blonde pursuer, Kaitlin had retreated back to the apartment, feeling defeated. But as she stared at the wall and wondered whether or not it was time to accept defeat and head back to Vassar, a wave of determination flooded through her. She owed it to Conor to broach Ana one more time, even if she got a slap across the face for her efforts.

  As her Uber had pulled up on Salerno Avenue for the second time that day, the white SUV in Ana’s drive had reversed out at speed and raced away. Kaitlin had ordered the Uber to follow it, in return for a good tip. They’d ended up here.

  The SUV was parked further up the street. Ana was still inside and had been for an age. Every now and then, the interior flared – the light from her phone as she made calls.

  What was Ana hoping to do here? She had no idea.

  Kaitlin’s hands were growing numb and her limbs were starting to cramp after so long crouching in the cold. She thought longingly of her dorm room, covered in fairy lights, and for a moment she wished that she was back at Vassar, getting ready for a night out with Amelia. Maybe she should jump on the subway and head back to the apartment. But before she could weigh up her options, another SUV screamed up, black this time, and four heavyset men climbed out, casting furtive glances around. Ana clambered out of her car and began to jabber at the men in a language Kaitlin didn’t recognise, probably Bulgarian.

  After a moment, one of the men unlocked a padlock on the door of the warehouse and they all went inside.

  Kaitlin hesitated for a moment. No one knew where she was right now and she could hear Amelia’s voice in the back of her mind telling her not to take any risks. This was too suspicious to ignore, though. She crept along the fence and eased through a ragged gap onto an area of broken bricks alongside the towering building. There was no way that she was getting in through the front entrance, but there might be a window down here where she could spy on whatever was going on inside.

  The only windows that she could reach were all dark and caked with dust, but halfway along the wall, broken steps led to a basement door daubed with graffiti. Empty nitrous oxide cartridges rattled around her feet as she ventured down. Another padlock and chain hung from the door to a loop on the jamb, brown with rust.

  Kaitlin sighed. She wasn’t getting in that way. This was futile. But as she turned to go, she was startled to hear sobbing echoing from inside. Kaitlin pressed her ear against the blistered wood. A woman was crying, low and constant and heavy with despair.

  She felt a wave a nausea flood her stomach. She wished she was better at this, but she already felt way out of her depth. Her father would exhort her to leave, admonishing her that this wasn’t her business and it was better not to get involved. But she couldn’t leave someone in such distress without checking.

  Perhaps she could call the police. But to say what? She rattled the rusty chain and noticed the metal securing loop in the jamb was loose. The wood was rotten. Gripping the chain with both hands, she wrenched it hard and the loop popped out of the wood. For a moment, she paused, waiting to see
if anyone had heard.

  Her blood pounded in her ears so loudly that she could no longer hear the crying. She put her shoulder to the door and pushed hard. As it ground open, a sliver of light carved across the steps.

  Kaitlin peeked through the gap and her breath caught in her throat. A bare light bulb shone across a brick basement that had been divided into what could only be described as a cage. Behind a row of bars, eight women huddled. They all looked to be around Kaitlin’s own age, in their late teens or early twenties. Filthy mattresses lay on the cold flags and a bucket sat in one corner.

  When they saw Kaitlin, the women launched into a cacophony of desperate pleas in that same language she’d heard before. Clutching hands reached through the bars. One of them, a hollow-cheeked woman with dyed blonde hair, wrenched a couple of the others back and hissed, flapping her hands to indicate they should be quiet.

  As they fell silent, Kaitlin heard the rustle of voices somewhere above them.

  The blonde woman jabbed a finger towards a blistered, paint-spattered desk against one wall. ‘Please,’ she said in faltering English. ‘Keys. Save us.’

  Kaitlin’s head spun. She couldn’t begin to process what she was seeing here. But she threw herself to the desk where the woman was pointing, rattling through beer cans and pizza boxes scattered on the top.

  ‘No! Inside,’ the woman urged.

  Yanking open drawer after drawer, Kaitlin finally glimpsed a bunch of keys. She stabbed one after another into the lock on the cage door as the sound of movement above continued and the women grew more anxious. Eventually, one slid in and turned.

  As the door swung open, the women piled out, screeching and howling and falling over each other. They scrambled past Kaitlin, fighting to get out of the door and up the stairs.

  The buzz of voices from upstairs thundered into cries of alarm.

  Shit, Kaitlin thought. I’ve done it now.

  She hurled herself after the freed women. Still sobbing, they scattered across the waste ground beside the warehouse. Kaitlin raced back across the bricks the way she’d come. Bestial roars erupted at her back as those thuggish men she’d seen earlier flooded out of the basement in pursuit.