Human Traffic

by Patrick Logan

  The man’s eyes went wide and he said something in Russian that Drake didn’t understand.

  It didn’t matter.

  Instead of shooting him, Drake just leaned over and slapped him gently across the face.

  “How do you like my parking job?” he asked before leaping through the brick wall, the Russian’s Tokarev pistol in one hand, his trusty 9mm in the other.

  Chapter 50

  Veronica tried her best to stay strong; she’d seen everything, she’d done everything, she’s been a part of everything.

  Or so she’d thought.

  But this… being imprisoned in a glass box and forced to show off every square inch of her body, she felt worse than a piece of meat. She felt inorganic.

  Veronica didn’t want to give the bidders the satisfaction of seeing her cry, but she couldn’t help it. It was the sheer helplessness of the situation, and she realized that this must not have been that different from what the girls must have felt in the shipping container.

  She cried for them, too.

  “Sit on the—”

  Veronica, her face soggy with tears, looked upwards. This the first time that any of the two dozen requests had stopped mid-sentence.

  Not only that, but she felt a small tremor in the earth.

  Worried that the cattle prods would come out again, Veronica made herself small in the center of the room.

  But the command didn’t continue. And the light, which had been blinking as frequently as a strobe in any of the strip clubs that she’d started out in, had also stopped.

  Unsure of what was happening, Veronica remained as still as possible.

  A minute passed, then two. After that, time was difficult to measure; the booth was completely soundproof, and all of her senses had been muted by the shock treatment.

  When time stretched on and no further requests game, Veronica started to regain some of her former self.

  Testing the waters, she slowly stood to her full height.

  No more small doors opening, no cattle prods extending.

  No commands from the speaker above, no blinking light.

  Even though Veronica was hesitant to get her hopes up, a refrain began repeating in the back of her mind.

  Drake’s here… Drake’s here… Drake’s here… Drake’s here…

  Chapter 51

  No sooner had Drake entered the hallway than two men came rushing toward him. Their faces were masks of confusion; for all they knew, he was just a man down on his luck trying to make a dollar delivering spicy Szechuan.

  Drake went with this idea, putting the two guns behind his back.

  “Hey! What’s going on?” the closest man demanded. “Where’s Ivan?”

  “Special delivery,” Drake quipped.

  “What the—”

  Drake swung his arm out and pistol whipped him in the jaw. There was an audible ‘clack’ and several of his teeth shot out of his mouth moments before he collapsed in a heap.

  His partner, a stocking-looking man with tattoos that covered his bare arms, gaped at Drake. Then he started to pull a gun from his belt, but it got caught on something and Drake got the jump. He squeezed off two quick rounds from his own pistol. The first missed, sending shards of plaster into the air, but the other hit him directly on his left kneecap. The man screamed something in Russian, then dropped his gun to grab hold of his leg with both hands. Drake strode up to him, kicked him first in his wounded leg, which sent him falling backward, then delivered another to the side of his head.

  His own pain from the exertion was mounting now, and Drake found himself bending awkwardly to one side as he searched the hallway for a door.

  He found one just inside the opening he’d made in the wall with the van, but it required a keycard. Hearing more commotion heading his way, Drake tucked his pistol in the front of his jeans and tried the door handle.

  It wouldn’t even move in his hand.

  He cursed then continued down the hallway until he made it to a fork. He glanced left, noted the doorway at the end of this hall, and then looked right.

  And that’s when he saw the bastard from the hangar. Their eyes locked for a moment, and recognition crossed over the short man’s weathered face. Drake remembered the way he’d smirked, a cigarette dangling from his lips, his hand clutching a body bag containing one of the dead Colombian girls.

  He wasn’t smiling now.

  Drake was surprised, however, that the man was still standing considering he had taken a bullet in the hip less than two days ago.

  “Let’s see you walk away from this,” Drake said, raising the Tokarev pistol in his hand.

  He fired three shots but wasn’t prepared for the increased kick of the Russian handgun compared to his nine-millimeter: all three bullets missed.

  Despite his injury, the man turned and bolted.

  Drake’s own internal turmoil was catching up with him, as well. He hurried after the Russian, but he was well aware that his pace had slowed and that the right side of his body was no longer in sync with the left.

  And yet he pressed on.

  Drake fired two more shots, one that embedded itself in the plaster above the man’s head, while the other hit him in the shoulder. The force of the impact was enough to send him reeling forward.

  Drake sprinted wanting to take advantage of the twice-wounded man, but the Russian still had one more surprise up his sleeve. He unfurled as Drake approached, revealing a Tokarev of his own.

  “Fuck!”

  Drake lunged to his left as the man fired three rounds.

  Like Drake’s first attempts, all three of the Russian’s shots missed as well.

  But they had come close; too close. Drake felt one whiz by his ear, and his hair was filled with plaster from the other two that were embedded just above the top of his head.

  The sound was deafening in the hallway and Drake was momentarily disoriented. Thinking that he only had another second or two before the Russian took aim again, he forced himself off the wall, bringing the Tokarev up in front of his face.

  But the Russian had other ideas. He pulled a keycard from his belt and unlocked the door at the end of the hall.

  Not again, Drake thought as the man slipped through. He ran for the opening, leading with the handgun; it closed on the barrel.

  Instinct had taken over now, and Drake’s next actions barely registered in his brain. With his free hand, he grabbed the handle and pulled the door open, while at the same time shielding himself behind it.

  Several more shots rang out, but all they did was pepper the hallway.

  It was no longer just him and the squat Russian, Drake realized; he could hear shouts in different languages, with different accents coming from within the room.

  It’s now or never…

  He swung around the open door, leading with the Tokarev. His body wanted to empty the clip into the dark interior, but his mind convinced him otherwise.

  There could be girls in here. Mandy and Veronica could be in here.

  Drake pressed his back against the wall while he waited for his eyes to adjust.

  Two more bullets erupted from the darkness, one of which tore the sleeve of his sports coat. Drake immediately dropped into a crouch and tried to ascertain from which direction they’d come from.

  Only he was momentarily taken aback by what he saw.

  The interior of the hexagonal-shaped room reminded him of a Las Vegas sports book. Only, instead of having the screens one wall and chairs situated across from it, the TVs were arranged in the center. Surrounding them were booths made of some sort of semitransparent glass that ran floor to ceiling like boxed-in cubicles. Inside of each, he could make out the outline of a figure.

  His first thought was that these were the girls, but when the outline in the cubicle nearest him rose and started to bang on the glass, he knew differently.

  These weren’t the auction items, they were the buyers. And they appeared to be locked in their bidding rooms.

  Drake s
cowled and he considered filling the man with bullets from the Tokarev.

  And he might have, too, if it wasn’t for another shot that struck the wall to his left.

  This time, Drake saw where it had come from. He realized that behind the bidder booths was a narrow track that followed the circumference of the room. And while the Russian had gone right after entering, he’d gone all the way around and was now on Drake’s left.

  Drake emptied the Tokarev clip in the Russian’s direction. Several of the bullets struck the booths, but instead of shattering the glass, they made softball-sized rosettes.

  The shouts from the bidders intensified, and it took Drake a moment to figure out that they were coming from speakers embedded somewhere in the ceiling.

  But he didn’t give a shit about them; they could suffocate in there for all he cared.

  What bothered Drake was that he could no longer see the Russian.

  He tossed the spent Tokarev to the ground and pulled out his pistol. Then he started after the man, knowing that he was probably getting himself into a deadly ring around the rosy type, but no longer caring.

  He was infuriated by the idea of this auction, by what had happened to those poor Colombian girls in the container. He was enraged for Veronica and Mandy and everyone else who preceded them.

  “You better run! you better run, you asshole!” he shouted.

  There was a tinkling sound from his right and he whipped the pistol around, his finger tensing on the trigger.

  At the last second, he lowered the gun.

  “Jesus Christ!” he shouted. “What are you doing in here? Run! Run!”

  Chapter 52

  “Drake!” Veronica shouted as she hammered on the glass. “Drake!”

  Despite the booth’s soundproofing, she could hear loud bangs coming from somewhere nearby and even thought she could make out some voices.

  Veronica couldn’t tell what they were saying, but her mind filled in the blanks.

  It was Drake; it had to be him and he was yelling her name, trying to find her. Her and Mandy.

  To get them out of this fucking mess.

  Veronica took a deep breath and then started pounding her fists on the glass with renewed vigor.

  “Drake! In here! I’m in here!”

  Chapter 53

  It was just a cocktail waitress.

  The woman who had rushed toward Drake was a cocktail waitress of all things. Wearing only her bra and underwear, she was still unbelievably holding a tray of drinks in one hand.

  And Drake had nearly blown her away.

  He grabbed the waitress and shoved her behind him, the tray crashing loudly to the ground. Then he swept his gun from side to side. It was impossible for Drake to cover the waitress and both sides at once; all the Russian had to do is sneak up from the side he wasn’t looking and with just a few bullets it would be game over for the both of them.

  If only I could see through to the other side…

  Drake focused his eyes on the monitors in the center of the hexagon, trying to catch a glimpse of the Russian.

  But as he searched for the man, he found his gaze drawn to the monitors themselves.

  And his heart sunk.

  All of the screens that Drake could see showed the same thing: a naked woman standing in a room not unlike the bidder booths, bathed in a red glow. And in a strange irony, both the woman on screen and the bidders were all banging on the glass, begging to be released.

  As haunting as this image was, it wasn’t so much what the naked woman was doing, as it was the desperation in her tear-streaked features that disturbed Drake most.

  “Veronica,” he whispered. And then he started shouting. “Veronica! Veronica, I’m coming!”

  Drake desperately wanted to put a third bullet in the Russian bastard, but his vengeance would have to wait. He also wished to take out every last one of the sick bastards bidding for Veronica’s life.

  But he had a better idea.

  “Where is that room?” Drake shouted over his shoulder at the now whimpering cocktail waitress.

  “No entiendo!” she screamed back.

  Drake cursed himself for not paying attention in Spanish class and then gestured with his free hand for her to move toward the door that he’d entered.

  “Open it! Open it!” he instructed.

  There was a pause and Drake turned to look at the waitress to make sure that she understood. Evidently, she did, as the keypad beeped and turned green, but with his head turned, Drake didn’t see the Russian approach.

  He heard the shots, though, and felt a sear of pain shoot up his right calf.

  Drake whipped around and fired blindly into the darkness, but his bullets only embedded in the bulletproof glass.

  The Russian was gone again.

  Gritting his teeth against the pain, Drake backed out the door, following after the waitress.

  Once in the hallway, he slammed the door closed behind them.

  “Te dispararon,” the waitress said, her wide eyes drifting to his right calf.

  “No shit,” Drake grumbled, but he didn’t have time to assess his wound. Because he’d managed to hobble out of the viewing room, it couldn’t be too serious.

  Or maybe it was.

  In the end, it didn’t matter. What mattered was getting Veronica and Mandy out of this hell hole.

  He gestured for the woman to back up and then squeezed off a single round.

  The keypad beside the door exploded in a shower of sparks and as he’d expected, Drake heard a deadbolt automatically slide into place. Just make sure, he grabbed the handle and pulled.

  It didn’t budge.

  “I hope you all suffocate in there,” he whispered.

  Satisfied that neither the Russian bastard or the auction bidders would be able to get out, Drake turned back to the waitress.

  “The woman in the box with the red light,” he said, trying to speak as clearly as possible. “Do you know where she is? Do you know I can find her?”

  The waitress shrugged and shook her head, but Drake didn’t know if this was because she didn’t understand or because she didn’t know where Veronica was.

  “Okay, okay, you run,” he said, pointing down the long hallway that led to the busted brick wall.

  This, the waitress appeared to understand. As she turned, Drake reached out and snatched the keycard from that dangled from her hip. The waitress didn’t seem to notice; she was already sprinting down the hallway.

  “Run! Rápido! Rápido!”

  Drake, his leg now soaked with blood as well as beer and spicy Asian soup, hobbled after her, but instead of making his way toward the van still embedded in the brick wall, he continued straight.

  There was a single door at the end of this hallway, and he knew that that was where Veronica must be held.

  Gritting his teeth against the agony in his side and leg, Drake scanned the waitress’s card on the keypad and pulled the door wide, leading with his pistol.

  Chapter 54

  The first thing that Drake saw was the girl, only it wasn’t Veronica.

  She was nude, sitting on the edge of the bed with her back to the door. And yet, Drake thought he recognized her long blond hair.

  “Mandy?”

  The woman turned, and he realized that it was indeed Mandy.

  The second thing Drake saw was the man sitting on the bed beside her. Like Mandy, his back was also facing the door.

  But it was what was on his back that gave Drake pause: a massive black and white tattoo that ran from between his shoulder blades to the small of his back. It was an incredibly detailed depiction of a Cobra with a photorealistic eyeball in its mouth. It was the symbol for ANGUIS Holdings and similar to the one that Raul had on his forearm and the one on the sign for the Church of Liberation in Colombia, all those years ago.

  “Mandy,” Drake repeated, and this time the man his head.

  He had a thick black beard and shortly cropped hair that was graying at the temples. Even though
Drake had never seen a picture of the man, he knew without a doubt who this person was.