by Julian Beale
Seeing the look of puzzlement on King’s face, he went on, ‘Sorry. I didn’t mention that Geslin saw three people coming out of that apartment. Cestac, Blond and also a girl. No doubt they’ll have been partying most of the night and she went off with Cestac. Perhaps he dropped her home, but I don’t think so.’
‘What d’you mean?’
Sollange lit yet another Gauloise and spoke through a stream of smoke.
‘Cestac sells flesh. He supplies live bodies to order, a few pretty boys but mostly beautiful girls. He has customers in Europe and the Middle East. He finds and fattens the product, then delivers it to his pervert of a client who will have a mountain of money, but no morals or mercy. Not a pleasant business, but it’s the slave trade of this century and it’s a strictly one way ticket for the poor souls once he’s got his hands on them. They never come back. Not one.’
King grimaced in sympathy. ‘I’ve heard speak of it, but never been involved in that field.’
‘And won’t now, I think. It’s a dying business. No doubt Cestac sees a better return from peddling powder and pills to those who have the money and brains to know better. But it looks like Cestac is going out on a high note. He’s sent out a girl this morning from Paris — an absolute stunner.’
King shrugged. ‘But this is a guess, right?’
‘It’s more than that, my friend. You see, I gave myself a bit of extra time at Orly today before my flight and chatted to my friends there in customs and police. Thought I’d check if Cestac went through today. They let me see the manifests and it didn’t take so long: light traffic on New Year’s Day. I couldn’t find Cestac’s name, but I recognised another. Georges Eboli. A big black guy. He’s small time, does cons and scams, quite a smooth operator. I was interested because he’s run errands for Cestac before so I dug a bit deeper and found that Georges left Paris today to travel to London, then connecting onto a flight this evening to Bahrain. And he’s travelling with a lady. I got the passport details as you should know about him. Eboli claims he was born in Cameroun but who can tell. French passport now and he’s been living in Paris for fifteen years. Have a look where he’s been in the past twelve months. Twice to Conakry and once to Sao Tome: both on your possible transit points for South American drugs, yes?’
King reached out to take the paperwork which Sollange had dug out of his pocket. He looked at the handsome black face and glanced at the guy’s personal and travel details which were summarised beneath. Efficient staff work, he thought. He was about to lay the document aside when Victor spoke again.
‘Have a look at the girl too. I’d surely love to see the rest of her. I reckon Cestac has groomed her for some sick bastard. Now Eboli is playing delivery boy and there’s not a damn thing to be done. She’s old enough and wise enough. If she goes of her own accord — well then she goes. But I doubt she’ll be coming back.’
He gave a Gallic shrug as he continued, ‘anyway, King, it’s not our affair. Now I suggest that at tomorrow’s conference, we don’t mention ...’, but he broke off there as he realised his audience was no longer listening.
King Offenbach felt a long shiver pass down his spine as he scanned the second sheet which Victor had passed to him. There could be no doubt. He knew that face so very well and the details of her passport confirmed it. Alexandra Celeste Labarre.
There was a long silence. King sat motionless with his eyes fixed on the photo of Alexa. Inwardly, he was in turmoil with thoughts cascading over each other. They were interrupted by Victor who leaned forward and said,
‘Don’t tell me. You know the girl?’
King just nodded and then he gave Victor a concise little run down of the background story.
Sollange remarked, ‘Life can indeed be a bitch. I really don’t know what you can do, King, but you don’t have much time and you better get going. I’ll see you in the morning.’
King nodded his thanks as he left. He was lucky with a cab and was back at his desk in twenty minutes. He grabbed the phone and started to work contacts, not helped by the day or the time. By midnight, he knew that Alexa and Eboli were on the regular Qantas flight to Sydney which went out around 2100 every evening. Their destination was Bahrain and they would now be sitting in mid-air with three and a half hours to go.
King dialled again and was lucky. His old buddy Mark Leary was at home for the New Year and abandoned a family dinner to listen. At the end, Mark said laconically,
‘It’s a bit of a challenge, King, especially with the tight timing. But then again, you’re in the right shop. Communication is pretty much the name of our game.’
After which, things moved pretty quickly. Some important strings were pulled and a succinct message sent at 0216 GMT 2nd January to the captain of Qantas Flight 002 in level cruise towards Bahrain.
King Offenbach could do more then. He went to bed and forced himself to sleep.
ALEXA LABARRE — 1970
She was sitting in the departures lounge of London Heathrow Airport, Terminal 3. She kept repeating this dull, factual information to herself because it made her feel that she had not quite lost touch with her own sanity. She was very tired, overcome with sleepiness and every few minutes she would start to nod off. As soon as that happened, she would be gripped by a panic attack which made her sit bolt upright and gasp for breath. She found she could regain some control by restarting the litany ‘I am sitting in the departures ... etc’ and in due course she would go through the whole process again. And again. Except that the whole cycle was taking longer. I’m getting worse, she told herself. I’m losing touch with reality. I need help.
Alexa was about to turn twenty-six. She was christened Alexandra Celeste, the names chosen to reflect her Anglo French family. From baby days and childhood into her teenage years, Alexa trailed behind her an unending stream of superlatives which increased with her adult independence. She had brains and beauty, charm and character, poise and personality. She was fine, flirtatious, sometimes feisty, always feminine. She had the lot, her many friends would say of her, but they could not call her a rich bitch. She was wealthy indeed, but apparently never a bitch despite all the benefits bestowed upon her. Alexa was schooled first in Limoges near to the small chateau which had been home to her father Joffrey’s family for successive generations. When she was thirteen, her English born mother Elizabeth’s influence sent her to boarding school in England and it was from there that she went straight up to Oxford University.
Alexa prized the independence which Oxford and England made possible. In 1963, her brother Michel had disappeared whilst serving his commercial apprenticeship in Africa, and no trace of him had ever been found. The tragedy had almost destroyed the Labarres. They had always been a close group, the parents happy with each other and both were international, influential and involved. Their children, three to include Alexa’s younger brother Bernard, were all touched with gold and had enjoyed an idyllic childhood with the expectation of a fulfilling life before Michel dropped out of sight.
They were all changed forever, but Joffrey was shattered by the experience and tortured that he would never know the full story. He hired an expensive investigator who vanished into Africa and reported back with the likely conclusion that Michel had perished because thieves fell out. But there was no proof and nothing left behind.
While Joffrey and Elizabeth struggled to accept this finality, they were locked together in a dungeon of grief, guilt and frustration and as they served their sentence, the relationship with their other two children suffered. Alexa dealt with this estrangement by going to build her life around Oxford. After she won her degree she was still anxious to preserve her independence and accepted a job offer from a London city bank. Two years later, she was offered a move to their Paris office. It was good that she was closer to Limoges, but not too close and she settled down to enjoy her career and the Paris lifestyle.
By the autumn of 1968, all was pretty good for Alexa except that she was working long hours with too little time for her f
riends and not much of a love life. But that changed just before Christmas when she attended, on behalf of the bank, a reception at the Chilean Embassy where she met Thierry Cestac.
He was better than a breath of fresh air. After fighting off too many dreary bankers and immature suitors, here at last was a man of abundant style and savoir faire. He was fortyish and established. She was unsure of his profession, which mattered not a jot to her. He was older and wiser, with time, charm, conversation and a real interest in her. He was fun to be with and won the instant approval of her friends. She was delighted to be invited into his bed and fulfilled by what happened there. Alexa fell in love and under the spell of this cultured, handsome man with the long face and aquiline nose which she chose to describe as aristocratic.
They were together regularly throughout 1969 and Alexa’s confidence in their relationship grew without check or concern. Thierry was the man for her and she was never as happy as when in his company. He was kind, thoughtful and endlessly entertaining. He was an energetic lover and imaginative with it. The manner in which he used toys and diversions fired her libido to an extent which sometimes shamed her, but never enough to complain and still less to stop.
During all the progress of the year, it would have been inconceivable to her that Cestac had a different agenda: that he was all the while preparing her for sale. The background story was unprecedented. Cestac had received an approach on behalf of an end user client in the Middle East. The man had bought two girls from other procurers, but neither had lasted more than six months. When the initial thrill was satiated, he resorted to pleasuring himself with such violent treatment that both girls had died at his personal hand.
The client was now prepared to pay without limit if Cestac could find for him a girl of exceptional physical attraction, but also one of breeding, character and brains. She was to be a toy that the client could not break too easily and would remain the challenge which his warped ego demanded. The task energised Cestac, all the more as he had just met Alexa. He recognised her worth immediately. She was pure gold. He set himself to turn her into a million dollars of income and the ultimate stimulus for which he was ever seeking.
He devised a development programme which relied on his natural instinct to go slowly and with caution. He knew that Alexa was special and would take time. He knew also that the client’s need and budget would be heightened by waiting for the very best. But finally came the time in late November 1969 when Cestac was satisfied that she was ready and the client was desperate. It was time to close the deal, and Cestac agreed to delivery in the New Year.
Alexa, of course, knew nothing of this duplicity and evil. But she did feel bloody awful. She sat there in the Heathrow lounge and the world around her seemed to be spinning off its axis. Physically, she alternated between nausea and shivering with either accompanied by a splitting headache. Mentally she felt much, much worse, but she lacked the experience to recognise the symptoms. She was already in trauma. The worst of it was the confusion. Alexa simply could not get a grip on what had happened to her during the last twelve hours. She remembered some things quite clearly but then others seemed to lose focus and the chronology was never as it should have been.
She was fixated by her last sight of Thierry. He had introduced her to this huge black, Georges, who was to accompany her to London and then on to Bahrain but she had hardly responded to Eboli’s graceful bow as he turned aside with some small talk for Thierry. She had suddenly felt tearful and lonely. She had never been to Arabia and the prospect of twenty-four hours in a hotel waiting for Thierry to catch up with her was scary. But why? She knew the plan. Thierry had an important business meeting in Frankfurt: he was going there today and would join her by flying out tomorrow night. She was troubled and Thierry seemed to understand. He broke off from Georges and came to cuddle her, whispering endearments and saying he would soon be with her and they would fly on together to Singapore. Quite his normal, considerate self and she felt reassured. He said that she must take the sleeping pills which he had given her. They would give her a good rest on the long overnight journey to Bahrain. She smiled bravely. Then he said that she and Georges should go on through customs and he must run for his plane to Germany. She allowed Eboli to shepherd her through the formalities and then she looked back over the barrier. But Thierry had gone: he had left. It seemed to symbolise abandonment that he had not troubled to wait just a few minutes more.
Other flashbacks danced in her head. It had been a great party but she had no memory of who had been the host, where it had been, who else had been there. She remembered accepting drinks which Thierry described as ‘just a cocktail’ and with one of them some powder in a twist which he had encouraged her to sniff. When they left at whatever hour after midnight, there had been another man in the back of the car with them. He was young and blond. Russian, so Thierry had told her, and a friend. She spoke to him in his own language and he mumbled a reply in a coarse accent as he concentrated on getting a hand up her skirt.
When they left the apartment that morning, Thierry was distracted by something in the street and he simply dumped the blond instead of dropping him on the way to the airport. What had all that been about? Perhaps it had been to do with what went on during the night. She had a horrifying vision of herself greeting the dawn by making oral love to Thierry while she was being screwed rigid by the nameless young Russian.
And now she felt bad, must look worse and was intimidated by the huge Georges who tried to sound smooth but smelt of cheap Cologne and would not leave her side for a single minute. He had even insisted on standing outside the Ladies when she went there an hour ago. That thought brought back the nausea. Alexa stood up abruptly and put her hand to her mouth. She said something about la toilette to Eboli. He nodded and kept his seat, but his eyes followed her across the lounge. She was feeling distraught. She must simply lock herself in and refuse to come out. ‘Thierry himself will have to come for me’ she was thinking, and at that moment, she saw Conrad Aveling, sitting by himself and reading a newspaper. He didn’t look up.
Alexa got herself into a cubicle, sat down and shivered as she thought. ‘Connie? Could it really be him? Why was he here? Perhaps she could ask for advice. Perhaps he could find Thierry for her. Surely he could at least get her away from Georges’. Then the nausea returned, followed by a fresh attack of panic in which she was convinced that the roof was coming slowly down on her head. She sprang up and fled out of the Ladies.
CONRAD AVELING — 1970
By the time they started calling forward passengers Conrad had been keeping careful watch for ninety minutes. He couldn’t work out Alexa’s condition. She kept her gaze down and her hands were constantly picking at each other or running through her hair. When she got up, she seemed startled and her movement was crabbed and nervous, not the elegant stride he remembered. The big black guy was constantly with her and watching her. Conrad bided his time. Alexa might resent an intrusion and if she was in trouble, a bald approach might let her companion spirit her away before the riddle could be unpicked.
But then she banished any doubt from his mind.
At Oxford, they had been lovers for a while and were extravagantly discreet. When with friends, she used to communicate a private message with a toss of her head and an arched eyebrow which meant — stay with me. Five years later at Heathrow, the first class queue was overtaking economy and as Alexa moved past, she turned her face to him. Conrad was shocked by the look of nervous pain, but he didn’t miss her message as the eyebrow arched.
The passengers filed into the aircraft. They left on time and made a brief stop in Frankfurt to take on fuel and a handful of passengers. Two hours later, with the aircraft at cruising height and dinner served, Conrad sat in his window seat with two Australian neighbours who filled their seat pockets with beer cans and the cabin with smoke. They got up for the washrooms and Conrad slipped out to look for a cabin attendant. He picked out Max, the steward with a mincing step, and asked diffidently if he
could visit the flight deck. He had chosen well and soon Conrad was following the tightly trousered bum through the curtain into First Class with its suitably expensive calm. He had time to notice that Alexa was in a window seat on the port side with her companion next to her.
Max tapped at the door of the flight deck and after a word of introduction, stood aside for Conrad to pass into the small, cramped space lit by the subdued orange glow of innumerable instruments. A large man in the captain’s seat turned to hold out a hand.
‘Welcome to the sharp end, Mr Aveling. I’m Peter Bushell and my colleagues tonight are Keith Curtis,’ this with a wave to the First Officer who smiled a greeting, ‘and beside you there is another Peter — Pete Grimes, who I hope knows where we are right now! Not much room in here I’m afraid, but it’s always nice to have a visitor. Have you been in a 707 before?’
‘Only once’, said Conrad, ‘but I have spent time in various helicopters and a fair few Hercules.
Actually, I’m a Captain too, but different and junior to you, Sir,’ he produced his military warrant card and handed it to Bushell, adding ‘I’m travelling to join my unit in Singapore. I believe I’ve got a problem. It’s nothing to do with my job, but it is urgent and I need your help.’
The Captain stared at him and the other two assumed wary expressions. Finally, Bushell said, ‘Well you’re in here now so you’d best say your piece, but keep it short and don’t move around. I don’t care for deception on my aircraft.’
‘Quite,’ responded Conrad, ‘I apologise but I felt I had no choice but to contact you this way.’
He went on to provide a concise summary of the background and the current position. There was a long pause when he had finished and the aircraft seemed to hang in space whilst digesting the information. Captain Bushell broke the silence.
‘So, the bottom line is that you think an old girlfriend who just happens to be travelling on this aircraft just might be in a bit of trouble and that she just could be some sort of victim of the big black guy whose with her, even though right now she’s slumbering like a baby in one of our first class seats. Is that about it, and what do you expect me to do with this story?’
