Prisha weaved between the shoppers and stalls, ducking under a clothing rack long enough to snatch a turquoise silk scarf to throw over her head and shoulders to conceal her identity.
She’d been so careful. So precise in her movements and what she’d said. Where had she gone wrong? How had she managed to mess things up? She’d never compromised herself before. Not once.
Prisha pushed those self-reprimanding thoughts to the side. It didn’t matter how she was found out; what mattered was that they knew she was not who she claimed. A fact they seemed less than amused with given the number of men tailing her.
She’d counted five in total on her way to the market, though there could be more. Resisting the panic that spurred her to run, she kept a steady pace as she trailed through the crowd, not allowing herself to check if her pursuers still followed.
A souvenir shop selling tinctures and mementos to passing tourists caught Prisha’s attention, and she navigated her way toward it. Stepping inside, she slipped down an aisle and snuck behind the counter to the back of the store. A door lay ajar to allow in some air, and Prisha exited through it into an alleyway.
Voices asking questions about a woman carried out from the shop, and Prisha took off at a run, the scarf slipping from her head and falling to the ground in a waterfall of silk.
Footsteps thundered behind her as the men spilled from the shop and charged after her. Using the precious few seconds she had to her advantage, Prisha hurtled over a pile of garbage and broke out into the street parallel to the market.
It wasn’t anywhere near as crowded, and Prisha darted into the entrance to a block of flats as a resident was leaving, shoving them out of the way. She ran down the passage and swore at the discovery of no back door.
Turning on her heels, she made to leave and head back out to the street, but the men crashed through the flat doors, blocking the way.
Prisha turned and took the stairs to the floor above three at a time, firing her gun behind her as she did. A cry came from one of her pursuers, telling her she’d landed a hit, but there were still four men after her.
All the doors were closed, and Prisha found the nearest to be locked. Ignoring the rest, she carried on up the next set of stairs and didn’t stop until she reached the very top. A single door awaited her, and she shoved all her weight into it, dragging the heavy metal door open with screeches of rusted protest.
A breeze caught her loosened hair as she stepped out onto the flat rooftop. The skyline of Delhi stretched before her, illuminated in all its glory by the radiance of the sun above and coated in a layer of haze from the infamous smog. Prisha sent a silent prayer to the gods to guide her steps.
A stitch in her side nagged at her to stop and breathe, but if she wanted to continue breathing at all, she needed to keep moving. Sliding the door shut again, Prisha dragged a breeze block from a pile nearby and positioned it in front of the door. It wouldn’t hold the men back for long, but a few seconds could mean life or death in her current predicament.
Adjacent to where she stood was another rooftop, about six feet lower. It wasn’t connected to her building, but Prisha could make the jump. She’d managed farther before.
The same whines from the metal door screeched again, and Prisha was off. Taking a run at it, she sprinted to the end of the roof and leaped into the air. She’d managed a good spring in her jump, and a shred of hope danced inside her.
As she descended through the air, a crack sounded behind her, and a searing pain erupted in the small of her back.
Prisha had been an agent long enough to know what a gunshot felt like.
The hit interrupted her momentum, and her body gave an involuntary jerk mid-flight. Prisha reached forward as the breath was knocked out of her from the impact.
She landed with a hard thump against the side of the building with only her arms landing on the roof.
Prisha tensed her muscles and hung on, trying to pull her dangling body up.
“No,” she gasped. Her arms began to slide, her body going into shock from the bullet in her back as it tried to retain the energy she needed to roll onto the roof.
Arms turned to fingers, and Prisha’s palms scraped against the rough brick.
One of the men landed beside her on the adjacent roof with easy feet. He grinned as he straightened and stared down at her.
Prisha’s fingers shook violently, but still, she held on for dear life.
The familiar tang of blood coated her clenched teeth, and she screamed as the man stomped on her fingertips with his boot and twisted his toes until he broke the skin around her nails.
When he let go, Prisha could hold on no longer, and she lost her desperate grip on the roof’s edge.
Prisha thought of only one thing the whole way down to the hard concrete below.
Who will look after Mum?
Chapter 14
London, Great Britain
* * *
The sneer Director General Grace Helmsley wore as they arrived wasn’t the welcome back Maggie had expected. Not that she’d been hoping for balloons, a nice cuppa, and some Victoria sponge.
“What is he doing here?” Helmsley asked, narrowing her eyes at Ashton, who waltzed into the Unit like he owned the place.
“The prodigal son has returned to make sure he and none of his friends are exposed thanks to your negligence,” he replied, not missing a beat. “Really, Grace, have the Unit’s standards plummeted so much since my departure? If you can’t keep something as simple as a computer safe, what chance do your deluded agents have?”
“Hey,” Leon said, “I’m one of those deluded agents, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“No offense, mate, but there’s really no excuse for what’s happened.” Ashton turned back to Helmsley. “Have you never heard of a firewall? Seriously, I can nip down to the shops and get you one for like twenty quid.”
If looks could kill, Helmsley would have assassinated Ashton on the spot. “You haven’t changed a bit, Ashton Price. I am not in the mood for your antics, today of all days, so I suggest you get out of my sight before I—”
Maggie stood between them and swiped the air. “No, we’re not doing this. Ashton, stop goading Grace, and Grace, if it weren’t for Ash, Leon would be dead right now. His name is on that list, too, and believe it or not, he wants to help.”
Helmsley shook her head in disgust. “He can help by staying away from—”
“If he’s out, so am I,” Maggie warned, deadly serious as she hovered by the door of Leon’s office. When none of them argued, she poured herself a cup of tea from the freshly brewed pot and sat herself down at the conference table. “Now, if you two kids think you can play nice for the limited time we need to work together, I’d like an update on the situation and then to discuss what we’re all going to do to stop Ivan and his people.”
Ashton slumped down next to her. “I will if she will.”
“She?” snapped Helmsley, still standing.
Leon hobbled to the table, in clear discomfort, and sat across from Maggie and Ashton, pulling out the chair beside him for his superior. “Grace.”
“Fine,” she said with a huff, taking the offered seat. “Let’s get this over with.”
An awkward silence fell over the room as each of them filled their cups, Maggie pouring Leon’s for him. He’d fought off their protests to head straight to a doctor, insisting that he attend the meeting with his boss. He was the new Unit chief and should be there to have his voice heard. Maggie had enough battles to contend with and therefore allowed Leon to come, making him promise to be seen to straight after.
Ashton passed the little milk jug over to Helmsley when he was finished pouring a dollop into his cup. “Nice suit, Grace.”
“It’s Dolce,” said Helmsley, taking the milk and plopping a sugar cube into her tea.
“I know.” Ashton pulled out a business card from inside his jacket. “Give my tailor a ring. He can get you next season’s line before it goes to market.”
<
br /> Grace pursed her lips, and Maggie refrained from laughing when she took the card and slipped it into her pocket without a word. If there was one thing Grace enjoyed more than ordering people around, it was impeccably cut power suits.
“We’ve had another name announced since you’ve been gone,” Helmsley announced to the table, connecting her tablet to the projector once more. “Another agent is dead.”
Maggie sobered.
“Who?” Leon put down his cup and rubbed a hand over his head. The swelling in his face had lessened a little thanks to Ash’s efforts, but it had given way to large patches of bruised skin down one side of his face and along his neck. He didn’t say how he’d gotten them, and Maggie didn’t ask. The visual was bad enough.
“Prisha.”
Prisha Patel was one of the newer agents recruited to the Unit, barely two years out of training. Maggie hadn’t gotten to know her all that well, but she had been an eager young woman and highly intelligent. Bishop had had high hopes for her future. Now she didn’t have one.
“Did they send another video?” Ashton asked. He was the only one in the room who didn’t know Prisha, having left before she graduated from training.
“Yes. It’s much the same as the others.”
Maggie didn’t need to see it, but Helmsley played it for Leon and Ashton who had yet to view any of the videos. It was the same as the other two she’d watched, the demands unchanging.
“Who’s the girl?” Ashton asked.
Helmsley paused the clip just before it ended, the girl’s face taking up most of the screen. “We don’t know, though I suspect she’s one of Dalca’s trafficked girls. She doesn’t appear to be there willingly.”
“And the analysts?” Leon asked. “How far are they from tracking down the filming location?”
“They’ve been working day and night, but the videos are encrypted and sent through a web of IP addresses that ping from one continent to the next. They’ll track them down, but we need time.”
Maggie leaned back in her chair. “Which is precisely what we don’t have.” All this sitting around and talking was doing little to solve the problem.
Ashton slurped the last of his tea and took his second biscuit. “So, what’s the plan?” he asked, chewing with his mouth open.
“We follow the breadcrumbs. There’s no way an operation as large as Dalca’s can carry on with their business and not leave some kind of trail.”
Maggie had tracked down people on less before, including the assassin handler Viktor Fedorov and German businessman Herman Vogel, both of whom played a role in framing Maggie just weeks ago.
“There’s no guarantee we’ll find them in time,” Leon added.
“Right now, it’s all we have.” Maggie kept her hands under the desk to refrain from reaching over to him. Something was up with him, and it wasn’t just the death of his colleagues and the close call with Yasir Osman.
“They both died under my watch,” he said. His jaw clenched as he continued to avoid eye contact with any of them. “I should have been here.”
“You were busy trying to take down Yasir,” Ashton said, though Maggie stayed quiet.
She agreed with Leon. In his new role as chief, he had no business running off on a mission. His job was to stay at headquarters and be the home base for all active agents. Maggie stole a quick glance at Helmsley to gauge her reaction, but whatever she thought about the situation, she was keeping it to herself.
A knock came on the door, breaking the building tension in the room.
“Go away,” Helmsley barked. “I asked not to be disturbed.”
“Sorry, Director General,” said a muffled voice, “only this is something you’ll want to see.”
Helmsley swore under her breath. “Come in, then, and be quick about it.”
The door opened and Tom Wilson, one of the Unit’s techs, scampered in. “Thank you, Director General, ma’am.”
Helmsley spun in her seat to face him with those hard, scrutinizing eyes of hers. “Spit it out, Wilson. We haven’t got all day.”
“Yes, of course. Well, you see, I was analyzing the last video and found something.” Wilson connected his laptop to the projector as he prattled on and brought up his desktop. “It’s quite genius, actually, and I would never have found it if I hadn’t—”
“Today, please, Wilson,” interjected Helmsley, arms crossed.
“Oh, right.” After some fumbling on his keyboard, Wilson brought up a folder on his desktop. “The latest video sent to us had another file piggybacking it. A hidden one. Nice piece of code. Anyway, it’s better if I show rather than tell you.”
Wilson clicked on the hidden file, and a new video appeared on the screen.
Like all the others, it showed the same young, petite girl as before, only this time no one from behind the camera yelled orders at her. She pulled the camera close and kept her voice to a whisper.
“My name is Tamira Kapoor. My friends used to call me Tami before I was taken. If you are watching this, I am sorry for what they have forced me to do. I did not want to say the names of those agents, and I fear they are dead now.”
There wasn’t much to see with the camera being so close, but it appeared to be filmed from the same spot as the other videos, with nothing but bare walls behind her. The camera shook under her hold, her eyes wide with fear. Yet still, a determined fire lay behind them. She bit at her lip and checked over her shoulder before continuing.
“I haven’t been here long, and I don’t know where here is. It’s all a blur, and I think I was drugged on the way. I know little, but I have to hope that someone out there sees this video and sends help. Girls come and go in a revolving door, and I don’t know how long I have left. I am one of the few girls the men don’t touch. Another like me thinks they’ve been warned not to in order to keep us ‘pure’ for potential buyers.”
Her voice wavered at those last words, but she continued on.
“Most of my captors don’t speak a language I understand, but I know they’re from Romania. One of the other girls spoke a little English before they took her away. She said she overheard the men complaining about having to go to Amsterdam again. The next day, she and a group of girls were taken away with those men, and I haven’t seen any of them since. That was a week ago.”
Maggie leaned forward on the desk. Amsterdam. If Ivan’s trade was predominantly in sex trafficking, it made sense for him to ship some of the girls there.
“If you are out there watching this, please send help,” Tamira pleaded, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I will try to learn more, but for now, I must go. Someone’s coming.”
And with that, the video ended, and the screen turned black.
Helmsley was the first to speak.
“Well done, Wilson. I want you to find all you can about this girl. Where she’s from, and how did she come to be taken by Dalca’s operation.”
“And us?” Leon asked, getting up from his seat and gritting his teeth through the pain it caused, unable to hide it, though Maggie was sure he was trying to.
“You’re staying out of this,” she said, joining him on her feet.
That stubborn look crossed his face. “You know I won’t do that.”
“You’re hurt. You have to sit this one out. Help out around here if you must, but let me and Ash handle this one.”
Leon raised his voice, losing his patience. “I am the chief of this Unit, and it is my duty to help every agent at risk. I refuse to sit back and watch while you go out risking your life yet again for all of us.”
“I quite agree with Maggie on this one,” Helmsley said, calm in her seat as she looked her newly appointed chief up and down. “In case you haven’t noticed, someone appears to have given you a right kicking.”
Leon shook the bottle of pills Ashton had given him. “They did, but thanks to these, I don’t feel a thing. You put me in charge for a reason, Director General. Please allow me to do my job.”
Helmsley studied him
for a moment before coming to a decision. “Very well. I hired you for a reason, and if you believe this is the best approach, then so be it.”
“You can’t be serious,” Maggie protested, looking to her best friend for help. Maybe he could make Leon see sense.
“Oh, I love Amsterdam!” Ashton practically squealed and pointed to the bottle of painkillers. “If you think those babies are good, Leon, wait until we get there.”
Helmsley’s patience from before seemed to have cracked as Ashton reminded her of his presence. “This isn’t some seedy lads’ holiday where you can go and get high on hash brownies and frolic around getting up to no good.”
“I don’t frolic,” Ashton retorted, seeming mortally offended by the very idea.
“You frolic a little,” said Leon, smiling for the first time since they’d saved him from Yasir’s grasp.
Ashton shot him a dagger of a look. “Traitor.”
“If you’re coming,” Maggie said, getting back to the problem at hand, “I need you to follow my lead. You’re a liability in your state, and there are too many lives at risk for you to try to be the hero. You’re injured, and if you insist on helping, you can, but on my terms.”
Leon opened his mouth to argue but instead gave her a single nod. “Fine.”
“I’ll call Craig and have him get the pilots ready,” Ashton said, ducking out of the office to make the arrangements.
“Okay, then, we leave for Amsterdam as soon as possible,” Maggie said, already going over potential ways to track down the traffickers once they landed. “Grace, please keep us updated on any progress you make.”
“Likewise,” the Director General said. “And let us hope you find Dalca’s people before any more names are released from that list.”
Chapter 15
Amsterdam, Netherlands
13 July
* * *
They booked themselves into a hotel near De Wallen, more commonly known as the Red Light District. Like always, Amsterdam was overstuffed with tourists of all kinds, from sightseers strolling through the canal-lined streets and enjoying a drink in the old-school bars, to those seeking a more “hands-on” experience of what the city had to offer.
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