“Have you ever been to New York, little one?” he was asking her. “It is the center of the world, the heartbeat. Millions of people. So much money. So much opportunity.” He smiled at her, another unpleasant smile. “Of course, you will not see very much of it. You will have to imagine what this place is like.”
He unscrewed a vial from around his neck. There was a little silver spoon inside, and the rest was white powder. He inhaled it through his nose, came up gasping and blinking.
He was distracted, had slid away from her to the opposite side of the car, focused entirely on his white powder and his vial. Now was her chance.
Catalina shifted her weight, slipped the thug’s phone from her waistband. Held it tight between her leg and the door, away from the Dragon’s eyes. She had no time for the Internet, for Facebook. She would have to type a text message and hope someone friendly received it.
It was excruciating work. The car sped over bumps and joints in the road, jostling her hands as she tried to type. The Dragon kept looking at her, fondling her leg as he talked to her. She had to wait until he turned back to his little vial again to even try.
Focus, she told herself. For Dorina and the others, if not for yourself.
The iPhone didn’t have a Romanian alphabet. She couldn’t spell in English. She would try the best she could.
P-a-r-c-a, she typed. Park. Each letter seemed to take a thousand years. The Dragon’s fingers crawled up her bare thigh, each skeletal touch a new torture. Catalina tried to ignore the man. She kept typing.
S-t-r-a-d-a. Street.
B-a-l-a-u-r. Dragon.
Close enough.
She wondered who to send it to. Choose a number at random? Or one of the thug’s contacts? She still didn’t know how to alert the police. Catalina scrolled through his contacts as carefully as she could. Could not find a number that appealed to her. Couldn’t make a decision, her heart pounding, the Dragon blathering on beside her.
Then she felt his hand on her wrist. “Why are you so distracted, little one?” he said. “What are you doing over there?”
Catalina froze. Dropped the phone to the floor of the car and kicked it under the seat. “Nothing,” she said, trying to match his smile. “I am not doing anything. Please.”
The Dragon studied her face. Catalina waited, didn’t breathe. Finally, the Dragon unscrewed his little vial again.
“You are a defiant little bitch,” he told her. “I could see it in your photograph. But we’ll see how brave you are when you’re alone with me.”
He inhaled from the vial again. Catalina watched him. Kicked around with her feet on the floor, pushing the phone farther beneath the seat, fighting the wave of sadness and frustration that threatened to overwhelm her. She’d failed to send her message. Failed to help Dorina and the other girls. All she could do now was pray that someone else saved the day, and quickly, before this Dragon man and his friends did whatever they were planning to do.
Prayer. As far as strategies went, it wasn’t a very happy one.
98
ZACH LEPLAVY HAD A CAR waiting for them in the short-term lot outside Newark Liberty International Airport, a mean-looking black Charger with a ferocious low stance. “Swiped it from the motor pool,” he told Windermere, tossing her the keys. “Brand-new. Figured you guys might as well ride in style.”
“Damn right,” Windermere said, slipping behind the wheel. “Now, where are we going?”
LePlavy gave Stevens the front passenger seat. Slid in the back. “Nikolai Kirilenko lives in an apartment complex in Jersey City,” he told the agents. “We’ve had eyes on it since you called in, but he hasn’t showed up yet.”
“We need a search warrant for the house,” Stevens said as Windermere gunned the Charger’s big engine and squealed out of the lot.
LePlavy grinned. “Already done.” He produced a sheaf of paper from his suitcase. “I took the liberty of arranging a search and seizure while I waited on your flight.”
“Hot damn.” Windermere glanced at the warrant as she drove. “What about a map, LePlavy? You got one of those?”
> > >
NIKOLAI KIRILENKO’S APARTMENT was a lonely bachelor special: messy futon, dirty dishes, pile of suspect laundry on the floor. There was nobody home.
“Doesn’t look like he’s been around for a while,” Stevens said, studying the film of dust that had settled over everything. “Maybe he’s out on another delivery.”
“I get the feeling these guys stay busy,” Windermere said. “Who’d want to stick around this place too long, anyway?”
Stevens saw her point. It was a hot, humid day outside, and even hotter inside the apartment; suffocating. The building was old, wasn’t air-conditioned, and Nikolai Kirilenko didn’t even have a fan. After five minutes in the place, Stevens could already feel the sweat beading at the back of his neck.
They poked around the apartment and found nothing of merit. An old snub-nosed .38 in a kitchen drawer. A couple bricks of cash in rubber bands in the freezer. Shady stuff, but nothing to point them toward the Dragon.
Then Stevens knelt down to check under the futon, a ratty old thing with a smell like dirty sheets and unclean hair. The futon’s base was uneven; Kirilenko had steadied it with a makeshift shim, a thin piece of plastic. Stevens slid it out from beneath the bed frame, let the futon sag as he studied the plastic. It was an ID, a union membership card.
“‘The Port of Newark,’” Windermere read aloud, when he showed it to her. “Somehow I don’t think this guy spent much time on the docks.”
“Doesn’t seem like he got much use out of his membership, anyway,” Stevens said.
“Probably a sham,” Windermere said. “Something to scare off the taxman. Dollars to donuts the guy never worked a day on the docks in his life. There’s nothing here, Stevens. Not until Kirilenko comes back.”
“If we’re waiting, let’s do it outside.” Stevens wiped his brow. “We could use a little fresh air.”
He turned for the door. Nearly ran into LePlavy coming in from the hall, his phone at his ear. “Got a witness for you two,” he said. “Some guy figures he might be able to help out with your case.”
“Well, hot damn,” Stevens said. “Can we bring this guy in? Where is he now?”
LePlavy chuckled. “You can talk to him, for sure,” he said. “Bringing him in might be a little difficult. Seems he’s a thousand miles out at sea at the moment.”
99
“I DON’T GET IT.” Windermere leaned close to the computer, spoke into the microphone. “Why wait until now to phone this thing in? Why not talk to us when we saw you on the ship?”
On the computer screen, the witness’s image blurred and distorted. His voice cracked, cut out; the picture froze. Windermere felt her frustration mounting. Wondered why the hell she couldn’t conduct this damn interview on dry land.
The witness’s name was Raipul. He was the same short, bearded man who’d given her the side eye when she’d checked out the Ocean Constellation with Stevens the first time. He hadn’t wanted to talk then, but now, from a tenuous Skype connection somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, he’d found his voice.
“I wanted to be safe,” Raipul told them. “I needed to be absolutely certain. This ship—sometimes we don’t leave precisely on schedule. Sometimes we make extra stops. If I spoke before I was sure we’d left the United States, the people who did this could . . .” He swallowed. “I was afraid they would find me.”
“But not anymore.”
He shrugged. “I am at sea,” he said. “When the ship docks in Spain I will leave it and find another ship. Who will follow me? Not even the Federal Bureau of Investigation will know where I’ve gone.”
“So, okay,” Windermere said. “I guess that puts a time frame on our conversation. Why don’t you tell us what you know before we lose our connection?”
<
br /> “You were asking about a box,” Raipul said. “A box filled with women.”
“That’s right,” Stevens said. “Did you see it?”
“We all saw it,” Raipul told them. “We all knew it was there. The women—we could hear them shouting for help.”
“But you didn’t help them.”
“How could we? We all knew who owned the box. We knew what he would do if we told about him.”
“But you’re telling now,” Windermere said. “Why?”
Raipul stared through the computer screen at Windermere and Stevens, and even across thousands of miles of shoddy satellite connection, Windermere could see the man’s eyes were haunted.
“I think about them,” he said. “The women. Even now, I think about them in that box. About how many more boxes there must be,” he said. “I can’t stop thinking about them.”
“Us, either,” Windermere said. “So, okay, Mr. Raipul, what do you have for us?”
“I’ve heard stories,” Raipul said softly. “From the men in the harbors and the crew on these ships. They say a man named Dragon imports the women. That he operates with an American in Bucharest.”
And what? Windermere thought. We know all this already.
“The American has a company,” Raipul said. “I have heard that the Baltic Treasures Trading Company is the trader of these women. They are not the people who put the boxes on the boat. But they are the people who fill them.”
LePlavy was hovering behind them, listening in. “Didn’t come up in any of my dealings with Interpol,” he told Stevens and Windermere. “I’ve never heard of that company.”
“They must be Mike’s cover in Bucharest,” Stevens said. “He loads them into the Dragon’s boxes, and sends them to Trieste.”
“Works for me,” Windermere said. “So what do we do with Mr. Raipul’s information?”
“I’ll get back in touch with Interpol,” LePlavy said. “Look for background information on this Baltic Treasures company. Maybe it leads us to this American, Mike. We can follow him to the Dragon.”
Windermere arched an eyebrow at Stevens. “You want to go to Europe, partner?” She turned back to the screen. “Mr. Raipul,” she said. “Stick around, would you? Don’t fall overboard or anything.”
Raipul’s image bobbed and crackled. Then the picture froze, and his voice came out as static. “I’m going to take that as a yes,” Windermere said, standing. “Let’s get to work.”
100
LEPLAVY CAME BACK an hour and a half later, rubbing his hands. “It’s dinnertime in Eastern Europe,” he said. “I had to drag a bunch of people from their ciorba.”
Windermere studied the agent. “You don’t exactly look sorry about it.”
“Not at all,” LePlavy said. “Interpol Bucharest took a drive down to the Baltic Treasures Trading Company, had a look around the place. Apparently it’s an exporter of electronic goods, headquarters in Romania, offices all around the Baltic states.”
“Yeah,” Windermere said. “And?”
“And our European colleagues found a gentleman hanging around the Baltic Treasures offices,” LePlavy said. “Showed him a police sketch of the Dragon and the guy freaked out and started singing. Promised the Interpol guys the moon if only they’d protect his family.”
“Talk about world-famous,” Stevens said. “What did the guy have to say?”
“He said the company put thirty boxes on the Ocean Constellation the day they shipped the women, is what he said.”
“Thirty boxes,” Stevens said. “Jesus. All of them filled with women?”
LePlavy shook his head. “Nah. They were mostly filled with DVD players and textiles. It’s a volume game: send twenty-nine legit boxes and hope the last one doesn’t get picked for a random inspection, and if it does, put up a false front and hope the customs guys get lazy. Play the odds, right?”
“So we can lean on this guy,” Windermere said. “Maybe somewhere along the line he can lead us to Mike.”
“I figure we’ll let Interpol handle that,” LePlavy replied. “The guy had something else to say, though. Apparently Baltic Treasures sent another twenty boxes out a couple weeks back, about the same time a ship called the Atlantic Prince docked in Trieste.”
He grinned at them. “The Atlantic Prince calls in Newark this afternoon.”
101
“SO WHAT DO YOU THINK?”
The Dragon gestured around the apartment. Catalina followed his gaze and wanted to be sick.
It was a beautiful apartment. The floor was rich dark wood, the kitchen marble and stainless steel, the ceilings high and the windows expansive. It was bigger than Catalina’s parents’ home in Romania, and the way the sunlight streamed in, it resembled a movie star’s home. It was an incredible apartment, and Catalina knew it was where she was going to die.
Park Avenue. A skyscraper in the clouds. Catalina thought about Irina, about her family, about Dorina and the other girls, and tried not to throw up. Tried not to cry. Tried to keep herself together in front of this awful, devil-faced man, who was leering at her and showing her around as though she were a houseguest, not a captive. As though he didn’t intend to cut her to pieces later with that knife on his belt.
Catalina let the Dragon lead her. He showed her the living room, the kitchen, a vast, well-stocked library, a couple of guest bedrooms. He showed her the master bedroom, a massive bed and a pile of more white powder on the bedside table. He led her back to the kitchen and fed her, gave her a ham sandwich, the first real food she’d consumed in weeks, and as she sat at his kitchen table and scarfed the sandwich down, he talked to her, asked her maddening questions about her childhood, about the town in which she’d grown up. What did her father do, he wondered. What kind of dog was Sasha? Did she share her sister’s appetite for adventure? Stupid, useless questions. As though she were trapped inside some kind of madhouse.
Which, she supposed, she was. This man was not normal. He was drugged-up and maniacal, toying with her like she was a mouse in a trap. Catalina pushed the sandwich away. She’d lost her appetite.
“What do you want with me?” she asked the man, looking him in the eye. “Why have you brought me here?”
The Dragon chuckled. “No time for pleasantries, I suppose,” he said. “Very well.”
He took the sandwich away from her. Motioned her to her feet. Catalina stood. Followed him through the apartment to one of the bathrooms. The Dragon stepped back and ushered her inside.
“You’ll find soap and shampoo in the shower,” he told her. “Clean yourself. Make sure you’re very clean. There’s a makeup kit on the counter when you’re finished, and I’ve chosen something for you to wear. When you’re clean and dressed, I’ll let you out again.” He smiled at her. “Then we can start our games.”
Catalina shuddered. Pushed past him and into the bathroom. The Dragon chuckled in the hallway. “Don’t try anything silly,” he told her. “I’d hate to have to hurt you before I’m ready.”
Catalina slammed the door closed. Felt around for a lock and found none, so she waited. Didn’t move until she heard the man walk away from the door.
The bathroom was huge. It was bigger than her bedroom in Berceni. A huge shower and a deep, luxurious bathtub. A window with a view of the city.
Catalina hurried to the window. Peered down at the streets and across at the skyscrapers around her. Everywhere she looked, she could see normal people going about their normal lives. And here she was, trapped in this madman’s apartment, destined to die.
The madman opened the door. “I don’t hear water running,” he said. “Come away from that window before I get angry.”
Catalina waited until he’d closed the door again. Then, reluctantly, she peeled off her dirty clothing. Ran the shower water until it was warm, and stepped into the spray and began to obey the man’s instructions.
/> 102
TWELVE HUNDRED MILES AWAY from her sister, Irina Milosovici crawled out of her little alcove.
She was very hungry. She hadn’t eaten since yesterday, when she’d had lunch with the other women at the safe house. It had been more than a day now, and she was weakened by thirst.
And she was hot. It had been frigid at night, but now Irina was sweltering. Even in the shadows of her little cubbyhole, she was sweating. Fighting the empty gnaw in her stomach, the parch in her throat. The shame.
She’d given up too easily last night. She’d let the men scare her, and she’d freaked out and run away. At the first sign of a threat, she’d abandoned Catalina. She was a coward. Catalina was still out there. This was no time to hide.
Slowly, unsteadily, Irina pulled herself to her feet. The midday sun was blazing; it stung her eyes as she searched the empty street.
There were warehouses in both directions—blank, windowless buildings. Railroad tracks and parking lots and abandoned cars. In the distance, Irina could see the busy road she’d fled from the night before. The convenience store was up there somewhere. It would have men. Those men would have cars. She would try again to lure one of the men. Then she would steal his car. She would find a way to Clearfield, Pennsylvania, and she would search for Catalina.
Her stomach growled. She pictured the long rows of American candy bars and snack foods, the coolers filled with cold drinks. She would have to get food before she found a man. She would need energy for the journey ahead.
Squinting, shielding her eyes from the sun, Irina pushed herself off the dirty wall and started unsteadily toward the road, the spasms of traffic, the city.
103
STEVENS STARED OUT THE WINDOW of the Customs and Border Protection helicopter as Windermere relayed instructions to LePlavy through her headset.
The Stolen Ones Page 20
