148
STEVENS WAS HALFWAY DOWN the block when the shooting started. He ducked behind a car as muzzle flashes lit up the dark block. Felt Windermere slam down beside him.
“Another shooter,” she said. “Where the hell’d he come from?”
Stevens peered over the car. “Wherever it was, he brought a hell of a gun.”
They searched the darkness for the shooter. Saw shadows moving against a patch of bright light up ahead.
“He wasn’t shooting at us,” Windermere said, “was he?”
Stevens shook his head. “Don’t think so.”
She was already running. “So what are we waiting for?”
149
CATALINA RAN, zagging into the shadows, her feet screaming again. Ahead was a busy intersection, more light. Behind her, the silent man.
He’d stopped shooting. The policeman lay dead in front of her, and up the street, where she’d come from, were more voices, shouting, more sirens. The silent man, though, Volovoi, had stopped shooting.
Maybe he’d run out of bullets.
Catalina ducked behind another parked car and peeked back at him. He stood on the sidewalk, unsteady, his breathing slow and ragged. He barely moved. He was injured, she realized. He looked close to death. He would die from his wounds, or he would lurch all the way to that next crowded intersection, and a police officer would see him and shoot him there. All she had to do was stay hidden a few minutes longer and fate would run its course. She was free.
Her parents were safe. Irina was safe.
Catalina Milosovici was safe.
But Dorina wasn’t.
The other girls weren’t.
Catalina stood. Her feet burned beneath her. Her legs ached. Her knees bled. She steadied herself on the parked car, careful not to make noise. Gripped the knife in her hand and inched out of the shadows.
> > >
VOLOVOI LEANED AGAINST a parked Buick and gripped his pistol. Tried to focus his eyes where the light caught the slick steel. His vision was blurry; his whole brain unfocused. He was hurt worse than he’d thought. He needed a rest.
The police were everywhere now. He’d given away his position when he’d shot the city cop, and now the whole circus was coming. NYPD. FBI. A helicopter roared by overhead, its searchlight painting the whole street with light.
He would die here, he realized. The Dragon was dead and his nieces were alive. Surely that should be enough.
Fast footsteps behind him, the police approaching. Volovoi thought about going out shooting, about taking down as many police officers as he could before their bullets felled him. He thought about raising the pistol to his mouth and eating his last bullet instead. He was tired. His thoughts were slow and foggy. He was still mulling the question when Catalina Milosovici stepped out of the shadows.
“Not so fast.” She had the Dragon’s knife gripped tight in her hand. “Don’t you die yet, bulangiu.”
150
CATALINA ADVANCED ON VOLOVOI, her knife at the ready. He was holding his big pistol, but it dangled from his hand, useless. He was in no condition to use it.
Volovoi looked at her sadly. Looked up the block as red and blue light filled the shadows. The police would be here in seconds, she knew. They would take the man away, or they would kill him. They would not know how to find Dorina.
“Don’t you die,” she said, holding up the knife, showing him the long blade. “Don’t you die until I say.”
Volovoi didn’t answer, and she saw something different in his eyes, something like regret. For a moment, she slowed her advance. Then she shook it off. She’d believed the thug who’d kept her in the box was human, too, and he’d tried to kill her in the end.
“The other girls,” she said. “Tell me where they are, or I’ll stab your guts out.”
Volovoi let out a ragged cough. He slumped against the parked car and didn’t say anything.
Catalina held up the knife. “Tell me,” she said. “Tell me where they are, or I’ll hurt you, you coward.”
But Volovoi didn’t answer. He dropped his pistol. Then he dropped to the ground.
Catalina flew at him. Landed on top of him, pinned him. He was weak now. He was minutes from death. She felt useless, consumed by frustration.
“Tell me,” she said, hammering his chest with her fists. “Tell me, tell me, tell me.”
> > >
VOLOVOI BARELY FELT the girl’s punches. She was shouting in his face, questions about the other women. Pavel’s collection of prizes.
They would die in their warehouse, he knew. Tomas would abandon them to save his own skin, would leave them locked in the basement until they all starved to death. They would die, every one of them, and at last the Dragon’s Manhattan project would be finished.
The girl held her knife to his cheek. “I’ll hurt you,” she told him. “You’re not dead yet.”
There was determination in her eyes. Anger and urgency, and behind it all, fear. She was barely more than a child. She should have been playing with dolls, or walking her little dog, or whatever else it was teenage girls did. Instead, he’d put her into the box. He’d brought her here. He’d turned her from a child into this angry ball of fury and desperation, itching to kill him.
Volovoi pictured Veronika and Adriana, one last time. Imagined their innocence stolen away. Felt a sudden sickness as he realized that no matter how many Dragons died, how many Volovois, there would always be more men to take their place. There would always be predators lusting after his nieces. And he wouldn’t be around to protect them.
He looked up at Catalina Milosovici. Wondered if she would ever regain what he’d stolen from her. Felt his energy slipping away, and closed his eyes.
“The warehouse,” he told her. “The girls are in the warehouse.”
> > >
CATALINA FELT VOLOVOI DYING. She pressed the knife harder against his skin. “What warehouse?” she said. “Where is the warehouse? Where are the other girls?”
Volovoi opened his mouth. Spat, burbled blood, tried to speak. Catalina pressed her ear to his mouth. Strained desperately to hear the man’s answers.
She never got the chance.
Suddenly there were arms around her, picking her up and sweeping her away from the man. Police officers. A man. She fought him, kicked at him, screamed, struggled to free herself from his grip. But the cop was bigger than she was, and much stronger, and he carried her away swiftly and spoke English to her, words she gathered were supposed to be soothing.
“Let me go, you big dumb oaf,” she told him in Romanian, but he ignored her cries. Kept pulling her away.
Volovoi coughed blood on the sidewalk. He made a choking sound, spasmed and went limp again, and then she knew he was gone. He was dead, and Catalina could do nothing but rage at the cop who held her, whose stupidity had just killed thirty girls.
No matter how much she kicked and punched, though, how hard she struggled, the cop wouldn’t release her. He wouldn’t let her go.
151
“JESUS.” Windermere watched the paramedic apply antiseptic to the scratches and claw marks on Stevens’s face. “That girl had some fight to her, huh?”
Stevens winced from a fresh sting. “Poor thing,” he said. “Probably didn’t even realize I was one of the good guys.”
“Probably feels the same as her sister, figures all men are evil,” Windermere said. “I just wonder what those bastards put her through.”
“Guess we’ll find out.” Stevens looked across the sidewalk to the DuPont, the shattered front door, the tabloid news photographers lining the sidewalk, angling for a good shot of the first gunman’s body. “Soon as the translator arrives.”
They’d locked Catalina Milosovici in the back of a patrol car, for her own protection. She’d struggled, fought like a cornered animal until they got her in the backseat, and t
hen something seemed to break inside her and she collapsed and cried, bitter and angry. Now, her tears gone, she sat morose and sullen, staring at her hands in the back of the cruiser, unresponsive to any offer of food, drink, or first aid.
“Her feet were torn to shreds,” Stevens said.
Windermere nodded. “She’s a fighter. I wonder what she was planning to do to Volovoi.”
“Seemed like she was ready to carve out his eye.”
She made a face. “Gruesome. What do you think she was telling him?”
Stevens didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Something about the girl wasn’t really jibing for him yet. She’d fought harder than a girl who was lost and traumatized. She’d fought like he’d interrupted her somehow.
Probably she was just angry. The NYPD had guys in an apartment upstairs, said there were mountains of cocaine, guns, blood everywhere. Too early to tell just how the puzzle fit together, but Catalina was probably just trying to even the score.
Maybe.
Stevens let the paramedic fix him up, clean his wounds, apply a few bandages. Windermere watched. “You better hope those don’t scar,” she said. “Ruin your movie star looks.”
Stevens laughed. “Chicks dig scars,” he said. “At least that’s what I’ve heard.”
“Nancy tell you that?”
“No,” he said, “but she put up with me for this long, and I don’t figure I could get much uglier now.”
She eyed him appraisingly. “That poor woman.”
Movement behind them. Stevens turned to find a man studying them. He wore glasses and tweed—a professor. “Excuse me, agents,” he said.
Stevens and Windermere swapped glances. “Yeah?”
“I’m Dr. Fidatov,” he said. “The translator. I’ve just talked to Catalina, and I think there’s something you both should know.”
Stevens looked at Catalina’s patrol car. The girl stared out at them, her eyes dark and inscrutable.
“Okay,” Windermere said. “What’s up?”
Fidatov cleared his throat. Fiddled with his jacket. “She said she was trying to get information when you pulled her away from the dead man,” he said. “She seems to think you ruined her chance to save them.”
“‘Them,’” Stevens said. “Who’s them? The girls in the box? Tell her we’re on it. We tracked her container to the rest of the buyers. The women are safe.”
Fidatov shook his head. “The other girls,” he said. “The rest of the Dragon’s New York captives. They’re trapped in a warehouse somewhere, and according to Catalina, only the dead men could find them.”
152
“COME ON,” WINDERMERE SAID. “Come on, come on, come on.”
From the other side of the apartment, Stevens watched her search and felt her frustration. With Fidatov’s help, they’d pressed Catalina Milosovici for information. They’d found out the man they’d killed in front of the DuPont was indeed Pavel Demetriou, the gangster who called himself the Dragon. They’d found out about his lavish apartment upstairs. But the girl had only shaken her head when they asked her about the lost shipment.
“I didn’t see the other girls after the Dragon took me,” she said. “He never brought me to his warehouse.” She glared at Stevens. “And this oaf pulled me off Volovoi before I could get any answers.”
He told himself she was wrong. Andrei Volovoi was seconds from death. He was beyond saving anyone. No way he’d have given up the girls’ location, no matter what Catalina did to him.
Still, though. Thirty young girls abandoned somewhere, and maybe—maybe—Catalina Milosovici could have convinced Andrei Volovoi to give her more information. Maybe he had consigned them to die.
“No,” Windermere said. “Bullshit. We’ll find these girls, Stevens. They’re not gone yet.”
But they’d searched the apartment and found nothing. Found drugs, a duffel bag full of guns, but nothing to point the way to the rest of the girls. No records. No phone numbers, even. If the Dragon had written down anything about his operation, he wasn’t storing it here.
“What about Demetriou’s cell phone?” Stevens said. “He had to visit the warehouse at some point, right? Maybe he made a call and we can trace the GPS location back.”
“His provider will want a warrant,” Windermere said. “And even if they cooperate, they’ll probably come back with like a million locations this Dragon guy called from, Stevens. Those girls will be long dead before we find them.”
“Try it anyway,” Stevens said. “I’ll find us something better.”
She walked into the kitchen, her phone to her ear, and Stevens turned to the window again. Far below, police lights flashed blue and red on the walls of neighboring apartment buildings.
Stevens felt a dead kind of numbness in his body. Thirty desperate women. Girls. And he was letting them die.
He would never forgive himself.
Shut up, he told himself. Fight it off. There’s still time.
Then he thought of something, just as Windermere came back into the room, shaking her head. “The Dragon owns this place,” he said. “I mean, this is his home, right?”
“Sure seems that way,” Windermere said. “But his name’s not on the deed, partner. It’s another shell corporation.”
“Of course it is,” Stevens said. “But what else do they own?”
“Good question,” Windermere said, reaching for her phone again. “Let’s find out.”
153
“MANHATTAN NUCLEAR.” Windermere pocketed her phone. “They have a lease on this apartment and”—she grinned across the apartment at Stevens—“they own a warehouse in the East Village, Avenue A.”
Stevens felt his heart quicken, the numbness dissipate. “Hot damn,” he said. “That’s gotta be the place, right?”
“Gotta be.” Windermere was heading for the elevator. “Let’s go.”
154
LEPLAVY MET THEM IN ALPHABET CITY.
“Here’s the Manhattan Nuclear warehouse,” he said, leading them toward a plain brick building in the middle of the block. “Used to be a clothing manufacturer, but they sold out. Manhattan Nuclear bought the place about a year ago now.”
“Building a beachhead,” Stevens said. “So they could take over New York.”
They circled around the rear of the building, followed an alley into an open parking lot, a loading bay, a back door. A gray Bentley parked to one side, a little out of place. “HRT guys are stuck in traffic,” LePlavy told them. “Going to be a little while, another half hour, maybe.”
“Forget it,” Windermere told him, drawing her weapon. “If these girls aren’t in here, we need to cross this place off our list and keep moving.” She looked at Stevens. “You coming, partner?”
Stevens drew his own weapon. “Yup.”
Windermere marched up the stairs to the loading bay. Rapped on the back door. “FBI,” she called, “and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Open up, or face the consequences.”
Silence. She tried the door. It was unlocked.
“Slow,” Stevens told her. “Slow and steady.”
“Slow and steady,” Windermere said. She pushed the door open. The lights were on. The place smelled musty. She looked down at the floor. “Oh, snap.”
Blood on the floor, and lots of it. A body, an older man, well dressed, two gunshot wounds in the back of his head. “Shit,” Stevens said. “Who—”
Then the shooting started. Four or five shots, fast, from inside the warehouse. The doorframe splintered above Windermere’s head and she ducked away. “Shit.”
Stevens spotted the shooter, big and ugly, his bald head gleaming bright as a beacon. Stevens drew aim, pulled the trigger, caught the guy with a shot to the leg. The thug howled, grabbed his thigh. Stumbled back from the door and disappeared out of sight.
Stevens started through the door. Wi
ndermere held him back. “Let me take this, partner,” she told him. “No way your wife lets me live if you get shot again.”
Stevens made to argue, knew from Windermere’s expression that he’d never win. Reluctantly, he stepped back, let her creep through the door, her gun drawn. Watched her duck into the warehouse and followed quickly behind.
It was an antechamber, a loading area. A little room to one side, an office, and a bigger room at the front of the warehouse, most of it hidden. Windermere started toward the big room. Stevens spread out, followed behind her, searching the shadows.
Then the world exploded ahead of him. Stevens dove for cover, the floor and the walls going to shit around him. Too much action to return fire, and the guy’s bullets were coming damn close. Stevens kept his head down, watched as Windermere leveled her Glock in the gunman’s direction. Watched her pull the trigger once, then again.
The gunfire stopped. The warehouse went silent again.
Windermere picked herself up. Examined the pattern of bullet holes above Stevens’s head. “Well, shit, partner,” she said. “I guess we found the right place.”
155
THEY SEARCHED THE WAREHOUSE. The main floor first, a vast open space clogged with empty boxes and broken furniture, detritus. The manufacturing floor, dusty and abandoned.
Just off the main room was a bathroom. Traces of white powder on the sink. Cocaine. There was a small office, too, bottles of high-end booze and a futon bed. Dirty sheets. More cocaine. Condoms.
“Someone’s been spending time here, anyway,” Stevens said.
Windermere nodded. “So where the hell are the girls?”
Stevens walked back out to the main room. Studied the floor, the walls. There was a discolored patch of wall, freshly repainted. Stevens walked over and pressed on it, felt it give. A fresh panel of drywall, about four feet wide. Stevens traced the outline of the panel, pulled it away, found a heavy wooden door behind, a big padlock.
The Stolen Ones Page 28
