The Stolen Ones

by Owen Laukkanen

  Volovoi pulled the BMW to the curb. Stared up at the building, the DuPont, some fancy tower. A hell of a lot nicer than his apartment in Newark, anyway, not that he would ever see the place again. Volovoi figured he would be lucky to see New York again, hell, America. His face was on every news program in the tristate area.

  The smart play would be to get out right now. Stay in the BMW and keep driving, get away from Manhattan and just go. Find somewhere quiet to hide until the attention died down, then get out of the country. Nobody would connect him to the BMW, not for a little while. He could put some serious distance between himself and the FBI insects.

  He could save himself easily. He just had to keep driving.

  Volovoi shut the car off. Pulled out his cell phone and called a contact at the docks. “I need an out,” he said. “Tonight.”

  “Give me a moment,” the contact replied. A moment passed, and the contact came back. “The APL Brazil,” he told Volovoi. “Sails midnight for Rotterdam. Good?”

  Volovoi checked his watch. A quarter to ten. He would have to hurry, but he could make it.

  “I’ll be there,” he said, and ended the call. Then he climbed out of the car.

  There were police everywhere. NYPD cruisers, unmarked sedans, FBI Yukons, even a helicopter. They were searching, Volovoi realized. Somehow they’d traced the Dragon here.

  Only a fool would stick around.

  Volovoi checked his pistol again. Shoved it into his waistband, hidden, and crossed the sidewalk to the DuPont’s front doors, every sense in his head screaming at him to turn around. He didn’t. He couldn’t.

  Volovoi knew the Dragon would not rest while he was still alive. He would not forgive his partner’s debts, nor his betrayal. Lloyd was dead. The Manhattan project was ruined. The Dragon would carry the grudge to his grave, and if he couldn’t find Volovoi, he would take out his anger on Volovoi’s family.

  Well, so be it. Volovoi would send the Dragon to his grave a little early.

  He walked into the DuPont. Slipped past the doorman, who barely looked up from his paperback novel. Entered an open elevator and pressed the button for the Dragon’s floor, checked his pistol again as the doors slid closed, and waited as the elevator slowly climbed skyward.

  133

  IRINA MILOSOVICI sat in the FBI conference room, watching a TV screen play the news in a corner. Beside her sat the translator, and across the table, the American family—Nancy Stevens, a teenage daughter about Catalina’s age, and a young boy. Sometimes Agent Mathers came in, offered everyone coffee or sandwiches or a fast-food hamburger. Then he was out again, and Irina caught glimpses of him through the doorway, walking this way and that with an urgency she couldn’t help but find attractive.

  He’d hooked her with that little bit of tortured Romanian, she knew, though he’d later confessed (through Maria, the translator) that he’d spent a couple hours memorizing the phrase as he worked to find her.

  “Figured you’d feel a little lost,” he said. “Maybe it’d make you feel better to hear something in your own language.”

  She’d laughed again. Told Maria to tell him his accent needed work, and watched his face break into a wide smile as Maria relayed the joke. He’d brought her back to the office, brought her Maria, brought her food and water and a bandage for the scrape on her knee, brought her everything he could think of to make her feel comfortable.

  But he couldn’t bring her Catalina. She was still out there. She still belonged to the Dragon.

  > > >

  NANCY STEVENS’S DAUGHTER was watching Irina from across the conference room. She was a pretty blond girl, so American. The kind of girl who appears on a magazine cover. She studied Irina with unabashed curiosity.

  The girl said something to Maria, who nodded. Then the girl looked at Irina again. “You’re the girl who escaped,” she said. Maria translated. “The girl who was kidnapped. What’s your name?”

  Irina hesitated. “Irina,” she said. “Irina Milosovici.”

  “I’m Andrea Stevens,” she said. “Nice to meet you.”

  Irina met her eyes. “And you,” she tried in English.

  “Is it true you and your sister came here in a box?” Andrea asked.

  Nancy Stevens, beside her, shushed her. Apologized to Irina, to Maria.

  “It’s okay,” Irina said. “Yes. I was taken from my home in Bucharest.”

  “How did they kidnap you?”

  Irina closed her eyes. “I always wanted to go to America,” she said. “They promised me a job, as a model. There was an American man who promised to handle everything.”

  “And then he put you in the box.”

  She exhaled. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Before Irina could answer, Nancy Stevens said something to her, sharp. Andrea spun, replied in kind, a teenager’s quick temper. Catalina had the same; watching Andrea made Irina’s heart ache for her sister.

  Andrea and her mother argued for a minute. Then Nancy said something that made Andrea blush and look away, look down at the table. “Sorry,” she told Irina. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

  “It’s okay,” Irina said.

  Andrea was silent a beat. “My dad is going to solve this case,” she said finally. “He’s in New Jersey right now, catching the bad guys. He’s really good.”

  Irina studied the girl’s face, her earnest expression. Could see more of her mother’s features, but the little boy, he had his dad’s face, his kind eyes. Nancy Stevens had a beautiful family.

  “My dad rescued me once,” Andrea said. “From a bad guy. He’s a really good cop. He’ll get your sister back.”

  Irina forced a smile at the girl. She had no doubt Agent Stevens was good. Probably he was a wonderful father. But he’d sent his family to hide here all the same. He, too, was afraid of the man called the Dragon.

  Irina shivered and cast her eyes to the table. The Dragon was a monster. Even the police were afraid of him. Poor sweet Catalina didn’t stand a chance.

  134

  SHE COULDN’T REACH THE KNIFE.

  The Dragon was on top of her again. His hands were all over her body, pawing at her, squeezing. He slapped at her. Swore at her. He hadn’t tried to have sex with her, yet. From what Catalina could tell, he couldn’t.

  “Fucking Volovoi,” he muttered. “Fucking little bitch.”

  He would kill her, she knew. He was getting frustrated, and he would take it out on her. He would take the knife and stab her, and that would be the end. It would be the end of her life, and the end of Dorina’s, and the others. Everybody would die.

  She had to get away.

  The Dragon was struggling with the clasp of her bra. Catalina lifted her head from the pillows. Beside her, she could see the nightstand, the mountain of drugs. The Dragon sniffed, fumbled, swore again. He was clumsy and awkward.

  She could see the knife where it lay on the table, beside the cocaine, unguarded and tantalizingly close. It wasn’t close enough, though. She would never reach it.

  Catalina reached anyway. She didn’t touch the knife. Couldn’t. But she came back with cocaine, a fistful of white powder. She flung it into the Dragon’s eyes. The Dragon reared back, coughing, grabbing at his face, and Catalina scrabbled from underneath him. Reached again for the knife.

  This time, she grabbed it.

  The Dragon was swearing above her, sneezing, his eyes filled with tears. Catalina spun, and lunged with the knife. Plunged it deep into his stomach. The Dragon screamed, doubled over. Struck out with his fists.

  Catalina dodged him. Wrenched the knife out and came at him again, thrusting the knife in his stomach, wanting to puke at how easily it slid in. The Dragon screamed as she stabbed him. Swung his arms, wild and blind.

  Catalina stabbed him until she couldn’t do it anymore. Let him slump against the bed, let him fall, clumsily,
to the floor.

  She fumbled in the closet. Found a T-shirt and pulled it over herself. Then she ran, gripping the bloody knife in her hand.

  135

  “NYPD FOUND THE PHONE in a parking garage on Lexington,” LePlavy told Stevens as Windermere sped the Charger out of the Lincoln Tunnel. “Backseat of a town car with phony registration. No sign of Catalina Milosovici or anyone else.”

  So where the hell is he? Stevens thought. “Can we canvass the area?”

  “Already doing it,” LePlavy said. “It’s a full-scale manhunt. It’s the middle of Manhattan, though, Agent Stevens. Even in an eight-block radius, there’s more people than Wichita, Kansas.”

  Stevens watched the city fly by outside the Charger’s windows. “Tell them to keep looking,” he told LePlavy. “This is our best goddamn shot.”

  136

  THE ELEVATOR DOORS SLID OPEN. Volovoi stepped out of the car and into the hallway. The hallway was quiet.

  He gripped the pistol in his right hand as he walked down the hall. Thought again of his nieces. Of the police cars outside.

  He would kill the Dragon quickly. He would kill the little girl, too; he would have to. Then he would escape. Nobody would catch on.

  Volovoi reached the Dragon’s door. Raised his pistol and aimed at the lock. Before he could pull the trigger, the door flew open.

  The girl. Catalina Milosovici. She wore nothing but an oversized T-shirt, and in her hand she carried the Dragon’s bloody knife. She ran headlong into Volovoi, collided and bounced off him. Fell to the floor. The knife skittered away.

  Volovoi stared at her. At the knife. Wondered if she’d done his work for him. No matter; he’d find out soon enough. The girl stared back from the floor. He watched her eyes go wide as he leveled the pistol at her.

  “It’s nothing personal,” he told her. “It’s not prudent to leave witnesses.”

  He could see her jaw working. He could see the frustration in her eyes. No doubt, she’d been brave. She’d been courageous. She’d disarmed the Dragon and managed to escape, and now—now this. Now she would die, because she was unlucky.

  Volovoi thought about his nieces. Forced himself to shake the girl’s gaze. Tightened his finger on the trigger.

  Before he could shoot, though, someone else pulled a trigger. Gunfire exploded, loud, a hammer pounding. Bullets tore through the wall around Volovoi, courtesy of the Dragon, who’d emerged at the end of a long hallway, holding a machine pistol. The Dragon was bloody. His shirt was unbuttoned, his belt undone. Volovoi ducked away, amazed at his good luck. The Dragon’s bullets had missed him somehow. He had survived.

  He had to kill the Dragon.

  The girl was scrambling backward, back into the apartment. Volovoi ignored her. Dove for cover as the Dragon let off another round of bullets. Volovoi raised his pistol and fired back, heard the Dragon laughing.

  “You’ve betrayed me, Andrei,” the Dragon said. “You’ve taken my goodwill and my money and you kicked me in the balls.”

  Volovoi ducked behind a leather couch. Knew it would provide no protection if the Dragon advanced. He fired another couple of shots. “Your goodwill?” he said. “You strangled my operation. You forced me into this course of action.”

  The floorboards creaked. Shadows moved on the wall. The Dragon was advancing. And he was still laughing.

  “Why did you kill Lloyd?” the Dragon said. “He could have made us both rich, Andrei. What were you thinking?”

  “He could have, but he didn’t,” Volovoi replied. “He found out about the failure of my New Jersey operation, and he decided to opt out of our arrangement. I killed him before he could tell his friends.”

  “And then you came to kill me,” the Dragon said.

  Volovoi peered over the couch, his pistol hot in his hand. Heard the Dragon shuffling down the hall, heard his breathing. The little girl had stabbed him. From the sounds of it, he was hurt bad.

  Good, Volovoi thought. The police will be here soon. I have to go.

  “This doesn’t have to end this way, Andrei,” the Dragon called out. “Our partnership was a good one. Surely we can come to an agreement.”

  Volovoi said nothing. If he didn’t kill the Dragon quickly, the police would arrive. There would be no escape. There would only be prison, or death.

  “I only want the girl,” the Dragon said. “Leave me the girl, and you can go in peace. You have my word, I will forgive your betrayal.”

  Volovoi looked to the doorway. The girl was gone. “The girl is gone,” he said. He tried to stand. Couldn’t. Stared down at his clothing and saw bloody holes, ragged, three of them. The Dragon’s bullets hadn’t missed after all.

  He felt weak suddenly. Forgot about standing. Slumped back down to the floor and studied his bloody fingers as the Dragon came out of the hallway. The Dragon looked from Volovoi to the empty doorway. Raised his machine pistol and aimed at Volovoi’s face.

  “So long, Andrei,” he said. Then he grinned and pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened.

  Outside, in the hallway, an elevator door dinged.

  “Your lucky day,” the Dragon said, dropping his spent clip to the floor and hurrying after the girl instead. Volovoi raised his pistol from the floor. Tried to aim at the Dragon, was too slow. Too weak. He could hear police sirens now. He lay his head down and closed his eyes.

  137

  SHE HAD TO RUN. She had to run now.

  She’d retrieved the knife she’d dropped when the silent man came through the door. Crawled toward the doorway as the man fought with the Dragon, praying they didn’t see her, or notice she was gone. She heard more gunshots behind her. It sounded like the world ending.

  The door splintered above her head. Catalina wrenched it open as the men fired again. She didn’t know who they were shooting at. She hoped it wasn’t her. She threw herself out the door and landed in the hallway, all plush carpet and red and gold. It was a maze. She couldn’t remember where to go.

  The men would come for her. They both wanted to kill her. Make a decision. Catalina pictured the apartment in her head, the windows. Tried to remember the way she’d arrived. Couldn’t remember. No time. She just ran. She ran left.

  A bank of elevators, around the corner. Catalina pressed the call button. Waited. Waited. Realized she should have found the stairwell. Realized the stairwell was behind her, back toward the Dragon’s door.

  Ding.

  The elevator door slid open. Nobody inside. Catalina hurried in, clutching the knife to her chest. Pressed the first-floor button, then the “close door” arrows. Heard footsteps in the hallway like thunder. Watched the door slowly close and urged it to close quicker.

  It slid shut just as the Dragon arrived. He clawed at the door, pounded. Swore in frustration. Catalina screamed. Then the elevator was dropping.

  The elevator was mirrors. Catalina studied herself, her clumsy makeup, her oversized T-shirt. Her hair was unkempt, and there was blood on her hands and on the knife. The pervert’s blood. The Dragon’s blood.

  The elevator dropped toward street level. Catalina waited. Gathered herself as best she could, and prayed the car made it to the ground floor before the Dragon caught up with her again.

  138

  LEPLAVY CALLED BACK as Windermere sped the Charger up Madison Avenue.

  “Looks like Catalina left a message on the phone,” he told Stevens. “Something in Romanian. Parca Strada balaur. Apologies if my pronunciation is shitty.”

  “Parca Strada balaur.” Stevens looked out through the windshield. Around him, Manhattan rose, crowded and crazy and chaotic. “What does it mean?”

  “According to Google Translate, it means ‘Park Avenue dragon,’ in Romanian,” LePlavy said. “And I don’t think that’s the name of a Chinese restaurant.”

  “I think you’re right,” Stevens told LePlavy. He
ended the call. “Park Avenue, and hurry,” he told Windermere. “It’s our lucky night.”

  139

  PAVEL DEMETRIOU clutched his wound as he hurried down the stairs, cursing the girl all the way to the bottom. Cursing Andrei Volovoi, too, and anyone else he could think of.

  Ironic that the bitch had stabbed him. Poetic justice. He’d intended to carve her pretty face himself when he had finished with her. Instead, she’d ambushed him. Wounded him. Cut him.

  She would not stop him.

  Demetriou paused on a landing. Leaned against a railing to catch his breath. He felt dizzy, light-headed. There was a lot of blood, but he ignored it. One little bitch wouldn’t slow the Dragon. Neither would Andrei Volovoi, or the fucking FBI, for that matter. He pushed himself off the wall. Reloaded his machine pistol and then reached for the vial around his neck. Unscrewed it and poured himself a bump of cocaine, inhaled until he saw fireworks behind his eyes.

  He would track down the girl. He would drag her out of the building and escape New York with her, regroup. He would kill her eventually, after he’d enjoyed her. After he’d repaid her for the trouble her family had caused him.

  The cocaine helped. Demetriou hurried down the stairs. Ignored his wounds, pushed them from his mind. Barely felt the exertion. He made the main floor and burst through the fire doors and into the lobby. Looked around. The lobby was quiet. A doorman sat behind a desk by the front doors, reading a paperback. Otherwise, nothing. No movement. No sounds.

  DING.

  The elevator. Demetriou spun as the doors slid open, raised the TEC-9. But the elevator was empty. No girl.

  He stared at the empty car for a moment. Studied the numbers above the second elevator’s closed doors. That car was climbing, from the first floor, skyward. Demetriou crossed the lobby to the doorman. “A girl,” he said. “A little girl. Did you see her?”