Choosers of the Slain

by John Ringo

Mike set the hammer down and walked over to where the intel specialist was holding the PDA up.

  "I've hotsynched it," Vanner said, unplugging the cord. "We've got the whole thing. Including his list of clients and who bought what girl, etcetera. But you've got to see this."

  Mike picked up the PDA and looked at the picture. Then he walked back over and opened up the folder, pulling out the pic of the girl on the beach.

  They were identical. And there was more than one. Most of the rest were of the same girl, without the bathing suit.

  "Nice tits," Mike said. "We've got what we want. Close it down and call in the clean-up team."

  * * *

  "Penny for your thoughts, Mike?" Adams said.

  They'd made it from Chisinau to Vatra Dornei in one day by hard travelling. The crossing at Gotesti had been guarded but they'd gotten through that by slipping the appropriate amount of klei to the guards.

  Once in Romania they'd gotten on National Route 17, which would have just about been an adequate to a poorly maintained county road in a poor county in the states, and made the best time they could, ignoring the potholes to the extent they could. By just after dusk they'd made it to Saratel, short of Cluj-Napoca but not by much. However, that was the area that Pasha had reported had roadblocks so Mike decided to settle in at a small hotel that generally catered to Transylvanian tourists and move on the next day.

  He set the bottle of beer on his stomach and considered the chief's question.

  "Well, I'm wondering if we weighted the body enough," Mike admitted. "I think a couple more concrete blocks would have been a good idea."

  "He'll stay down long enough," Adams said, shrugging. "And it's not like they're going to be looking at us. He had a lot of enemies. We were barely on his radar horizon."

  "And I'm wondering what the hell I'm going to do with whatsername," Mike admitted.

  "You mean Oksana?" Adams asked. "Nice girl. She can ride on my lap the rest of the way."

  "I mean long term," Mike replied. "The same problems apply to her that apply to all the other waifs I've been picking up. I need to find a boarding school in Argentina or something that will start taking them in."

  "Worry about that after the mission's over," Adams suggested.

  "Good point," Mike said, frowning and taking a pull off the beer. "And I'm wondering just what the fuck we're really chasing."

  "Ah, now we get to the source of your angstiness, Great Leader," Adams said. "You got another one of those?"

  "Cooler," Mike said. "There are three bits of information to sort. What we were told. What we know is true. And what we know about the overall situation. We were told that the girl was a dependent of a rich constituent. That is, almost certainly, a lie. If she was, when she got into that crap she would have screamed bloody murder about how they could make more money off of her from her father. And Yuri was pretty damned sure that she wasn't an American. When he was begging for his life, he added that she didn't even speak English, only Russian. So ..."

  "So, she's not what the fine senator told you," Adams said, belching. "We're still going to find her, right?"

  "Oh, yeah," Mike said. "For one thing, there's a rich senator who owes me one huge fucking favor for sending me on a wild goose chase when I could be fucking my harem. And for another, this has already cost like crazy. He's in for the five mil or we'll be committing crimes against the peace in the Continental United States. I'm wondering why we're really here."

  "Well, we know the senator really wants to find her," Adams pointed out.

  "Do we?" Mike said. "Or are we just being diverted from something else? Is the senator, for example, running a scam with the Chechens to get us out of the valley so we can get hit while the team is gone?"

  "Pretty unlikely," Adams said, frowning. "I don't know what they could use as payment to the senator and so we're gone? The other five teams are still there. And Nielson's running the store. That one doesn't wash."

  "I'm brainstorming," Mike pointed out. "First you come up with the ideas. Later you knock them down. Okay, that one wasn't so great. But why? And if he does want her found, why? And why me?"

  "You can find her and are imminently deniable," Adams pointed out. "How many people could testify that they saw you and the senator together? And nobody but the two of you know what was said in the room."

  "The secret service guys saw us meet," Mike said. "On the other hand, I don't know they're service. And that guy on the Moldava desk."

  "And you know he exists?" Adams asked.

  "Ouch," Mike said, grimacing. "Nope."

  "Something for Vanner to research," the chief said. "And one more thing."

  "Go," Mike said.

  "Who besides Nielson is briefed in and not on the op?" Adams asked.

  "Nobody," Mike said, frowning. "Why? You think somebody's going to try to clean us up? Good luck."

  "There's always poison, but no," Adams said. "I was wondering who could be broken free to go have a chat with your friends in Washington."

  "No one," Mike admitted. "But good point. At this point we're in fuck-up zone. I'll put Sawn on it. I can spare him. We're really running the team and he can think on his feet. Time to cover our ass."

  "Or somebody's anyway," Adams said. "I'm pretty sure we're going to end up getting fucked somehow."

  "Or somebody will," Mike said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Timisoara turned out to be a fairly interesting place, for a Romanian city.

  Much more Western in design and feel than the other towns they'd passed through, Timisoara had a rich history. The fertile bottomland around the river Timis had attracted settlement as early as 200 BC. Subsequently, the area had been held successively by the Dacians, the first known settlers, the Romans, the Magyar, the Ottomans, the Hapsburgs and every other notable group in Eastern Europe's history. Burned to the ground by the Mongols, burned again when retaken from the Ottomans, who had made it a central military repository and armory, it was rebuilt for the last time by the Hapsburgs and still retained their baroque influence. It was that influence, to a large degree, that set it off from other Romanian towns.

  The reasons it had been fought over so often were apparent. The Timis river gave it easy navigation and it had close ties to the various mines in the Transylvanian region. With a strong road and rail network, it was one of the vital strategic points in the area called the Banat with links to Hungary, and thus the West, and Serbia to the Balkans.

  The same reasons that every major conqueror had captured or destroyed it now made it a central way-point for the transport of nubile flesh.

  Smegnoff's helpful PDA had listed the buyer of Natalya as one Nicu Gogasa, a man with whom he'd done extensive business. There was even a pic of Gogasa sitting in the Café Arrenica with the late and unlamented Yuri, both of them with young, lightly dressed females sitting on their laps. They were clearly good buddies. Nicu was much slighter than Yuri and better, even flashily, dressed. He looked more like a mildly successful American pimp than a mafia thug. There were contact numbers including cell, a PO box for mail, and a physical address: the Club Dracul. They even had a website that included a map.

  Many Romanian official records turned out to be on the internet. From these, with the sometimes problematic assistance of an online translator, Vanner had been able to determine that Nicu Gogasa was listed as the sole owner of the Club Dracul. Mike found it unlikely that he was really the sole owner. He looked far too flashy. Clubs were a great place to wash money, so the mob was probably a silent backer. But it meant he was probably going to be around the club.

  So it was in this happy state of mind of having all the initial intel he needed that Mike pulled up in front of the Club Dracul in the company of Russell. The former Marine barely fit in the rented Fiat, which just made Mike all warm inside.

  The first thing to make him pause was the security. Two guys in battle dress, both damned near Russell's size, were guarding the door, while a third bouncer in a T-shirt that reve
aled bulging muscles was sweeping for weapons.

  The second thing was the line, which stretched down the block.

  "Mr. Gogasa is apparently making money," Mike said as they cruised past the entrance looking for parking. "Law Level Nine protocols."

  "Crap, I hate those," Russell muttered, reaching under his jacket and beginning to divest himself of weapons. It took a while.

  "Alpha Team," Mike said, keying his mike with his voice. "Law Level Nine zone. Battle armor. Probable heavy weapons."

  "Great," Adams growled back. "Try not to start a free-fire."

  Mike finally found a parking space in a for-pay lot and headed down towards the line for the club.

  "Your motivation is I'm important and you're my muscle," Mike said over his shoulder as he walked past the line, reaching in his pocket.

  "Your motivation is to get us out of this fucker alive," Russell replied.

  The bouncers in armor eyed both of them as they approached the front of the line but it was the sweeper that waved them to a stop.

  "I understand there's a cover," Mike said, flicking a folded hundred euro note up where it could be seen over his thumb.

  "That covers it," the bouncer growled in accented English. He took the bill, but still insisted on sweeping them. Mike wasn't as sorry about leaving the weapons behind as he was about the radios and cameras.

  The line skipped, the two of them walked in, paid their real cover of seven hundred and twenty-five thousand lei, or about ten euros, got their hands stamped and walked through the doors.

  Romanians considered the popular Western image of "Count Dracula" as an insult. "Dracul" translated as "Dragon" and was the name of an ancient order of Romanian knights, the equivalent of being named to the Order of the Garter. Vlad Tepes was, in fact, a defender of Romania against incursions by the Ottoman Empire and was celebrated in Romania not as a blood-drinking monster but as a strong and willful leader of the anti-Ottoman forces, a sort of fifteenth century George Washington.

  The fact that he occasionally ate his dinner while surrounded by hanged bodies was politely overlooked.

  The Club Dracul, however, bowed to the Western tradition. It was more Gothic than most Goth clubs in the states, with coffins on the walls and ankhs being the primary symbol. The waitresses were dressed in long flowing gowns, slit down to their navels in the front and up to their waists on the side, and wore heavy black eye shadow and lipstick. The pointed teeth on many of them came as something of a shock, though, even to Mike who had spent plenty of time in Goth clubs in the States.

  Unsurprisingly, the club was dark as hell. There were three elevated dance floors, each with a girl or girls up on them wearing from very little to nothing at all, and two floor-level dancing areas. These were crowded with both males and females. The Romanians clearly believed in combining regular dancing with strip. For that matter, as he was checking out the environment Mike saw one of the girls he'd pegged as a patron get up on the platform and start making out with the dancer while slowly stripping.

  "Okay," Mike said. "I think this is my kind of place."

  "What?" Russell shouted over the heavy European industrial-dance music booming from speakers set all around the periphery.

  "Let's get a drink and pace!" Mike replied.

  "Special dance, sir?" a nearly naked brunette asked, rubbing up against Russell.

  "Maybe later," Russell replied, looking around.

  "Grab her while you can," Mike said over his shoulder.

  "Here," Russell said, handing her some cash. "Walk with us."

  "We want someplace out of the way," Mike shouted at the girl as they walked to the bar. "But where we can watch!"

  "I no speak English," the girl replied. "You wanna good time? I not expensive."

  "She speaks enough English," Russell shouted.

  "Is it just me, or would a firefight be quieter?" Mike screamed back. He was definitely going to be hoarse by the end of this evening

  "Much!" Russell yelled back.

  They got their drinks, and a "pay-me" drink for the brunette, then circulated as the girl continued to try to scam Russell out of all his spare change.

  "Eleven o'clock," Russell yelled.

  Mike looked left and got a glimpse of the tango. Nicu was near the back of the club at a semicircular banquette. He had a girl on either side, then a couple of guys that Mike pegged as friends or business acquaintances. There were a few more girls scattered around but most of the people in the immediate vicinity were muscle.

  There had been more muscle scattered around the room but it was definitely concentrated in the vicinity of Nicu. And the muscle around him was as heavily armored as the bouncers out front. And more heavily armed. One of them was toting a Czech Skorpion 9mm SMG on friction straps.

  Mike got all that in one quick glance then spotted a table where they could keep an eye on the tango and the floor.

  When they were in posession of the table, Mike leaned over to Russell.

  "Go lay the bitch and check out the security in the rooms," Mike said as quietly as he could under the circumstances.

  "Will do," Russell said, taking one of her upper arms in a hamlike fist.

  "He be very good to you!" Mike yelled to the hooker as they walked away.

  "You be good to me?" a female voice near by his ear.

  Mike turned to look into an exquisite pair of nearly black eyes. Very shapely. So was the rest of the body when he got his eyes off of hers. And he could see that plainly because every stitch she had on was see-through.

  "Maybe," Mike yelled back. "You sit and talk. I pay."

  "Okay," the girl yelled back. "I speak English."

  "So what the fuck are you doing in a place like this?" Mike asked, looking around for a waitress.

  "Making money," the girl replied with a laugh. "You want drink? I get."

  "Only one for you," Mike said, pulling out a twenty euro note and handing it to her. "Get something real for yourself and come back! There's more where that came from."

  "I will," the girl said, eeling away through the crowd.

  When she got back, with a real honest-to-God energy drink, she handed him the change.

  "Yours," Mike yelled. "And here," he continued, handing over another twenty. "That means you stay with me for an hour."

  "Twenty minutes," the girl replied, tucking the the money into her G-string. "Twenty minutes, twenty euros. You want blow? You want fuck?"

  "How much?" Mike asked.

  "Twenty minutes, twenty euros," the girl yelled back, laughing.

  "What's your name, girl who laughs?" Mike asked.

  "Nikki."

  "Sure it is," Mike replied, shaking her hand. "I'm Mike."

  "Sure it is!"

  "Nice club," Mike yelled back, looking around.

  "Is only good dance club in Timisoara," Nikki yelled back. "All others closed. Government shut them down. Said they were illegal brothels!"

  "So is this," Mike pointed out.

  "You noticed!" Nikki said, laughing again. Very merry eyes. "See man in corner?"

  "There's a bunch of them," Mike pointed out.

  "Silk suit, silk shirt, open at collar, gold chain, Tanya and Svetlana feeling him under table?"

  "Got it," Mike yelled.

  "Nicu Gogasa. Owns club. Says he owns club, anyway. Twenty euros, twenty minutes. Fifteen to him, five to me. And all of the five goes to pay off my 'debt' for when he bought me from the man who raped me. Or to food or my clothes that I don't even want."

  "That sucks," Mike said, distantly. It was clear he wasn't really listening.

  "Very," Nikki said, her face suddenly hard. "But all other clubs, close by government."

  "Somebody's got the ear of the government," Mike said, looking around.

  "Club is owned by Albanians," Nikki said, turning sideways and spitting on the ground in a most unladylike fashion. "Run whores through here. Bring them in from all over. Then they go away."

  "When are you going to go away?"
Mike asked, looking at her darkly.

  "Soon," Nikki said, no longer laughing. "Club always have new girls. That what makes it best in town. Would leave if I could. Can't."

  "No papers," Mike said. "Where are you from?"

  "Belarus," Nikki said. "You know story, right? You been in clubs like this, yes?"

  "Many times," Mike said with a nod. "Was it a waitressing job in Italy?"

  "Taking care of kids in Belgium," Nikki said sadly. "I was looking forward to it."

  "Things suck all over," Mike replied.

  "Seem like nice guy," Nikki said. "Like boyfriend I had in Belarus. Why you go to clubs like this?"

  "To meet pretty girls like you," Mike said.

  "No," Nikki said. "Eyes are wrong. Not watching girls, watching men. Not gay ones. The breakers."

  "Bouncers," Mike corrected automatically.

  "That too," Nikki said, reaching out and turning his face to her. "And breakers."

  "Gotcha," Mike replied. "Good work if you can get it."

  "You think?" Nikki asked angrily.

  "What would you say if I told you I was shopping?" Mike asked, turning to look out at the floor again.

  There was a pause and he looked over at the girl.

  "I'd say maybe," Nikki admitted. "Is that what you do?"

  "Maybe," Mike said. "How much for you?"

  "To buy?" Nikki asked angrily. "You think you can just buy like so much vodka?"

  "If I walked over to whatsisname and offered him five grand euros, what do you think he'd say?" Mike asked, turning to look at her again.

  "I think your twenty minutes are up, that's what I think," Nikki said, turning away.

  "I don't," Mike said, grabbing her arm. "Sit and talk. You've got five more minutes. Don't make me take it up with the management."

  "You would," Nikki said, sitting down and crossing her arms in front of her chest.

  "Let me put it this way, would you rather stay and take your chances with the Albanians or with me?" Mike asked, turning at movement and realizing it was Russell coming back through the crowd.

  "I think the Albanians," Nikki spat.

  "Bad bet," Mike said as Russell sat down. "Well?"

  "Wired to the max," Russell replied. "Camera and probably sound."