The Stolen Ones

by Owen Laukkanen

  It was a nice little bedroom, with a twin bed and a writing desk and a closet with a handful of droopy wire hangers. The curtains were dusty, and the walls were bare, but it was better than a prison cell—or that fetid box. It was, Irina understood, her new home.

  “It’s a house for battered women,” Nancy Stevens had explained, through Maria, on the drive over. “Many of them are new to America, like you. It’s very safe. It’s communal. A way to help you feel like a human being again.”

  A human being. Irina had wondered how she could feel anything close to normal ever again with Catalina still missing. She couldn’t imagine ever feeling safe on the streets, couldn’t picture a night without terror and that paralyzing guilt. But she’d followed Nancy anyway, up the front steps of the facility—a shabby old house in a quiet neighborhood—and into the lobby, where a friendly, middle-aged woman had written Irina’s name on a clipboard, and a handful of other hollow-eyed women had lingered like wraiths, watching her.

  Her English was still rotten. Maria wouldn’t be around, not all the time, but Nancy Stevens wasn’t dissuaded. “You’ll pick it up quickly,” she said. “The staff here can help you, and if you ever do need her, Maria’s just a phone call away. So am I, for that matter.”

  “My sister,” Irina said.

  Nancy’s smile didn’t waver. “My husband’s making progress,” she said. “Believe me, if anyone can find her, it’s Kirk. In the meantime, you just take it easy and try to relax, okay?”

  Irina wondered how the woman could be so optimistic. If it was an American thing, this relentless positivity. Your lives are so easy, she thought. Big-screen TVs, movie stars, McDonald’s hamburgers. Of course you’re happy; you’ve never seen hardship.

  But that was mean. Nancy Stevens was trying to help her, and if Irina had to be anywhere while she waited to find out Catalina’s fate, it might as well be here. She sat on the bed, tested the mattress. Met Nancy’s eye and nodded. “I can stay here.”

  “Sure you can.” Nancy pulled back the curtains and gestured out the window. “Come see.”

  Maria translated, and Irina joined Nancy at the window. Followed her gaze to the dark American sedan parked across the street, the two men inside.

  “The marshals are staying,” Nancy said. “They’ll be watching the house day and night, to protect you.”

  Irina pictured the men inside the dark sedan. They’d been kind enough on the drive to the house, quiet and deferential. But she had been terrified of them nonetheless.

  “And if you ever feel worried, or anxious, or anything . . .” Nancy took a business card from her pocket. “Day or night, okay?”

  She winked at Irina. “I’ll work on my Romanian.” She hugged Irina quickly, shocking the hell out of her, and then waved good-bye from the door. Irina waved back, forced a smile, waited as Nancy and Maria closed the door behind them. Then she walked to the bed, lay down and stared up at the ceiling, and thought about Catalina and Nancy Stevens, and hoped the pretty American’s faith in her husband was well placed.

  60

  THE CLIENT WAS A SHORT MAN, narrow and nearly bald. He was among the richest men in Manhattan. He was also a pervert, and knew plenty more of the same.

  “Blondes,” he told Volovoi, leaning across the table. “That’s my taste, personally. There’s something about a pretty young blonde that just—” He laughed and cut a piece of his steak. “Well, you know what I mean.”

  Volovoi looked around the restaurant, at the skyscrapers outside the windows, and struggled to calm his queasy stomach. Beside him, the Dragon appeared far more at peace. This is the man who will make us both rich, his expression seemed to read. This is the only way you’ll survive.

  “We can supply blondes,” the Dragon said. “Can’t we, Andrei?”

  Volovoi glanced at the Dragon. Then at the client. “We have plenty of blondes,” he said slowly.

  “Plenty of blondes,” the Dragon repeated. “What did I tell you, Lloyd? Do your friends share your tastes?”

  Lloyd shrugged. “Hell, they like all kinds,” he said, chewing. “I don’t exactly keep a database.” He grinned back at the Dragon. “But I know they like them young. The younger the better.”

  The Dragon matched his smile, played up the charming salesman act. “But of course.”

  “There are thousands of beautiful women in this city, and all of them can be bought,” Lloyd said. “Not so much if your tastes skew below the age of the average college freshman.”

  “Young is no problem,” the Dragon told him. “Young is our specialty. We can supply women as young as your friends desire.”

  Volovoi thought about his family. Thought about the lines of red numbers in his accounting spreadsheets. Thought about the Dragon’s wolfish smile, his outstretched hand. The thousands of dollars that bled from the operation directly into the Dragon’s accounts every month.

  You were stupid, he told himself. You were played. This is what the Dragon wanted from you all along. Your name on the lease. Your face on the franchise. Your neck in the noose if anything goes wrong.

  And his hand in the cash register as the money piles up. As the girls arrive for sick bastards like this.

  You were played, Andrei Volovoi. Like a mouse in a trap. And there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it now.

  The client was studying him. So was the Dragon. “We can do young,” Volovoi said, forcing the reluctance from his voice. “So long as the price is agreeable.”

  Lloyd took another bite of his steak. “Of course,” he said. “Let’s talk numbers.”

  Volovoi looked out the window again. The restaurant sat high atop a midtown skyscraper; far below, the city bustled and blared with midday traffic. Up here, though, the air was calm, the restaurant soothing and airy and quiet. This was privilege. This was wealth. Volovoi felt as comfortable here as he would at the bottom of the ocean. He did not belong. He would never belong. And he was sure that everyone in the restaurant could see it.

  “Two hundred thousand,” the Dragon told Lloyd. “Minimum opening bid. We will negotiate on a per-case basis from there.”

  Lloyd pursed his lips. The Dragon waited. A highway patrol cruiser approached in an oncoming lane. Bogdan waited, tense, until it passed. There were sketches on the news now, he knew, his face and Nikolai’s, too. Two hundred thousand per girl was a significant upgrade. Even if the Dragon continued to demand his percentages, there was no way that Volovoi wouldn’t get rich.

  Forty girls in a box at two hundred thousand a girl meant eight million dollars a shipment. Surely, the Dragon had been greedy. There was no way that Lloyd would agree.

  But then the client nodded. “Two hundred sounds reasonable,” he said. “My contacts shouldn’t have a problem with that kind of ballpark.”

  “Perfect.” The Dragon turned to Volovoi. “Then I’d say we’re in business. All right, Andrei?”

  Volovoi pretended to stall, though he already knew his answer. At this price point, there was no way he could decline. Not with the Dragon’s claws so tight around his neck. Not with his operation at the brink of failure.

  “Cash up front,” he said finally. “Wired overseas.”

  The Dragon laughed. Lloyd smiled.

  “There is a shipment arriving in two days,” the Dragon told Lloyd. “I will make sure Andrei has the merchandise ready for you as soon as possible.”

  “Perfect,” Lloyd said. “And no pressure from the authorities, I assume? You run a clean operation?”

  “Perfectly clean,” the Dragon said. “We take care of any issues quickly and with finality. Right, Andrei?”

  Volovoi thought about the FBI insects. About Bogdan’s and Nikolai’s faces on the news. He would have to kill them both, he realized. The Manhattan expansion was the big leagues. Both men were now liabilities.

  “I run an airtight operation,” he told Lloyd. “Your c
ontacts are safe.”

  “A couple of days, then.” Lloyd reached for a bottle from the bucket that waited tableside. Then he winked at Volovoi. “Champagne?”

  61

  BILLINGS, MONTANA.

  Stevens and Windermere sat in an unmarked FBI Tahoe, staring out at a grungy brick building a block from the railroad yards as their driver, a local field agent named Fast, worked the Billings PD for backup.

  The building was unremarkable, a little box with no ornamentation, blacked-out windows, and a solid-steel door. There was a black E-series cargo van parked in the alley alongside the place, a black hole in the shadows as the last light of day slipped away. The Blue Room, the place was called, and if their information was correct, this was where Irina Milosovici’s traffickers had sold their last group of women.

  Windermere shivered. “Men,” she said. “Bring a girl to a place like this and the last thing she’s thinking about is getting her rocks off. But a guy will chase tail anywhere, I guess.”

  “Hey now,” Stevens said.

  “Present company excluded, of course,” Windermere said. “You’re a paragon of virtue, Stevens. The last decent man.”

  Stevens looked out at the building. “Tell that to my daughter,” he said.

  > > >

  THEY’D ARRIVED IN BILLINGS that morning. Met Agent Fast in the airport parking lot, spent the first half of the day visiting strip clubs and massage parlors and combing for leads. It wasn’t until Fast suggested lunch, though, that they’d caught their break—a pretty young waitress who overheard the conversation, caught Windermere telling Fast she wasn’t really interested in visiting any more strip clubs.

  “I mean, naked girls are nice and all,” Windermere was saying, “but we’re not looking for lap dances right now. This is sex trafficking. We want girls who aren’t exactly happy to find themselves in Billings, scenic though it may be.”

  “You want the Blue Room,” the waitress said. She was a younger woman, pretty, a shy smile on her face. Amy, her name tag said. “At least that’s what I hear.”

  Windermere slid a chair out beside Fast. “Set those plates down a minute, Amy,” she said. “Why don’t you have a seat.”

  Amy hesitated. Then she sat. Then, blushing bright red, she told them what she knew.

  “I only heard about this from my boyfriend,” she said, looking around at Stevens and Windermere and Fast. “And it’s not like he, you know, goes there. He just knows about it from some guys at work.”

  “No problem,” Windermere said. “Just tell us what you know about this place. The Blue Room, you said. It’s a bar?”

  Amy shook her head. “It’s not, like, anything, I don’t think. That’s not even its real name. They just call it the Blue Room because it’s a blue room where they keep the girls.”

  “The girls,” Stevens said. “Dancers?”

  “Hookers,” Amy said. “At least that’s what Erik—my boyfriend—heard from his buddy. I guess it’s like a brothel or something, five or six girls in a house somewhere, and none of them speak any English.”

  “Sounds like our spot,” said Windermere. “So where is this place?”

  Amy shrugged. “It’s not like Erik told me everything. Anyway, he never went there.”

  “But his buddy did,” Windermere said. “What did you say his name was?”

  Amy went red. Looked around the diner. “Oh, darn it.”

  62

  AMY’S BOYFRIEND’S BUDDY was a guy named Collins, a new father with an old pickup truck. Stevens and Windermere met him on his front stoop, convinced him he’d be better off talking right now, informal, rather than causing a scene in front of his young wife.

  “It was just the one time,” he said after bumming a smoke from Fast. “I mean, I knew it was stupid, but a couple guys said the place was cool. Said, like, you could get whatever you wanted there. Whatever you wanted, and the price was all right. I mean, I dunno, I got curious.”

  “With your wife being tied up with the baby and all,” Windermere said. “I bet she didn’t have much time left over to pay attention to you, huh?”

  Collins winced. “I knew it was stupid,” he said. “Look, what’s the big deal, anyway? They bring in the FBI to investigate prostitution now?”

  “Prostitution? No. Sex trafficking? You bet.”

  “Oh, shit.” Collins looked back at the door. “Nobody told me those girls were—you’re saying—”

  “Reason why the price was all right,” Windermere said. “Those girls weren’t seeing a dime. So why don’t you tell us all you can about the Blue Room?” She looked him in the eye. “Start with where we can find it.”

  63

  NOW STEVENS AND WINDERMERE waited outside the Blue Room. Fifteen minutes passed. The backup arrived, two squad cars with Billings PD markings.

  “Tell them to wait somewhere inconspicuous,” Stevens told Fast. “Out of sight. And make sure they’re ready to move when we need them.”

  Fast relayed the message. “Let’s wait this thing out a little longer,” Windermere said. “See if anybody wants action tonight.”

  They waited. The cruisers drifted away, and darkness settled around them. A long freight train rumbled out of town. Windermere stared out the window, her breathing so slow and steady she almost sounded asleep. Then she straightened. “First contestant.”

  A pair of headlights up the block, idling toward the railroad yard and the parked Tahoe. The headlights ran a stop sign a street away, slowed outside the brick building and stayed there, in the middle of the road, an old Pontiac Bonneville, a boat of a car. The driver didn’t move behind the wheel, just sat in place for a minute or two.

  “Go on,” Windermere whispered. “Get in there and get you a girl, cowboy.”

  The driver let off the brake and the Bonneville idled to the curb and parked. The driver was a man, medium height, his face hidden by darkness. He walked around the car and up the sidewalk to the brick building and the plain steel door. Glanced back at the Bonneville once and then knocked.

  The door swung open. There was nothing behind it but shadows. No bad guys. No girls. Just darkness, tinged a faint hint of blue.

  “Looks like a blue room to me,” Windermere said, reaching for the door handle. “Let’s check it out.”

  > > >

  THEY CROSSED THE STREET to the grungy brick building and the featureless steel door. Beside the door were two blacked-out windows. On the second floor, three more.

  Windermere rapped on the door and listened to the sound reverberate. She’d worked a murder at an underground poker game a couple years back. It went down in a warehouse complex, a nondescript little building with a roll-up door and a steel door like this. There was a security camera up top, to keep out the riffraff, though it hadn’t done its job that night. This place didn’t have a security camera. But nobody was coming to answer the door.

  She knocked again. Waited. No answer. “You want to watch the door while I check around back?” she asked Stevens.

  Stevens looked across the front of the building, then back at Fast. Windermere snorted. “You afraid a girl can’t go into the shadows by herself?” she said. “You check the back, then. Assuming you’re not afraid of the dark.”

  “Terrified.” Stevens walked down to the sidewalk and started toward the alley. Then he stopped. “Carla,” he said, staring up at the building. “Come here.”

  Something in his voice made Windermere tense. She followed him to the sidewalk, followed his gaze to the three windows on the building’s second floor.

  Two of the windows were completely blacked out. The third showed a slim triangle of light in the bottom corner, a sheet turned back. From inside the triangle, a woman’s face peered out. A girl, more like it. Her face was mostly shadow, but where the light hit, she looked gaunt. Bruised. Hollow-eyed.

  The girl met Windermere’s eye, and Wi
ndermere felt a sudden anger well up in her chest. “Come on,” she told Stevens, reaching for her Glock. “Let’s go see who’s running this shithole.”

  64

  WINDERMERE HURRIED BACK UP to the Blue Room’s door as Stevens ran for the Tahoe to rouse Fast. She drew her Glock, her heart already racing, and pounded on the steel door. “FBI. Open this door.”

  She wondered what she would do if the bastards didn’t want to come out. Wondered if she could restrain herself. A girl’s face in a window was hardly probable cause, and the waitress’s boyfriend’s buddy’s testimony wasn’t enough for a search warrant. But she couldn’t walk away now, not after seeing that girl’s face.

  She beat on the door again, still mulling her options, when someone inside rendered the whole debate moot. With a shotgun. There was a BOOM like thunder and a front window exploded. Windermere dove to the ground, looked back and saw Stevens stagger backward, and for a brief, horrible moment, she thought he’d been hit. Then he pulled himself upright, yelled something to Fast, and bolted for the building.

  Somewhere nearby, sirens spooled up. Engines roared. The cruisers flew down the block and screamed to a stop in front of the building. The shotgun boomed again, blowing out the other window. Inside, women screamed. More glass shattered. Stevens was crouched beside the first window, his gun drawn. The windows yawned open, their light alien blue. This was the Blue Room, all right. This was someone’s last stand.

  Windermere shouted back to the Billings PD uniforms, told them to contain the building from the back. Was about to call out to Stevens when the steel door flew open. Windermere swung at it with her Glock, nearly blew a hole through a terrified blond girl in a cheap negligee as she came booking out the doorway for the sidewalk. Windermere lowered her gun, caught the girl. Ducked her head and dragged her, screaming, to Fast.