Project Aurora (Hope Novak Thrillers)

by Daniel Pelfrey

  Chapter 2

  The city of Zielona Gora possessed Old World charm, thought Hope Novak. With its mix of buildings ranging from before the nineteenth century to Communist-era block style to modern chic gave the city an eclectic vibe Novak appreciated.

  She arrived from the United States via Berlin two weeks ago. She stayed few nights in a hotel, but found her search would not go as smoothly as she initially thought.

  The prices for apartments varied widely, though Novak found the rents cheapest in the Communist-era block monstrosities. She was not concerned about style or comfort or even what the neighborhood was like.

  Hope just wanted a place more permanent than a hotel room while she tried to piece together the mystery of her early childhood.

  Novak came to Poland armed with a name and address, with the thought she was going to find her parents.

  Instead, she found a young woman who was a few years younger than herself. They talked a few times. Ewa Krupa worked in a coffee shop and Novak had taken to stopping in almost daily.

  What surprised Novak was how similar they looked in appearance. Both about the same height, similar skin tone and hair color.

  Their eyes were drastically different, though.

  Hope’s a cold gray. Ewa’s a warm blue.

  Both suited their personalities.

  For all the confidence Hope now had, introducing herself to her sister terrified her. Novak had previously suffered from dissociative identity disorder.

  To say she was cured would not be accurate. Not in even the most complex definition.

  The genetic re-sequencing and mental conditioning the Cabal, and by extension the CIA, had forced on her had fused Novak’s separate personalities together.

  On the plus side, she was more stable. Add to that the memories of her childhood as Katie Sikora and Hope still had issues to process.

  I can run into a gun fight but I can’t talk to my sister, thought Hope. They exchanged pleasantries every time Novak would order, but nothing further.

  Novak had followed Ewa a few times, trying to get a sense of who her sister was. Wondering where their parents were.

  And how do we look so much alike considering everything done to me, thought Novak.

  Novak also noticed Ewa rarely took the same routes daily.

  Good, she thought.

  There were some Romanians that tried to follow Novak the second day she was in Zielona Gora. They were sloppy and Novak sent one of theirs back with a polite message to leave her alone.

  Sending the lout back after kneeing him in the balls and splitting his lip was not actually polite, but they left her alone after that.

  Novak could identify some tattoos they sported as Romanian mafia marks. The problem now was the Romanians were following Ewa. No matter what route Ewa would follow, the Romanians tailed her.

  They were good, too, thought Novak.

  She could see them switch off from time-to-time, trying to not be noticed by Ewa. There had to be a reason.

  Hope had done research after her encounter. The women disappearing. Usually those with no one else in their lives. This troubled Novak because she knew the Romanian mafia were into human trafficking.

  Novak knew why the Romanians were following Ewa now. She was a target for kidnapping. Many of the Eastern European gangs dealt in human trafficking and the sex trade.

  Usually, they would try to exploit runaways, but those without families were vulnerable, too. Take those that would not be missed.

  This thought rubbed at Novak in all the wrong ways. Abducted twice in her life, once as a child and once as an adult.

  These criminals would not get Ewa.

  And if Novak had her way, no one else in Zielona Gora.

  ◆◆◆

  Ewa Krupa noticed she was being followed.

  Again.

  She did not like being followed. It made her nervous. Especially since the disappearances began.

  It was the woman from the coffee shop. Ewa knew she was an American, though she spoke excellent Polish.

  Very little accent, thought Ewa. Though Krupa preferred when the woman would speak English. Any chance to practice her language skills was welcome.

  The American woman came in for coffee almost every day.

  She seemed nice.

  Familiar too.

  Ewa was not as concerned when it was the American woman following her. Maybe the woman just lived in the same neighborhood, Ewa thought.

  She noticed they resembled each other. Light olive skin, blonde hair. The eyes, though, while Ewa’s were a warm cerulean blue, this woman’s were a cold slate gray.

  After a run-in with a group of Romanians, Ewa had become more observant of her surroundings. She knew the Romanians were trouble.

  There had been reports in the news of people disappearing, usually young women. Ewa had noticed it started around the time the Romanians showed up in Zielona Gora.

  Ewa noticed the Romanians gave the American woman a wide berth. Perhaps, she thought, they are afraid of the ramifications of harassing an American citizen.

  It mattered little to Ewa, though. When the American woman was in the vicinity, the Romanians would scatter.

  She had seen one of them following her, too.

  He kept more distance than he has in the past, she thought. Ewa made it home without having to deal with those men she feared leering at her.

  Not that it was much of a home. Her father passed away last year. Ewa adored him. He was a good man, who raised his daughter almost by himself.

  And her mother. That was something Ewa tried not to think about.

  Her mother had gone mad with grief after losing their first child, Katarzyna. She raved about how her daughter was stolen from her.

  Ewa’s father tried to get mama help, she thought, but he feared until Katarzyna found her way home nothing would bring his wife out of her madness.

  At least that’s what he told Ewa shortly before he died. She could see that losing Katarzyna had scarred him, too.

  Ewa tried not to dwell on the past. It made her feel melancholy. While her home was not much, it was hers. A lifetime to make happy memories in it was what Ewa planned to create there, when she found the right partner.

  Chapter 3

  The crazy American woman was following his prey again, thought Dragos Nicolescu. His cousin would not be happy to hear this. They wanted to ‘recruit’ Ewa Krupa into a new line of work.

  Dragos snorted to himself. Like forcibly becoming a drugged-up sex slave was a career ambition of anyone, he thought.

  He and Marius brought their crew to Zielona Gora from Romania after the news of the mineral find. They had no intention of working the mines or doing any other honest work.

  They had come to Zielona Gora because it was going to be a modern boom town. Crime was already on the rise in the city, and the Romanians intended to exert control over those enterprises.

  Dragos knew Marius had contacts. The woman was not their typical candidate for the brothels their organization ran across Europe and Americas, though.

  This was a ‘custom order’ as Marius called it.

  Some rich guy wanted a trophy wife and thought Ewa would be perfect. Dragos thought nothing of it, other than the one million in American dollars he and Marius would split.

  Of course, the organization Dragos belonged to was not welcomed in most places. They were an unsavory type, as someone had called them once.

  Marius laughed at this.

  Then he slit the old fool’s throat.

  If it had not been for the American bitch, thought Dragos, they would already have Ewa Krupa. Actually, he realized they would have the money they had been promised. It would be his and Marius’ biggest payday.

  Again, Dragos knew that was his fault. He thought he was following Ewa last week. Turned out to be the American.

  The two looked that similar.

  Dragos had lost Ewa as he and Marius had switched off, following her. She was a smart one too, he
muttered to himself in Romanian. When Dragos started following who he thought was Ewa, he quickly lost her too.

  Or so he thought.

  The crazy bitch had turned into an alley and waited for me to pass, thought Dragos. She knew she was being followed. When he passed the alley, he turned around to see if she had made an unexpected turn.

  The bottle to the back in the head came out of the darkness, hitting him in the back of the head. Dragos rubbed it, thinking of the number of stars in his vision that night that weren’t in the sky. But the woman then kneed him in the balls.

  She followed up with a last hit to the face, splitting his lip open. The warning she hissed to him in unaccented Polish was not what frightened him, though.

  It was her eyes.

  Cold.

  Slate gray.

  Completely emotionless.

  Dragos felt lucky to walk away with his life after looking into those eyes. He was convinced that woman would have killed him without batting an eye. He had never run across anyone that could ambush him like that.

  And now it was a woman who had bested him. An American half his size frightened him.

  Marius laughed at him. Then told him his share of the money for Ewa Krupa had just gone down.

  Dragos did not care, four-hundred thousand American dollars was still a lot of money.

  As Ewa Krupa entered her house, Dragos Nicolescu realized the American bitch had spotted him.

  She was standing under a streetlight and he swore she smiled at him. It was a smile that did not reach those cold gray eyes. Dragos shivered, even though it was still mid-September. Something about that woman unsettled him, Dragos thought.

  Muttering to himself again because Marius was going to be pissed that Dragos had not secured their prize.

  ◆◆◆

  Novak saw the one she had beaten following Ewa. He had not been around for a few days. Of course, the way she had split his lip made him more recognizable. At least in the short-term.

  She watched Ewa enter her building. Hope made to stand under the streetlight intentionally. She wanted to give the Romanian a reminder.

  They were close enough that he could see her smile. People told her it never quite reached her eyes, and it was quite intimidating.

  Good, Novak thought. The Romanian appeared to shiver despite the warm September night, and Novak saw her message had been received.

  Novak knew the apartment had been her parents’ home. They had lived there for many years. Since before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Before Katarzyna, her former self, had been born.

  She knew Ewa had the answers she sought, but Novak was uncertain how to proceed. Some aspects of her old life still crept into her present. Like how to approach strangers. Or how to make friends.

  But now, she had other issues too. The Romanians tailing Ewa brought out Novak’s anger. They reminded her of how violated she felt after being an unwilling participant in Project Aurora.

  While Novak appreciated the physical changes, the forced and failed mental conditioning left its own mark on her.

  Novak wanted the answers to what became of her parents, though she was hesitant to ask Ewa.

  She suspected her father was dead.

  But her mother. She was the genuine mystery. Novak had nothing to go on.

  There was something about being in Zielona Gora, Novak thought.

  It was familiar.

  The streets.

  The sounds.

  All of it.

  Hope Novak just could not remember it.

  ◆◆◆

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