I shot the professor an email and asked if he'd be willing to take a look at a couple disturbing videos, run them through his magic algorithms, tell me what he could find. I attached a couple of the videos, along with a clear warning that they were graphic and sickening.
That done, I moved to the part of the analysis I dreaded, watching the videos. Over and over. Looking for any clues to location. Anything that might help me identify one of the girls or where she was from. An accident, a name spoken. Any peculiarity at all. After three hours of watching, I had a tiny list of notes to research, none of which were likely to yield results.
I also had an old and unwelcome friend with me at the end of the viewing session, one I had spent years burying in the deepest, most securely guarded recesses of my soul. He moved in my essence like an impossible gathering of a million black holes, sucking away all light, leaving me with only dark resolve and immutable purpose. Do my job. Mercy does not exist. Survive. Purge Earth of those who prey on the innocent. He manifested in my mind as an ethereal black mass. As he moved, as he took over my thoughts and actions, as he devoured the light, his wispy edges glowed a brilliant crimson. Then he grew stronger and stronger, devouring more and more light, the crimson edges becoming a blood-red fog that filled every crevice of my soul.
As I watched innocent girl after girl being brutalized, watched them scream and beg for mercy that never came, he grew. When I watched one young girl in particular, who reminded me of my own daughter, be savaged by these creatures, these walking wastes of flesh who were unfit to be deemed human, he grew.
He had no name, because the red fog and I were one and the same.
#
AFTER WATCHING the horrible videos the night before, I lost all interest in reports from the dungeon and instead crashed and tried to sleep. It was a night filled with fits and starts and sweats and dark dreams. When I woke the next morning—earlier than usual—I showered and dressed, then checked to see if any dungeon reports had arrived. They had, a lot of them. I'd study them later.
I ate a light breakfast and drank three cups of coffee at Rings of Saturn, then grabbed another cup to go on my way out. The weird hours and poor sleep of the past few nights had my body clock out of kilter. A few minutes of walking outdoors would fix it. After completing the maze through the casino, I exited the rear doors and hung a left. Might as well walk toward the tunnel.
The morning was cool so far, low seventies, the desert air crisp and refreshing and so clear it looked like the mountains ringing the valley were no more than a few miles away. Now that I was outside, though, it became obvious that I should have gone out the front entrance to experience the body-clock-resetting rays of Sol. The back of SPACE faced west and was of course in shadow. I walked, not wanting to trek the casino maze again. I'd just circle the tower till I hit sunshine.
I was approaching the tunnel when I saw her. She too was approaching it, but from the far side, coming toward me. My heart gave a little stutter. It was the girl from the surveillance video, the girl who had stopped beneath the camera and talked with the two guys inside the bunker. I crossed the mouth of the tunnel, felt its gentle waft of cool air, stepped onto the sidewalk on the other side. The girl was ten feet away, looking down as she walked. Five feet away, she must've sensed my presence, because she looked up.
Her reaction was instant. She literally stopped midstep, her mouth slightly parted and her eyes wide as she looked into mine. She recognized me.
When she stopped, I did too. In the space of a second, I processed the fact that she recognized me: She had seen me on surveillance footage inside the bunker. No other explanation for her surprise. And if she had, others might have. She looked like she was ready to bolt, so I raised my hands, palms out. "Please," I said. "I'm a friend."
Her face and posture relaxed a bit, but barely. She said nothing, so I continued. "My name is Sam. I'd very much like to talk. You have nothing to fear from me."
She whipped her head to the left, looked behind her, to the side, then back to me. The look on her face had gone from surprise to fear. But maybe not fear of me. Fear of being seen talking to me. She stepped around me and walked at a fast clip toward the tunnel, then into it. I turned and followed. Not close enough to spook her, I hoped. I stayed about twenty feet behind her. When I saw one of the offshoot tunnels approaching, I made a guess and said, "I can help you."
There it was. The tiniest glitch in her step. I said, "Please take the tunnel to the right. There's a place we can talk. No cameras."
Her pace slowed, just a bit. Five feet from the tunnel…three…there. She turned. I followed. "There's a corridor ahead on the left. Go there."
She did and I was right behind her. No more than six feet into the corridor, a locked door formed a dead end, but that was fine. We were out of sight of anyone or any cameras. I said, "I'm Sam."
"I am Daria Bodrova. You policeman?"
"No, but I can call police later. Where are you from, Daria?"
"I live in Kiev."
Classic Eastern European pronunciation. KEE-uhv. I took care to speak slowly, enunciating, avoiding contractions. "You do not know me, Daria, but you can trust me. I want to help you. Do you need help?"
She nodded, and I went on. "Do you know the type of work you are doing here?"
"I know. We stealing money."
This time I nodded. "Who are you working for?"
"I do not know. There is man we call Alex. He pretends to be American, but he is Slavic. I know when someone is from Russia, maybe Ukraine."
"Are you here against your will?"
Her face scrunched up and her head tilted a little to the side.
"Do you want to do this work?" I said.
She shook her head. "No."
"I can take you somewhere safe, right now."
This time she shook her head emphatically, and the fear returned to her face. "No, no, no!"
"Why not?"
"Anya. They kill Anya! I must work!"
I patted the air, spoke in a low, gentle voice: "Okay, okay. I understand. Do not worry. Who is Anya?"
"Sister. Anya my sister." Her accent was heavy, but her English was pretty strong, good enough that she didn't have the habit of prefacing verbs with the word 'to.' She had studied.
I said, "Do you know where Anya is?"
She shook her head.
"Do you know if she came to the United States?"
She nodded. "Yes, we come together on airplane."
"When did they take Anya?"
"In airport. They say we join later, but we do not."
"Okay. The Las Vegas airport?"
"Yes. They take Anya away in different automobile. Then I go in house here at Las Vegas. I ask many times where is Anya, but man scream on me and hit me."
"Alex hit you?"
"No. Alex come later. Was Dmitry."
"Can you tell me where the house is? Are there other girls?"
"House in street called Green Mountain, but I do not see mountain. Only flat street. Seven hundred and forty-two is number."
"And are there others?" I said.
"Many more girls. Boys also." She looked at a simple watch on her wrist. "I must go. Alex come soon."
"Okay. Can we meet later?"
"Tomorrow. I come early. I come in seven."
"Thank you, Daria. I will help you. One more question: How did you know me?"
"I see you on the recording, in room."
I nodded. "Did anyone else see the recording?"
"Alex see recording. Alex make computer cage for you. I must go now."
CHAPTER 76
SPACE
DARIA BODROVA
DARIA HAD BEEN at her workstation about ten minutes when Alex arrived. Her insides were doing flips. What if he started talking to her? Could she behave normally? Or would he be able to tell something was wrong? And why had she talked so much, so freely, to the man named Sam, the man who had snuck into this room in the middle of the night like a bandit? Was she that d
esperate, so desperate as to talk to a complete stranger? And could she really trust the man? Of all the questions, she was most confident she knew the answer to that one, and it was yes. She didn't know how she knew, but yes, she believed she could trust the man Sam. Why else would she have talked to him?
"Daria," Alex said, startling her.
"Yes?" Did she flinch? Did he see it?
"Any new action on the videos?"
"No. All were normal."
"Have you checked the keylogger to see if the reports went out to the intruder last night?"
"No, I will do this now." She maneuvered through the system, Alex watching over her shoulder, her heart beating so hard and so fast that she worried if he could hear it.
"Be careful," he said. "Do it like we talked about, so he can't tell that we know."
She nodded and continued navigating to the log. "Yes, nine reports were transmitted," she said.
Alex did something he had never done. He gave a little squeeze of her neck. Then she felt and heard him kiss the top of her head.
"Good job," he said. "Very good job."
Daria fought the urge to vomit.
CHAPTER 77
SPACE
I HAD MADE Daria wait while I checked the tunnel to be sure no one was coming, then sent her on her way to the bunker. I left the tunnel at a jog and continued the pace until I was back inside the casino. The last thing I wanted was to be seen by "Alex," and according to Daria, he would be arriving at the tunnel soon.
After a visit to my room to retrieve my laptop, I made my way to the workroom, all the while trying to process what had just happened. Through a chance meeting—maybe divine intervention was more likely—I had just gotten a huge break. I now had an inside source. I also had the invaluable knowledge that those in charge inside the bunker were aware of me, aware of my visit in the wee hours. What had Daria said? Alex made a computer cage for me? Trap. She meant trap.
A known trap is not much of a trap at all. No more accessing the hacker computers for me. Whatever I'd find there was quickly becoming secondary anyway.
I emailed the private investigator and told him to get everything he could on 742 Green Mountain Drive, the house where Daria and the other forced tech workers were living. Then I Googled the address and checked out what I could see from the Internet myself. The house was a largish cookie-cutter situated in a cul-de-sac of a fairly new-looking subdivision, the kind with a thousand houses that all look way too much alike. Suburban America of the twenty-first century. Further searching turned up nothing useful, so I'd wait for the PI's report.
Now I had a dilemma: what to do. My instant reflex was to call the FBI agent, Meyer. They would be best equipped to deal with such a situation, and maybe such a tip would be big enough to get her off my back for good. I also had a responsibility to inform Jacob Allen, the client who was paying me and had a right to know what was going on in the bowels of the business he ran.
The problem? I wasn't sure who I could trust to react in a way that wouldn't endanger Daria or her sister or the others, who could only be described as prisoners and hostages. I liked Jacob well enough, but I also remembered how he not only didn't want to notify the police about the rape videos; he actively thwarted my attempt to involve the police. I understood his desire to keep the company brand from being associated with such a sordid situation, but I didn't agree with it. His right to know was important, but not important enough to risk this. Then there was Meyer, a cold-hearted bitch I knew I didn't trust.
In the end, the list of who I trusted to handle it was short: me.
My email notifier dinged and when I looked at my inbox, I had a reply from the professor with the fancy algorithms.
Dear Mr. Flatt,
rcvd your videos and request. "disturbing" is an understatement. ran them through my system and got results that look solid. 94.5% chance all the imagery you sent was recorded on the same camera, a canon c300 cinema. somewhat odd that a high-end camera would be used and the resulting footage compressed in such a lossy fashion. let me know if I can do more.
jcf
AFTER SENDING BACK a thank-you email, I hopped on Amazon and looked up the C300. The camera was a newish model, out less than a year, which meant there were relatively fewer owners out there. I leaned back in my chair and thought about the professor's point on shooting with such quality gear, then uploading versions that had been compressed so much that the quality was indistinguishable from a low-end smartphone's output. After a couple minutes, it hit me: Maybe the deep web versions were just teasers, previews of a much higher-quality version that could be bought.
I switched to the forensic environment in which I'd watched the rape videos, a special computer setup that allowed me to view anything online without a trace of it being stored on my computer. Just having a few child porn pictures on your computer is enough to land you in prison. I sure didn't want to find myself in that situation as a result of trying to find and stop these subhumans.
It took more than two hours of sifting through the most disgusting websites imaginable—child porn, torture porn, rape porn, snuff films—but I finally scored a direct hit. The site had no name, just a long URL on the deep web that looked like gibberish. If you got to this site, either someone had given you the URL, or you'd found it via one of the deep web's unfiltered search engines. Probably with a search term like “REAL RAPE” or similar. It was laid out like a typical online store, although the aesthetics were minimal, crude by today's standards and more in keeping with online stores one would have seen in the early days of the Internet. People didn't come here for flashy graphics and a slick user experience. They came because they were the lowest form of life on the planet, the kind who derive sexual gratification from watching helpless girls brutalized. These miscreants weren't content watching twentysomething actors pretend to be fifteen-year-olds being raped. No, this scum wanted to see innocent teenagers ripped and torn body and soul, for real.
Bold text at the top of the page said AUTHENTICITY OF EVERY VIDEO GUARANTEED. WATCH THESE YOUNG BITCHES SCREAM. Below the header, a grid of thumbnails showed select frames from the videos for sale. Each thumbnail had three tiny links below it: STREAM HD $55, BLU-RAY $75, and PREVIEW FREE. Clicking the preview link played the exact videos at the exact crappy quality level I had seen earlier, although they played from a different deep web address. Both the streaming and Blu-Ray links added that video to a shopping cart and went to a view of the cart that offered the choice to CONTINUE SHOPPING or CHECKOUT NOW.
Buying the streaming version would be a waste of time. These people weren't idiots, so tracking a high-def stream's origin down would yield the same results as I got when trying to find the source of the previews I'd watched. A Blu-Ray would at least provide something tangible that came from somewhere in the brick-and-mortar world. I thought about setting up a blind mailbox at one of the many services in Vegas, but decided against it. I had some Bitcoin and could pay without leaving a clue of any kind, but I didn't want this stuff shipped to me in any way, especially since I already had an FBI agent willing to throw out all scruples and notions of fair play in what she no doubt viewed as her noble quest.
I had a better idea. After working through the checkout screen and double-checking the information I'd entered, I clicked the button that said COMPLETE ORDER.
CHAPTER 78
Christine Gamboa
GIVEN THEIR PREVIOUS TRAVELS, this wasn't what Christine imagined when she learned they were taking a chartered flight to parts unknown. The Cessna had four seats, and none of them was built to accommodate Sasha, even though he managed to lodge himself in the right front seat. She was directly behind him—the pilot said she had to sit there—with Zuyev on her left. The short seatback pressed into her knees and the back of Sasha's giant head was no more than a foot from her face.
They had taken off, landed for gas, taken off, landed for gas, taken off again. Sasha declined to answer her questions about where they were or where they were going.
You must to trust Sasha, Chrissy. The only thing she was sure of was that during the daylight hours, they'd always been headed generally westward. That was the case now. The sun was straight ahead, low in the sky, painting the fluffy white carpet of clouds below them a soft golden color.
She turned to Zuyev. "I have to pee. Close your eyes."
His eyelids slowly dropped, the way a doll's eyes would as you laid it back. His mouth turned up just a bit on the right side, the closest she'd seen to a smile from him. The surrealism of the situation, the confinement in the ever-more-stinky cabin as they flew, the stress and exhaustion, were all beginning to mess with her mind. She now almost believed Zuyev wasn't really a human being at all, but some macabre automaton. Sasha was some amphibian glob. She stretched to reach the pee bottle behind the back seat, got a finger through the handle, and brought it forward.
The pilot turned his head ever so quickly and their eyes met. He had done it many times, but she had gotten used to men doing that since she was about fifteen. He had bright brown eyes that seemed to always be on the verge of a smile. The grizzle on his face was dark with a flash of gray on occasion. Christine didn’t know who he was or where Sasha had found him, and didn’t really care.
She should've worn a dress, because getting her jeans down enough to pee in the bottle was a difficult proposition in this cocoon. She unsnapped the pants and the pilot's head did another quick swivel. This time she was ready and met his eyes with a stare that said, Not gonna happen, buddy. What may happen, though, is me pulling your eyeballs out of your face and stuffing them in your ears. The twinkle disappeared from the brown eyes and he turned back forward.
Unallocated Space: A Thriller (Sam Flatt Book 1) Page 18
