by Kate Sander
“So,” she said out loud, “one dead, one alive but passed out. Door’s open. You owe me a hundred bucks.”
She heard Amanda sigh on the other end and laughed, “Put Carter on the line. You must be out two-hundred to sigh like that.”
Carter’s voice came into her ear next, his gravelly baritone a welcome reprieve from Amanda’s nagging, “She was dumb enough to go double with me.”
“Cause you’re smart enough to trust me,” Senka said. “Good thing you’re smarter than you look.”
“Well we can’t all be all brawn with no brains,” Carter said with a laugh in his voice. Senka smiled. Carter was a six foot five black man in his mid-thirties. His biceps were bigger than her head. He played college football in the States and was signed to four NFL camps when he decided that football wasn’t for him. He had a four-point-oh grade point average in a double masters of Physics and Computer Science. All impressive, however his high IQ was the reason he was recruited into the Zoya Task Force in the Canadian Security Intelligence Agency. He was all brawn and all brains, but had no stomach for violence, making him a perfect fit as a handler.
“How was dinner?” Senka asked, puffing a little as she dragged the massive blond man to the metal bed frame.
“Pad Thai, delicious,” Carter replied. “From the place down the street.”
“Damn. I’m jealous. I’ve had enough vodka and Shchi to last me a life time,” she found some zip ties in the dead brunet’s pocket and bound the blond man’s hands behind his back to the metal bed.
“What’s Shchi?”
“Some cabbage soup stuff,” Senka replied, slapping the man across the face. He started to blink groggily.
“Hey there bud,” Senka said, straddling his one leg, knee in his groin. She pushed her knee down harder and the man’s eyes snapped open. “That’s better. What’s your name?”
He glanced around, scared and confused, and said, “Floyd Taylor.”
“Ha!” Senka laughed. “You’re the American? Sure fooled me.”
“You should know better than to judge a book by its cover,” Carter piped up in her ear. “You need him to tell you where the main servers are. Best chance of downloading the most information to that hard-drive in your shoe.”
“Why does Amanda give me shit about not checking in? See? You know that everything is going to plan,” Senka asked lightly. Floyd’s eyes started to dart around again, and Senka put more pressure on to his groin and held his own knife up to him, raising her eyebrows. The man stopped moving and looked at her, wide-eyed.
“Amanda doesn’t know you like I do. Also, if you recall, you left a few key details out when you were getting the go-ahead for the mission. Anyways, not a rocket science plan.”
“Thanks Carter, I was pretty proud of it.”
“You’re simple minded and like to bust doors in before knocking. It’s your style. This has a lot of finesse for you, so I can see why you’d be impressed with yourself.”
“Oh ha-ha,” Senka said. She turned to Floyd, “So, how long you been out of the Marine Corp for?”
“How did you…” Floyd drifted off when Senka took the tip of the knife and slid his jacket up his arm, exposing a United States Marine Corp tattoo on his wrist. “Six months,” he said shakily.
“I’m assuming a dishonorable discharge. Drank on the job, didn’t yah bud.”
He stared at her, shocked.
Senka shrugged, “A good marine doesn’t get taken down by a five-foot six freshman unless he didn’t give a shit while he was on the job. I’m surprised you actually passed training. Pegged you as a quitter, especially if you’re working for an ass-hat like Viktor Sidorov. I only thought he was distributing drugs, but I think he’s distributing people too,” Senka reared back and punched Floyd squarely in the face. “And working for an ass-hat that sells people makes me really not like you.”
Floyd blinked stupidly a few times, blood leaking out of his nose.
“You’re thinking a human trafficking ring?” Carter said in her ear.
“I’m thinking that we need to have a meeting about the extent of this when I get home,” Senka said. Carter’s silence meant he agreed.
“You’re no freshmen,” Floyd said thickly through the blood rushing out of his nose.
“Read the sweater,” Senka said, “says Yale so it must be true. Where are the servers?”
“Please! They will kill me if they find out I told you,” Floyd pleaded. “And I only took this job cause the job market sucked in the States. The crash of 2019 really put a damper on my options.”
Senka nodded sympathetically, then punched him in the face again. “You’re selling people. Go home and sell burgers. And it’s either they kill you, or I cut your dick off and you bleed out slowly on the floor.”
The look on his face told her she’d won.
CONTINUE READING
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