The Wrong Girl (John Taylor Book 3)

by Travis Starnes

  Taylor got out of the car, making sure he pocketed the keys while he slid the sat phone Andre had given him into his pocket. Walking around the car to open the rear passenger door, Taylor found Reznikov awake, starting to thrash around as he realized they’d arrived at their destination.

  “Stop it,” Taylor said, rapping the man on the back of the head to accentuate his command.

  Taylor carefully untied the rope from Reznikov's feet, holding on to it as he pulled the smuggler out of the back of the car. As he turned the man toward the tree line, the other passenger door opened, and the girl stepped out.

  “You should stay in the car. I’ll be back soon to get you to someone who can help.”

  She shook her head, frowning as she declined his command.

  “You need to stay. This is not going to be something you want to see.”

  “I want to see what you do to him,” she said, speaking for the first time. Her high voice sounding determined.

  Taylor looked at her while he grabbed firmly on the handcuffs still locking Reznikov’s hands behind his back, taking her measure. After a moment, he gave her a nod. He kicked the rear passenger door closed and pushed Reznikov into the woods.

  They marched about ten minutes into the woods, well out of the view of any human beings, and hopefully out of their hearing. A stream flowed by nearby, adding to the other sounds of nature. Taylor led Reznikov to a large tree with a thick, low hanging branch.

  Pushing a foot against the back of Reznikov’s knees while pulling back on the handcuffs, he dropped the man to his knees.

  “Are you going to kill me,” The man asked through choked tears after the gag was removed.

  Taylor ignored the question, knelt to look the man in the eyes, and said, “I’m going to switch the cuffs. If you make a break for it, I’ll put two in your back and leave you here in the woods. And before your weasely little brain can start working on a plan to try to get my gun, or get one over on me, remember you set me up to be killed and I’m still here. Consider real hard if you think you’re good enough to take me.”

  After only a second, Reznikov broke eye contact first. Like all bullies, he was ruthless when he had the upper hand, and a wreck when he was at someone else mercy. He was the type to beg for mercies he’d never consider giving to the people whose lives he’d ruined. Most of all, Taylor was confident he wouldn’t do anything once Taylor unhooked him. Not that he was planning on giving the pudgy man that opportunity.

  Standing and circling the kneeling man, Taylor unlocked one handcuff and, holding onto the free end like a leash, circled again. Seeing the girl, whose name he still didn’t know, standing just out of reach behind him, Taylor jabbed his head, indicating for her to move where he could see her. She frowned but followed his direction. It wasn’t that Taylor didn't trust her, but he didn’t know her and she clearly still held a severe animosity toward Reznikov. Justified animosity, true, but the last thing Taylor wanted was to offer her a chance to grab his gun and exact her own revenge before he got what he needed.

  Taylor reconnected the handcuffs and pulled the man to his feet again, looping the rope through the handcuffs and tying it off in a knot, essentially making Reznikov a weight at the end of the rope. Walking behind the man, Taylor tossed the unattached end over the tree branch and pulled suddenly, raising Reznikov’s arms in a jerk, eliciting a yelp of mixed pain and surprise from the man. Taylor pulled until the man was almost on his tip toes, enough, so he had to stay upright, not so much that he was hanging from his wrists, and tied it off on a smaller tree nearby.

  “OK, I think we’re all set, except for one thing,” Taylor said, walking to stand directly in front of Reznikov.

  With no warning, Taylor’s fist flashed out, impacting low on the man’s right side, causing him to sway slightly, a groan crawling its way from his throat.

  “That was for setting me up to be killed,” Taylor said, stepping back. “It will be the last one you get if you answer my questions.”

  “I . . .” Reznikov started to say.

  Taylor kept speaking, running over Reznikov’s protests, “Obviously the ship was a lie. The girls being smuggled into the country, where do I find them?”

  “Fuck you,” Reznikov said, finally trying to show a spine.

  He probably meant the curse to sound defiant and harsh, but it came out at almost a whimper.

  Taylor’s leg whipped out, impacting squarely in the middle of the man’s knee. A popping sound could be heard briefly before it was drowned out by a howling scream.

  “Where are they,” Taylor said again.

  “I can’t . . . I can’t,” Reznikov said in a tear-choked voice.

  Taylor struck out with his fists again, hitting the same spot as before, just about where the kidneys were located. He knew, even protected by blubber the way he was, Kidney punches were amazingly painful, and enough of them could cause serious damage to the organs.

  “They’ll kill me,” he said, pleading.

  Taylor stepped close and, grabbing a fist full of the man's greasy hair, yanked his head back hard.

  “What do you think I’m going to do if you don’t answer me, you piece of shit.”

  Reznikov’s eyes went wide, looking almost down at Taylor because his head was pulled so far back, and his nostrils flared. Taylor could see his rat brain trying to work out an angle to get out of this mess.

  “They should be—”

  Taylor pulled back hard on Reznikov’s hair hard once more before releasing it, cutting off his words.

  “If you are thinking about lying to me. About sending me on a wild goose chase or a setup, you need to think carefully. This is the very last chance I’m giving you. Next time I’m going to put you out of everyone’s misery and be done with it.”

  Reznikov gulped in a nearly comic fashion and looked at his feet. But he didn’t look back when he started speaking.

  “They were taken off the boat yesterday, even before you came and found me. By now, they are out of the city.”

  “Where were they taken?”

  He didn’t answer right away, just staring at his feet. Taylor delivered another punch to the kidneys, eliciting yet another scream of pain.

  “Serpurtau,” he said with a groan.

  “Where is that?”

  “Near the border of Belarus, off R284. They have . . .” he started to say and paused again. When Taylor started lifting another fist, Reznikov continued. “They have a warehouse where they sell the girls. Buyers come from all over for the auction. They were taken there.”

  “When is the auction?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Taylor pulled Reznikov’s hair back, who shrieked, “I really don’t know. I am not part of the organization, I just do work for them sometimes.”

  “Then why did you set me up,” Taylor asked, pausing from surprise.

  “They’ve been pushing me to the outside, keeping me from deals, for almost two years, ever since Sergi died. The Avtoritet of this group, he was worried Sergi was double-crossed by someone he worked with outside the organization since he had created deals with various US groups outside the Bratva. He has decided no one outside of his brigade is to be involved in any more deals. I was hoping if I handed over a guy snooping around on their delivery, they might bring me inside.”

  At the mention of Sergi, Taylor’s blood ran cold. He stared dumbly at Reznikov, floored, as things started to fall into place. It had never occurred to him it was the same network of smugglers. Before Taylor had killed Sergi, the Russian had been based in Miami and was smuggling Russian girls into the states to work in brothels. Of course, this was smuggling girls out of the US and into Russia, but there was no reason it couldn’t have been the same group.

  And yet, in all his dealings so far, no one had put together that he was the one who killed Sergi. Had they known, or at least had Reznikov known, things at the docks might have gone very differently.

  “Who is this Avtoritet?” Taylor asked. He was awa
re it was an old Russian way of saying authority and sounded more like a title than a name.

  “I don’t know everything—”

  “Tell me what you do know,” Taylor said, interrupting.

  “No one knows what his name is, but he is in charge of all trafficking for the Bratva, both transportation and the sale of new girls, and those facilities run by the Bratva directly.”

  “If he’s so important, how does no one know his name?”

  “Because he does not run the day to day of his brigade. A man named Timor is his right-hand man and does everything the Avtoritet commands.”

  “And they were in charge of this Sergi?” Taylor asked, his curiosity over the Russian too great to keep him from asking, even though if any connection between Taylor and Sergi came out, it would be very bad.

  “Sergi ran the US based operations. I’m not sure what he did in the US, but I know it was he who received and sent shipments out of that country.”

  “How many girls were in this shipment?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Taylor stepped back a few paces, not far from where the girl had been standing, watching, and slipped the sat phone out of his pocket, hitting the first programmed number that Andre had pointed out.

  “Andre?” Taylor said when it picked up on the other end, not sure if this went to him or a switchboard.

  “Taylor, is everything alright?” Andre said.

  “Yes, but I need some help. I have Reznikov about two hours south of St. Petersburg, along with a witness to kidnap and assault.”

  “He’s alive?”

  “Yes.”

  “Give me.” There was a pause while Andre did something out of earshot of the receiver. “Four hours.”

  “Make it fast. I need to get back on the road as quickly as possible, but I need this guy on ice for a couple of days at least. If he sends word back, they’ll dump the girls before I can get to them.”

  “I understand. I have the GPS Coordinates of your phone. We’re on our way.”

  With that Andre hung up the phone, and Taylor put it back in his pocket looking over at the unnamed girl, who had an expression somewhere between disbelief and anger plastered on her face.

  “We’re not going to kill him?” she said incredulously.

  “No.”

  “But . . . you said.” Tears were welling up in her eyes.

  “I said he’d get justice, and he will.”

  “By the police,” she said, practically spitting with condescension. “He owns them. He will walk out untouched.”

  “These aren’t local police, he’ll have a harder time buying his way out.”

  “I don’t care who it is. All the police are corrupt. He should die for what he—”

  “Probably,” Taylor said, interrupting her. “But not here, and not like this.”

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “Because he’s already taken too much from you.”

  “That’s why he should die. If you are afraid, I will do it.”

  “It has nothing to do with fear. You’re not going to understand this, but if you take that step, and get your revenge, you can never undo it. I understand the kind of pain you're in . . . well, maybe not exactly, but I understand how it’s affecting you. But you aren’t a killer. Doing something like that, it changes you.”

  “Bullshit. You don’t know what it’s like, that fat pig on top . . . you don’t know,” tears were streaming down her face as she screamed at Taylor, “you don’t understand.”

  She tried to charge past Taylor, headed for Reznikov. He reached out and grabbed her, holding on tight as she swung her fists wildly, trying to get free. After a minute, her struggles started to lessen until he had to hold on, not to keep her from getting away, but to keep her standing upright, as she slumped against him. The tears she hadn’t shed since he freed her now flowed, unhindered.

  True to his word, Andre appeared in under four hours. Reznikov was still hanging from the tree and Taylor was sitting on the hood of the car. The girl was asleep in the passenger seat, having cried herself to exhaustion.

  Andre showed up by himself in a small patrol car with a screen separating the back seat.

  “This is an interesting scene,” he said, walking over and leaning on the hood of the car next to Taylor. “Who’s the girl?”

  “I found her in Reznikov’s bed when I went for him last night. She’s another one these people have taken from their homes and forced into slavery.”

  “She’s one of the Americans?”

  “No, she’s Russian. The Americans never touched the port, apparently. You might want to talk to Reznikov while he’s still . . . disposed to speak. But if you get her to talk, too, she’ll be a good witness to at least some crimes, although right now, she’s very skeptical of anyone in power, since she had personally witnessed several people who should have been protecting her in his pocket instead.”

  “So you want me to take her with me?”

  “Yes. I need to continue to the border of Belarus. There’s a small town on the Russian side where they are holding an auction for new ‘acquisitions,' including the Americans.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to try to do it the easy way, and buy the girls from them using some cash my client left, and just walk them out of the country. If that doesn’t work, I’ll improvise. But for that to work, I need to make sure he doesn’t surface for a few days, just in case he has someone inside FSB that can either get him released or at least pass back word to the kidnappers that I’m on my way.”

  “There’s probably someone inside FSB, it’s why I came by myself. I have somewhere I can take him, though.”

  “Good, and you’ll take the girl?”

  “Yes.”

  “Keep an eye on her. She’ll castrate him by hand if she gets the chance.”

  “Maybe I’ll let her,” Andre said while Taylor just shrugged. “Call me if you run into any trouble. I wish I could go with you, but . . .”

  He let the thought trail off, unspoken.

  “Yeah, I know. But we both know how that ends.”

  Andre just nodded, pushing himself off the car and patting his friend on the shoulder, before heading toward the hanging man. Taylor watched the Russian for a moment before he, too, pushed off the car.

  CHAPTER 10

  It took Taylor a little while to convince the girl to leave with Andre, and to get Reznikov down and into his car as well, but eventually, his friend was on his way, and Taylor continued south.

  The small two-lane road continued through the Russian countryside, with the random shack or farm scattered here and there. Taylor was starting to think Reznikov had managed to play him again, until a sign for Serpurtau came into view as he rounded yet another deserted stretch, with an arrow pointing him down an even more run-down two-lane road.

  Sure enough, a mile along that side road Taylor saw a group of buildings springing from the nothing that had littered the roadside to this point. They weren’t large, and they weren’t impressive, but they did indicate the presence of a small village at the very least. The road that Taylor was on became the main road for the town. It was lined with several two-story buildings and even one three-story one, which, according to the sign was a hotel.

  Taylor also saw the large two-story warehouse that Reznikov had mentioned sitting diagonally from the hotel. Currently, both the big rolling door and the smaller person-size door to one side were shut tight.

  Pulling off to the side of the street a few feet down from the hotel, Taylor hopped out dragging his duffle bag out behind him. Dingy would not be strong enough to describe the lobby of the hotel, with its moth-eaten furniture and dirty linoleum floors. It was probably stylish at some point in the seventies, but its time had long since passed. It was a safe bet this hotel wasn’t used to visitors who would have been looking for more updated surroundings.

  Taylor walked over to the grizzled old man at the desk, who’d been watching him but ha
d yet to say a word.

  “I’d like a room,” Taylor said matter-of-factly, setting his bag by his feet.

  “What are you here for?” the man asked, making no move that would indicate he planned on giving Taylor a room.

  “I’m here for none of your damn business. Give me a room.”

  The man stared at Taylor for a moment, then grunted and spun around, pulling a small key ring off a peg board.

  “I want one facing the street.”

  “They’re all full.”