The red truck and its red box were among them. Windermere watched the truck idle through the checkpoint and out onto the surface road beyond the facility. There were no more cameras here. The truck drove offscreen and was gone.
“And off they go,” Stevens said, pausing the footage. “Let’s see if LePlavy could dig up any dirt.”
> > >
BUT LEPLAVY didn’t come back with much.
“The good news is it’s probably your truck,” he said. “The tractor’s a rental, leased from a national heavy-equipment distributor. The flatbed chassis’s the same, but from a different distributor. Both leased to a company called ATZ Transport, out of Elizabeth, New Jersey.”
“That’s just down the road,” Stevens said. “Right? Let’s go get them.”
LePlavy shook his head. “It’s a front,” he said. “It’s a P.O. box. ATZ Transport is owned by a numbered company based on the Isle of Man. There’s no cracking who owns that company, not without some serious help from Interpol.”
“And the box?” Windermere asked.
LePlavy sighed. “The box is the same story, only it’s owned by a different shell company, which is owned by a different numbered company in a different overseas tax haven.” He looked at them both. “Basically, what I’m saying is, these guys are pros. They know to hide their assets. And it’s going to take a hell of a lot of sifting through ownership statements to find them.”
Windermere felt the electricity in the air evaporate. Felt, honestly, like she’d been punched in the stomach. “But you have the box coming into Trieste, right?” she asked. “So we just trace it back from there. Don’t they have a record of where it came from?”
“You’d think so,” LePlavy said, “but the EU customs officers only have what’s on the manifest: one forty-foot container, owned by the aforementioned shell company, carrying . . .” He checked his notebook. “DVD players from the Czech Republic. Which we know is a lie, since your victim entered the box in Bucharest. Basically, this whole operation is a ghost before the box shows up in Trieste.”
He gestured to the monitors. “What about the security footage?” he asked. “You guys find anything useful?”
“Nothing,” Windermere said. “The box landed on a flatbed and drove off the lot. Disappeared into oblivion.”
“We were hoping you’d get us our lead,” Stevens said.
“I can get in touch with Interpol,” LePlavy said. “Try and convince them to help me track down this chain of ownership. FinCEN, too, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, down in Virginia. Maybe they can open up some doors.”
“These guys are human traffickers,” Windermere said, her frustration mounting. “Scum of the earth. Let’s just go Patriot Act on their asses.”
“We’ll try,” LePlavy told her. “Two numbered companies in two different offshore havens, though; it’s going to take time.”
Stevens met her eyes, and Windermere could tell he was thinking the same thing she was. We have a whole box of women in danger, and probably more. Time is the last thing we can spare.
48
BOGDAN URZICA felt the truck slowing. He sat up, blinking, rubbing his eyes. “Where are we?” he asked Nikolai, peering out at the gloom.
Beside him, Nikolai steered the truck to a stop at the side of the road. They were off the highway, Bogdan realized. There was no light anywhere except for the headlights of the truck, piercing the darkness for thirty feet, illuminating a teeming swarm of bugs and nothing but a flat, single-lane blacktop beyond.
Nikolai shifted the truck out of gear, turned off the engine. “Quick stop,” he told Bogdan. “I’m going to feed the bitch. You go back to sleep.”
He opened the door and climbed down from the cab, and Bogdan closed his eyes again, basking in the warm air from Nikolai’s open door. The night smelled like a farm, and Bogdan imagined he was back in the home country, a child, visiting his grandparents outside of the city. He’d imagined, once, that he’d like to work on a farm; it was a simple, honest life, anyway, and his grandparents seemed happy enough. Maybe he would purchase a farm someday, when he was finished running girls for Andrei Volovoi. After this trip, he could use a taste of something simpler.
> > >
WHEN HE OPENED HIS EYES AGAIN, fifteen minutes had passed. Nikolai was not in the truck; his door hung half open, and there were flies swarming into the cab. Bogdan sat up. “Shit.”
He reached across the cab for Nikolai’s door, couldn’t reach it. He was about to slide across and slam the thing closed when an ugly thought crossed his mind.
What if the girl had escaped?
Her sister had done it. The girl had been right behind her. She could have felt the truck slowing and waited for Nikolai to open the door. Struck him on the head and run off into the night.
Shit, but the Dragon would kill them both.
Quickly, Bogdan opened his own door and climbed out of the truck and down to the road. Walked back along the shoulder to the end of the box. The door hung open. There was nobody there.
Drawing his weapon, he climbed into the back of the box. Stepped around the cardboard boxes to the little door to the false compartment. “Nikolai?”
Silence. Then, a girl’s sobs.
Bogdan drew a flashlight from his belt and shined it into the dark compartment. The beam was weak and he couldn’t see anything. He ducked through the little doorway and swung the flashlight again.
There, in the corner, a jumble of limbs and shadows. Nikolai on top of the girl, his tongue at her ear, his hand fumbling with the zipper of his jeans. He was laughing, muttering something, and the girl was crying and struggling beneath him. He’d torn her shirt, Bogdan saw. Forced her pants to her ankles. He intended to rape her.
Bogdan felt his anger rise. Nikolai, the fucking animal.
Bogdan slid his pistol back into his waistband. Then, his heart pounding in his temples, he crossed the compartment toward Nikolai and the girl.
49
NIKOLAI STRUGGLED with the girl. He hadn’t noticed Bogdan yet, was fighting to keep the girl pinned while he fumbled with his jeans. Bogdan grabbed him by the shoulder. “Nikolai.”
Nikolai snarled at him, shoved him aside. “Fuck off, Bogdan,” he said. “I’m getting a taste of this little bitch.”
“You’re an idiot.” Bogdan grabbed Nikolai again, harder this time, as the girl scuttled away into the corner. “The Dragon will kill us if he finds out.”
“So he won’t find out,” Nikolai said. “Now fuck off and leave me to her.”
Bogdan stood in his way. “You fuck off,” he said. “Forget the girl.”
Nikolai’s eyes were wild, his mouth open, a rabid dog. “Get out of my way, Bogdan,” he said. “Or I’ll move you.”
Bogdan stood fast. Stared him down.
Then Nikolai threw the punch. A roundhouse haymaker. It caught Bogdan off guard, though he knew he should have anticipated it. Knocked him staggering backward, across the compartment, knocked the flashlight away. With a snarl, Nikolai leapt for the little girl again.
Bogdan landed on his back, his head in a daze. Stood just as Nikolai reached the girl. Just as he pulled open his jeans. The girl screamed and crawled backward, but there was nowhere to go.
Bogdan drew his pistol. Crossed the compartment and pressed the weapon to the back of Nikolai’s neck. “Enough,” he said. “Now.”
Nikolai stopped moving. Bogdan could feel the girl’s eyes on him as the compartment went silent. “I hope you don’t draw your weapon without intending to use it, Bogdan,” Nikolai said slowly.
Bogdan held the gun steady. “Would you like to find out?”
Nikolai didn’t respond for a moment. Then he pushed himself from the girl. “You wouldn’t shoot me,” he told Bogdan. “The Dragon would kill you.”
“The Dragon would understand,” Bogdan replied.
&n
bsp; Nikolai studied him, panting heavily. The girl watched them both. Bogdan felt his jaw throbbing, ached to touch it. Knew as soon as he blinked, Nikolai would be on him.
An eternity passed. Finally, Nikolai shrugged. “Your turn to drive,” he said, brushing past Bogdan and out of the compartment.
Bogdan waited until he heard his partner drop out of the back of the box. Then he retrieved his flashlight and hid the gun back in his waistband. The girl half sat, half lay on the floor in front of him, her clothing torn and askew. She watched him, her eyes serious.
Bogdan looked at her. “What?” he said.
She didn’t say anything.
He waited, but she didn’t speak. “Goddamn it,” he said finally. “Fix yourself.” Then he turned and walked out of the compartment.
50
CATALINA PULLED HER CLOTHING together as best she could as the truck began to move again. The scar-faced monster had torn her shirt nearly in half, had ripped the buttons from her pants. Never mind that the clothes were dirtier than anything she’d ever seen in her life; now she had to clutch them about her like rags just to cover herself.
Still, the monster hadn’t raped her. Catalina wondered if the man’s friend would have shot him if he’d continued to try. If the man would kill his partner to protect her. The two men had argued in English, and she’d understood none of it. Had no idea why the other man had defended her.
He wants to keep you safe, she thought. For wherever they’re taking you.
This was the logical answer, she knew. The thugs had kept her behind when every other woman was gone. They were saving her for something, somebody. The man without the scar knew it. The man with the scar didn’t. Or he didn’t care. It was that simple.
Still, she’d seen something in the other man’s eyes when he looked at her. It wasn’t just that he was doing his job. The man looked at her like she was human. His scar-faced friend looked at her like she was meat.
The truck rumbled on. Catalina sat in the darkness, clutching her clothes to her, wondering how long she would be left in here. Wondering what would be waiting for her when the truck finally stopped, and wondering how she could convince the man without the scar to protect her.
51
VOLOVOI STARED AT HIS PHONE. “Tried to rape her,” he said. “And where the hell were you, Bogdan?”
On the other end of the phone, Bogdan Urzica didn’t answer for a beat. “I was asleep,” he said finally. “He said he was going to feed the girl. I had been driving all day, Andrei. I’m sorry.”
Volovoi paced the sidewalk outside the restaurant. Through the windows, he could see Veronika and Adriana at a table, coloring with crayons as they ate their pizza. He’d driven out to Brighton Beach to meet them for lunch, take them off his sister’s hands for a few hours. He had hoped, after another long night of spreadsheets and red ink, to escape from the headaches of his job for a while. He had hoped he could avoid thinking about business.
Only now, Nikolai Kirilenko was assaulting the merchandise.
“The Dragon wants that little girl for himself, Bogdan,” Volovoi said. “He will kill us all if he doesn’t get her. For Christ’s sake, keep Nikolai off of her, okay?”
“I’ll try,” Bogdan told him, “but I have to sleep sometimes.”
Volovoi closed his eyes. Christ.
“Where are you?” he said finally. “How long until you’re here?”
“We’re in Omaha,” Bogdan told him. “A couple more days. We’ve been trying to be cautious, keep to the speed limit, keep off the main roads. After Club Heat—”
“Yes,” Volovoi said. “Caution is good.”
But the longer the little girl is out on the road, the greater the danger that something will happen to her, he thought. And Bogdan Urzica has already proved once that he is incapable of controlling Nikolai’s urges. The dead cop in Minnesota can attest to that.
Volovoi looked in at his nieces again. Rubbed his eyes. In a day, he was to meet with the Dragon’s buyer in Manhattan. Bogdan and Nikolai would still not be home. And who could predict what new stupidity Nikolai would invent in the meantime?
“Keep the little girl safe,” Volovoi told Bogdan. “I will come out to meet you. I will take her off your hands, and I will deliver her myself to the Dragon. That way, we can both be assured that nothing will go wrong.”
Bogdan considered this. “Okay,” he said. “When will you meet?”
“Tomorrow evening,” Volovoi told him. “I will drive out into Pennsylvania, Ohio. We’ll meet, and I’ll take the girl.”
“Understood,” Bogdan said. “And what about Nikolai?”
Volovoi turned from the window. Looked out across the parking lot. If the angle was right, he could just about see Manhattan in the distance. “I’ll deal with Nikolai,” he told Bogdan. “Just keep the girl safe.”
52
ANDREI VOLOVOI knew he was a hypocrite.
He was a man who made his living stealing women, and selling them as though they were commodities. He’d paid for a Cadillac truck this way, a penthouse loft. He’d built a life in America—hell, he’d made the down payment on his sister’s house, paid for the first year of Veronika’s private school tuition. He made a good living, relatively speaking, and all of it thanks to the women in his boxes.
By rights, he should not have been able to sleep at night. By rights, he should not have been able to sit across from his young nieces in a Brighton Beach pizza parlor, watching them color their unicorn pictures and debating with them whether to have ice cream or brownies for dessert. By rights, Andrei Volovoi should have known he was a monster.
But Volovoi didn’t think of himself as a monster. He was a criminal, sure, more or less amoral. He was a hard man in many ways; one had to be, to succeed in business in America. And Volovoi was a businessman. He was a man who could fill a void in the American marketplace, and anyone who could manage that deserved to get rich. The women who filled his boxes had written their own tickets. Mike hadn’t kidnapped them. They’d been naive, and stupid, and they deserved their lot in life.
This is what Volovoi believed. This is how he rationalized his occupation on afternoons like this, with Adriana tugging his arm and asking for more juice, with Veronika teasing him, asking him when he was going to get a girlfriend. This is how he looked his nieces, his sister, in the eye.
This New York project, though, and this situation with Catalina Milosovici—hell, everything to do with the Dragon—it all rubbed Volovoi raw. These were girls—barely teenagers—the Dragon was selling. In a few years, Veronika could be one of these girls.
This was a different situation altogether. And now Volovoi had agreed to meet the Dragon’s buyer, and in reality, there was only one answer the Dragon would accept. No matter how hard Volovoi worked to reduce his redundancies, the Dragon would always have his hand in Volovoi’s wallet. And the only way to get him out was to join him in New York. To sell young girls.
“You’re not terribly ugly, Uncle Andrei,” Veronika was telling him. “How come you never meet any women?”
Volovoi tried to think of the last woman he’d taken to dinner. Couldn’t. Saw Catalina Milosovici instead, pale and grimy in her photograph. Saw Veronika, instead, in her place. Adriana.
The best way to keep your nieces safe is to keep the Dragon happy, Volovoi thought. And the best way to keep the Dragon happy is to join him in New York.
Veronika cocked her head. “Uncle Andrei?”
So he would be a hypocrite. He would sell his soul. So be it. Volovoi turned away from Veronika, pretended to look out the window. “I am too busy at work,” he said, hiding his eyes. “No time for a woman.”
53
STEVENS AND WINDERMERE spent the night in Newark and flew home to the Twin Cities the next morning. Mathers was waiting for them in CID when they arrived. He had rings under his eyes; his clothes were rumpled, an
d he hadn’t shaved. Windermere wondered if he’d spent the night at his desk.
Serves him right, she thought. That’ll teach him to ignore my instructions.
“Carla.” Mathers stood as they approached. “Kirk. Jesus Christ, I’m sorry. I—”
“Can it.” Windermere breezed past him. “My office, Derek. Give us a status report.”
Mathers hesitated, and Windermere forced herself not to turn back to him. She knew Mathers felt shitty. Hell, she felt sorry for him, knew he was hurt, knew she’d done it to him. She wanted to forgive the big lug, but she’d do it later. There were bigger issues right now.
Mathers followed her and Stevens into her office. Just as he closed the door, the phone rang. Agent Harris. “I need a progress report within the hour,” he told her. “Get your shit in order.”
“Yes, sir.” She hung up the phone and turned back to Mathers. “Go.”
“Okay.” Mathers drew himself up. “I spent the night on the phone with a friend of yours from New Jersey, an Agent Zach LePlavy, who put me in touch with some people at Interpol. Apparently they know this Mike character Irina was talking about, the American guy who put her and Catalina in the box. They’ve been chasing him for years, but they’ve never been able to catch him.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better, Derek?” Windermere said. “There’s a girl’s life at stake here.”
“I’m working on it,” Mathers said. “Interpol says this guy Mike deals with an importer they call the Dragon. Some shadowy underboss type, real bad reputation. They believe his name is Demetriou, Pavel Demetriou, but nobody has actually seen him for years. If Mike’s the one selling women, though, they’re going to this guy.”
“The Dragon,” Stevens said. “Can we get that back to LePlavy and his Organized Crime people? Maybe they know something.”
The Stolen Ones Page 11
