by Shamim Sarif
My attention moves higher up the building where a few of the lights are going out. And now, down into the greenish, miserable lobby come two more armed guys, followed by a long line of women. I say women, but they are girls, a lot of them—my age, maybe younger even. I had thought, going in, that this must be where most of the women trafficked by Gregory do their work. But these girls don’t look like they’re up to speed with that line of business. Not yet. They look scared and tired. I catch glimpses of faces as they trudge through the lobby, and then out into the rain. What really throws me is that there are also a few boys—young men, maybe eighteen, nineteen—small, quiet-looking. Along with the girls, they are pushed to get into the first white van. Once that fills up, the men direct them over to the other. No one tries to resist. In fact, the armed thugs sound positively encouraging, like they’re herding up reluctant kids and heading out for a lovely trip to the seaside.
Behind me, I can hear something—another animal probably—shuffling through the dirt in the stairwell, but I make myself ignore it and focus on what’s happening ahead of me. I’m working out how fast I can get back to my motorcycle to follow the vans when I feel it. I wish it were a rat, or anything but this: the cold touch of a silencer against the back of my head.
It must be the guy who just peed against the wall. He’s the one who’s missing from the group across the road at the other block. I put my hands up and start to turn, but he tells me to stay still. He says it in Serbian, but I’m not in much doubt about the meaning.
A hard push of the gun against my head urges me forward. My eyes look for escape, for something to hit him with—but the truth is, I can’t do anything. I’m faster than most people, and I know martial arts techniques that give a girl my height and weight a good chance against a man twice my size, but they all need a moment, just one, to surprise, turn, hit—and I don’t have that. Not with a bullet inches from my brain. It’s funny, but what I think about now is Ahmed. How he looked after I shot him. How I would look the same way if this trigger got pulled.
As we approach through the spitting rain, one of the other guys looks up. He asks my captor what’s happening, and they have an exchange, from which I gather that the guy who’s escorting me at gunpoint assumes I was in the building and tried to run and hide. I am the same age as the others and dressed in a similar way. They shake their heads at me, disapproving, and I swallow down panic. What if they make an example of me by shooting me in front of the others?
The doors of the first van are slammed shut, and the second is almost full. I am shoved forward, and before I can do anything about it, I’m in the second van. Two more girls are hustled in behind me, and the doors crash shut, dropping us into complete darkness. Outside, I hear a lock being turned, a solid metal clang that feels very final. Ten seconds later, the engine starts and the van pulls away. I’m trapped inside with thirty other people, and no idea of where I’m going.
14
THE BEST WAY TO DEAL with fear is to channel the adrenaline into something that can help you, like an ingenious plan. The thing is, I’m not finding it easy to do that at the moment. In fact, I have to work hard just to slow my shallow breathing. As the van bounces over potholes, we are thrown about a bit, but we’re so tightly packed in that no one can move that much. It’s a press of bodies, and a smell of stress, of sweat, of unwashed clothes.
As my eyes get more accustomed to the darkness of the van, I look around. The whites of my fellow prisoners’ eyes gleam in the blackness, though most of them stare ahead and don’t meet my glance. But one girl does. I reckon she’s sixteen, maybe seventeen. She still has a baby face and short, spiky dark hair. I give her a quick smile, and she smiles back. But then her eyes start to fill—tears glint in the tiny bit of light. I shake my head, and she actually listens and holds herself. I try to look encouraging. Don’t worry, I tell her silently, in my head. I’m a trained operative, fast-moving and quick-thinking. I could beat everyone in this van at chess and at least two martial arts.
But that won’t get us out of here. And the men escorting us look pretty fit. And they have weapons. Even if I managed to take out two of them, I’ll be lying in a pool of my own blood within three paces. And no one else knows where I am. And the police are in Gregory’s pocket anyway. . . .
I make myself stop. Or maybe the van lurching to a halt makes me pay attention. There’s some chatter outside between our escorts, and the sound of gates opening. Then the vehicles start to move again, more slowly this time, and within a few seconds we have pulled up to another stop.
The doors at the back of the van open, and I have to adjust to the glare of white light. Blinking, I am pulled out with the others into some kind of loading bay or receiving area. There are big swing doors ahead of us. I glance back over my shoulder, trying to see where we are; up high, at a distance, is a perimeter fence with barbed wire on top. Pine trees beyond.
Please, no.
We are herded through a series of corridors. The walls were once white but are now yellowed and stained, and on them are old, peeling signs. Medical signs: X-ray symbols, first aid crosses, and other stuff that transcends language barriers. In the back of my mind, this is where I was dreading we would end up. The place I had seen from the woods with Hala. Gregory’s abandoned hospital.
Hospitals are never my favorite place to hang out, and this particular building is like central casting for a Victorian mental asylum. The other captives and I are moved like lines of cattle through another door, and down dark corridors punctuated with pockets of fluorescent light. I glance into every open door we pass. Some of them look like old labs, others open onto wards. It feels as if every bed is occupied by girls like us, except they seem even more tired and drained of hope than we do. So my egg-harvesting theory is likely correct. But I look back at the few boys who are also mixed in with the group. What are they here for?
The girl I connected with on the truck has started crying, and one of the guys barks at her to stop. She tries, but she still gets a whack on the back that sends her stumbling into me. I keep walking and reach for the girl’s hand. The guy who shoved her has moved ahead of us now, to keep the front of the column moving. I touch my chest and say my name. That is, my new Serbian alter-ego name:
“Daisy.”
“Dasha,” whispers the girl.
I squeeze her hand encouragingly and muster a smile. I release my fingers to let her hand go, but she’s having none of it, gripping onto me for dear life. And then she smiles. In fact, she’s looking positively optimistic now, and I start to get worried. We’re waiting in a small corridor, but behind us is an emergency exit, and Dasha keeps looking at it, and then at me. Like, We can do this. I shake my head at her. It’s twenty paces to that door if we run, and we’ll be gunned down faster than Butch and Sundance. There’s no question I need to find a way out of here, but this isn’t it. But Dasha doesn’t get that; all she sees is a dream of escape. She’s giddy with panic—skittish—and when I grasp her hand harder to calm her down, she lets me go. And then she runs for the exit.
I can’t believe it. She’s fast, but those guys are faster. It takes them a second to realize what’s happening, and then they are on her. They grasp her by her jacket just as she is pushing open the door, and she is swung back into the corridor toward us with such force that she ends up sprawled in a heap on the floor. I go to give her a hand up, but one of the men pushes me back roughly. On instinct, I go for him, and he swipes at me. I dodge, surprising him, but a quick whack from a guy behind me is enough to keep me in check. My ears ring from the blow, but my hands are still up, ready to fight, when I hear laughing. The other men are watching, chuckling at me, daring to go up against one of them. The other girls spread back into a terrified ring around me. The men all have pistols, relaxed in their hands, and I have just enough sense left in me to realize I’ve no chance here. I drop back and submit. Dasha is hauled up by her collar, and her gaze catches mine. She looks at me like I betrayed her, and I look away.
/> We are pushed into an elevator where the most interesting thing is that all of us, even the guards, do that thing that happens in elevators the world over—we say nothing and stare at the display as we move up three floors. Exiting into a dark, empty corridor, we are herded into the stairwell. Then up two flights of stairs, and into a longer, lit hallway with doors leading off it.
I am up near the head of the group again and—along with the other front-runners—I am pulled aside by one of the armed men, separated out. He marches me down the hallway a few paces, knocks on a door, and thrusts me into a room.
The door slams behind me as I look around. It’s a doctor’s office. The first thing I notice is there’s a radio playing—a really old song. Dusty Springfield is belting out “You Don’t Own Me,” which I can’t help but think is somewhat ironic considering where we all are.
The second thing I see is an examination chair. One of those reclining jobs. And on the end of it is a set of stirrups like you get in a gynecologist’s office for internal examinations. I can’t tell you how much that makes me want to just scream for help.
The room also contains a doctor. Or, at least, a man in a green smock. He must be around sixty, with a kind face. He smiles at me and says something in Serbian. I turn and go for the door handle. It opens, no problem, and I edge out into the hallway, but there are two wrestling champions on patrol. One of them starts toward me, so I get back into the room quickly. The doctor hurries to the door, says something reassuring to the guard, and closes the door behind us. And locks it.
He points to the examination table. I just look at him. What kind of person does this for a living? There’s not much private health care in Serbia, so doctors probably earn a pittance from the state. He must have gotten tired of running out of money every month and taken up Gregory’s offer of a retirement fund. He’s asking me something but, clearly, I’m lost as to his meaning and, finally, he realizes I can’t understand a thing.
“Me no Roma,” he says, pointing to himself. “You have English?”
I nod. So he thinks I’m Roma. One of the itinerant people who used to be called gypsies. They never seem to be welcome anywhere in Europe, and I’ll bet the kind of documents or ID that most people have are nonexistent for them. Making them an easy target for pigs like Gregory.
“Take off.” He motions undressing.
Now I really wish I’d taken Caitlin’s gun. Slowly, I unbutton my jeans and slip them down over my hips. I do all this turned away from him, as if modesty is my main concern, but it gives me a moment to assess the escape routes. It doesn’t look promising. There are no windows; only an internal door into a bathroom. A snap of latex makes me look round, and he’s busy pulling on gloves. Now I feel sick. The doctor—sensitive soul that he is—figures out that I’m one of the nervous ones. He reaches for a syringe and prepares some kind of injection.
“To relax,” he says, dropping back into his chair as if he’s fainted, just to demonstrate that soon I’ll be sedated and won’t feel a thing.
“Make happy.” He smiles.
I doubt that. But it gives me an idea. Tentatively, I climb onto the table and wait while he tests the injection. A thin squirt of relaxing happiness drug sprays into the air. He smiles at me and reaches for my arm. Obediently, I hold it out. I even make a fist with my hand to help him find a vein. He leans over my inner elbow. He taps the thin veins. And I smack my fist straight up and into his nose, as hard as I can.
Blood spatters, but I don’t pay any attention. My hand is on that needle. I grab the syringe, and while the doctor is gasping and grasping his bleeding nose I inject it into his neck.
He’s right. It is relaxing. He drops, and I am quick to catch him and lower him quietly onto the floor. The door into the corridor is still locked from the inside. Quickly, I pull my jeans back on and head for the bathroom. There are no windows here, just a small skylight forming a glass pyramid above me. But no latch or anything to open it with.
I grab some tired, gray towels from a stack under the sink and drape one over my head. Then I wrap my hands in two more towels and step onto the toilet seat. With a fist I smash the glass as quietly as I can and clean out the shards that remain. Then I channel my inner Hala and lever my foot up the wall, so I can just about pull myself up and through.
On the roof the air is cool, and fresher than the stale stench inside. It’s still spitting with rain though, making it hard to see very well. I’m on a thin ledge five stories above the ground, and I can hear guards talking below me somewhere. I creep along the edge of the roof in a sort of crouch-walk. The first couple of skylights I pass look down into bathrooms.
I keep going till I get to some dark windows that look into bigger wards. I lie flat on my stomach to try to see in. The rain is seeping into my clothes now, and I shiver, wiping my face to clear my vision as much as I can.
Below me is a ward, bigger than the one I passed earlier, with rows of women crammed together. Several are hooked up to IV stands, bags of who-knows-what fluid dripping into them. Most of them look to be asleep, or sedated. A guard patrols up and down inside the ward.
There’s a small fire escape ladder ahead of me. I shuffle on, trying to keep my footing on the ledge. I test the ladder with one foot and it feels shaky, rusted in most places, but I can’t see a better option, so I venture onto it and start to make my way down the side of the building. It’s pitch-dark where I am, which can only help me stay undetected by any guards below. As I pass the darkened window of the ward, I can see that one or two of the women are awake but staring off into space, defeated.
I’ve made it down to the third floor when I pass a lit window. The top of it is open and, inside, people are talking. I pause. The ladder creaks. I can feel pieces of the rusted metal literally flaking away under my fingers, but I hang on. Not that I have any other option.
Straining hard, I can just about make out the conversation, but it does me no good because it’s mostly in Serbian. And then it stops. I wait a moment, then risk craning my neck so I can get a look inside. Two people are leaving the room. One in a doctor’s coat, the other in jeans sporting a shoulder holster. The room itself is a really old laboratory. Deep porcelain sinks, dark wooden shelves, and high, old lab benches. On one of the benches sits a stack of paperwork and a new desktop computer. Which is switched on. Just waiting for me to find out what’s going on here—because the more I see, the more I’m convinced I haven’t scratched the surface with my theory about harvesting eggs.
Except that getting in is not going to be a walk in the park. I glance down. If the ladder gives way, I’ll drop three floors, and there’s only concrete beneath me. Hard not to break an arm or ankle from this height. But I might as well go for it.
I use my shoulder to wipe some rain off my face and then launch myself at the open window. My hand grasps it but slips off almost immediately, leaving me hanging off the creaking fire escape. The ladder groans and lurches. Desperately, I reach up again, clawing with my foot for some leverage off the wall. I get a few fingers onto the window’s edge—and then I push off with my foot and thrust as much of my arm inside the window as possible. If anyone comes back into the lab now, I’ll be done for, but I can’t think about that. I pull my feet onto the window ledge and reach in to undo the latch on the larger window. That’s a struggle because it probably hasn’t been opened since 1974, but it’s amazing how determined you can be when you’re hanging off the side of a building surrounded by armed men.
I get a cramp in my hand just from grasping the handle hard enough to force it open—but it does creak ajar. And I’m into the lab, crouched on top of the counter. Before I jump off, I take a moment to orient myself. It worked for me back when Gregory’s safe was ticking down—that one or two seconds’ wait feels like a lifetime, but it really isn’t. I take a breath and listen, adjusting to the level of sound in the room. It’s a different world from outside, where the rain and muffled wind created a big sound buffer that made even the persistent squeak of
the ladder hard for anyone to pick up.
I jump down from the counter noiselessly and tiptoe to the computer. It’s password protected but with no other encryption—I almost relish getting in. It takes just over thirty seconds, not my best time, but close.
With my other hand I search my inside jacket pocket and find a USB drive. I always keep three things in every jacket—a thumb drive, an army knife, and the blue pill that Amber usually gives us when we start a mission, and which I stole from my own lockbox this time around.
I slip the drive into the computer and drag the documents folder onto it. As the files move across, I click over to the open documents I find. They are in Russian and English, with a logo on some of the paperwork, and a name in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet. It’s a logo I recognize from the website of the Victory Clinic. Seriously, the arrogance is something else. I mean, if I was going to do something illegal, the last thing I’d do is emblazon my company logo all over it. But maybe the Victory doesn’t care. Maybe it’s above any law. I turn away. If I make it out of here, there’ll be plenty of time to look through the electronic files, so I focus my attention on the papers on the desk now, which are in English with Russian translations.
Full donations—estimated 7-hour procedure:
heart
lungs
kidneys
liver
corneas
ovaries
Remains of subjects to be incinerated within two hours of organ extraction . . .
My blood runs cold. I rifle the papers underneath for anything more, and it’s hard to focus on so much information so fast, but what I do get is that these “donations” are scheduled to begin tonight.
I fold up the papers that seem the most obviously helpful and thrust them into my jeans pocket. Then I jiggle the computer mouse to see how long the file transfer is going to take. There’s another ninety seconds, but now I can hear footsteps in the corridor right outside. I pray for the steps to pass by. But they don’t. And the door to the lab opens.
