Was Jenika hidden somewhere in the Elite building? Or had Giger’s men taken her somewhere else?
We had to find Jenika. We had to help the trafficked girls. We had to get to Hagstedt. There was so much we needed to accomplish fast. Time wasn’t on our side.
Always in the forefront of my thoughts was the fact that I had to get back to Mama as soon as possible. I needed to be there for her.
After Kerrison and I caught our breath, I grabbed my RED secure cell phone and called Takamoto to get a briefing from his end. No sign of Jenika and no word on her whereabouts.
Shit.
He didn’t have any more information on Hagstedt other than what we’d already gathered before we came to New York City. All we knew from that deciphered note was that Hagstedt could be here any day.
I relayed the info to Kerrison.
“Damn.” She pulled off the lacy ponytail holder and shook out her long red hair, tangled and sweaty from our run. “It’s almost time to head off to the greatest job on earth. Working for scumbags and not being able to take a shotgun to every one of those men and blow their dicks off.”
“I like you better and better,” I said with a not-so-humorous laugh. “I have some ideas of my own that I’m working on. My current favorite is strapping the bastards down on killer ant hills and letting the ants swarm then eat them until their bones are shiny clean.”
Kerrison gave an approving nod. “I heard you were tough, Steele. Can’t wait to see you in action.”
We both headed to our bedrooms for showers and the ordeal of caking on makeup and squeezing into gravity-defying push-up bras and sexy clothing. At least my wardrobe could be a little less revealing than Kerrison’s was.
I just finished securing one of the silvery-blond wigs on my head when she knocked on the frame of the open door. I gave a low whistle at the sight of her black two-piece ensemble. Another tiny skirt—only this one was so short it barely covered the important parts. The top wasn’t a whole lot more than a black bra. This time she wore four-inch heels and fishnet stockings.
“If I didn’t know better, now,” I said as I slipped on my rings, “I’d think you were hot for men.”
She put one hand on her hip. “You think only men like women dressed like me?”
I shrugged. “Never really thought of it.” But then again, on the last op there had been that Amazon who made it clear I turned her on . . .
Kerrison moved just enough that I could see the black line up the back of her stockings. She looked over her bare shoulder. “Gets them every time.”
“If you say so,” I replied while thinking at the same time that she did look friggin’ hot.
This time we remembered our coats. As we stepped out into the cold, windy late-November day, I glanced at the afternoon sky. Gray, like my mood.
We’d better get somewhere with this case. We were all running out of time.
Helping every single girl who was trafficked. Grabbing Hagstedt and eliminating his personal human trafficking rings for good. And now Jenika. Everything in my gut told me we had to find her fast.
Or we wouldn’t find her alive.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Nick
Wearing all black, Nick blended in with the darkness as he stayed in the shadows next to a dive bar on Fifth Street, close to Avenue B.
The bar’s holiday decorations looked tacky and sloppy, from the loopy way the colored lights had been strung around the door frame to the variety of faded depictions of Santas in the dirty windows. The picture with good ol’ Claus mooning the street reminded Nick of the dropping-pants-Santa back in the Human Trafficking CC at RED.
Courtesy of Madame Cherie’s well-planted heel, Nick’s cheekbone burned in the cold. Hell, it was nothing but a mosquito bite compared with what he’d been through in his career in Navy Special Ops, then black ops.
A man stumbled out of the bar, and Nick tensed. When he got a good look at the man’s face in the streetlight, he relaxed. It wasn’t Mike or Jorge—two of Giger’s men whom Nick had tailed all the way from the back door of the Elite. He’d heard their names during their bullshitting back and forth on the way to the bar. From their conversation, he’d learned that they had the night off and apparently preferred a cheap shithole like this over a place as expensive as the Elite.
Nick ignored the stench of piss recently splattered on the side of the building. He also blocked out the odor of the nearby pile of garbage bags and boxes on the sidewalk. The refuse would be picked up by one of the city’s sanitation trucks, probably in the morning.
He stomped his feet for the hundredth time in an effort to stay limber. To keep his fingers feeling loose, he flexed his grip on the Glock 10mm as well as clenching and unclenching his free hand.
Nick had already attached the suppressor. From the intel they’d gathered, Nick and Steele’s team knew that Giger’s boys carried heavy-duty firepower. Glock .45s and 10mms were high on the list for these guys.
He dragged his gloved hand down his face, over two days’ worth of stubble he’d grown to help him look on the scruffy side. Not clean-cut, but not ragged, either. In keeping with what he and half the population of New York City generally wore, Nick had chosen a black T-shirt beneath a heavy black bomber jacket, and black Levi’s. He’d added shitkickers, these particular ones being serious combat boots with steel toes.
Earlier today another lead hadn’t panned out. He was sick of it and didn’t really have a choice but to do what he was about to.
Goddamnit. He needed to snag a job as a handler at the Elite to back up Lexi and Kerrison, as well as find Jenika, now. So far every damned lead and informant had turned out to be bullshit or a dead end. Even Johnny hadn’t come through.
Two men walked around the corner of Avenue A then toward the bar. They didn’t so much walk as they wove their way down the sidewalk with drunken steps.
Three men strode from inside the bar at the same time the two other men reached the doorway and squeezed by to get in.
“Why don’t you wait your fucking turn?” one of the men walking out said in a snarl to the men going into the bar.
“Fuck you,” one of the pair heading in said, his words slurred.
The men traded insults, but fortunately none of five seemed in the mood to fight. Nick didn’t have time for that kind of shit, which might throw off his game plan.
He stayed in the darkness and concentrated on the men who were leaving. Not one of the three had the gait or movements of either of the pair of Giger’s boys whom Nick had followed to this goddamned bar six hours ago. As bad as he wanted Giger’s men, it was good that none of the trio matched the pair he was after. He needed just the two men he’d stalked. And he needed them alone.
Soon, before he froze his ass off and couldn’t follow through with his plan.
Nick’s warm breath fogged in the icy air as he blew it out in a frustrated huff and stomped his boots again to loosen his legs. He’d had enough of waiting. Tonight he’d create openings for two handlers at the Elite. Might as well give himself a little insurance while taking down two shithole trafficking scumbags at the same time.
His conversation with Steele yesterday morning kept intruding on his thoughts and had Nick grinding his teeth. He hadn’t returned to the apartment yet. Call him chickenshit. He didn’t give a fuck.
The sharp edge he’d balanced on for years was hard to keep stable now that Steele refused to give up on getting him to tell her about his past.
Christ. He had no desire to talk about the shit he’d gone through, the shit he’d done, when he’d been recruited into black ops. The years that had gone by since had never dulled the memories or pain. Hell, he deserved to remember and feel the pain of what he’d done. Nothing would change that.
Harsh laughter drew Nick’s attention to the bar’s doorway again. Giger’s men. The blond was the one named Mike, the Hispanic was Jorge.
Now, as the pair left the bar, Nick recognized the sniggering laugh of the blond shithead, Mike.
He said something Nick couldn’t hear, but the inflection in his voice was unmistakable as he spoke to Jorge.
Nick waited until Mike and Jorge got at least thirty feet away, almost to the corner of Avenue B, before he stepped out of the darkness to follow. When they rounded the corner, Nick picked up his pace and guessed he was now within twenty-five feet of the men.
With a cautious look around the corner, he made sure Jorge and Mike hadn’t spotted him.
Good. They were almost at the location Nick had selected. A dark stairwell that went down to a doorway secured with a heavy padlock. He was fifteen feet behind the men when they were positioned exactly where he wanted them.
He held the Glock with its silencer in a standard two-fisted grip. “Hey, dickheads!”
Giger’s men turned just enough. Exactly like Nick had planned.
The Glock with the suppressor made an impotent sound as Nick put a bullet in the center of Jorge’s forehead. The dead asshole dropped next to the stairwell.
Before Giger’s other man registered that Nick had taken out his buddy, he was already running toward the asshole.
“What the fuck?” The man reached behind his back and brought out his own gun.
By the time Mike had the gun in his hand, Nick had already closed the fifteen feet between them.
Nick tackled him. Giger’s man went down with a shout as his back hit the sidewalk. Mike’s gun went clattering and made a skittering sound along the sidewalk.
Mike jerked Nick’s ankle with his foot, causing Nick to drop harder to the sidewalk than he’d planned. Nick twisted, trying to protect himself and his own weapon.
The suppressor on his Glock hit the ground concrete hard. He didn’t like the immediate difference in the gun’s balance as he gripped it.
Fuck. The suppressor was probably hosed.
Giger’s man reeked of sweat, alcohol, and cheap cigarettes. Despite the fact he was clearly drunk, the man was quick and strong. Nick had to fight to keep the man down and keep him from going for his own gun.
Nick slugged Giger’s man at just the right spot on his temple to knock him out. Mike instantly went limp. Nick had used a martial arts method that would make it impossible for anyone to tell the man had been hit in the head and knocked unconscious.
After checking around him with a quick sweep of his gaze to make sure everything was clear, Nick grabbed the still-alive asshole number two, Mike, and dragged him down the stairwell. He propped him up against the locked door.
With one of his gloved hands, Nick reached around the man’s waist and took Mike’s gun from the holster at his back. Nick pocketed it while he made sure the guy wasn’t coming to. Mike was left-handed—he’d reached for his gun with his left hand, and the holster was made for a left-hander.
Nick checked the silencer. Shit. It was fucked-up like he’d thought. Gritting his teeth, he worked in quick, precise movements. He screwed the silencer off the 10mm. He’d already removed the serial number from the Glock he’d shot Jorge with. Nick shoved the suppressor into the opposite pocket of his bomber jacket. Then he pressed Mike’s fingers against the barrel of the gun before he wrapped the man’s palm around the 10mm’s grip.
Nick took out the handgun’s magazine and removed the bullet that had automatically slipped into the chamber. Mike stirred, but Nick wasn’t worried the guy would have a chance to shoot—much less have any ammunition in the gun to shoot with. Still, he hit Mike again with the side of his hand, causing the guy to go slack.
He took the five steps in two strides as he returned to the dead man at the top of the stairs. Only a trickle of blood was on Jorge’s forehead, but the back of his head had been blown away. Nick avoided blood and brain matter as he moved around corpse number one.
This part would be easier as long as no onlookers showed up.
And as long as no one placed the sound of a single shot.
Nick found Jorge’s gun in a side holster. Good, a right-hander. He wrapped the dead man’s right hand around the gun and aimed it at the throat of the very-much-alive man propped against the door at the end of the stairwell below.
Nick used the dead man’s finger to pull the trigger. The handgun’s retort echoed through the night, and its bullet blew a hole right through the hollow of Mike’s throat. Nick’s accuracy with any kind of handgun was so consistent, he was certain the spinal cord had been severed with that one shot.
Unfortunately, since the gun hadn’t had a silencer, that shot would likely draw some attention.
Nick jogged down the steps to Mike’s body. The bastard’s eyes were now open and glassy. A surprised expression was on his face. Nick needed only a couple of precious moments to shove the magazine back into the 10mm and the one bullet into the gun’s chamber.
From an inside pocket of his bomber jacket, he took a small plastic bag containing about two grams of crystal meth. He stuffed it in the man’s right hand, the hand that soon would be immobile in the corpse’s “death grip.”
He was back up the stairs within ninety seconds. To complete the setup, he found the spent shell casing from his initial shot at Jorge. He tossed it down the stairwell and it rattled on the concrete until it came to a stop by Mike’s corpse.
Nick had already disappeared into the night and into Tompkins Square Park barely minutes before he heard a woman’s scream.
Nick headed back to HQ.
As long as no one put the pieces together, it would be slam-dunk case of one drunk killing the other over drugs.
Looked like Giger’s stable of handlers had two new openings.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Bachmann/Hagstedt and aliases three and four
Karl Bachmann gripped his martini glass as he looked out the limo’s window at the gray, wet afternoon and the equally gray, dismal city. The driver guided the limo toward Columbus Circle at 1 Central Park West, to Trump Tower, his favorite hotel. The word hotel was far too modest for the finest and most luxurious accommodations in New York City.
Of course Karl was checking in under a third alias, Isak Alexandersson, and not as Anders Hagstedt or Karl Bachman, or even a fourth alias. He ensured nothing tied the names together. Nothing. He had exceptionally well-made fake passports for all three of his aliases, as well as having an original passport for his real name, Karl Bachmann.
However, through his extensive channels of information he knew he could no longer travel as Hagstedt. He clenched his jaw then forced himself to relax. That name was now on law enforcement radar, which meant there had been a leak.
The leak had probably happened when his Boston operation was taken down by an unknown organization. One day he would learn the identity of the organization that had ripped apart his extremely profitable Boston-based Internet sex slave auction rings.
He had seen footage of a man and woman who had broken into Benjamin Cabot’s office and were likely agents or spies from that unknown organization. He would learn the names of the primary players responsible for destroying his perfect setup.
In turn, one day he would destroy them.
Karl tried to relax his grip on his martini glass as he adjusted his position to look in the direction the limo was going as it sliced its way through the sea of Yellow Cabs.
Unfortunately, due to Cabot’s mediocre business skills, Karl had been unable to obtain other surveillance videos or photographs of those who had infiltrated his auction rings. Benjamin Cabot had been a mistake in every way as Karl’s choice to run his Boston enterprise.
Raindrops splattered harder against the window, blurring images outside the limo. The people wearing primarily black trench coats and carrying black umbrellas looked like morbid figures painted in oils on a dirty canvas.
He averted his attention from the window and back to his dry martini, no olives. He took a sip, the gin rolling smoothly over his tongue and down his throat.
His private jet had arrived at JFK with precisely enough time for him to get to his hotel, check in, and wait for the untouched treats to be delivered
to his room.
Karl shifted on the luxurious leather seat of the limo, his dick growing uncomfortably hard.
Yes, untouched delicacies only, and absolutely no drugs in their systems. Virgins were perfect because he didn’t have to use a condom. He didn’t have to worry about what might have been in that pussy before the girl was selected and brought to him.
Not to mention virgins screamed better.
Karl’s limo pulled up to the Trump International Hotel and Tower. He was looking forward to relaxing in his room and looking even more forward to what would come not long after. The fabulous views of Central Park, along with Times Square, Rockefeller Center, and the Ford Center were a few of the choicest views from the Tower.
Most men didn’t give a damn who’d fucked a slut before they got ahold of her. A shudder traveled Karl’s spine at the thought of dirtying his own dick in a well-used prostitute who was doped up on the heavy doses of the opoids Giger liked to give his whores.
The driver came around to the side of the limo and opened the door. Karl tossed his martini glass on the leather seat, ignoring the remaining drops of liquid leaking onto the leather. He stepped out of the limo and into the covered area used for arriving and departing guests. He didn’t acknowledge any of what might be considered helpful staff—his own, or the hotel’s.
Karl’s driver grabbed the light luggage to be taken directly to his room. The locally hired man had called ahead, and the room was already prepared and waiting for Karl. The driver would pick up the key from the concierge, give it to Karl, and follow behind him with his suitcase and dress bag.
Karl didn’t need to worry about pregnancies and abortions with any of his girls around the world. That was thanks to the “morning after” pill and his ability to buy large, cheap quantities from a manufacturer in Mexico.
His men were required to force all of the girls who were trafficked as prostitutes to take the pill. Pregnancies and abortions were a waste of time and money, money that the girl could be earning on her back.
Cheyenne McCray - [Lexi Steele 02] Page 16
