Chapter 4
Nadia finally opened her eyes. She had not wanted to talk to anybody since saying goodbye to her parents and Yuri at Balandino Airport and being ushered out through a side gate to the unmarked Yak-40 waiting ominously on the tarmac. She watched the lights of the terminal whiz by as the plane accelerated, and then, when it lifted off, she closed her eyes. She just wanted to block everything out, empty her mind.
But now she had to go to the toilet. She looked back along the plane and saw that the single washroom was unoccupied, so she undid her seatbelt and got up. As she made her way along the aisle, she remarked that all the passengers were more or less her age, some just a little older. Twenty or so girls, maybe a couple more. No boys. Which was strange, because her father had implied that both males and females were being recruited by the European Placement Agency. And in fact, there was only one girl from her school, other than her friend Sasha who was five rows in front of her. Nadia could tell from the red eyes that most had been crying.
As had she, for a good part of the trip, despite her shut eyes. It had not been easy to leave her parents and little brother. But she was sure that this was the right thing to do. Although she was not happy that her father had to pay such a huge amount of money--she had overheard her parents discuss it several evenings earlier--to that sleazy guy sitting up there in the front row, all by himself. Kalinsky was his name, if she remembered correctly, from when she was introduced to him as her father handed her over in the terminal along with the envelope.
Coming out of the bathroom, she was surprised to see a big man, head shaved and dressed all in black, just outside the door. He addressed her gruffly and told her to get back to her seat immediately. The plane would be landing soon. Was this how flight attendants behaved? And weren’t most of them supposed to be pretty women, and not scary looking thugs? This guy sure was not dressed like what she had seen on TV.
Back at her seat, Nadia looked out the window, trying to glimpse the lights of the city where they would be landing. But she only saw a few glimmering specks, far in the distance. Other than that, it was pitch dark out there. She closed her eyes again, wondering what awaited her and her companions. What kind of new life, away from family and friends? What kind of adventures?
***
Nadia stood, blinking, for a few seconds at the top of the staircase, trying to adjust her eyes to the darkness outside. Only two strings of landing lights on either side of the makeshift runway and the lights of a car and a truck penetrated the gloom.
It seemed that the plane had come to a halt on a dirt strip in the middle of some fields--no, in the middle of nowhere, she told herself.
Was this Hungary, where her father had said they would first land?
She looked down the stairs, and at the bottom saw six big men arrayed in two rows that led to the back of a covered truck.
“Come on, honey, move along there,” the giant with one hand on the railing below yelled, as he waved a flashlight to illuminate the steps, “We haven’t got all night!”
Slowly, Nadia took the stairs one by one, as she saw Kalinsky glance at her and calmly light a cigarette next to the guy waving the flashlight. Keeping her eyes glued ahead, she glimpsed Sasha being pushed roughly up into the back of the vehicle.
“Hmm, this is a pretty good crop, from what I’ve seen so far,” the thug at Kalinsky’s side said, shining his light into Nadia’s bewildered face as she passed.
And then, when she reached the vehicle, a man grabbed her under the arms and shoved her up, patting her on the backside, “Get up there now, babe. Time to get going.”
Inside, she sat down beside Sasha on the wooden bench along one side of the truck. Nadia put her arm around her friend and whispered into her ear, “This is not what I expected. I am scared.”
“Me too,” came Sasha’s answer as she hugged her back. “Let’s try to stay together.”
“No talking there, you two!” The man all the way in the front shouted, as the doors of the truck closed shut, and the girls were left in pitch darkness. Several started sobbing, and Nadia heard the girl on her right whisper, “I want to go home. I want my mother.”
“Shut up, you bitches!” The command penetrated the black space.
The adventure was not starting well.
***
The truck bumped along what must have been a dirt road for several minutes and then, after it veered onto a smoother surface, increased speed. Another twenty minutes or so, and it must have turned off the tarmac road again because the ride became rougher. Then another change in direction, and it came to a screeching halt. Nadia could hear some muffled words exchanged outside, followed by what must have been the squeaking of an opening gate, before the vehicle started up again.
Finally, they came to a stop and Nadia heard the doors on the cab slam shut, some yelling, then the clang of the bolt and the doors of their compartment opening. The same gruff voice that had told them earlier to shut up now yelled at them to get out.
Standing at the very back of the truck before dismounting, Nadia was shocked by the well-lit scene that greeted her eyes: the girls who had already clambered down, huddled in a circle, frightened and clinging to each other, surrounded by ten or twelve armed guards dressed in black with black baseball caps. Kalinsky, off to the side, chatting and laughing with the giant thug and a square, balding man, smoking a cigarette. In the background, a complex of lit-up buildings to which a walkway led from where they had disembarked. As she jumped down, the guards were already ushering the assembled girls toward the door of the main structure.
Kalinsky came up behind her, just as she was trying to catch up to the others. “Come, my dear, you come with me. I want to show you something special. This way.”
Nadia hesitated, looking after the receding line of girls, wanting to stay with Sasha, but then the man grabbed her by the arm, and literally lifted her along the path that led to the doorway of a smaller house over at the side of the complex. There was no question of resisting.
She did not like this Kalinsky, nor how the European Placement Agency was treating its new charges.
Chapter 5
Demeter had a chauffeur with a sign that had Anne Rossiter written on it in big bold letters waiting for them at Arrivals at Schwechat Airport. Her maiden name, by which she had been known at Interpol.
A slight hint?
It was a beautiful May midday in Vienna, as the car sped along the Autobahn on its way to the center of town, taking them to the Sacher Hotel where Demeter had decided to have Interpol put them up.
“I know your husband stayed there during that infernal Kallay affair,” he had said when Anne called back to tell him that Greg and she agreed to come, “so since you are doing me and Interpol a big favor, that’s where we’ll have you stay. Even though that’ll blow my entertainment budget for the entire year.”
Anne chuckled at her former boss’s niggardliness, but was glad that he was willing to go all out, since that showed how much they were really needed.
Demeter had been clear though in his instructions that he wanted them to come to the office as soon as they had checked in and washed up. However, Anne indulged Greg’s insistence on first celebrating being back in Vienna by having a Steinpilz Omelet and a glass of Zweigelt, followed by a slice of the famous Sacher Torte and a kleiner Brauner Viennese coffee for a quick lunch in the Sacher Stube before going to help out the international intelligence agency ex officio.
They walked over to where Anne had spent three and a half years working in the Interpol offices behind the Borse, the old stock exchange building, and she was overcome with the exuberance of a little child as she remembered the Aida Confiserie where she would pick up the yummy marzipan-filled croissant that was her usual weekday breakfast, or the Tabak where she would get her newspaper each evening on the way home. And she was positively glowing when they arrived at the fifth-story offices in the turn-of-the-last-century building, and Frau Huth, the secretary she had shared with her Fre
nch colleague, Nicholas Labrecque, welcomed her warmly with a double-cheeked kiss.
Demeter though, was his usual grumpy self, checking his watch and greeting them with a “What took you so long? I thought your plane landed at eleven-twenty-five a.m. It’s now two-forty-seven p.m. Christ, the day is almost over.”
“So--” Anne ignored the comment from her former boss, and started straight into the business, once the three men--Greg, Demeter and Labrecque--had joined her at the table in the Conference room where Frau Huth had placed her steaming Melange, “--tell me, John, what do we have?”
“Not a lot more than what I’ve told you already,” said Demeter, sitting at the head of the table. “The simple fact is that Julia Saparova has disappeared without a trace. As I said, I received a very worried call yesterday from Jean Timmermans, the Head of Security at the International Atomic Energy Agency--I think you know him, Anne--saying that she had not come to work for three days. And when they tried to track her down, she did not respond to any calls on her home phone or on her mobile. Nor to any emails. They also looked on the usual social media sites--you know, Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In. But nothing.”
“Anybody talk to her secretary?”
“Yes,” Labrecque answered. “I went by to check things out in her office right after the call. Her Peruvian assistant was there.”
“Still the same one Adam had?” Anne remembered quizzing the Peruvian woman after Kallay’s disappearance. “The little square lady? She’s Inca I think, Adam once told me.”
“Yes, it would seem. Well, anyway, she told me that Julia was supposed to fly to Chelyabinsk last Thursday and then go up to Mayak on business. But her unused ticket was still sitting right there, on her desk.”
“Passport?”
“That she must have had with her or back at home. We need to check on that.”
“What about her hotel out there? Probably the Meridian Chelyabinsk, which is the only semi-decent place in Chelyabinsk,” Greg interjected, remembering from the time he had followed Adam. “And where would she stay in Ozersk, do we have an idea? Did anybody call to see if by any chance she checked in somewhere? Unlikely, I know, but...”
“I had the Peruvian woman call both the Meridian Chelyabinsk and the Hotel Ozersk, and although the Meridian confirmed that Ms. Saparova is a regular customer, they have not seen her in the last three weeks,” Labrecque answered. “The Ozersk did not know her at all.”
“Come to think of it, she must stay with her mother, who has an apartment there,” Greg observed.
“Anything else, Nicholas, you were able to glean from the secretary?” This from Anne.
“Nothing. She, too, confirmed that your Julia just disappeared as if into thin air. Nothing out of the ordinary, before or after. No weird happenings, absolutely nothing. She just did not come to work on Monday, did not call in, and has not responded to any calls or attempts to get in touch with her.”
“Did anybody go to her apartment?” Greg asked.
“Yes, in fact, I went by yesterday, straight from the IAEA. I rang and rang the bell downstairs, to no avail. Eventually I raised the concierge, who took me up to the second floor where her flat is. I pushed the bell there several times too, and knocked loudly, but no one came to the door. Although I did have the strange sensation that there might have been someone on the other side. I thought I heard some movement in there--in the apartment. And breathing.”
“Very strange.” This from Greg.
“Well, maybe there was someone inside,” Labrecque mused. “It might even have been Julia.”
“Possible, but not likely,” Anne said, contradicting her former colleague. “She would have no reason to go underground like that. Unless she was pulling another Kallay. But that would not be her style. And hiding in her apartment would not achieve anything.”
“You’re right, Anne.” Labrecque agreed.
“Well, let’s go by there as soon as we can get a warrant,” Anne continued. “John, can we get Frau Huth to organize Lieutenant Haffner--he’s still around, I’m sure--to procure one as soon as possible and meet us there?”
“Yeah, we were going to get a warrant already but we thought we’d get the whole team here first. Haffner, you said?” Demeter picked up the intercom and passed on Anne’s request to Frau Huth. “She’ll let us know as soon as she hears back from the Austrian police,” he added grumpily as he hung up.
***
“Rudolf, thanks for your help, yet again,” Anne said, expressing her gratitude to Lieutenant Haffner, who had been her contact at the Vienna police during her years with Interpol, stationed in the Austrian capital, with special responsibilities for matters relating to the International Atomic Energy Agency. He had been good support during that terrible Kallay affair that Greg and she had managed to get to the bottom of, and was now waiting for them downstairs in his car with a warrant to search Julia’s residence, which was where they headed next.
“I can’t believe we have another IAEA staff disappearance on our hands. And as it happens, it is one of your friends again,” Haffner said, smiling at Greg from the front seat. “You must be jinxed.”
“Well, it was Adam Kallay who was really Julia’s friend,” Greg corrected, “and he was trying to get her a job at the IAEA before he got himself involved in that terrible heist affair.”
“Yes, I remember. We came very close to deporting her as an illegal alien. She was working without papers. As an exotic dancer, of all things. But wow--”
“That was just meant to be temporary. So she could earn a living until Adam came through with the IAEA position,” Greg said, taking the Russian girl’s side. “For a beautiful girl like Julia here illegally, it was easier to get a job in that business, even though she has a PhD in nuclear physics.”
“But then she cooperated with us to help find Adam, so you were kind enough to expedite her papers, Rudolf,” Anne remarked.
“No, she actually did not need Austrian work papers once she was employed by the IAEA,” Haffner corrected her. “They got her an international organizations visa, and the Austrian authorities just rubberstamped it. That is the normal procedure.”
“So it was Adam then in the end who helped her stay!” Greg said, as Anne surmised that her husband was happy that his erstwhile friend had managed to do at least this one good deed.
***
Once the doorman let them into the building on Momsengasse, in the Fourth District, Haffner rang the bell several times at the second floor apartment, but no one answered. Anne, who put her ear to the door as he was doing this, thought she heard some noises from inside. But in the end, she could not be certain that she was not just being influenced by what Labrecque had told them earlier.
With warrant in hand, however, Lieutenant Haffner had no problem in getting the housekeeper to open the door of the compact one bedroom apartment. Standing in the middle of the sparsely furnished combined living room, dining room and kitchen, and seeing that the door leading presumably to what was the bedroom was closed, Anne said to the other two, “You guys stay here and cover me. I will go inside.” But she did pull out the Glock 26 Demeter had insisted she reequip herself with, just in case.
All the precaution, though, was unnecessary. No Julia, but sitting on the bed was a haggard looking, rather anxious, elderly lady. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” Anne addressed the stranger.
Greg came in just as his wife lowered her gun and moved closer to the woman. “Ah, Gospodja Saparova! What a pleasant surprise to find you here.” He recognized Julia’s mother from the time he and Adam had paid her a visit in Ozersk.
Julia’s mother stared at the intruders with a blank look.
Was she not dying of cancer?
“You are here to visit your daughter?”
The look on the old lady’s face suddenly changed, lighting up with what seemed to be the hint of a smile of recognition. “Mr. Martens, is it? I remember you from the time you and Julia’s friend, Adam Kallay, came to see me. How nic
e. Yes, my daughter invited me to come to Vienna. The care is better here, and she wanted me with her. For the last few months, before this terrible sickness takes me. But now it is she who has gone. And I am all alone. My dear daughter, please--”
“Well, that is why we are here, Gospodja Saparova,” Greg interrupted her. “To help find Julia. We know she has not been seen at work for over a week now. Do you have any idea where she might be?”
“Mr. Martens, I know you are a good man. Julia gave me your book, András and Lily, and I really like how you told the story of you parents. You have a lot of love in you, I can tell, and respect for my generation. Maybe you can help me, just as Mr. Kallay helped my daughter with the job.”
“But of course.”
“Yes, it was he who called six days ago when Julia was working late--”
Greg blinked, stunned. “Kallay?”
“Yes, your friend told me to tell Julia to meet him that night at the Revuebar Rasputin. Where she used to work, he said. At ten p.m. He insisted she would know what it was about. By the way, what kind of place is this...this Revuebar?”
“No! That is impossible. Kallay--Adam Kallay--is dead! And Julia knew that.” Greg was still too shocked by the revelation to focus on Gospodja Saparova’s question.
“Dead? He can’t be. Certainly not when I talked to him on the telephone a week or so ago, as I just told you. The man who called introduced himself as Adam Kallay--yes, definitely--and said he wanted to meet her. At that Revuebar place.”
“So, you told Julia?” Anne asked.
“Yes, I gave her the message as soon as she came home from work that night. She too, was puzzled, but went off to meet your friend. At the Revuebar Rasputin. And I haven’t seen her since.”
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