by A P Bateman
Caroline followed tentatively. She could hear voices, but they were hushed tones and the voices soon stopped altogether when the door closed again behind them. The light was dim. There was a dank smell, the odour of fear and of poor hygiene. Her legs felt so heavy, it was an effort to maintain forward motion. She knew she was being toyed with. She knew she was about to see something terrible, and as hard as it was to move, she felt compelled to discover what secrets lay within this prison. For any building locked from outside with people within, was exactly that.
Helena smiled, but it was a mirthless, crocodile smile. “This is what your boyfriend has killed for,” she said. “To save you from this…”
Caroline rounded the end of the corridor and stopped when she saw the Perspex viewing panel. “What is this?” she asked, her eyes transfixed.
The room on the other side of the panel was approximately five-metres by twenty-five. At some time or other it had housed animals because the remains of the stalls were clearly visible where the blocks had been removed, and there were still metal cattle ties in place. Most were hanging uselessly, but a woman had been handcuffed to one of them and there were welts on her bare back. Another woman was giving her a drink from a dirty bottle. It was water, but it looked cloudy. The woman was drinking thirstily.
“Ignore her,” Helena said. “She was naughty. Tried to escape. Jurgen here, gave her a lesson.”
Caroline shuddered at the thought of The Beast whipping the poor woman. She shook her head. “Who are they?”
“Trash. Waifs and strays,” Helena said lightly. “Girls wanting comfortable jobs in the west. A better life. Ironic really…”
“You’re sick!” Caroline snapped.
“I’m a realist.”
“You said you were in the sex industry, forced into it by the Russian mafia,” Caroline paused, looked at her in bewilderment. “Have you no feeling for them? You’ve inflicted your own fate onto them. Worse, most probably.”
Helena shook her head. “We control our own fate,” she said. “Nobody was there to help me. Nobody came to my rescue…” She smiled cruelly. “… and nobody will come for you.”
“I get it,” Caroline said coolly. “But what happens to these girls?”
“Sex trade, mainly. Some will go back east, out to the Middle East. The blondes and the redheads. They’ll be the lucky ones. They will have some sheik who will only get it up so much, and he will want them clean and well-tended to. Some of them will even enjoy the lifestyle. Others won’t be so lucky and will go to super-brothels.”
“Where?”
“On your own doorstep!” Helena laughed. “Right under the noses of the middle-classes. Many throughout Europe. And then there’s pop-up brothels. The handlers bring the girls into a short-term house let, advertise locally and sit back and wait. A few weeks at a time, from town to town, always one step ahead of the police.”
Caroline watched the women, who were looking back at her. The girls were aged from mid-teens to thirty. Some were prettier than others, but all were attractive, or would have been before their soul-sapping ordeal had started. “So, this is a holding area?”
“Of sorts.”
“And you got into this line of work since…”
“It’s been happening for years!” Helena interrupted. “I have taken over assets and ventures, have the men on my payroll. I offered better incentives, a clearer picture for them to work from.”
“So, when do these girls get shipped out?”
“We’re still testing and sorting them.”
“Testing for what?” Caroline paused. “STDs?”
“Amongst other things,” Helena smiled. “Keep walking.”
Caroline glanced at the women again, as she walked onwards. There was a door ahead and another large room, which would have been a milking parlour once. It had been scrubbed clean and the stalls knocked down, but Caroline had spent summers on her uncle’s farm as a child, and she recognised the building’s former use. This next room had a hospital-style bed and medical equipment at the far end. Caroline watched as the door opened and a woman was walked in by two dirty-looking, wiry men. Another man followed, he wore a filthy white medical coat and carried a kidney dish with equipment in it. As Caroline neared, she saw it was a speculum. She stopped and stared at Helena, whose expression was impassive. “What the hell is this?”
The young woman was manhandled onto the bed and held down firmly while the man in the filthy, stained technician’s coat pulled the woman’s legs up and apart. Caroline took a step and went to rush forward but felt the impact of the tiny pistol on her ear. She fell forwards, sprawled on the hard, concrete floor, scraping her chin. She could hear the woman scream, heard the man grunting as he made his inspection. Caroline couldn’t look, but she heard the woman scream again, then the sound of the speculum dropping into the dish. When she got back onto her feet, Caroline had tears on both her cheeks. She couldn’t look at the woman, but she watched the man in the filthy medical coat labelling blood samples he had hastily extracted from the woman’s arm. The woman was pulled off the bed and handled back out through the door. Caroline could see blood dripping from the woman’s wrist, having travelled down her arm, the extraction points untended with cotton wool and tape, or even a sticking plaster.
“This is money,” Helena said. “Keep walking.”
Caroline’s legs refused to move, and she felt as if she were set in cement. She could feel her heart hammering against her chest, her breathing was so rapid, she fought to catch her breath. She felt herself shoved in the back and she carried on the momentum with her first step. She was walking slowly, the door looming. “I…”
“Oh, bless you!” Helena smirked. “You’re okay for a day or two,” she said, then added, “As long as your boyfriend makes contact soon. He’s been a naughty boy. He’s killed the next man on my list, but he hasn’t checked in. I do hope, for your sake, that he’s not lying dead in a ditch somewhere…”
“He won’t be!” Caroline snapped. “And he’ll look you in the eye when he kills you, if I don’t first!”
“Feisty!” Helena smiled, then looked at The Beast, her expression hardening. “Jurgen, punch her. Hard.”
Caroline did not have time to dodge as The Beast punched her in the chest, hammering his meaty fist into her left breast. She yelped and fell backwards, then howled as the pain set in. She rolled on the floor, her teeth gritted and the agony for both to see on her face. Every fibre of her being wanted to stay down and recover from the pain, but she found herself dragging herself to her feet. She looked at The Beast, sneered and said, “If that’s the best you’ve got, then you’d better not be here when Alex turns up.” She looked back at Helena. “But I don’t need a man to do my dirty work. Mark my words, I’m going to kill you myself.”
“Hah! Words are all you have, my dear.” She pointed to the door. “Now, walk!”
Caroline did, and to her astonishment, she no longer felt the heavy legs, erratic breathing or the pounding of her heart. She held back while The Beast got the door and ahead of her she could see another Perspex panel. She was ready now. Or so she thought.
“The girls who are not good-looking enough to appeal to your average male punter are here. Well, most of them who make the grade.”
“Grade?” Caroline asked curiously, but then she could see. She didn’t need Helena to fill in the gaps for her.
“We have computer, or I should say web experts who can find the market. Buyers are easy to come by, transactions are made in cash or via automated bank transfers. We provide invoices for other goods, of course.”
Caroline watched a heavily pregnant woman struggle into a chair. Another, seven months pregnant, or so Caroline estimated, was rubbing the lower back of a woman who looked about ready. In fact, as Caroline watched, she could see the woman panting short, sharp breaths. The woman was already in labour.
Caroline could not help the tears forming, she reached up with her handcuffed hands and rubbed them away fro
m her eyes. “You’re farming babies…”
Helena shrugged. “This has been in place for years. The dark web gives us the means and opportunity to plug a gap in the market,” she paused. “I struggle to think what to do with you. You’re a good-looking woman. You’ll probably do well for a sheik, but you’re pushing the age limit. Those horny bastards like women in their twenties, although we women knocking the door of forty know we’d certainly please them better than we would have fifteen years ago!” She laughed and shook her head. “But you don’t have children, do you? I think it would be worth a try. At least one before we send you somewhere…”
Caroline lunged at her, dug her fingers into Helena’s eyes and pushed her against the Perspex. The Beast was caught off-guard, but only for a moment. He smashed the butt of the pistol down onto the top of Caroline’s head and she slumped to the floor. Helena was screaming, cupping her eyes tenderly, inspecting for damage amid blood and tears. She kicked out and caught Caroline in the face.
Caroline was out cold.
Helena screamed at The Beast, “Get her back into the house!” Then she gently touched the edges of her eyes, inspected the mess of crimson on her fingers. “You bitch!” she shouted, then turned and saw most of the women smiling behind the Perspex. She turned and pushed past Jurgen, muttering in guttural Russian as she went.
42
Franschhoek, South Africa
The house was a ranch-style, or bungalow. It was constructed of wooden white-washed slats and red wooden shingle tiles on the roof. There was a modern stainless-steel chimney, the type so often paired with a wood-burning stove inside. The nights in South Africa could be cold, even in the summer. It was a tidy property, and not out of the realms of a senior intelligence service officer’s finances. The house was sat square in half an acre of lawn with shrubs and trees and a gravelled driveway with a white BMW X5 taking up half of it. To the right, a larger property sat in an acre plot, the building being some seventy-metres distant. To the left; twenty metres of scrubland before a road that right-angled at a crossroads.
Rashid studied the property from across the road. The location of the house put the houses on this side of the road at sixty-metres distant. Considering what he had to do, it didn’t get much better, other than a deserted farm. He was certain nobody would hear the man shout or scream, and he was confident he would be able to contain the situation. He had read the cobbled-together details on the journey over. An attachment on Ryan Beard’s phone.
The man in question was an unmarried forty-year-old named Harvey Botha. He was an intelligence analyst and had been with the South African Secret Service for eleven years. His file hadn’t been clean. There had been an allegation of sexual harassment, which had later been retracted. No further action had been taken. And then four years ago, there had been an embezzlement investigation. Botha had sought representation, fought the case and won his tribunal. It hadn’t been cut and dried though, as the investigating team had taken shortcuts, not followed protocol and the case had been dropped. Botha had been side-lined for a promotion which should easily have been his, and his security clearance had been lowered. The man was on a short leash, and Ryan Beard’s enquiry had flagged up a warning in certain circles. Funds had been traced to Botha via poorly set-up offshore accounts. Ryan Beard had not held out much hope for the SASS, but he knew that forensic accountants working for MI5 would be able to get details of the account that the money had been sent from. Neil Ramsay knew this as well, and had tasked Marnie with sending the details to the department that had worked on uncovering the terrorist organisation Anarchy to Recreate Society.
“What do you reckon?” Beard asked.
Rashid shrugged. “We need information, see if what the man knows can tell us more about Helena Snell, or Milankovitch, or whatever the hell she’s calling herself.”
“I’m sure your forensic accountants will get something from the account number.”
“I hope so,” Rashid paused. “For Caroline’s sake.”
“What do you mean?” Beard asked.
“You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“I thought that was why you contacted MI5?”
Beard shook his head. “What?”
“Caroline was abducted. Just over a month ago.”
“Shit…”
“Exactly right. King is working for Helena Milankovitch, just to buy some time. She’s using him, and she’s using Caroline as collateral.”
Ryan Beard seemed to ponder on this for a moment, looked at Rashid curiously. “You know her… boyfriend?”
“Yes.”
Beard shrugged. “I thought he’d come out here, hell-bent on getting some payback for the attempts on her life. I kind of sold it to my contact in the SASS. I thought it would stand me in good stead. Caroline dropped his name, The Reaper’s. I didn’t want to be another loose end.”
Rashid smiled. “Look, I don’t think that would be the guy’s style,” he paused. “He’s tough and resourceful, certainly isn’t a guy to cross, but he’s a decent bloke. Relax. He won’t come gunning for you. So, you know his name. We all do. I gather there was some business or other in MI6 that he’d sooner forget, or have nobody know about, but he’s one of the good guys.”
Beard nodded. “So, you’ll kill Botha?”
“I’ll question him,” Rashid said. “After that, we’ll have to see how it pans out.”
“But my contact was adamant,” Beard protested. “That’s the deal for giving him up. That’s the deal for the account number I gave you!”
“Come on,” Rashid said. He opened the door of the SUV and signalled across the street for Ramsay to follow. He turned back to the MI6 officer. “I never made a deal with the South African Secret Service.”
“But I did!” Beard protested. “I agreed that in return for any information the British intelligence services get from Botha, and for the account number they have already given up, Botha would be eliminated!”
“Well, you best live up to your end of the bargain,” Rashid said coldly.
43
Stockholm, Sweden
“So, no plans of the building?”
“No.” King fished a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Simon Grant. Grant unfolded it, frowned as he studied the drawing. “What?”
“You have kids?”
“No. Why?”
“I thought you were showing me something they’d scribbled out in nursery.”
“Nice.”
Grant handed it back. “I need better than that,” he said.
“Good. Seeing you don’t like my plan of the building, you can do a recce yourself.”
“When?”
King looked at his watch. “About an hour. Leave your car here, I don’t want you getting lost following me.”
Grant shook his head. “No. You follow me home. We’ll leave my car there to avoid suspicion. I can’t leave it here on school grounds. While I’m there, I’ll grab some tools.”
“Thought you were out of that game.”
“I am, but I have some tools that will get us in. We’ll go to Sodertalje to scout out the post office, have some dinner, go back after dark and do the job. After that, I’ll go back home, and we’ll never see each other again.”
King studied the man for a moment. He seemed tougher than when he had last seen him. Fresh out of prison, railroaded into working for London criminals and the IRA. Then coerced to work for MI6. King couldn’t blame him now. The man had long-thought he had been in the clear. Lived a good life in Sweden and had more to lose now than he ever had before. He had his freedom now, his wife, a grown-up son and another child. He had it all to lose, whereas before, he had lost everything and had it all to gain.
King already knew where Simon and Lisa Grant lived. He had checked before, knew more about the man than he would ever let on. There were many people King kept tabs on. Some were old friends he would consider being able to call upon in times of need. Others were people he had giv
en the benefit of the doubt to. It never hurt to keep your friends close and your enemies closer. And then there were the people who were connected to fallen comrades. He never visited them, many would not even be aware he even existed. But he had bestowed acts of kindness upon them from time to time in one form or another. He had started this life almost twenty-years ago, drawn into a fight with a group of Royal Marines in a drinking den in Portsmouth. That night had changed his life. Two men had been killed in a savage brawl and King had fled, only to be captured and tried for murder. His recruiter and MI6 trainer, Peter Stewart, had arranged for his escape, provided the body of a homeless man, who had died of hypothermia on a London street, to be substituted for King in a bog on Dartmoor and Mark Jeffries had ceased to exist. And good riddance to him. A brawler, a chancer and a troublemaker. Alex King had been born, as he had been whisked away that night, and became a better man. He had learned much over the years, but he couldn’t forget, and he had made regular payments to the families of those two dead soldiers ever since.
His penance.
Simon Grant had picked up his things and met King in his hire car around the street corner twenty-minutes later. King did not ask if he had spoken to his wife, although he suspected he had. That was Grant’s business, and they were not exactly buddies. The drive southwest to Sodertalje was both quiet and taken up by early weekend traffic out of Stockholm. King checked his watch regularly, imperative they arrive at the post office with enough time for Grant to check out the inside of the building. When they arrived in Sodertalje they had forty-minutes to spare. King drove around the block twice, checking where he had thought he saw a curtain twitch all those weeks ago. The house had a for rent sign outside it. He guessed it had been rented solely to act as an observation position to watch King take delivery of the package which would change his life. And Caroline’s too.
Simon Grant had walked into the post office ten-minutes before. He was enquiring on the premise of setting up a safe box before he set about travelling throughout Sweden. Somewhere to keep his tickets, credit cards he didn’t plan on using, his passport even. With any luck he would get a quick tour of what facilities they had, terms and conditions, even what security they provided.
