The Fourth Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (A Tenzing Norbu Mystery series Book 4)

by Gay Hendricks

  “If …” I struggled with the phrasing, “if I should happen to encounter a victim of human trafficking in my line of work, what do I say? How should I act?”

  Stephanie’s face softened. “Just … be respectful. Here’s the thing. Whatever people might think, sexual slaves, any disenfranchised people, for that matter, don’t choose their lives. Their lives choose them.”

  Stephanie cupped her mouth. “Connor! Three minutes!”

  She turned back to me. “When a person starts from a place of scarcity and pain, when there’s no psychological or emotional foundation upon which to stand,” Stephanie’s eyes again filled. “When, as a child, you’ve never been seen, or, or valued? You’re a sitting duck. A tragedy waiting to happen. Pimps? Traffickers? They’re just filling a preexisting vacuum. And the bond that forms between the two is almost unbreakable, because even abusive, inconsistent attention is better than no attention at all. When someone finally seems to notice you? You’ll do anything for them. Anything.” She held up two fists, and started to unpeel fingers as she counted. “Connor? I’m counting to ten! ONE, TWO … So sure, you can pull them off the street, but unless you treat that gaping, underlying hole of need, they’ll run back to their pimp daddies as soon as they can. THREE, FOUR … The only way to break the cycle is to build a new foundation, and that takes time. Time, love, and genuine respect. FIVE, SIX, SEVEN, EIGHT, NINE, NINE and a HALF …”

  Connor arrived, panting and giggling, and Stephanie scooped him up into her arms. She smiled at me over his dark hair. “I like to say my job is pretty simple: to love and respect my clients until they learn to love and respect themselves.”

  Connor stretched his arms toward me. I leaned in and gave him an awkward hug.

  “Connor, you are one lucky kid,” I said into his ear.

  “Lucky!” he shouted, grinning.

  Mike was waiting for me at home. The takeout pizzas I’d picked up from our local pizzeria were still nice and hot. Mike had three slices of pepperoni and sausage, plus a Red Bull, for breakfast, and I had three slices of cheese and mushrooms, plus a Redhook, for dinner. Then we got to work.

  It took all of ten minutes to install The Onion Router. “Welcome, you are now connected to the Tor network,” the site announced in cheerful purple writing. Now I had my own desktop Vidalia browser, complete with a lavender-and-cream onion icon.

  “So what next?” I said.

  “Next is, I did a little asking around, and I got hold of some black-market Tor sites that might help you with your research. They’re on your desktop, filed under ‘lox and bagels.’ Onions. Lox and bagels, get it?”

  “Got it.”

  Mike grew serious. “Some of these URLs are fairly gnarly. NSFW, if you know what I mean.”

  I didn’t. I waited Mike out.

  “Not Suitable for Work. Jeez, Ten, plan to join the twenty-first century anytime soon?”

  “Did you check them out?”

  “Nope. Can’t go there.”

  “You? I thought you could go anywhere on the Internet.”

  “Let me rephrase, boss. It’s not that I can’t. I won’t. I know how this kinky stuff can hook you, get under your skin, so to speak. Buying and selling weed online is one thing, but sexual shit? No thank you.”

  I remembered my scalding hot shower. I knew exactly what he meant. “How much do you think the Internet plays into the sex trafficking industry?”

  “Shit, Ten, I couldn’t say. But I know it’s big business, and getting bigger all the time. Used to be you bought a sleazy ad at the back of the LA Weekly. These days, though, more and more’s done on the sly, and on the Internet. Sexting, luring, nothing’s off limits. And for every social site that bans certain personals, four more pop up on the dark web.”

  My nerve endings responded with an onset of tingling.

  “The dark web?”

  “Yeah. That’s what they call black-market URLs, and routers like Tor. The biggest is Silk Road. It’s a massively successful virtual marketplace for drugs, run by some guy who goes by the username of Dread Pirate Roberts. But the dark web is literally crawling with these sites.”

  “Dread Pirate Roberts? Seriously?”

  Mike stared at me. “Don’t tell me. You’ve never seen The Princess Bride.”

  “Umm.”

  “Dude, that may be the single saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  I ignored him. “So why don’t governments shut these illegal sites down?”

  “Because first they have to find them. No trails to follow, remember? Plus, even the money exchange is virtually untraceable now. That’s where bitcoins come in.”

  I couldn’t hold back a groan. My brain was swelling inside my skull, as if anticipating a fresh flood of geek-speak. “Mike, any chance you can explain bitcoins in twenty-five words or less?”

  “Interesting challenge. Let’s see: predetermined number of virtual, untraceable units based on mathematical formulas; value universally agreed-upon; mined by geeks; stored in anonymous wallets; survival dependent upon kindness of strangers.” He mentally counted. “Twenty-seven words. Boom.”

  “Impressive.” I thought about his description. “So you’re saying the monetary value of a bitcoin is in fact based on nothing more than an agreement that it has a monetary value?”

  “Hey, it’s not as though our entire economy doesn’t work that way. When was the last time you paid a visit to Fort Knox? Barter systems, man. I’m telling you, that’s where the future’s at.”

  It was getting late, and I still had to pack. I sent Mike home with leftover pizza and a promise that I would call him from Sarajevo if necessary. Mike’s parting words were half advice, half warning.

  “Here’s the thing, Ten. The codes may be unbreakable, but in the end, real human beings are involved. And human nature remains fallible as fuck. We can’t help ourselves, right? We just love to push the envelope, until eventually we make that one critical mistake.”

  “The voice of experience,” I said, recalling Mike’s own illicit past, and the pains I took to help him regain his footing.

  “You should know.”

  CHAPTER 15

  The morning was a mad scramble, what with last-minute instructions for Kim, a misplaced raincoat, and two chargers that hadn’t charged their machines because I’d never plugged them in. I finally called Martha from LAX, Terminal Three. I’d made it to my gate with only 20 minutes to spare, this, after waking up in Topanga Canyon before dawn. I was facing 19 hours of travel, if all went well, including a touchdown in Newark, New Jersey, a change of planes in Munich, and an arrival sometime tomorrow—or was it the day after tomorrow?—in Sarajevo. For this sacrifice of time, serenity, and knee joints, I was out several thousand dollars. My openhearted conviction around the decision to follow Bill was suffering serious contractions of regret.

  As I listened to her phone ringing, I concluded Martha Bohannon owed me, big time.

  Eventually, a small-voiced someone answered with a tentative “Hi?”

  Fifty-fifty.

  “Lola?”

  “Lola’s going potty. I’m Maude. Who is this?”

  “It’s Uncle Ten.”

  “Oh.” A whisper. “I thought you were going to be Daddy.”

  “Can I talk to your mom, please?”

  “Can’t. I said Lola’s going potty.”

  “How about your Auntie Julie?”

  “Can’t. She’s at the airport.”

  “She is? So am I!” My heart rate accelerated, and I found myself scanning the passengers around me. As if.

  “Guess what, Uncle Ten? Auntie Julie’s picking up Homer, because she’s staying for longer, and Homer misses her.”

  “Homer?”

  “Auntie Julie loves Homer. She says we will, too. Buhbye.”

  “Wait! Don’t hang up. Maude?”

  Silence.

  So Julie was still with that guy, the sommelier. What kind of lame-ass sober sommelier goes by the name of Homer?

  I call
ed right back, but was foisted onto voice mail.

  “Martha, it’s Ten. I’m on my way to Bosnia. Tell Julie …” I swallowed. “Never mind. I’ll be in touch.”

  We took off just after ten. I was traveling light: a small backpack, and a single roller-bag hastily filled with the bare necessities, minus my Wilson Combat and Microtech H.A.L.O. knife. Obviously. A thickish wallet of cash would have to serve as my munitions. Handing out money to fixers and such had worked pretty well in the past, but in this new world of bitcoinage, who knew?

  I switched off my phone and tried not to think too much about the hours and hours ahead, aloft in a series of huge tin cans packed with live cargo, Julie and her Homer canoodling somewhere far behind and below me. I had an aisle seat, and the passenger to my left, a blessedly skinny hipster with black horn-rimmed glasses and a small yin/yang tattoo on his forearm, immediately plugged into his iPod and fell asleep.

  Once in the air, I picked at my breakfast, a rubbery cheese omelet and an ice-cold bran muffin, washing both down with a weak cup of tea. I retrieved my Kindle from my backpack and waded through a number of books and articles I’d downloaded about the Bosnian War. I never like to arrive at a new place in a state of ignorance.

  The information was repetitive, and disturbing—no wonder Bill didn’t want to discuss his time in Bosnia. After five plus hours, I’d exposed myself to as many tales of genocidal brutality and global denial as one sensitive soul could tolerate, and I set my research aside with a deep sense of relief.

  I closed my eyes, intending to meditate, but my mind was quickly invaded with the haunting images of gang rape and torture, of random sniper deaths and full-scale tribal purging, of villages torn apart by warring families and former friends. When and how did these horrors start? And how could the rest of the world turn such a blind eye, allowing the atrocities to continue, not just for months, but years?

  A sour knot of judgment formed in my throat, making it difficult to swallow. While no one community was without blame, the Serbians did seem to bear the greatest responsibility for the conflict. True, their initial resistance to peaceful resolution was encouraged by one power-hungry leader, and their later push for dominance was fanned into bloodthirsty flames by another. (First Karadžić, then Milošević insisted that the Serbian people were the most disenfranchised, and therefore had the most to lose—and gain.) But the slaughter of friends and neighbors was the conscious choice of thousands. How could that happen? What was the root cause?

  I inhaled deeply, first through my mouth to address the tight twist of throat anger. Exhaled. Inhaled again, this time through the nostrils, directing the breath deep into my braced solar plexus. My belly softened.

  Let go, Ten. Allow.

  Bits of yesterday’s conversation with Stephanie floated up: Whatever people might think, sexual slaves, any disenfranchised people for that matter, don’t choose their lives. Their lives choose them.

  Any disenfranchised people.

  When you’ve never been seen or valued? You’re a sitting duck. A tragedy waiting to happen. Pimps? Traffickers? They’re just filling a preexisting vacuum.

  As are megalomaniac dictators.

  I considered a new thought: a neglected people can be as vulnerable as a neglected child. Both are vulnerable to bullies. Like the mind itself, both are easily manipulated by the planting of false expectations.

  Tito’s death. That created the vacuum. That made room for the horrors that followed.

  I followed that idea. From everything I’d just read, Tito ruled Yugoslavia with a totalitarian hand, even as he called himself a good father.

  Like my own.

  Tito’s form of dictatorship, while benign, was absolute, and kept most of his people in an immature, unformed state of dependence.

  Like me.

  When Tito died, a vacuum of authority was created, and like immature nephews squabbling over a deceased uncle’s bequest, different factions immediately began to jockey for power. Bosnia’s distinct social and religious communities, lightly stitched into one multicultural quilt, began to unravel as the tribes pulled away. Serbians, especially, grabbed for the most pieces, instead of figuring out a new way to share equally. Add to the mix a substantial influx of deadly weapons and unbridled bullies, and mass genocide was sure to follow.

  Their lives choose them.

  Was the infliction of suffering, small or large, always the byproduct of a starving heart? Were its victims destined to repeat the pattern unless and until their own hearts were healed?

  If I was born Serbian, would my own hand grasp the sniper’s gun, my own finger pull the trigger?

  Yes.

  My heart ached, the sensation sharp and unrelenting. Wherever I tossed my mind, it landed on a story of pain. I knew this state, though I hadn’t visited here for some time. I was in danger of entering into a dark, sticky tunnel, hard to escape from once inside.

  I turned to the only place I knew to go for comfort, a pure realm filled with compassion for all, and rejection of none. Including me. Om mani padme hum. Om mani padme hum.

  We circled Newark for over an hour, and I again had to dash to my next flight.

  Once I was buckled into the Lufthansa red-eye from Newark to Berlin, elbow-to-elbow with fellow travelers, I suffered through a slightly stale tuna wrap, trying to ignore the unnatural green color of the actual wrapping. I consciously avoided searching the rows for possible child traffickers. Anyway, weren’t we flying in the wrong direction for that?

  For some reason the movie channels weren’t working, and a young female flight attendant wheeled through steerage with an unexpected peace offering, probably pilfered from the wealthier realms. I waved off the temptations of a personal ice cream sundae and chocolate chip cookies; no need to expose others to the sight of an ex-monk doing aisle laps to burn off his sugar-rush.

  Instead, I retrieved my own special form of dessert—a small blue-green capsule with a lyrical name, manufactured especially for people like me. That is to say, people who have trouble sleeping on an airplane because they feel personally responsible for holding said plane aloft. The operative belief running through my head—if I clench my muscles tight enough and fill my mind with enough obsessive thoughts, the plane won’t fall out of the sky—made the act of slumber impossible. But the pill worked its wonders, and drowsiness soon seeped into my cells. I sent off a final acknowledgment to the pharmaceutical geniuses who’d concocted a capsule that would enable sleep without causing a mind-numbing hangover.

  “Sir, we’re about to land in Munich. You need to raise your seatback.” The flight attendant was shaking my shoulder.

  I lifted my eye-mask. Her smile dazzled me. Was she this pretty last night … ?

  I knew what was going on. Julie had her Homer, and I needed to even things out.

  My Munich stopover was a little under two hours. I found a generic German bakeshop, and ordered an espresso and a slice of apple strudel.

  How could Julie still be with that idiot?

  The espresso was neither hot enough nor strong enough. I sat at a small, sticky table and ate stale strudel alone. I’d so hoped for a layover in Paris, but apparently Parisians are not very interested in visiting Sarajevo.

  I make the slow walk from customs to the passenger arrival zone at Charles de Gaulle, small for my age, my head freshly shaved. I am starving. I hope I never have to go back to that place again.

  Will she be here this time?

  There she is.

  Maman! Maman!

  She takes me right to our favorite airport café for my homecoming treat, like always. She orders a pot of chocolat chaud and not un, but deux croissants, s’il vous plaît: one plain, and one almond. They arrive warm, straight from the oven, their flaky layers crisp and buttery. She fills my cup with hot chocolate and then sits back to watch.

  I dip a crisp corner into my drink. The flaky pastry sucks up dark, velvet liquid, turning the golden layers dark brown. When the soaked part is exactly the same heigh
t as my thumb, I remove the dripping croissant. I bite. The combination of softened almond pastry and warm, sweet chocolate sends my deprived taste buds into a delirious dance of joy.

  She smiles at me, happy that I am happy.

  “Welcome home, Tenzing.”

  I push away from the table, my strudel half-eaten, but not before offering an impromptu mantra of gratitude for that gift from my mother. No matter what twisted gyrations her brand of mothering caused me, that homecoming gift of hot chocolate and croissants would always be her legacy.

  Maybe not a firm foundation, but better than nothing.

  CHAPTER 16

  Kim had booked a taxi for me ahead of time. After breezing through customs—“Business or pleasure?” “Here to visit a friend.” “How long are you staying?” “Not too long. A few days.” “Enjoy our beautiful city.”—I made my way to Terminal B, where Sarajevo Taxi had an exclusive hold on anyone wanting to enter their “beautiful city” by cab. I checked my phone, but though a couple of bars registered, I couldn’t seem to receive messages or make calls. Bill would have to give me his secret code, once he got over his shock at seeing me.

  I sat outside the terminal waiting for my car to show up, riffling through a Sarajevo travel guide for English-speaking tourists. The little book proudly informed me that the metropolis I was about to visit had come in 43rd in a survey called “100 Best Cities in the World.” I pictured the department of tourism slogan: Come to Sarajevo—There Are at Least 66 Worse Places You Can Visit!

  Maybe my mood was soured by jet lag.

  The cab that pulled up was a green Mercedes, an older model coated in dust. It was topped with a perky yellow sign marked in black: Sarajevo Taxi 108.

  Every Tibetan Buddhist threngwa, or prayer rosary, including my own, is made up of 108 beads. In one of our most beloved sermons, the Lākāvatāra Sātra, the Buddha is asked 108 questions, and his answer definitively described the 108 delusions of the mind. At our temples, 108 steps lead up to the prayer hall entrances, and according to my favorite tutor, Lama Sonam, the human heart is capable of experiencing 108 feelings.