Sherman wondered which stuff would need to be replaced first.
28. DISCOVERY
3 years ago
There was nothing about the building that would draw a second glance. Built on elevated land, just four hundred metres from the beach in Durrës, its terraced garden had an unobstructed view of the Adriatic, making the property desirable enough, but there were prettier houses in Albania’s second largest city, and, for the most part, the building was unremarkable. Except for it being a Gjoka clan brothel.
Sherman stood behind one of the garden’s three trees. He knew there were three trees because he’d been shown the reconnaissance photos, not because he could see the rest of the garden. It was well past midnight, there was no moonlight, and the streetlamps on the surrounding streets had been disabled half an hour earlier. Any nocturnal neighbours or passers-by would presume the lack of illumination was the result of the recurring power cuts that afflicted the city’s street lighting.
The rescue team comprised Sherman, Scott Macrae and five others. Ernst Ebner and Lucas Lacroix were the drivers of the specially adapted Ford Transits parked nearby. Neither Transit had been fitted with side windows, but seats had been bolted to the floor of the cargo areas, with one van having fewer seats to make room for a gurney along one side. The assault team comprised Jakub Sokol and Juan Vicente Ibáñez (whose main roles would later switch to motorcycle outriders) plus Tobias Häussler and Macrae.
Ebner was with the Transits, and Lacroix, kitted out with night-vision goggles, stood next to Sherman. Primarily Lacroix was lookout, but the Canadian was also Sherman’s babysitter. Sokol, Ibáñez and Häussler had followed Macrae into the house, the assault vests over their body armour stuffed with spare magazines for their FN P90 submachine guns.
As with every rescue, the plan was for the assault team to clear the building, subduing or eliminating any armed hostiles, and then to escort the captive women they found to the waiting Transits. Sherman would only be required to enter the building if a captive (or one of the assault team) required medical attention. If that became necessary there would be a one word message in Sherman’s ear.
After the women were safely aboard the Transits, there would be a two hour drive to a rented villa on the outskirts of Pogradec, on the Albanian shores of Lake Ohrid. There, they would rest for a day before crossing the border into Macedonia.
‘Toreador.’ It was Ibáñez in Sherman’s ear, the Spaniard’s authentic pronunciation catching him off guard. Sherman always thought it would be Macrae’s Western Isles lilt that would summon him.
Sherman glanced at Lacroix.
‘Looks like you’re up,’ Lacroix said. He shouldered his FN P90. ‘Stay close behind me.’
Sherman drew the Sig Sauer from behind his back as Macrae’s words replayed in his head: ‘Pull back the slide, that cocks the hammer ... do not rest your finger on the trigger, keep your right forefinger over the trigger guard until you want to fire ... wrap your left hand around your right, keep your thumbs together ... don’t hold the weapon out in front of you like you see in the movies, apart from weapon retention issues, your arms will get tired very quickly ... and don’t hold it down at your crotch either, it’ll take too long to raise it to fire ... hold the gun close to your body, elbows bent, wrists pressing gently against the top of your abs, it doesn’t look as cool, but you can hold that position for a while, it’s harder to take the weapon from you, and you can fire from that position if you need to ... if gunplay starts, then you can extend your arms, but remember not to rush your shots, accuracy is more important than speed.’
The slide clicked back (cocking the hammer), then forward (chambering a round), and Sherman tucked the Sig close to his chest as he followed Lacroix.
Of the three rescues Sherman had taken part in, this was the first time he’d been required to use his medical skills before the women had been safely sequestered in the house in Macedonia. There, he and Uschi Schönbächler treated the trafficked victims for a range of conditions: headaches, back pain, dizzy spells, memory difficulty, pelvic pain, stomach pain and gynaecological infections were the most common.
Lacroix peeled off his goggles as they reached the building. Ibáñez was waiting for them at the front door. A slight nod of Lacroix’s head combined with a darting look over Ibáñez’s shoulder was answered with: ‘Building is secure.’
Ibáñez nodded at Sherman’s weapon. ‘You will not need that. Perhaps it would be best if you put it away.’
Sherman frowned. There had been a foreboding subtext in the Spaniard’s tone.
Ibáñez pointed to stairs leading to a basement. ‘Down there.’
As Sherman passed, he caught Ibáñez throwing a grim look at Lacroix.
The concrete stairs and walls down to the basement had recently been whitewashed, but Sherman noted the fresh paint odour was unusual. He realised why as he reached the bottom step, where there was an overpowering smell of disinfectant. He reached two open doorways. One room was in darkness. The room opposite was brightly lit; Sherman stepped inside.
‘No,’ he whispered.
The room had been equipped as an operating theatre. Various pieces of surgical equipment—forceps, retractors, scalpels, skin hooks—lay in trays of pink-stained liquid. And on an operating table lay a body, covered head to foot by a large opaque plastic sheet.
Sherman walked over, gently lifted the sheet ... and gasped.
‘Organ harvesting.’ Degen’s tone was even, his eyes emotionless.
He’d arrived at the Ohrid house five minutes earlier, immediately seeking out Macrae and Sherman to hear what they’d pieced together since Macrae’s initial brief report. They were in the large open-plan lounge/kitchen of the third-floor apartment. Degen and Sherman sat opposite each other at the wooden dining table. Macrae faced away from them, with hands clasped firmly behind his back, standing at the large glass door that opened onto the balcony.
‘Our intelligence was flawed,’ Macrae said, glaring at the lake. ‘The Durrës house had been a brothel for high-end customers, but, according to the staff, two months ago its function was switched.’
Sherman said, ‘The four female captives we found, Marijka, Sofija, Eliska and Eszter, are all in excellent health. It seems they were treated well. Varied nutritious diet, daily exercise, and, although they’d all previously been trafficked into prostitution, no one touched them.’
‘Until the time came to cut them up for spare parts.’ Degen’s voice cracked a little on spare parts.
That fragment of emotion surprised, then worried Sherman. He’d presumed Degen’s arrival would have the effect of shoring up the uniform stoicism Macrae and his men had been brooding behind. He hadn’t anticipated rage leaking from Degen. But then Sherman blinked away images of pulling aside the opaque plastic sheet, and he wondered how he could have expected anything else.
‘We found files,’ Macrae said, his backwards glance towards Sherman clearly a prompt.
‘The files contain pairs of medical records, one set labelled Donor, the other labelled Recipient. The Recipient records don’t include names or addresses, instead the organ recipients are identified by a reference number.’ Sherman glanced at Macrae; Macrae’s eyes remained fixed on the lake. ‘The females all have reference numbers tattooed on their left wrists. The tattoos match numbered documents filed under what translated as Warehoused.’
Again Sherman glanced at Macrae, who had earlier speculated that warehouse being overheard or mistranslated as whorehouse may have contributed to their inaccurate intel; Macrae remained silent, focused on the water.
‘Another seven documents were filed under Pending,’ Sherman continued. ‘Those files contained only Recipient information. From the documentation, it’s clear they’re people waiting for tissue matching results.’
Degen’s narrowed eyes asked matching with whom?
‘There are ninety-seven files labelled Prospects,’ said Sherman. ‘The Prospect files contain potential donor information, pr
etty basic stuff. Blood type, height, weight, that kind of thing. They also include locations. There are clusters of potential donors in towns in Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Greece, Turkey, all over the region. Our guess is these clusters are brothels.’
Macrae turned his head from the lake view, but not enough for him to make eye contact with the others. ‘If you need a new kidney or heart or lung, but you don’t want to wait your turn in the donor queues, wave enough money at these Albanian bastards and they’ll match you with one of their sex slaves. They’ll clean her up, wean her off the drugs they’ve used to subdue her, fatten her up so she’s good and healthy, and then they’ll carve out the bit you need.’ Macrae returned his gaze to the lake.
‘The woman on the operating table, her name was Galina,’ Sherman said. ‘Her tattoo corresponded with a file in a drawer labelled Archive. The drawer contained ten other files. Those ten files document organ harvesting taking place over the last eighteen months. Suggesting this is a relatively new enterprise.’
‘Except ...’ said Macrae.
‘Except,’ said Sherman, ‘for the records relating to Galina,’ He sighed. ‘When we found her …’ Another flicker of opaque plastic.
‘She’d been hollowed out.’ Macrae said. ‘They’d taken everything that could be easily stored and transported.’ Macrae dropped his head. ‘The building was under surveillance before we made our move. A van arrived around midday, entered the garage attached to the house and left several hours later. At the time we thought … actually it doesn’t matter what we thought, it’s fairly obvious the van delivered the medical team, then left with them and the organs.’
Macrae fell silent.
Sherman said, ‘The surgeon didn’t feel the need to be especially careful with his initial incisions. However, there was evidence of a previous, more skilful nephrectomy.’
Degen frowned. ‘A what?’
‘Removal of the kidney,’ Sherman explained. ‘An incision is made through several layers of muscle on the side of the abdomen. It leaves a scar about eight inches, um, twenty centimetres in length. The scar on Galina was old. I checked her file. The nephrectomy took place six years ago. The organ was transported to an unnamed hospital in Istanbul where the transplant was carried out.’
Macrae turned. He was met by a questioning look from Degen, which was answered with an almost imperceptible nod.
Sherman considered asking what had just been shared, but instead he said, ‘The reference number tattooed on Galina’s wrist wasn’t used on the records dating back to six years ago. Instead the Recipient, a male, is referred to as the American.
‘This American and Galina shared the same blood type, the relatively rare B negative, but more importantly their tissue matching was uncommonly high, a six antigen match. Even between siblings that only occurs twenty-five percent of the time. Such a high antigen match means tissue rejection is less likely, and therefore makes the transplant more liable to take. For the American, Galina would have been a real find.’
‘Valuable,’ Degen said, more statement than question.
‘In the context of maximising the chances of extending the life of someone a few months away from total renal failure, name-your-own-price valuable. Which is why we think they held on to Galina. Transplanted kidneys don’t last for ever, perhaps ten years, but the average lifespan of a transplanted kidney is six years.’
Macrae, eyes still on Degen, folded his arms. ‘The Albanians wouldn’t have kept her just on the off chance they’d make more money in five, six, maybe ten years,’ he said, ‘so the American must have paid to keep her healthy and available.’
Not for the first time, Sherman imagined Galina waking after the nephrectomy: the painful recovery from the surgery; and the realisation of what had been done to her. Galina would have expected a return to the brothel she’d been taken from, but instead she’d found herself a well-fed, well-treated prisoner. At some point she must have worked out what they had in store for her. The long scar on her body would have been a constant reminder that one day they would come for her again. Sherman couldn’t conceive of how, in that situation, he would have coped with that hanging over him for all those years.
Degen slumped back into his chair, his head low.
Macrae said, ‘There was no way for us to know.’
Sherman shifted in his seat. ‘There was no way for you to know what?’
Degen looked up. ‘Six years ago,’ he nodded towards Macrae, ‘Scott and I were recruited for an inter-agency undercover operation to infiltrate an Albanian crime gang. The Varoshi clan. The operation resulted in most of the gang being convicted and sentenced to long jail terms. We nudged the rest into infighting. What was left of the Varoshi clan was absorbed into the Gjoka clan. The Gjoka gang would have inherited any Varoshi assets.’
‘And you’re saying one of those assets was Galina,’ said Sherman.
Degen nodded. ‘Someone within the Gjoka clan must have seen the potential in trading body parts. And developed a bespoke organ farming service.’
‘Surely you can’t be blaming yourselves for that,’ said Sherman.
‘No.’ Degen shook his head slowly. ‘Not that.’ He sighed. ‘It was my job to infiltrate the Varoshi clan. I had to prove my worth to them. That included transporting something of great value to Istanbul within a very tight timeframe.’
The pieces fell into place: organs for transplant were viable for a limited period. ‘Oh shit,’ Sherman murmured.
Macrae walked to the fridge, grabbed three beers, placed the bottles on the dining table, then sat between Degen and Sherman. He twisted the top off the nearest bottle and said, ‘So, what do we do about it.’
Degen took the tops off the other two bottles. Passed one to Sherman. Studied the label on the other. ‘Whatever else we do,’ he said, ‘we do for Galina what we do for the other women. We take her home.’
29. MASQUERADE
10 years, 6 months ago
‘I’m the UNMIK chick,’ she’d said, grinning.
The Jagdkommando had supported many members of the international policing component of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, but Degen had never come across any like Larissa Němcová. He could tell the dark-haired Czech’s plain, black business suit hid an athlete’s build, and he wasn’t fooled by her playful smile and banter. She had the easy confidence of someone who knew she could kick the shit out of everyone in the room. She’s not police, Degen had told himself as he’d shaken Němcová’s hand, she’s BIS (Bezpečnostní Informační Služba: the Czech Secret Information Service).
Němcová had positioned herself to the side of the conference room’s curtained windows, where she had a clear view of the door and the four others in the room: Degen, two German police representatives and an analyst from Europol. She was leaning on the wall, arms folded, while the Europol stiff made his dry, finance-heavy presentation. Mercifully it seemed to be coming to an end.
‘Therefore, in terms of sales and profits,’ the stiff pointed to a graph on the large monitor at the end of the conference room table, ‘Albanian organised crime is the largest financial enterprise in south eastern Europe. Our analysts say illegally invested funds are five times the country’s legal investments.’ The stiff paused and looked around the table. ‘In effect, the Albanian crime families are running a parallel economy.’
Degen guessed that was the stiff’s idea of a dramatic finish. Degen glanced at Němcová. She was watching him. Appraising.
The stiff closed his file of notes and slid the remote for the monitor across the conference room table towards the two German police officials. It glided to a halt precisely half way between the pair. They were from North Rhine-Westphalia’s Landeskriminalamt, the branch responsible for coordinating investigations into organised crime and terrorist activities. Kaspar Pfaff, the one with the neatly trimmed salt and pepper beard, was from Department Four (they provided operational support). And the one with the large, thick, round glasses—his name wa
s Manfred Baumgartner—was from Department One (they ran the investigations). The Badger and the Owl, Degen thought.
The Badger picked up the remote and waved it at the large screen; the Europol stiff’s pretty (but indecipherable) multicoloured graph was replaced by a map of Europe, overlaid with a network of red lines. According to the map’s legend, the red lines were drug trafficking routes. The network’s hub was Albania.
‘The prime driver of this parallel economy is the trafficking of drugs,’ said the Badger. Seventy percent of heroin on German streets has at some point passed through the hands of an Albanian crime clan, and almost every European nation can quote equally disturbing figures. The mycelium of Albania-based crime stretches from the beaches of the Mediterranean to the fjords of Scandinavia. Their money laundering activities have even reached Israel.’
A flick of the Badger’s wrist; the map became a gallery of mugshots. ‘Fifteen established families control most of the drug trade. The smaller gangs are being forced to push their operations further and further into Europe and to be more creative with their ventures. They are violent. They are ruthless. And many gangs have become hybrid organisations, overlapping and blurring the distinctions between criminal and terrorist activities. Of particular concern is the Varoshi clan.’
The mugshots dissolved as three larger photographs slid in from the left of the screen. If the individuals in the images had been better looking, the photographs could easily have been mistaken for the kind of shots found in magazines specialising in catching celebrities going about their day. However the dog-walker, the diner and the jogger on the screen hadn’t been snapped by paparazzi.
The Hunting Command (Grey Areas Triptych Book 1) Page 18
