“Always prepared.” Trevor smiled and intertwined his fingers with Marta’s.
Donovan turned away and saw Sofya standing alone, away from the happiness, looking lost and very alone. Donovan moved in at the same time as Montero did, and joined her just as Stephanie showed up with the drinks.
“I heard the news,” Stephanie said. “Here’s champagne and glasses. We need a toast.”
Kristof and Trevor opened two bottles, filled the glasses, and passed them out.
“To Marta and Trevor.” Kristof raised his glass. “May you find a lifetime of happiness together and enjoy your retirement. As of today, we’re both technically out of a job.”
“What?” Marta looked stunned. She scanned the eyes of her friends as if to uncover the joke, and ended up looking back at her father. “You quit?”
“No.” Kristof smiled and then dug in his trouser pocket until he found a receipt of deposit and handed it to Marta. “I sold the business. The money was deposited yesterday, and I put this amount in your personal account.”
Marta’s eyes grew wide and she quickly stuffed the paper in her pocket.
“I transferred the business and the inventory to the new owner, who is Russian. It was pretty much all of their arms and equipment anyway. I gave everyone in our employ a severance check and a letter of recommendation. I’m officially retired. As for you two, call it an engagement present.”
“I couldn’t be any happier for all of you,” Donovan said. “Kristof, I think you’re going to like retirement. I also have one small announcement to make, and then I think I’ll switch to whiskey, and we’ll turn the floor over to Montero,” Donovan said and then smiled at Sofya. “Sofya, yesterday I had a moment to talk with both William and the President of the United States. You’ve been granted diplomatic asylum in the United States, Montero is your official sponsor, and we will all participate in your transition. If you’ll have us, we’re your new family.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Sofya said as tears of joy formed. “Thank you all so much.”
Montero hugged Sofya and they each downed a shot of vodka, then Montero glanced at her watch. “Thanks to Sofya, there is something else we managed to put together on short notice. In fact, the first reports should be coming in on the BBC.”
Stephanie found the remote and switched on the television. There was a commercial, so she muted the set. Moments later a BBC reporter appeared, and Stephanie turned up the volume.
“We have a developing story that was first reported from Prague. Similar reports filtered in today from Rotterdam, Warsaw, and Berlin. In all four cities, an unknown group of people raided and shut down several nightclubs. Sources tell us the clubs involved were thought to have been engaged in sex trafficking and prostitution. There have been no reports of violence. Witnesses told us that immigration officials descended on the establishments and led women into waiting buses. No word yet on where they were taken, or what will happen to the clubs’ owners and customers. We’ll have more on this story at the top of the hour.”
“Where are they being taken?” William asked.
“They’ll be flown to different locations provided by Montero through a deal she worked out with Interpol,” Trevor said. “The simultaneous raids on the clubs were carried out by Interpol in conjunction with local police. With assistance from Reggie and the guys, too.”
“You put all of this together in less than twenty-four hours?” Lauren asked Montero.
“It’s a plan that’s been in my mind for a while now, and after meeting Sofya, and then thanks to Marta and Lauren, once I was in a room with a woman named Tatiana, it didn’t take long until I had the information and leverage I needed. I brought in Interpol, who were eager to act. When Reggie and Trevor and their former SAS connections volunteered to help, it was a slam dunk. The latest estimate is that we’re going to rescue as many as three hundred young women, and I hope this is just the beginning.”
“What’s going to happen to Tatiana?” Kristof asked.
“She helped Interpol, as well as the Russian government,” Montero said. “She’ll live, but she’ll never see the outside of a prison cell again.”
“I’m so proud and happy for everyone,” Stephanie said as she switched off the television. “I’m sorry, but I’m the hostess, and I don’t want to sit here glued to the telly. I rarely get to see all of you as it is. Now, who needs their drink refreshed?”
“You’re right.” Lauren held out her glass as she turned to Kristof. “You know, if memory serves me correctly, the last time we were all sitting here, you were in the middle of telling us a story. Something about a young Donovan Nash, high winds, and a large sheet of cardboard? You never had a chance to finish. What happened?”
Donovan groaned and reached for his glass.
“Aha!” Kristof smiled. “Yes, thank you for the reminder. I believe it was summer vacation, August probably, and Donovan and I were in Virginia. I think he was maybe in sixth grade. Anyway, it was a really windy day, howling at least forty miles per hour out of the south, maybe more. For days we’d been threatening to sneak off to a house under construction down the road, and check it out, so we finally did. Donovan discovered this big section of cardboard that had been removed from a furnace, or a hot water heater, something else equally sizable. Anyway, I remember the second he saw it, he had this idea, and he surveyed the site, and explained that if we cut handholds into the cardboard, he’d be able to hold on and jump from the top of one of the towering piles of dirt. Once he did that, he described how he’d use the high winds to his advantage, and he’d fly.”
“Oh God, this is where I always start to lose it.” Stephanie put her hand to her mouth and began to laugh silently as her eyes filled with tears.
“In theory, it wasn’t a bad idea.” Kristof began to chuckle as he continued. “Initially, the fierce gusts kept ripping the cardboard from Donovan’s hands. Though once we found the ball of heavy twine, all of our engineering problems were seemingly solved. We went back up to the top of the dirt hill, and using the twine, I bound Donovan’s hands tightly to the handholds. I remember the look in his eyes. He was fearless, and with no chance of the wind ripping the cardboard away, he simply turned into a huge gust and launched himself off the hill. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but it looked like some sort of cardboard pterodactyl cartwheeling out of control, ending at the bottom of the hill in an explosion of dirt.”
“But I flew,” Donovan said, his voice barely carrying above the laughter.
“There may have been a few seconds of flight,” Kristof managed to say as he wiped tears from his eyes. “All I know is you also crashed. But I’ve never in my life seen anyone covered with that much blood and dirt who was still smiling as much as you were that day.”
William raised his glass. “To that boy and his wings, and may he always remain fearless.”
Seconds to Midnight Page 30
