“Agent Pritchett,” the man said, extending a hand and welcoming them into the air-conditioned vehicle. “I’m special agent in charge of the Atlanta field office.”
“Pleasure,” Thomas replied, looking around.
The command center was staffed by half a dozen agents and outfitted with a dizzying array of electronics, laptops, and flat-screen monitors. Everyone was extremely busy, but most made an attempt to acknowledge the newcomers.
“It’s a home away from home,” said Pritchett. He gestured at a man sitting nearest to the door. “Meet Special Agent DeFoe, the brains behind this operation.”
Clean-cut and ruggedly handsome, DeFoe looked the part of a former commando far more than present computer junkie. He stood and grasped Thomas’s hand.
“Andrew told me about your work in India and France. I’m impressed.”
“The feeling is mutual,” Thomas replied.
Pritchett offered them cups of coffee and pointed at a cluster of empty chairs.
“Please, take a seat,” he said. “It’s all hurry up and wait in this business.”
“Are you going in by yourself?” Thomas asked DeFoe after he and Porter sat down.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he replied, smiling easily. “I don’t get to do much fieldwork these days.”
“What are your chances of success?”
DeFoe didn’t blink. “Nothing’s guaranteed, but I think we’ll get everybody out alive, including the suspects. The SWAT guys are the best of the best.”
Thomas glanced at Pritchett. “You think you know where the girls are?”
“We’re ninety percent certain,” he responded. “Klein lives with his wife in a neighborhood not far from here. He has a main house and a guesthouse. We’ve been monitoring traffic to the property since we first started watching him. We noticed a frequency of traffic entering and leaving the guesthouse during the late night and early morning hours. When we connected him with Kandyland, it all made sense.”
“The guy would be that brazen?” Thomas was astounded. “If I were running a child sex ring, I’d want to keep it as far away from me as possible.”
“Actually, what he’s done makes perfect sense. When you’re dealing with merchandise like this, you don’t leave it to hired guns.”
“Okay. So tell me about this guy. How does a person get into the slave trade?”
“He doesn’t see it that way. To him it’s all a matter of economics.”
“Fair enough. But my point is this: if I wanted to buy and sell human beings, I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“The easy answer is that it was handed to him. You have to understand geopolitics after the Cold War. When the Soviet Union collapsed, it wasn’t just the government that crumbled. The entire communist system fell apart. People were out of work, bored, and desperate. Everybody became an entrepreneur. The people who had control of Russia’s natural resources leveraged their connections and became oligarchs of the new world order. The people who once ran the KGB and the Eastern Bloc intelligence services turned their tradecraft and contacts into a new mafia, bigger, more lethal, and more efficient than anything Sicily every produced. If we’re right, Klein was high up in East German intelligence. He defected toward the end and came to the United States. His wits and his contacts stayed with him.”
“But from what Andrew told me, he’s running an American gang, not an Eastern European gang. This isn’t Hamburg or Milan.”
“Your point is intuitive but misguided. As it happens, about half of the girls run by his pimps are imported from Eastern Europe. His contacts are instrumental in the source and transit countries. But the skill set of a spy is versatile, as is the power of his money. He can work in just about any country on the globe. His people don’t care about his accent or the color of his skin. They work for him because he pays them.”
“So tell me this. How does he get the girls here? As I understand it, border security went through the roof after 9/11.”
“It did, but the criminals are always finding new ways to work the system. As long as we issue visas to visitors, traffickers will exploit the immigration process. And as long as our borders are open, the coyotes in Mexico and Canada will continue to make illegal crossings. The demand for cheap commercial sex is extremely high in the United States. Market forces will prevail in the long run. The traffickers will innovate and meet the demand.”
“You make it sound like the war is unwinnable.”
“I’m not trying to be pessimistic. The war can be won. But not by putting traffickers in jail. Trafficking will stop when men stop buying women. Until that happens, the best we can do is win one battle at a time.”
Pritchett was an excellent host and kept his guests in the intel loop. He showed them satellite images of the Klein residence and played a computer simulation of the guesthouse that the techs had thrown together using architectural blueprints and a bit of creativity. In addition, he gave Thomas a primer on the equipment the SWAT team would use during the raid.
Although the Bureau had no intelligence about the Kleins’ defensive capabilities, they were treating the raid like a hostage rescue operation and had contingencies in place to handle the worst—an organized counterattack with automatic weapons and children being used as shields. They had requisitioned an MD-530 “Little Bird” helicopter from the Tactical Helicopter Unit to deploy the first wave of SWAT commandos. The second wave would drive through the gates in Bison light-armored vehicles. Pritchett confessed that the highly mechanized operation would probably turn out to be overkill, but with children involved, he was unwilling to risk it.
At six o’clock, DeFoe left the command center for a briefing with the SWAT team leader. Thomas shook his hand and wished him luck.
“I wish I could go with you,” he said, and DeFoe smiled.
“You really don’t. These people are very ugly and I won’t be armed.”
Pritchett cleared his throat, looking at Porter and then at Thomas. “In light of the unique circumstances of this investigation, I’m going to authorize you and Mr. Clarke to visit the scene after the property is secured. You deserve to greet this little girl in person.”
“You’re serious?”
Pritchett nodded. “I used to work in the D.C. office, and I know your father. He’s a fine judge and a true patriot. I trust you will keep all of this to yourself.”
Thomas nodded, overcome.
“I thought so,” replied the special agent in charge.
Chapter 30
The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman.
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Atlanta, Georgia
Night fell on the Klein property, and lights appeared in the main house and the guesthouse. The grounds, however, lay in darkness. Sita sat on her bed staring at the wall while a Seinfeld rerun droned on in the background. It had been nearly four days since her arrival at the house, and she had spent almost every minute since the photo shoot alone in her room. The only exceptions were bathroom breaks. She hadn’t seen Dietrich again. Li was the one who tended to her.
On her second night in the house, she awoke in a cold sweat and found it difficult to breathe. The next morning, when she heard footsteps outside her door, she began to hyperventilate. As the hours and days wore on, she began to experience hallucinations. Her thoughts raced and her heart palpitated at imaginary sounds. She thought again of suicide, but the idea of death only made her more afraid.
By the time Li came for her on Monday evening, she was ready to greet whatever hell Dietrich and the blond-haired woman had planned for her, just to escape the oppression of solitary confinement. Li led her through the wine cellar to the main floor and then up a staircase to a hallway of doors. He opened the first door and ushered her inside.
The room was all dark wood and soft light. A canopy bed stood at the center. There was a couch with a chair off to the side, a bar stocked with liquor, and a floor mirror in front of a curtained window. The blond woman stood in the center of
the room, waiting for her. She walked toward Sita and began to speak in a hushed tone.
“Tonight you will meet a man. He will want you to do things for him. You will not question or resist. You will forget about your past. You will become a courtesan. Come. Let me show you something.”
She took Sita by the hand and led her to a set of French doors. Behind the doors was a walk-in closet. The woman switched on a light.
“This is your wardrobe,” she said. “The man may ask you to wear something he likes. You will obey him. You will not resist.”
The woman escorted her to a bathroom with wide mirrors and pewter fixtures. “The man may ask you to bathe with him. You will do what he says. You will not resist.”
They returned to the main room, and the woman delivered her valediction.
“This is your new life. Dietrich paid a great deal of money for you. You will please the men we bring to you, or you will feel pain. The last child who resisted is buried in the garden outside. Do you understand?”
Sita nodded.
“Good. Now Li will see that you are washed and dressed properly.”
The woman left the room, and the Asian returned, holding in his hands one of the most elegant saris Sita had ever seen. He placed the sari and a pair of sparkling gold sandals on a coffee table in front of the couch and then he drew her into the bathroom.
“Soap for hair here,” he said, standing over the bathtub and pointing to a bottle of shampoo. “Soap for skin here. Wash all. I back in ten minute.”
Li was true to his word. Sita had no sooner bathed and wrapped herself in a towel when he returned with an elaborate makeup kit. He styled her hair and painted her face with the skill of a cosmetician. When he finished, he told her to put on the sari and sandals and left the room again. Sita knew the drill from the photo shoot. She wrapped herself in the green and white cloth and thought of the sari Sumeera had given Ahalya to wear on the night she met Shankar. Bombay was half the world away, but so much of this was the same.
The Asian appeared again after a few minutes with a bag of jewelry. He adorned her wrists and ankles with bangles and wrapped a golden choker with an emerald pendant around her neck. Finally he placed a red hibiscus in her hair. Then he stood back and regarded her with satisfaction.
“You ready,” he said. “I back soon.”
He wheeled around and disappeared into the hallway, locking the door behind him.
Sita sat on the edge of the bed. This was the end of the road. She had survived so much, yet she could not escape her karma. On this day she would lose her innocence. In a land ten thousand miles from her birthplace, she would experience sar dhakna, the beshya’s symbolic veiling of the head. Is this what it felt like, Ahalya? she thought. Is this the despair I saw in your eyes? She began to weep, and the tears burned her cheeks.
How I wish I could hear your voice again.
At ten thirty, Agent DeFoe left the government-owned warehouse where the SWAT team had been staged, driving a nondescript Ford rental car. He was dressed in an oxford shirt, wool slacks, and tassel loafers, all of which he had purchased from Brooks Brothers the day before. He missed the familiar feeling of his 9mm Glock in his waistband, but he knew they would frisk him at the door. He was equipped with nothing more than his instinct and a miniature audio recorder and GPS transponder buried in his wristwatch.
He arrived at LeRoy’s Pit Stop at ten forty-five. The truck stop was seconds from the I-85 exit ramp, and the attached restaurant was abuzz with the late-dinner crowd. DeFoe pressed a button on his watch to activate the recording device and transponder and then walked into the restaurant and asked to use the men’s room. A waitress waved him toward a corner in the back.
He scanned the smoke-filled eatery and noticed a thin man with a mustache sitting by himself at a booth along the wall. The man was sipping a beer and watching the door. Their eyes met briefly and then the man looked down at a newspaper in front of him. It was clear to DeFoe that the man was a watcher. He was there to make sure that DeFoe had come alone.
DeFoe used the restroom and washed his hands in the sink. The watcher appeared and used a nearby urinal. DeFoe left the restaurant one minute before ten o’clock. His cell phone rang as soon as he stepped into the parking lot. The caller was a woman. DeFoe walked toward an overflowing dumpster behind the restaurant and listened carefully.
“Mr. Simeon,” the woman began, using his undercover name, “a limousine will pick you up in two minutes. The ride will be short. Our mutual friend is looking forward to seeing you.”
“And I her,” DeFoe replied. “How will final payment be arranged?”
“Once you inspect the merchandise, you can use our computer to wire the funds to the bank account you used for the deposit.”
“Perfect.”
The woman hung up and the limo appeared on schedule. DeFoe got in the back seat and sank into the plush leather. The ride took less than fifteen minutes.
As soon as the limo stopped, the passenger door opened and DeFoe was greeted by a nattily dressed Asian man, standing before the porch of an elegant country home. DeFoe knew from surveillance photographs that this was the Kleins’ guesthouse.
“I am Li,” said the Asian. He patted DeFoe down and then motioned toward the door. “This way.”
Li led DeFoe into the foyer and told him to wait. Seconds later, a middle-aged blond woman appeared. She was dressed in a silk pantsuit and pearls, and her hair was pulled back smartly in a ponytail. She exuded competence and control.
“Mr. Simeon, a pleasure to meet you.” She held out her hand and DeFoe took it, surprised by the graciousness in her voice.
“Likewise,” he replied.
“I trust your ride was enjoyable. We spare no expense for our guests.”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Please,” she said, ushering him into the living room, “make yourself comfortable.”
DeFoe stood by an antique rocking chair while the woman went upstairs. She returned after a minute with a smile on her face. She took her place beside DeFoe and looked toward the top of the steps.
A moment later a young woman appeared and descended gracefully to the living room. She was dressed like an Indian princess in a lotusprint sari and jewel-encrusted sandals. She wore just enough makeup to accentuate her eyes and enhance her lips and eyelashes. Her necklace and bangles glittered in the light, and the fabric of her sari shimmered when she moved.
DeFoe was taken aback. She bore little resemblance to the child depicted on the Kandyland website. If not for the fine bones of her face, he might not have recognized her.
He met Sita’s eyes and saw blood rush to her face. She looked at the floor. Acting the part, DeFoe approached and touched her cheek and clavicle. Then he leaned close and smelled her hair.
“She is exquisite,” he said to the woman. “A rare jewel.”
“I’m delighted that you are satisfied. Now to the matter of payment.”
Li brought a laptop into the room and placed it on a coffee table. DeFoe sat down on the couch and used the computer to access a bank account he had opened the day before using federal funds. He keyed in the amount and routing information and finalized the transfer.
“Excellent,” the woman said. “Li will escort you to your suite. He will return when your stay is over. You must leave at five a.m.”
“I understand,” DeFoe replied, eyeing Sita for effect.
Watching the strange man enter data into the computer, Sita felt as if she had become a different person. The Indian girl she had been, that friend of bright sea and warm sun, had retreated into the shadows and a new girl had taken her place, one with neither a past nor a future. This girl was afraid, but she was also capable of accepting the rule of karma. Ignoring her pounding heartbeat, she tried to imagine what sort of person the man was. Is he married? she thought. Does he have children? How far has he traveled tonight? Why did he choose me?
When the man had finished with the computer, Li led them up the steps to t
he hallway of doors. He let them into the first suite and then slipped out, closing the door behind him. Sita moved into the center of the room and turned to face the man, remembering the blond woman’s instructions. Her bottom lip began to quiver, but she tried hard not to show her fear. Whatever the man wanted to do to her, he would do. There was no way out now. The only real choice before her was between acceptance and death.
The man took her by the wrist and led her to the bed. He told her to sit and began to unbutton his shirt. She leaned back against the cushions and studied him, feeling numb. She watched him undo each button before continuing down the placket toward his belt. She began to tremble, despite herself.
After removing his shirt, the man sat on the bed in front of her. He brushed her hair and her lips with the tips of his fingers.
“Where are you from?” he asked.
The question shook the foundations of her new personality. She looked down at the comforter. It doesn’t matter, she thought. All of it is gone.
When she didn’t respond, the man leaned forward and pretended to kiss her neck. He spoke very quietly. “My name is DeFoe and I’m here to rescue you. A police raid is about to happen. Continue to play your role. The danger is great, but it will soon be over.”
Sita didn’t process his words at first, and when she did, she had no idea what to think. Suddenly, she heard the distant noise of a helicopter. For a long moment she wavered, feeling the familiar grip of despair. The world had delivered her nothing but grief since the arrival of the waves. She had resigned herself to the beshya’s life. How could her fate suddenly change?
The sound of the helicopter grew louder.
She looked at the stranger—DeFoe—and at once the fiction of the courtesan demanded by the blond woman fell off her like a false skin. She saw the reflection of truth in his eyes. He wasn’t there to rape her. He was there to save her.
In an instant, she decided to believe.
Moments later, DeFoe heard a shout in the hallway. The door to the room burst open and Li strode in brandishing a pistol.
A Walk Across the Sun Page 33
