by Jack Mars
While Bratislava was a city rich in history, culture, and architecture, Staremesto was like the runoff thereof. It seemed as if the worst neighborhoods of the capital had separated and drifted north; its buildings were dilapidated and crumbling, windows broken, not a blade of grass to be seen, and the few trees that managed to poke out of the cracked earth struggled to survive.
The Macicka Club was a cracked brick building, windowless; the only indication of what might be inside was a pink neon-lit sign shaped in a crude likeness of a cat’s face. It looked as if a child had twisted the glass tubing. Reid pushed through the heavy front door and was immediately assaulted by loud electronic music, the beat pulsing in his ears.
He scanned the joint left to right as he entered. Every light bulb in the entire place was red, casting an eerie yet flattering glow over what Reid was certain was a sleazy establishment. The bar ran along the eastern wall. In the center of the single wide space was a circular platform, about three feet high, with a golden pole extending to the ceiling. Twirling slowly around it was a topless brunette woman, swinging in lazy circles by both arms and one leg.
Reid counted seventeen patrons in the club, not including the bartender and the dancer. But no one looked his way as he entered; it was nearly one o’clock in the morning, and the majority of them were too drunk to exist outside the microcosm of the bare-breasted woman.
He strode to the bar and rapped twice on the rough wooden top.
“What?” the bartender asked gruffly in Slovak.
“Matej,” Reid replied.
The bartender narrowed his eyes. “Why?”
“Veronika sent me.”
“Show me.”
Reid wasn’t sure what the man wanted to be shown, but he could guess. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the few bills he had left, all hundreds, and flashed them to the bartender.
The man nodded once and gestured for Reid to follow. He led the way to a black door at the rear of the bar, and then down a set of creaky wooden steps. At the bottom was a small basement with cinderblock walls, a small round table, and two men playing cards.
The bartender went back up the stairs again wordlessly, leaving Reid standing there with the two men. He looked them over; one was older, mid-forties, mostly bald and a bit chubby. He wore only a white tank top and jeans. The second man across from him was young, thirty at best, with a shaved head and dark circles under his eyes. He wore a blue tracksuit and a gold chain around his neck.
Neither of the men spoke to him, or even looked at him, as they finished out their hand of poker. Reid stood there quietly with his hands clasped in front of him. Beyond their card table was another doorway, dark, and from beyond it came sounds. Grunting. Gasping. Giggling.
No doubt johns enjoying Matej’s “wares,” Reid thought sullenly.
After a full minute or so, the younger man looked up at Reid. “I am Matej. What do you want?” he asked in Slovak.
Reid blinked. “Um… I’m sorry. English?” he asked, feigning ignorance.
The young man scoffed in annoyance. “What do you want?” he asked in accented English.
“Uh, Veronika sent me.”
Matej shrugged. “So?”
“So… right. Of course.” Reid again showed his folded bills.
Matej reached for them, but Reid quickly pulled them back. “I want to see first.”
The young man sighed through his nose, his nostrils flaring. He turned to his chubby partner and said in Slovak, “Fucking Americans. Almost not worth the money.”
“Almost,” his partner chuckled.
Matej faked a wide smile. “Right this way, sir.” He led the way through the darkened doorway. On the other side was a corridor, and to their right was a row of shoddily constructed partitions made of particle board and hung bed sheets. Behind them, Reid could hear noises that made his skin crawl.
The young Slovakian led him to the last of four booths in the row. He pulled back the curtain-like bed sheet with an exaggerated flourish as he said, “May I introduce you to Hanna.”
The site beyond the bed sheet nearly made Reid physically ill. The booth was barely large enough to accommodate the twin-sized mattress that lay on the concrete floor. Atop it was a girl with dyed blonde hair, growing out brown at the roots. Her eyes were half-closed as she looked up at Reid; she looked either exhausted or high or both. Her midsection was covered in a dirty sheet, but her bare legs and shoulders suggested she was nude underneath it.
She couldn’t have been more than eighteen, and that was being generous.
“Thirty minutes,” Metaj said, “for one hundred American.”
Reid cleared his throat. “How old is she?”
“Does it matter?” Metaj chuckled. “Don’t worry. She is young enough.”
“Young enough for what?”
“You said Veronika sent you. You know what this means, do you not?”
Reid resisted the urge to cave the man’s skull in and replied, “Yes.” I do now. “But I misspoke. I meant to say Aiya.”
“What?” Matej frowned as he turned to look at Reid.
“Aiya sent me.” He slammed his head forward, smashing the top of his cranium into Matej’s face. The young man staggered back, blood exploding from his nose as he crashed into the flimsy particle board partition. It gave way easily, collapsing into the next, creating a domino effect of boards and sheets cascading down around surprised johns and girls. Shouts and cries filled the basement as Reid stepped out of the booth.
The chubby man in the white tank leapt up with such force he toppled his metal folding chair. “What the hell…?” he demanded in Slovak as he charged through the dark doorway.
Reid took out the silenced pistol and fired twice. His aim was shaky; one shot went wide and struck nothing but concrete. The other found home in the man’s shoulder. He yelped and fell, grasping at his wound.
A john squirmed out from under the collapsed booths on his elbows and knees, trying to get away. Reid planted a boot on his back and forced him to the ground. As he did, a second man tried to make a run for it, pulling his pants up as he did.
Reid took aim again, more carefully this time, and fired a shot into the john’s thigh. He spun and hit the ground before he even reached the doorway.
“You’re staying,” he told the man beneath his boot. “Help these girls out, and then sit on the floor, or I will shoot you.” He lifted his boot and the compliant john scrambled to find a prostitute under the wrecked makeshift brothel.
Reid quickly checked his clip. Only four shots left. He craned his neck, listening for any signal from upstairs, but he couldn’t hear anything over the gasps of pain and confused shouts in the basement. He doubted anyone up there had heard anything behind the black door and pulsing dance music.
In the farthest booth, Hanna drew up her knees in the corner as Matej rolled himself over onto his belly, blood dribbling down his chin. He spat out two teeth and groaned.
Reid grabbed the young man by a pant leg, dragged him out of the booth, and kicked him over onto his back. “Aiya,” he said, his voice a low growl. “A girl you sold last year. A girl you pimped when she was only thirteen. You remember her?”
“Y-yes,” Matej gurgled.
“I need to find the men you sold her to.”
I don’t… I don’t know…”
Reid pressed the silenced Walther PPK to Matej’s forearm and pulled the trigger. Matej screamed; two of the girls screamed with him. One of the johns attempted to scramble to the doorway on his hands and knees.
Reid shot him in the ass. The man howled and stopped moving.
“The next one to move gets one in the forehead,” he warned them. He turned his attention back to Matej. “Tell me how to find them.”
He had to wait several seconds while the young man took hissing, pained breaths. “I don’t… know… I call… them…”
“Where’s the number? On your phone?” Reid fished into the pocket of the blue tracksuit and came out with a sma
rtphone. “What name?”
“M-Mirko.”
He scrolled through the contacts to confirm there was a Mirko. “Is that a real name, or an alias?”
“Don’t know…”
“Where do they operate? They must have a base, a central place…”
“I always meet them,” Matej grunted. “Always a… different place.”
Reid scoffed. He had figured out Matej’s game. “You pimp underage girls here. And when they get too ‘old’ for your clientele, you sell them to these Slavs? Is that it?”
“Please…”
“Matej, if you have any other information about these men this would be a very good time to tell me. It’s the only thing that’s going to save your life.”
“I don’t… please…”
Reid put the pistol against Matej’s forehead and shot him once. As he stood, he noticed that two of the girls, and one of the johns, were sobbing uncontrollably. Trembling. They think I’m going to kill them.
In the last booth of the row, the blonde girl Hanna still sat in the corner, her knees drawn up to her chest.
“Can you understand me?” he asked in English.
“Yes,” she said quietly. She was not crying, but stared at the floor and didn’t look directly at him.
“I’m leaving,” he told her. “I want you to wait one minute, and then get the phone from the other man. Call the police. Do not let these men leave. Understand?”
“Yes,” she said again.
He wanted to say more. He wanted to tell the girl that they were safe now, that it would be okay, and that they could go back to their countries and their homes and their families. But even though Hanna was not crying, he could tell she was terrified of him.
Instead he left the booth and walked back to the wooden staircase. Along the way he paused beside the chubby man lying on the floor, gasping in pain and holding his shot shoulder. Reid aimed the pistol at him and the man whimpered.
Only one round left. The police will be here soon, and he’s not worth the bullet. Reid scoffed and climbed the stairs, exiting the basement again through the black door.
The bartender grinned as Reid passed by and called out to him. “Done so soon?” he taunted.
Without breaking his stride, Reid fired his last round into the bartender’s stomach. The man yelped and collapsed against a rack of liquor bottles, several of which smashed to the floor. The pole dancer shrieked in horror. Several drunken patrons looked around dazedly, wondering what was happening.
Reid felt no remorse. It was a nonlethal shot; it would take the bartender hours to bleed out from the wound, and he deserved it for being complicit in Metaj’s activities.
He pushed out of the club and into the night.
Three police cars and two more unmarked waited for him outside.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Reid did not wait around for any orders to freeze or halt or put his hands in the air. Instead he dropped his spent pistol and backpedaled, grunting in pain as he shouldered his way back into the Macicka club.
Several of the patrons stood now, confused, trying to make sense of what had happened through the alcohol-marinated brains. Reid ignored them, shoving past them toward the rear of the building. There had to be a back door. He found one, an entranceway into a small storeroom of cheap liquor that ended in a windowless security door that had to lead out of the building.
He pushed through it to find himself face to face with the barrel of a silver Colt Python.
Reid skidded to a halt and froze, hands slightly aloft. Then he looked past the barrel and sucked in a breath.
“Baraf?”
The man holding the gun was not as surprised to see him. Interpol Agent Vicente Baraf kept his revolver trained between Reid’s eyes. “Please do not move, Agent Steele.”
I have to. Reid sidestepped, circling the agent so that his back was to the alley and his escape route. “Or what, Vicente?” He called Baraf’s bluff. They had been on not one, but two potentially world-saving ops together.
“You’ve gone too far, Kent. I need you to come with me.”
“You know what’s going on,” Reid pleaded. “You know my daughters are out there. I have a lead. I have to follow it…”
“Give us the lead,” Baraf insisted. “Give me the lead. You have my word I will take it to the ends of the earth, but you cannot go on like this—”
Reid shook his head. “I have to go.”
“Do not move, Agent!”
“Are you going to shoot me?” Reid looked him in the eye and he knew the answer. He slowly turned around so that he was facing away from Baraf. “Then it’s going to have to be in the back. Because I’m going.” He took a step. “Five seconds,” Reid said.
Behind him, Baraf sighed heavily. “Fine. Five seconds.”
Reid didn’t wait around. He broke into a sprint.
“Merda!” Baraf swore. The last thing Reid heard was the agent radioing in. “Suspect is on foot, behind the building. Use nonlethal force…”
Thanks, Baraf. He turned the corner and kept on running—or tried to. His legs did not want to keep the same pace his brain insisted they did. He glanced down to see a spot of red on his T-shirt; his stab wound had opened, at least slightly, and was bleeding again.
Reid had to pause, leaning against a brick wall. As much as he wanted to run, he simply couldn’t. Not in his state.
He pulled a plastic-wrapped tube out of his back pocket. He knew it was a bad idea so soon after the last one, but he had little choice. He tore it open, popped off the cap, and slammed the stubby needle of epinephrine into his upper arm.
Shouts echoed from behind him, not far. He forced himself to keep jogging, to move until the adrenaline kicked in. He was nearly to the motorcycle’s hiding place when his heartbeat jumped from first to fifth gear in an instant.
He gasped audibly and steadied himself against a trash can. Every muscle tensed; the pain in his limbs dissipated, but he felt as if his heart might explode. But he could hardly worry about that now. There were only a few minutes before the drug would wear off.
He sprinted full speed the rest of the way to the bike, tearing off the ignition plate and throwing it aside. The two wires sparked in his hand as he twisted them, but he barely felt it. The motorcycle roared to life, the engine robust and growling.
At almost the same time, blaring headlights appeared at the mouth of the alley, engulfing him in light and accompanied by blue flashers. Police cars. There was a voice over the PA in English—“Stop, or we will use force”—but Reid ignored it. He jumped on the bike, spun the back tire a hundred eighty degrees, and opened the throttle as he hurtled toward the waiting cars.
The two officers waiting at the end of the alley shouted in panic and leapt aside as Reid came roaring toward them. He slid the bike sideways, bashing the rear tire against one of the cop cars, and revved the accelerator again. The motorcycle shot forward like a bolt, firing up to sixty in seconds.
There were few pedestrians on the streets of Staremesto at this time of night, and even fewer cars; Reid had the road practically to himself as he opened the throttle fully and accelerated up to ninety. Over his shoulder he saw the blue flashers of the pursuing police cars, but they had little chance of catching up to him.
Suddenly there were headlights ahead as a car turned the corner, coming directly toward him. The cruiser flicked on its flashing lights and accelerated, as if playing a dangerous game of chicken. Reid leaned forward, his grip white-knuckled against the handlebars. The adrenaline coursed through his veins; he was in full control of every tiny movement, every fractional correction.
He was less than fifty feet from the oncoming cruiser when he twitched the bike to the right and skirted around it, coming within an inch of taking off the side mirror.
His heart drummed in his chest; blood pounded in his ears. Who alerted Interpol? he wondered. It couldn’t have been anyone in the club; the police might have gotten there that fast, but not the agents. No, they m
ust have been en route before he ever arrived in Staremesto.
Then he realized—the girl, Aiya. If she told the authorities the same thing she told Reid about Matej, it would have been easy to put two and two together and realize that it was his next destination. He couldn’t be angry with her; she didn’t know him, didn’t know that he was CIA. Or used to be. To her he was just a man, a stranger, and he couldn’t blame her for wanting to make sure that the perpetrators were brought to justice.
Even more curious, though, was the sudden appearance of Agent Baraf. It seemed odd that in an agency that operated in a hundred ninety-two countries, the entirety of the United Nations, the one Italian agent that he knew personally would show up in the slums of Eastern Europe.
Unless he came for me, Reid thought.
He slowed the bike to seventy and kicked out the rear tire, steadying with one boot dragging across the pavement as the motorcycle slid to the left, drifting into a turn. Then he twisted the throttle again and jetted forward—
Less than two blocks ahead, a pair of white cruisers suddenly leapt into the intersection, headlights and flashers off. They created a blockade, bumper to bumper, perpendicular in the road.
Merda! Reid didn’t have the room to stop. He kicked out the rear tire again, but not to turn; instead he brought the bike into a sideways skid, slowly laying it down in the road until it was nearly on its side. He swung a leg over so that he was on one side of the bike. At the same time, sparks flew up behind him as the body of the bike hit pavement, skidding down the asphalt at sixty miles an hour.
The cops scrambled out of their cars, drew their guns—and then stared in astonishment at the bike flying toward them on its side, its rider standing atop it.
I’m definitely going to feel this later, he thought glumly. In the instant before the motorcycle slammed into the blockade of cop cars, Reid jumped. With the inertia of the skidding bike, he leapt clear over the cop cars, over the heads of the crouching police officers…
His forearms hit the road first, his head tucked as close to his chest as he could manage as he threw himself into a roll. He felt the impact against his arms, his shoulders, down his back as he rolled, coming up on his feet, and breaking into a sprint.
