by Bella Knight
Wraith, Skuld, and Rota did a complicated sister wrist-clasping thing while Ivy served up drinks. One of the dancers went on break, and they went up to the plinths to dance together, leaving Saber at the bar.
Ivy poured him a beer. “You okay?” she asked.
“I’m trying to get assigned here permanently.”
“Should be easy, you keep busting cartel people,” she said.
“Thanks for that, by the way. I am so sorry for the damage, but Wraith and I have definitely benefited from nailing their asses to the wall. With prejudice.”
“If we find anything else nefarious, we’ll let you know,” said Ivy, filling up another tray.
“Wraith is majorly pissed about the nursing home thing,” said Saber, passing a beer back to the man behind him.
“Thanks, man,” he said, passing forward a bill. Saber passed it to Ivy.
“No problem,” he said.
“What is she pissed about?” asked Ivy. “That she got caught up in it, or that she missed out on the bust?”
Saber made a wrong-answer buzzer noise. “She is furious that this stuff happened in the first place. I hear Henry and the clan are taking four of the former residents.”
“Yeah,” said Ivy. “I’ll ask Callie to swing by and ask if they need anything. She’s amazing with getting rooms great.” She sold four more long-necked beers.
“The whole res is buzzing,” said Nina, the bar back, selling five beers, three in one hand and two in the other. “Henry wishes he could build a hospital.”
“Why not?” asked Ivy. “Callie says you guys just moved another barn there. How many fucking barns do you need?”
“A fucking barn sounds kind of fun,” said Saber. Ivy threw a bar towel at him. He threw it back. Nina grabbed the towel and threw it at him again. He laughed.
“Build an apartment behind the big house,” said Ivy. “Make apartments, and staff it with UNLV or community college graduates. The only problem is the medical stuff. That shit’s expensive.”
“Zoning and licensing,” said Saber. “But there’s nothing stopping Henry from offering to have anyone he wants, staying on his property.”
“Wish he could have taken all of them,” said Ivy. “But some of them are probably critical care.”
Nina passed more bottles of beer right by Saber’s face to a woman behind him. “We’ll send our own people to nursing school,” she said, grabbing the money the woman passed her. “Beth is graduating this month.” She turned, grabbed some empty glasses, put them in the dishwasher, wiped down the bar, and served two more beers. “Looks like they’re getting a new roomie,” said Nina. “I’ll give Beth a call tomorrow. She was talking about geriatrics, but she talked about how depressing most nursing homes are.”
“Nice,” said Ivy.
Henry walked with Jimi Toutin, occupational therapist for the blind. She was short, with a cascade of red hair, red-wiry glasses (that made her look like a wise owl), a round face, blue eyes, and a short stature.
“Maia loves to knit and crochet. Her hands are actually in very good condition. She speaks Spanish and Ute, so the staff apparently ignored her at her previous facility. She had to be put in the hospital to detox from meds she didn’t need; she’s recovering from bedsores, and the previous facility’s people screamed at her as if she was deaf. There’s nothing wrong with her hearing. The cataract surgery went wonderfully well, but her eyesight is still diminished. Sadly, we don’t know Braille.”
“Lessons,” said Jimi. “YouTube is great. You can memorize the dots. Label everything —her wardrobe, clothes, including their color, all her materials for knitting and crocheting…”
“Including color,” said Henry. “Looks like we’ve got to get Sophia to cook a meal, and Sister and I need to take Braille lessons, then take her shopping.”
“Just ask her before she comes; what kind of yarn and colors and sizes and gauges she wants. She’ll tell you. She’s calm, but opinionated,” said Jimi.
“What about Vu?” asked Henry.
“Half Thai, half Hispanic. Speaks English, a little Thai, a little Spanish, a little Ute. Very bright. Loves to read.”
Henry opened the door. The brand-new sunroom was large, with floor-to-ceiling windows bringing in the light. It was completely empty. “What do I need in here?” he asked.
“Very comfortable chairs. There are some that have a motorized system to help the elderly person stand up. Furniture that’s widely spaced, so walkers can get around, even wheelchairs. Tables at the perfect height of the chairs. Older people are generally shorter, so be sure the furniture is the right height. Put things like yarn in bins or baskets, rather than drawers that are difficult to open and close. They might get stuck. Knitting needles and hooks in cans labeled in Braille, Spanish and Ute, then beadwork supplies in cases that are easy to open and close. Everything should be labeled in English, Spanish, and Ute that can be read from the doorway. Cup holders —they need hydration. Tables that can be swung in and out and can tilt that are very sturdy, not just your average TV trays. Soft blankets in various weights. Even in the desert, older people get cold. Tablets, so they can read books from the online library and free books for Kindle. They can adjust the fonts and font size to make them easily readable. Lots of light, which you have here. Will this get too hot in the summer?”
“Screens,” said Henry, “and, I just installed more solar panels, so we have power.” He smiled. “Let’s look online,” said Henry. “You can help me shop.”
“Let’s do it,” said Jimi.
Vu was delighted with the sunroom. She sat herself down in a recliner that rose up to meet her butt, then settled back down. There was a little table next to it for her drinks —Henry bought cups with straws with an easy rubber grip; color-coded and Braille, labeled for each person. She swung in the tray, laid her tablet on it, adjusted her glasses on her nose, loaded a library book, and started reading. She was tiny, with a flat nose, and black eyes made huge with her glasses. She had a fall of gray hair she kept in a loose braid. She wore a light shirt, and slacks in bright colors. Today it was teal. She had others in magenta and yellow.
Jake loved her clothes. “Can’t sneak up on us in that getup,” he said.
Henry laughed. “Nope,” he said.
Carl was delighted with the table for just his beadwork, all labeled by size and color. “We tried to get all the sacred colors,” said Henry. “I found an online supply store specifically for Nations beadwork.”
Carl pulled out a bead. “Real silver,” he said. He put it back. He pulled out another one. “Real turquoise.”
“Numa has a trading post on the res,” he said. “You can sell your work there. The stuff for the dances can be sold online, for Southern and Northern Paiute.”
“Always wanted to hang out with some Dine and Hopi, learn their dances and their beadwork,” he said. “Some of it is far more intricate than what I do.” He looked at the cords, the needles, the rock tumbler, and at the diamond-tipped tiny drill for jewelry. “Oh, this is wonderful. I can turn my own beads.”
“You can,” said Henry.
“If you show me what you like, I can help you hunt rocks,” said Jake.
“I may take you up on that,” said Carl.
Maia liked to wear sweat dresses, the simple shifts woman wore to the sweats. She used her fingers to explore her special table just inside the door, complete with bins of yarn, crochet hooks and yarn needles all labeled in Braille on their bases. Everything easy to get to and color-labeled. She sat carefully in her comfy chair. Henry brought her over a light blanket to spread on her lap. Then, she sang as she took out yarn and unraveled it.
Jake realized she literally needed his hands, and he moved over a stool and sat beside her. He took the yarn and had her roll it out onto his hands. She then rolled it into a ball. She sang a Paiute song, so Jake and Carl joined in. Henry left them there, delighted beyond measure.
Sofia and Vi kept the snacks coming; they liked small meals throu
ghout the day, and a bigger meal at four thirty. The ladies went to bed early, and Carl and Jake went to the school; Jake to teach Paiute and Carl to teach beadwork. The kids absolutely loved them.
There was a steady stream of people from the res, coming in to record their stories on video, including Vu and Maia. Tribal elders sought their counsel. And, as the elderly from the raid healed, Henry plotted to build a non-critical care facility by adding onto the house, for non-Alzheimer’s patients that needed more constant care. It would only have two beds, but he’d heard Bella’s description of the horrors she had seen, and he had held her when she had cried. He wasn’t about to let her down.
Takedown
Wraith’s boss pulled her into his office, one barely larger than her cubicle. “We need you to take down a ring of sex traffickers,” he said. “Real nasty folk. Some Russian, some Ukranians, a few Bosnians from Milosovic’s era thrown in for good measure,” he said, naming Serbia’s ex-strongman and instigator of genocide. “These are killers.”
“And I’m going to be trafficked?”
“Yes. They have a network, they offer young women jobs, steal their passports and visas, and force them to work in the nastiest places imaginable. The people running this are large consumers of drugs to keep the women docile. We’re tracing that end too. If they don’t meet their quotas, or they have too many overdoses, they start kidnapping. You’re going to be kidnapped. You’ll have a tracer under your skin, and we’ll pop them as soon as you arrive where the women are. We’ll make our way through the network from there; we have two inside.” He showed her the agents, one DEA of Russian extraction, and one “kidnapper” who spoke fluent Serbian.
Wraith was shocked at how good they blended in. They both definitely looked the part in their photographs.
“These assholes, the Russians, Ukrainians and Bosnians, don’t normally work together. Generally, they hate each other. They are converging because of a sudden hole in the network. We busted seven cells in Newark and five in Chicago. They still have quotas to meet, so they are drawing from each other’s expertise, so to speak.”
Wraith nodded. “Let me go get unpretty, and we can set up bringing me in.”
She was unhappy that Saber couldn’t get in on it; he was tracing guns going to a paramilitary group that believed they needed to start a revolution. She didn’t even know where he was.
She unbraided her hair, then put on product that made it stringy, and made it look like she dyed her hair instead of it being her natural color. She darkened her brows with makeup to increase this effect. She dressed in ancient, torn jeans, a T-shirt, and scuffed running shoes. She used makeup to give herself dark circles under her eyes, and bruising on her stomach.
She met Stankovic at his ancient car in an alley behind a bar. “You look the part,” said FBI Special Agent Stankovic, a specialist in infiltration.
They were the “Dirty FBI,” a team far from the short haircuts, dark suits, and polished shoes of the regular FBI.
She showed him the tracker under her skin, just under her armpit. “Hurt like a mother going in.”
“Stop whining,” he said, smiling at her. “Let’s put in the drops.” The drops slightly dilated her pupils, making it look like she was high, while still allowing her to see. “Sorry ‘bout this,” he said, first grabbing her arms hard enough to leave traces of bruises, then zipping her hands in a special zip tie that looked solid, but was actually weak on one side.
Putting her hands in the front would allow her to defend herself. “Ow,” said Wraith. “Let’s do this.”
Stankovic put her in the trunk, and she bounced around for only a few minutes. She distinctly heard Stankovic talking to another man.
“Yeah, I got a girl in the trunk. Send me to a drop-off.”
“Good,” said the other man, with an obvious Russian accent. “Let me see, no?”
Stankovic popped the trunk. Wraith looked up at them, faking woozy terror. The Russian hit Stankovic on the arm.
“Good one, special bonus. Very pretty.”
“I get bonus when I drop off girl?” asked Stankovic.
“I give you address,” said the Russian. “You do well, they let you have one for an hour, no?”
“Good,” said Stankovic. “But I want cash.”
The Russian spit on the ground, and closed the trunk. “You get your money. Here is address. Go,” he said.
Stankovic turned on the radio while pulling out and, pretending to sing, sang out the address. His off-key voice made Wraith wince. She knew that neighborhood, mostly warehouses.
Few lights were on there, with trash on the streets. Therefore, she wasn’t surprised at either the time it took to get there, or the trash-strewn alley when Stankovic hauled her out, none too gently.
She pretended to ineffectually fight back, and he slapped her. “Quiet!” he said. Wraith allowed her eyes to tear up.
“What you bring us?” said the guy on the door, a hulking man with very hard eyes.
“Special delivery,” said Stankovic. “Vassily is expecting me.”
“Huh,” said the hard-eyed man. “Nice. I help myself to her later.”
Wraith cringed, and got enough rage going on that she was able to cry. “Let… let me go,” she said, swaying.
The mountain at the door opened it after conferring with someone on his cell. Wraith knew Stankovic’s cell was cloning every single phone it came in contact with, and that agents were poring over the information.
“Go on up,” he said.
The warehouse had stairs that led to an office. There were shipping containers in the warehouse, eight of them. Each had a man in front of them, and a padlock.
They’re reusing the containers they get stuffed with illegal girls,” thought Wraith. I wonder if I am supposed to get my own little container?
There were creaking and moaning sounds coming from some of them, and one had the distinctive sound of slaps. Wraith had to work to keep the anger out of her eyes, including her face and her posture. She could go all Valkyrie later.
Stankovic dragged her into the office. Vassily had buzz-cut blonde hair, cold blue eyes, and a face marred by scars.
“Fuck,” said Vassily. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Jovan, Jovan Stankovic. I heard you needed a girl.” He roughly shoved Wraith closer. She shrank back.
“What do we have here?” asked Vassily. “We already have blondes.” He pulled out her T-shirt, looked down at her breasts, looked into her eyes. “This one is already half-baked.”
“I slipped it in her drink,” said Stankovic.
“Good,” said Vassily. “I will try her out. If she is acceptable, I have a client, a very good one. He will like this one.” He grabbed her face roughly. “I will enjoy fucking this one.”
“Payment,” said Stankovic. “She is pretty, young, a little stupid. Her girlfriends left her alone. Dive bar.”
Wraith swayed backward, nearly out of Vassily’s grip. “Lemme… lemme go,” she said.
Vassily slapped her. “Shut up, bitch,” he said. He reached into his back pocket, and took out four hundred-dollar bills.
“I was promised five for high quality,” said Stankovic. “And an hour with a girl.”
“Half an hour,” said Vassily, sighing and handing over another bill. “That’s all they’re good for, no?”
“Which container?” asked Stankovic.
“Left one at the bottom of the stairs,” said Vassily. “Dark-haired one. Not like this one.” He kissed Wraith, bruising her lips. She swayed backward, into Stankovic.
He slipped the tiny knife into her hand. “Have fun,” he said. Vassily grunted. He didn’t realize that Stankovic was talking to her, not him.
Wraith got the knife into the weak spot as Vassily pawed her breast. She allowed one more kiss, then she heard the outside doors smash, with yells of “Freeze!” She kneed Vassily, then gave him a roundhouse kick to the head. Vassily dropped like a stone. She pulled a twist tie out of her back pocket, a
nd kicked him again when he went for his gun. She got him in the tie by immobilizing the joint, then patted him down. She got an interesting array of weapons off him, from guns to brass knuckles, and both a switchblade and a nasty knife.
“Bet you use these to terrify the girls, don’t you?” asked Wraith.
“Bitch!” screamed Vassily, over the gunshots and screams below.
She grabbed her badge from where it had been taped to her inner thigh, and held it up as an agent burst into the door. “You alright?” he said.
“This one runs this warehouse,” she said, pointing a foot at Vassily. “Any of ours hurt?”
“No Ma’am,” said the agent. “Mama taught me to wear Kevlar.”
“Good mama,” said Wraith. “Got any rubber gloves?” He handed her the gloves, and she carefully slid out Vassily’s cell phone. “Let’s go up the chain, shall we?”
“It’s what we’re here for,” said Stankovic, coming in the room. “I know you’re having fun, but Agent Dansi got pulled off for another case. I need help with the victims, and I think there’s one you’ll want to see.”
There were four ambulances. Wraith went down the stairs, and helped each woman into scrubs, and into the waiting ambulances, telling them they would not be deported if they were in America illegally, and that they would find their passports if they were here legally. She spoke in Russian, Spanish, and English.
She found the woman Stankovic referred to. She had long, dark, blue-black hair, soft dark eyes, bruises everywhere. “What nation are you?” asked Wraith.
“Dine,” said the woman. Navajo. She looked fifteen. “Ajai Morales. My mom married a guy who hit her, and me, I ran away… and ran into these…” She began to cry.
Wraith held her. “You have to go to the hospital first,” said Wraith. “I’ll go with you. When you’re better, I know where to take you. No one will ever hit you again.”
Wraith held Ajai’s hand as she was examined, and took her statement. She’d been clubbed on the head at a rest stop, and woke up in a shipping container nightmare of beatings, drugs, and rape. She was treated for two fractures, a cracked rib, and a broken bone in her right hand. She was medicated, and slept.
