The Sarajevo train station was a looming curve of glass and brick that overlooked a wide courtyard that was divided into huge decorative squares of pavement. A man bent over the rim of a large, circular fountain, drinking from one of several stone fish-heads spouting water into its center. My throat was dry, but I took a pass.
The spacious, sleek station offered another homage to thirst, this one a gigantic mural of a dehydrated cartoon train sucking Coca-Cola out of a straw. I settled for a bottle of water from one of the kiosks lining the perimeter of the main floor. There were maybe 50 or so people milling about, but no sign of Bill or Mila.
I located the arrivals board, and saw that a train from Dubrovnik had just pulled in. There were no other imminent arrivals. Hopefully, Sasha hadn’t come at an earlier time. I noted the number and rode an escalator down to the tracks. A train sat about a hundred meters ahead of me. I ducked behind a pillar and studied the clump of people gathered by the track. It wasn’t hard to spot Mila and Bill—they stood half a head taller than anyone else in the throng. They were peering at the steady stream of disembarking passengers, by now slowed to a trickle.
Something caught my eye. A man, leaning against another pillar scarcely ten feet in front of me. He held his phone aloft, and I was close enough to see Mila and Bill’s tiny heads captured on his screen. I grabbed my own phone and clicked. I only caught the back of his head. A greasy black ponytail hung down his back like a limp rope. He was wiry in build, and three or four inches shorter than me, which meant he was short.
I scrunched my head into my shoulders, lowered my eyes, and walked swiftly toward Bill and Mila, hoping to catch a closer glimpse as I moved past the other guy. A quick glance told me he was in his late twenties, or maybe older. Hard to tell. His sharp features were already grooved with deep-cut lines. Twelve feet beyond, I bent over, pretending to tie my shoelace, and noted the gun-like bulge in his right pocket.
I was planning a reverse cruise for closer study, when Mila’s voice rang out.
“Sasha!”
Farther up ahead, a tall young man stepped into Mila’s fierce hug, while Bill rocked awkwardly on his heels beside them. Jet lag must have taken over, because I found myself glancing behind to see if my sharp-faced spy was capturing the meeting with his phone. I broke a cardinal rule of surveillance.
I made eye contact.
Shit.
He jerked his phone aside, shot me a look of undiluted aggression, and bolted, heading for the escalators. Instinct took over. I tore after him.
My flying tackle brought us both down with a hard thud. He wriggled out from under me, and I grabbed a handful of greasy ponytail. He howled with pain, pulling away from me hard, and I felt like I had a mad dog on a leash. Shouts broke out around us. He twisted his head and tried to bite my wrist.
“Cut it out!” I yelled. His other hand went for the gun pocket, but I pinned his wrist to his side. A security guard ran up, pulling his gun. I had my guy in a viselike grip and was trying to wrest the phone out of his hand as he wriggled and squirmed. The situation was spinning out of control. I didn’t want to let him go, but I also didn’t want to explain to the local security why I had one of Sarajevo’s fine citizens in a chokehold. Flashing my California private detective license wasn’t likely to help.
Extreme times call for extreme versions of the truth. I pointed and bellowed, “HELP! THE PHONE!” Who was I to argue if the security guard mistakenly thought the man had stolen my cell phone? I tightened my throttlehold and the guard wrested the phone from his fist. I let go. “Thank you!” I panted, holding out my hand. He gave it over, triumphant. “Dobro! Good!” he said.
The “thief” began spouting off at the guard, and I took off running. The up escalator was broken, but I sprinted the motionless steps, two at a time. Bill was waiting at the top, Sasha and Mila behind him.
“What the fuck are you up to now, Ten? Are you trying to get us all arrested?”
Mila’s eyes flashed with fury, while Sasha settled for mildly belligerent. For the first time, I noticed that he had a companion, a slender waif hiding behind him, with haunted eyes.
Terrible eyes.
I felt sure those eyes had witnessed awful things.
“Outside. Hurry!” I pushed past them and quickly walked across the expansive waiting room. I exited the doors that led to the main street, as opposed to the open courtyard. I slowed to a less obvious pace, and worked my way along several blocks until I came to a major intersection. Only then did I stop and look behind me. Bill arrived first, then Mila. Sasha and the girl were a few yards behind them. She clutched Sasha’s upper arm with both hands.
I pulled them into a huddle. “Sorry. A guy was photographing you. I got his phone, but it was getting a little tricky back there.”
Sasha’s body came to full alert. He spoke for the first time. “We haven’t been introduced. I’m Sasha, Sasha Radovic, and this is Belma.” His English was excellent. At the sound of her name, Belma ducked behind Sasha.
“Let’s get out of here.” I flagged down a cab, Sarajevo Taxi 377. I opened the front passenger door and flashed a nice blue bill.
“Hotel Europe.” My circular motion included the others. “Can you take all of us?”
“Da.”
I climbed into the front. The other four squeezed into the back. Fifteen minutes later we were safely back inside Bill’s suite, and I could lower my shoulders.
Belma stared at the elegant sitting room. She whispered a few words.
Sasha smiled. “She says she must be dreaming.”
I felt glad. Those haunted eyes deserved to see something besides suffering.
Bill reached for the phone.
“No,” Sasha said. “Give it to me.” I made a gut decision, and handed the phone to Sasha. He moved to the sofa to sit, Belma glued to his side. He started to scroll through the photographs. Across the room, Bill retreated into sullen silence.
“Not good.”
“What is it?” Bill said. We both moved close to take a look.
“Look at this.” Sasha flicked through a series of photos. Bill and Mila greeting Sasha at the train, Mila hugging Sasha, Sasha frowning at Bill, several shots of Belma clutching Sasha’s arm. The final photograph grabbed my attention for a different reason. Not only had the man obviously made me as a fellow spy instantly, the angle of the image he captured of me, bending over to tie my shoelaces, visibly proved I both was, and seemed to somehow suddenly own, a monumental ass.
Bill lightly punched my arm. “You’re a menace,” he said, “but I’m glad you followed us. Even though I told you not to.” A hint of amusement. Bill and I had a long history of me leaping headlong into actions he’d specifically warned me against. Some traditions have sticking power.
“Sasha, can you check recent calls and see if you spot anything?” I asked.
Sasha started to tap and scroll. Belma tucked her legs under her on the sofa. She nestled her slight body into Sasha, as if seeking shelter from a dangerous world.
“How old is she?” I asked.
“Uh, thirteen,” Sasha said, distracted.
Thirteen years old.
Mila was on her own phone by the bedroom area, arguing with someone in a low, angry voice. As far as I could tell, Mila’s emotions ranged from annoyed to really annoyed.
“Almost all the calls go to either Dubrovnik, over on the coast, or to Kosovo,” Sasha said.
At the word “Dubrovnik,” the girl hissed, her body shrinking into itself. Sasha murmured to her, his voice low. She relaxed a little.
“Belma’s from Kosovo,” he said. “It’s a major supplier for human trafficking. Dubrovnik’s the port most traffickers use from there. Belma arrived two weeks ago. That’s how long it takes to desensitize the girls.”
“Desensitize?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.
“Make them compliant,” Sasha explained, his voice tight. “It’s like brainwashing, only with their bodies. That’s where we found her, in Dubrov
nik, about to be shipped across to Italy.”
“Italy?” Every answer led to more disbelief on my part.
Sasha shrugged. “Yeah, well, who’s to say where she would have ended up eventually?”
“How was she taken?”
“She wasn’t. She was sold, along with her two younger sisters.” He darted a look his mother’s way, but Mila was still on the phone, listening now, her brow furrowed. “To a couple of guys with ties to an international syndicate.”
Two younger sisters, and she was 13. I couldn’t wrap my mind around any of this. “But who sold them?”
Sasha’s voice was matter-of-fact. “Her mother.”
The air deadened, flattening the room. Those eyes.
I had to ask. “Does she know?”
Sasha shook his head. “No, and I hope she never will. She’s clinging to a pretty thin lifeline as it is.”
“How do they make the transfer without the girls knowing they got sold?” Bill asked. His eyes flicked over to Belma. “Can she understand … ?”
“Don’t worry. She doesn’t speak any English,” Sasha said. “I’m not an idiot.”
Bill opened his mouth. Closed it again.
“They grabbed the girls off the street on the way into town.” Sasha directed his words at me. “The mother sent the three of them to the market to buy food. Belma’s one of eight sisters.”
Mila ended her call and joined us.
“Who was that?” Sasha said.
“Your grandmother,” Mila answered. “She ask me to bring you and the girl to meet her imam. She says he knows how to fix all this. I say no. She screamed at me. Always the same with her and me.”
Sasha glanced down at Belma. She had fallen into a light sleep. He gently extricated his body from hers. He found an extra blanket in the closet, draped it over her body, and motioned us to the bedroom area, across the room.
Mila lowered her voice. “How this girl becomes your charge?” I heard concern. I also heard, “Son, have you lost your mind?”
Sasha turned to me once again. He seemed to be avoiding both parents. “When I was a little boy I often brought home strays. Dogs. Cats. Once a wounded crow. They caused my mother endless trouble. She thinks I’ve graduated to human strays. Like it’s a progressive disease or something.”
Bill jumped in to defend Mila. “It’s a reasonable assumption, Sasha.”
Mila touched Bill’s shoulder. “It’s okay.”
Sasha shot Mila a look. “No, it’s not. It’s none of his business.”
Bill’s second chance at life was looking pretty thorny right now. I thought of Maude’s disappointed wail, just the other day, based on unrealistic expectations: But in my mind, he bringed me something! In Bill’s mind, Sasha wanted a father.
I changed the subject. “So Sasha, how did you get from California to here, exactly?”
Sasha looked at me, as if seeing me for the first time.
“I’m sorry. And who are you, exactly?”
Mila jumped in. “He is detective, from Los Angeles. I ask him to help find you, when you disappear and we think you are there.”
Bill held off adding the obvious, his and my connection. I think Sasha had him a little cowed.
Sasha looked me over, the same piercing gaze as Mila’s. I stood easily, breathing. Finally, he nodded.
“I’ve been working on a piece called ‘Extraction.’ That’s the term traffickers use for picking up the kids they’ve bought. Last week I followed these two kids, both boys, to Los Angeles.”
“To Van Nuys Airport?”
“Where? Van Nuys? No, LAX. Some traffickers flew the little boys over with a woman, a nurse I think. I got video of her using these tiny syringes to give them injections; they slept the whole way.”
Right. This jibed with what Stephanie had told me. I shuddered, as I realized the implication of what Sasha was saying.
“What happened when they got to LAX?”
He gave a weary shrug. “I lost them, outside the airport. Then I spent three futile days trying to track them down. I had a couple of possible addresses, but that city of yours, the freeways …” He trailed off, as if still in a state of disbelief. I understood. When I moved to Los Angeles, at Sasha’s age exactly, I was overwhelmed by the scale and high-speed intensity of the roadways. It took two years of practice on surface streets before I got up the nerve to attempt a freeway.
“And then?” Bill prodded.
“I have a friend working with me on the story. She called while I was still driving around somewhere south of Los Angeles like a crazy person.”
“Wait a minute,” I asked. “Driving around in what? You’re too young to rent a car.”
Sasha’s eyes turned shifty. “I might have used a fake ID.”
“And where you get money for this?” Mila hissed. “Flying everywhere, renting cars!”
Sasha again ignored her. “Anyway, my friend asked me to come back, meet her in Dubrovnik. She’d followed Belma and her sisters to the port and wanted to do something radical.”
Mila’s eyes narrowed. “What friend?”
Sasha hesitated. Seemed to make a decision. “Her name is Audrey. Audrey Thatcher, Mother. I want you to meet her. In fact …” He glanced at his phone. “Audrey’s arriving any minute. I already texted her to come straight here.”
Mila’s eyes became suspicious slits. “Where is this Audrey from?”
“Cambridge. In England.”
“England? My God, Sasha!” She lapsed into a rapid stream of throaty Bosnian.
“Not now,” Sasha said. “We’ll talk about it later.”
My eyes cut over to Bill, who was responding to this latest drama by acting completely paralyzed. He’d blithely parachuted into unknown territory. Now he was the third player in a two-person tug-of-war that had been going on for almost 20 years. He didn’t know which end of the rope to pull on.
“None of that matters. There’s something I want all of you to see,” Sasha said. “I shot this on the train today.” He touched the screen on his phone and a video of Belma began to play. He paused it. “I asked her to tell me something about her life. She speaks a dialect that I have trouble following sometimes, but I’ll translate as best I can.”
Belma’s voice was as devastating as her eyes, a childish lilt burdened with fatigue and despair.
“She says she has always been hungry, that when she goes to sleep, no, sorry, that she tries to hurry to go to sleep each night so she can escape her hunger. The only time she can remember being full was after the men pulled her and her sisters into the van. The men had sacks of hamburgers. She and her sisters ate so many they passed out. She says she loves very much her two younger sisters.” On the screen, Belma began to cry.
Sasha paused it. “Eight girls in the family. Her mother probably decided to sell off some of the younger ones. The gangsters gave the girls doped-up hamburgers to knock them out for the journey.”
“How did she get separated from the other two?” Bill asked.
Sasha met my eyes. “It was my fault. Audrey and I decided to perform an extraction of our own.”
“Jesus!” Bill said.
Sasha shot him a get-out-of-my-face look. “What do you care?”
Bill backpedaled. “Sorry, I just. It sounds a bit impulsive, rash, that’s all.”
Sasha’s eyes swung between Mila and Bill. “Maybe rash runs in the family.”
I intervened again. “So what happened?”
“Audrey tracked them to a little hotel with one of those ground-floor restaurants. The traffickers were having dinner downstairs. Putting away a lot of vodka, you know? They’d locked the girls in a second-floor apartment, a private one, over the restaurant. Audrey kept an eye on them and I went up the outside fire escape. I popped a window with a crowbar.
“I expected them to rush to my arms, but they were terrified of me, so I had to climb inside. Finally I got Belma calmed down enough to explain what we were doing, but the little ones refused to go down
the fire escape. So I took Belma’s hand, she linked up with the two younger ones, and we headed for the stairs. I just prayed that the gangsters would be too drunk to notice.”
This was where the mission got harebrained. Bill and I met eyes. Madness.
“We were halfway down when Audrey saw us, and freaked out. One of the guys had left the table, and was headed right for us.”
“Jesus,” Bill said again.
“He ran for us. I got in a solid kick and squeezed past with Belma, but he was able to grab the two younger girls. Audrey was all over him, scratching and kicking, but he shoved her off. Then we heard the other guy yelling, so I just threw Belma over my shoulder and took off.”
“Wow,” I said.
“I was worried sick until Audrey called a few minutes later to say she was okay, she’d gotten away. She stayed on in Dubrovnik last night to enter everything, you know, update the information. I came here to meet you. End of story.”
“Quite a story,” I said. “Even for a journalist.”
“You took a lot of risks.” Bill kept his voice mild.
Mila muttered something, a criticism in any language.
“Yeah, well, I’m sick to death of writing about this stuff, pushing words around instead of actually doing something to change the situation.” He glared at Bill and me. “Forget it. You couldn’t possibly understand.”
CHAPTER 19
Audrey was a surprise. For one thing, she was closer in age to me than to Sasha. Her shoulder-length, light-brown hair was cut for both elegance and easy upkeep. The rest of her was all woman, from the strong planes of her face to the small waist and the rich contours of her hips. Through no fault of her own, she looked a lot like a younger Mila.
Was father-son karma coming around once again? I wondered how it would play out this time.
She and her expensive leather duffel had arrived moments before, and she’d hugged Sasha long and hard. Extricating herself, she took in the rest of us, clustered in the bedroom area. No fear—just curiosity. Sasha put his finger to his lips and pointed to the sleeping Belma. Audrey smiled and nodded. He led her over to us, like a prize.
The Fourth Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (A Tenzing Norbu Mystery series Book 4) Page 16
