by Steve Lee
“You can do that?”
“You can if you’ve got four months to spend on an ashram in India.”
“And that’s where you learned about your switch?”
“No, that was five months on a mountain in China.”
Tess had spent the best part of a year learning to use her mind with the same disciplined fluidity with which she used her body. But it still wasn’t easy. Strangely, inner calmness required tremendous struggle.
Puffing out her cheeks, Elena blew out a breath. “Is there nothing you haven’t done?”
Standing behind a bald man in a dark suit talking Polish on his phone, they joined a line of people waiting at the gate as airline staff checked boarding passes one by one.
Tess rubbed her chin. She didn’t want to build up her friend’s hopes, but… “You know, some of the meditation and self-hypnosis techniques I’ve learned can help with illnesses.”
Elena forced a smile. Tess knew what she was thinking.
“Twenty years ago,” Tess said, “Western doctors thought alternative medicine was complete bull. Now it’s practiced in half the hospitals in the US. You might be surprised at what my methods can do.”
Elena waved a hand at Tess. “Thank you, but I doubt anything can help now.”
“So why are you going to England? I thought it was for some kind of special treatment.”
“Compared to the Romanian health service, any treatment is special treatment. Unless you’ve got the money to bribe the doctors to get what you need, of course.”
“What?” Tess said, stunned. “You have to bribe your doctors?”
“It’s not their fault. They have to bribe their management to get promotions. And it’s not like they get paid a lot to start with.”
“So doctors aren’t valued?”
“Catalina was paid around two hundred dollars per month. Is that valued?” Elena said.
“Whoa, Cat is a doctor?”
“Didn’t I say?”
“No,” said Tess. “Jesus, two hundred bucks a month?” She shook her head. “Hell.”
“That’s why we were going to England.”
“So it’s not to get you treatment?”
“Making Cat believe it was was the only way I could convince her to go. You see, no matter how grown-up they are, you always want the best for your children, and I wanted her to have the life she deserved.”
Tess hung her head. When she looked up, she said, “So there’s really nothing they can do?”
Elena smiled the saddest smile Tess had ever seen.
Parents sacrificed for their children. Constantly. Tess witnessed it everywhere she went. Children never appreciated just how much until they grew up and had kids of their own. But to leave your home, and all your friends and relatives, to die in a strange country so you could try to give your child a better future… Man, that was one hell of an act of love.
Tess and Elena both showed their boarding passes at the gate and were ushered into the cream-colored air bridge. Its floor gave slightly as Tess walked on it.
Tess never accepted defeat – she would not let Elena either. “You know, my techniques really might help.”
“Maybe for some things.”
“You’ve seen what I can do. That’s not just a physical thing, you know – there’s a huge mental aspect. I couldn’t do what I do without training my mind as much as I’ve trained my body.”
They rounded a bend in the air bridge and the open aircraft door came into sight.
Elena grabbed Tess’s arm. “Can your techniques do anything for a fear of flying?”
“You don’t like flying?”
Elena shot her a sideways glance.
“So what do you usually do? Take sedatives?”
“Usually? Do you think I’d be doing this if Cat’s life didn’t depend on it?”
As they neared the doorway, Elena glared at the plane, her face even more drawn than usual. “Oh, God… Oh, God.”
Tess put her arm around her. “It’s okay. I’m here.”
As she stepped over the threshold into the plane, Elena muttered in Romanian and gripped Tess’s arm, sinking her fingernails into the flesh.
Tottering down the aisle between the seats, Elena said, “Oh God, Cat will never believe I’ve done this.”
Tess guided her into her seat. The easiest way to help Elena was to distract her. Sitting beside her, she took out her phone.
“I’m going to take a photo for you to show Cat that you managed to get on a plane.”
“Then you better take it quick,” Elena said, “because we haven’t taken off yet and that door is still open.”
Tess laughed, though the look on Elena’s face suggested it wasn’t a joke.
Tess held her phone up and took a selfie of them both, then showed it to Elena.
Elena cracked a smile as feeble as she was. “But Cat still won’t believe it.”
“I could teach you a meditation technique to take your mind off flying, if you like,” Tess said.
Patting Tess’s arm, Elena said, “If you don’t mind, I’d rather just shut my eyes and try to sleep through the whole thing.”
Tess could help Elena. And not just with the flight. When this was over and they had Cat back, she’d teach Elena some of the techniques she’d mastered and make sure Cat forced her to practice them. They wouldn’t cure her, but they would make what time she had left more pleasant. And might even extend it.
With her eyes still shut, Elena said, “It’s very freeing, you know, knowing what’s going to kill you and roughly when it’s going to do it. I’m lucky in a way. I bet there’s no one else on this plane who knows what’s in store for them, but I bet every single one worries about it from time to time. We all get so wound up about life, about what to do, what not to do, about what might happen, what might not happen, and yet, ninety-nine percent of it doesn’t truly matter one scrap.”
Without looking, Elena patted Tess’s thigh. “Thank you, Tess. I never imagined anyone would care so much about a complete stranger to do what you’re doing.”
“You’re welcome.”
Could someone with a terminal illness be lucky? Maybe. Elena was right – it would be very freeing.
Tess fastened her belt and sank back into her seat. It was only a short flight, but it would be nearly an hour in which she could meditate to recharge her batteries. She closed her eyes, but couldn’t settle – the conversation they’d had at the gate about how she did what she did clawed at her, like a child picking at a scab.
Tess wasn’t a killer. In just the same way that breastfeeding a child or banging a guy couldn’t define her, so neither could ending someone. A single word could never encompass what she brought to the world. Let alone what she had to sacrifice to do it.
No, she wasn’t a killer. She was a woman doing what was right for no other reason than because she could. A woman with a switch. A woman who made the world a better place.
But in Gdansk, when she flipped that switch again, how many people would die?
Chapter 18
Speeding through Gdansk in the back of a taxi, Tess twisted her bulletproof vest back into position, it having ridden up under her clothes. She’d put it on in the airport restroom, once her backpack had finally appeared on the luggage carousel. In a little over an hour, the ship would sail to God knew where, and any chance of finding Cat would be lost forever.
Twisting her left forearm guard into place, she peered out of her taxi window.
A cream-and-red tram rattled past down the middle of the road heading into the center of Gdansk. They passed a gas station and more scrub land came into view. In the distance, silhouetted by the moon, massive cranes reared into the night sky like the skeletons of giant dinosaurs.
She’d have liked to have toured Gdansk, the birthplace of Solidarity. The struggle of a group of people fighting for the oppressed resonated with her. That movement had helped to free Poland from the communist dictatorship of Moscow and sparked the end of
the Eastern Bloc. She’d never have impact on a global scale like that, but by helping people like Elena, she changed the world in her own way.
The taxi stopped at the main entrance to Gdansk’s smallest port. Did the traffickers believe a small port would attract less scrutiny than a big one? If they did and they were right, that could help in the rescue too – security might not be so tight.
Tess clambered out of the taxi.
If she had been alone, she’d have sneaked into the port, just a shadow lost in the darkness. But she couldn’t. Elena could never scale a wall or worm her way under a wire fence.
Tess had thought about leaving her in a nearby café or hotel. Somewhere safe. But if Cat and the other women weren’t being guarded, maybe Elena could simply explain things to the crew and get the job done without Tess having to strike a single blow. It was a nice idea. And there was a chance it might actually happen. But Tess wouldn’t be removing her bulletproof vest anytime soon.
A security barrier blocked the road. They sauntered over to a small, one-story white building with a red roof, light coming from its road-facing window. A big-nosed guard slid open part of the window and peered out from behind a computer monitor.
He and Elena chatted in Polish.
The conversation ended abruptly, when he shook his head and looked back to his monitor while sliding the window shut again.
Tess stuck a roll of notes in the gap to stop the window shutting. With the rest of Michal’s money, her emergency stash, and the extra five hundred dollars she’d withdrawn in Krakow airport, she had just shy of a thousand bucks. Not a vast sum. In the West. In the East? The average worker had to toil for months to get such an amount.
The guard looked up to check what was blocking his window. His gaze jumped from Elena to Tess to the money, then back to the monitor.
Without taking his gaze from the monitor, the guard snatched the money and then shut the window.
Elena looked at Tess. Tess shooed her on into to the port.
They scurried in.
Elena pointed to her right. “He said it’s docked over there.”
Keeping Elena behind her, Tess clung to the shadows of a field of shipping containers as tall as a Manhattan apartment building and as long as a city block. How far back it went, Tess had no idea, but she prayed the container holding Cat was already onboard the ship – they’d never find it on their own if it was still on land.
Skulking through the darkness, Tess crept around the corner of a red container. A ship lurked in the gloom. Emblazoned across its stern was the name: Baltic Empress. They’d found it.
Tess pinned herself to the container as Elena crept around and joined her.
Tess took out her phone. She studied the photos she’d copied from Facebook, so that if she saw the men, she’d recognize them.
Putting her phone away, Tess said, “Stay here. If it’s safe and I need you, I’ll come for you.”
Elena panted for breath and her hands trembled. “But I can help.”
“No. You know what I might have to do. I can’t worry about you and do that at the same time.”
“But—”
“No.” Tess gripped her arm. “Listen to me, you have to stay here. The priority is me finding Cat, not me worrying about protecting you. Do you understand?”
“Okay. Yes, you’re right.”
“You’re sure you’ve got that.” Tess couldn’t risk being pulled in two directions at once when she needed to focus solely on one objective: rescuing Cat.
Elena nodded forcefully. “Yes, I’m staying here.”
Still holding the lady’s arm, Tess squeezed it gently. “If I can, I’ll bring Cat back to you.”
Tess disappeared around the corner, hugging the wall of the container so light from the ship didn’t silhouette her out in the open.
Prowling through the darkness, she used her breathing technique to temper her fear and adrenaline levels. It was the only way she would stand a chance of surviving the next ten minutes.
The ship was the biggest vessel she’d ever seen close up, with containers stacked five high on its deck and more in the hold. A gangplank climbed up from the dock to the massive structure in the stern that housed the bridge, crew quarters and such.
On the dockside end of the gangplank, a shape lurked in the darkness. It was a man, because every few seconds, a small glowing red dot moved from being just a few feet off the floor to being higher up – he was smoking. Maybe it was normal to post guards to protect ships from stowaways or the theft of cargo. Or maybe it was confirmation that traffickers were using this ship and they wanted to ensure their precious cargo went undisturbed.
She slunk closer, constantly scanning for threats. She would have to break from the cover of the shadows at some point. When she did, the guard would see her. No question. But in the darkness, would she be able to tell if it was one of the men responsible for taking Cat or not?
She’d have to get close. Have to get close enough to have a good look without being drawn into direct conflict. How could she do that? It was around twenty yards from her shadows to the dockside. No matter how fast she ran, she could never cover so much ground before he saw her and raised the alarm.
Almost drawing level with the ship’s stern, she’d have to break cover any moment, but still couldn’t identify the guard or figure how to get up the gangplank unseen.
Inspiration flashed a smirk across her face for the briefest of moments.
As if enjoying an afternoon in the park, Tess strolled out of the shadows. Her muscles twitched with nervous energy. Oh God, she hated this moment – those seconds leading up to combat. The uncertainty, the waiting, the doubts. Absolute hell. Only a fool wouldn’t be afraid and anxious. Her heart pounded so hard she imagined if someone was standing in front of her, they’d see her chest jerking rhythmically. Only the calm reasoning of her mind pushed her on and prevented her from following her instinct to run far, far away from this hellish place.
As she walked across the dockside access road, light from the ship illuminated her more and more.
She swallowed hard. Game time. Again.
She called out. “Przepraszam.”
There was no point in being unseen when being seen could deliver far more satisfying results.
The dark shape at the end of the gangplank turned in her direction and moved toward her. He shouted in Polish.
Tess replied with the single phrase she’d used most often in all her time in the country. “Przepraszam. Er, toaleta? Gdzie?”
A pretty foreigner using broken Polish to ask for the nearest toilet wouldn’t raise any flags, but merely imply she was as stupid as she was pretty and had gotten lost. She hoped.
He marched toward her, pointing and spouting Polish. Now in the shade of the ship’s hull, however, she still couldn’t see if it was one of the men she was hunting. But the shadows did have benefits – no one on the deck could see her without purposefully looking over and shining a light down.
Within striking range, Tess waved as if greeting someone behind him up on the deck. “Oh, dzien dobry, Piotr.”
He turned and looked up, presenting his jaw as if begging to be punched on it. Many a professional boxing match was won by a direct shot to the jaw. It was one of the surest ways to get a knockout there was.
Tess smashed a massive right hook into the guy’s face.
He twirled around and flopped to the ground face first. He didn’t move.
Tess arched an eyebrow. If only all her adversaries went down so easily.
For just a second, she used her phone as a flashlight to check if he was one of the guys she was hunting. He wasn’t.
Tess slunk over to the gangplank and crept up the long run of steps which climbed twenty feet or more up the side of the hull. Near the top, she crouched just below deck level and then peeped over.
Deserted.
Time to board the ship.
Time to save Cat.
Time to demand retribution.
&nb
sp; Chapter 19
Like a ghost, Tess crept along the gangway. So quiet. So fluid. Almost floating.
She stole her way forward, hugging the metal wall to her right, toward the storage area which consumed the ship from its middle right up to its bow. The ship’s skeleton of red-painted steel columns, beams and buttresses dwarfed her.
Hugging the shadows, she stopped and peeled her left glove away from her wrist. Across the skin, she’d noted the container number they’d obtained from the laptop – GDXU 6664219. That was easy – just look for a number beginning 666.
She stepped forward again.
A crewman walked out of an open door right in front of her. He jumped at seeing her.
Before he had time to do anything but gawk at her, she slammed a front kick into his gut.
He doubled over, groaning as though he was going to throw up.
Tess grabbed him around his neck.
Locked her arms.
Squeezed.
Should she cut off his blood supply to render him unconscious, or cut off his air supply to kill him? She tightened her hold.
He flailed and bucked. Raked her steel-clad forearms. Fought for air, his breath rasping and guttural.
But she had him tight.
She squeezed.
Tess would not leave a piece-of-scum trafficker still breathing, but she didn’t want to kill an innocent man, either. She hadn’t seen him on Facebook so he could be only a crewman.
The man’s clawing hands dropped and his weight sank into her arms.
She let him collapse to the green-painted deck. Still breathing. But his mind as black and empty as the night sky.
After hauling him away, she stuffed him into a shadowed alcove created by the ship’s infrastructure, where a row of hefty buttresses helped the ship bear the incredible weight of thousands of tons of cargo.
The crewman hidden, Tess prowled onto the open deck toward a wall of containers stacked lengthwise along the vessel, as tall as an apartment building. The wall of yellow, red, blue, white, and brown metal bricks looked like a modernist work of art.
