People Trafficker (42 page)
Authors: Keith Hoare
Sir Peter was studying a wall map in the operational room where they were following Karen’s progress. According to the map she had travelled three hundred miles and seemed now to be returning.
“Is this data up-to-date?” he asked the lady monitoring the tracker signals.
“Yes, Karen has transmitted her position a number of times, Sir Peter, with her mobile GPS unit. That has confirmed our tracker. She’s travelling by night and turning off the road onto small tracks in the day,” the lady answered.
“Why is she so slow coming back?” he asked.
“GCHQ suggest the road she’s travelling on is through areas where the civil war is very active. A number of times she’s turned off and waited for an hour or more before moving on. We suspect she’s either being stopped or staying out of sight if there’s traffic on the road. Karen is currently stationary half a mile off the highway and looks like she has settled down for the day. It’s been the same pattern for the last three days. When she sets off tonight, we expect her to reach the area close to Talia by four in the morning, where she was collected by submarine last time she was there.”
“Well this time I intend to send in rescue helicopters, I want this girl out, whether she has succeeded, or not, in her attempt to find the other girls.”
He left the room and made his way down the corridor. An hour before, Sir Peter had requested a full operational meeting. They were already waiting, but before he joined them he wanted to be sure Karen was still following the same route out of the area they had tracked her going in.
Standing in front of the assembled people he called order. “Gentlemen, thank you for coming. Lieutenant Harris has for the last few days been tracked by satellite as she has moved further into an area where civil war is at its most active. She is now returning. We don’t know if she’s found the girls? Has been captured and is now being brought back or she’s alone trying to get home? Personally I don’t think she’s been captured, as GPS data is still arriving at regular intervals. The Lieutenant is also travelling at night, exactly the same as when she was last in the Lebanon. It would seem illogical, if she had been captured, to allow a prisoner to still carry the GPS and also travel at night. So we must assume she’s coming back, still under her own control, to be brought out. With that assumption it’s a go for ‘Operation Clean Snatch’.”
“What is her ETA, Sir Peter?” the Captain who was running the operation asked.
“We are estimating o-four hundred hours. The weather reports say it will be clear skies and satellite infrared surveillance of the area is now very possible.” Sir Peter looked around the room. “No matter what Lieutenant Harris says, whatever excuse she tries to find to want to stay, you ignore it, the girl comes out. Our original intention was to see if she might lead us to Sirec. The government has decided this is far too high a risk for such a high profile girl and as such that part of the operation has been aborted. All I ask is you find her; protect her and get her out. Now before I pass you all to Operational Control for your own briefing, a word of warning. The Lieutenant is carrying a formidable arsenal of weapons including three grenades. Among them is a special grenade. It has a red band round it. She has only one, but it has no timer. The moment she pulls the pin and releases the lever it will explode. She requested it for her own personal protection, and that girl will take her own life if she feels threatened and has no way out. So I’m asking you to be very, very, careful and don’t take risks. I do not want to lose anyone in this operation.”
Leaving the military to complete their planning, Sir Peter went up on deck, leaned on the rail and lit a cigarette.
“Penny for them,” a girl’s voice came from behind.
He turned and smiled. “It’s good to see you up, Angela, how are you feeling?”
“I feel fine, the injection worked wonders, but it’ll be nice to get home, or at least be able to call mum and dad. Are you allowed to tell me how everything’s going? Are we close to making it public that I’m out?”
“Not long now, in fact if all goes well, tomorrow.”
Her face lit up. “You mean the other girls are safe?”
“We don’t know that yet. But Karen is close to where we can pick her up, and then we will know for certain if they are lost forever.”
She leaned on the rail alongside him looking out across the still water. “You know when I was in Saeed’s house, I’d given up. I knew I was dying. I was being sick every hour or so, the pains in my stomach often brought me to tears. I’d not eaten, only taking water, even that, like I said wouldn’t stay down and they still tried to force medicine into me, insisting I’d food poisoning, pneumonia, in fact everything they could think of, but I knew it was none of those and soon they’d give up. I suppose, I was hoping they’d kill me and finally finish it? Unless of course I died naturally before they lost patience. I was so lonely, and scared. I begged the woman to send me home to die. I even asked her to just leave me at some embassy gates. But she wouldn’t hear of it, said I’d get better, I was already sold and her Saeed doesn’t like losing money. I lay there for hours alone, wishing I could see mum and dad just once more and say goodbye. When on that last night I woke to find Karen knelt by the side of me in that room, my heart skipped a beat. I was lost for words that she’d come to find me. I thanked her for coming but when I told her I didn’t think I was well enough to go, she just brushed it aside in her usual casual way and produced a stretcher. I believe, if she’s on her way back she’ll have the girls with her. I don’t think Karen would ever give up and just come home.”
“You seem very confident about Karen, Angela?”
“I suppose I do, but you’ve met her, she seems to exude confidence. Mind you the way she was dressed, the weapons she carried, I’d not like to be on the receiving end. I would think she could be very dangerous if you crossed her?”
Sir Peter thought back to the time she was ready to board the helicopter. Angela was right; he also had confidence that Karen would see it through, no matter what. “You’re right, she can be very ruthless in dealing with people who get in her way, as a few of her adversaries have found to their cost. But deep down she really is a very feminine girl, who just wants a boyfriend, someone to love her for who she really is.”
Angela looked at him. “Aren’t we all just as feminine? It’s in our nature to love and want to be loved. But Karen’s the sort of girl who will do anything to help you. She doesn’t look down at you; she thought nothing of stopping and helping me in the airport. The majority of girls would have looked the other way, particularly with the press around, Karen didn’t. But more importantly she saved my life. She came back for me to a place that would certainly have held so many bad memories for her. I’ll always be grateful for that. But what do I say, when I meet her again, to someone who’s prepared to risk her own life for you?”
“You’ll think of something, anyway what are your plans when you get home?” he asked changing the subject.
Angela frowned. “I don’t really know. Life seemed so simple when I was planning university, leaving home, and going to bunk up with other girls to live as a student for a few years. Now I’m not so sure mum and dad would want me away from home, what with my health problems and fear of me being taken again. So I might not go now. I was also thinking how my boyfriend will look at me.”
“In what way? I’d think he’ll be over the moon to find you’re safe.” he said, a little perplexed with her answer.
“I suppose, if I can convince him nothing happened, beyond the preparation and sale. We may be okay, but I’m not confident that he’ll believe me. He’s very possessive and was quite put out when I won the holiday, and I preferred to go on that rather than join him and his friends for a week in the nightclubs of Spain.”
Sir Peter took her hand. “Come on, let’s you and I grab some coffee. That’s if you don’t mind having a drink with an old man, or would you rather have a drink with one of these fit young sailors walking around?”
Angela grinned. “I couldn’t wish for a better companion, Sir Peter, apart from which my street cred will go through the roof at home if they know I’ve been drinking coffee with a real knight.”
Karen’s plan of travelling at night was on the face of it good. The first night they met only one vehicle, however by five in the morning traffic began to appear so even travelling in the lorry they were only managing around twenty miles an hour, making it very slow going. They had little food and everything was rationed including water.
The days were hot and humid, but they did find good vantage points that allowed them to see the road and not be seen themselves. Karen checked her GPS, and then began to work out just where she was as they moved closer to Talia and where Martha lived.
Karen had just come off watch with Annette taking over. Sammy settled down at her side, Natasha lay out in the sun.
“How far have we to go now?” Sammy asked.
“Around a hundred miles.”
“Then what happens?”
“We’re going to stay at the house of someone I know. There’s a good hiding place there, and more importantly a telephone. I’ll call the UK and find out what they can do for us. If there is no instant way out by air I have a contingency plan, which activates if all else fails, so we will get out. But we’ll have to lay low for a few days. I know it’s not a good plan, but it’s all I’ve got.”
Sammy frowned. “I think it’s a good plan. After all we can hardly get on a bus or train home.”
They both fell silent.
“We could if things got too bad,” Karen said after some thought.
“How do you mean?”
“Well in this country they use the veil a lot. If we could get the clothes we might just be able to travel to the border without attracting attention. Admittedly we don’t have passports so we’d have to sort of go round border control, but it might be possible.”
Sammy grinned. “You could be right, but how many are five nine like we all are? Apart from Natasha that is.”
Karen laughed. “Well I didn’t say it was perfect. Anyway it’s a long way from that yet.”
“I was going to ask you something, Karen.”
“What?”
“Are you in the army now?”
“Sort of, well no not really. They signed me up for a month. Made me a Lieutenant, even gave me good pay. But it was only to go to a training camp to learn how to use my guns, without the risk of killing someone every time I used them.”
“Then you’re not going to stay on, because I think you’re well suited for it?”
“I have thought about that, but to sign up means I’d have to start at the bottom. I wouldn’t want that, it’d be demeaning after being an officer. Although the lads are something else. There must be a ten to one ratio and I had so many offers to take me out it got embarrassing.”
“Come off it, Karen, you’re really attractive, you’d get offers anywhere you went.”
“I suppose, but you have to remember I was at school before all this and didn’t go to nightclubs or many pubs for that matter. So the only offers I used to get, besides Grant who you can’t count, was from school lads, not twenty years plus and decidedly fit.”
They fell silent for a few minutes.
“Have you got a boyfriend?” Karen suddenly asked.
“Yes, well I hope I still have. I’m feeling a little nervous about meeting him again. Especially when it gets out what I had to do, just to survive. Lads are funny that way. It’s okay for them going with another girl, but they whinge like hell when their girlfriend does.”
“I know what you mean. But it was hardly like you were two-timing him and if you were I don’t think Salem would have been your first choice.”
“I’d agree with you there, Salem wasn’t the sort you’d take down to the club to show off, it’s no wonder he had to buy his girls. How did you feel, Karen, after you’d been raped?”
Karen sat for some time deep in thought. How did she feel? Was she really raped by Salem as well? After all she could have just killed him at the outset. Or even when he smacked her bottom, with the threat of more punishment, which would have been a more fitting time to have killed him. If she’d had Halif would have had all the time in the world to look for the other girl. However, for Karen, the time with Salem would always be her secret. The only people who knew were dead, besides which, to admit to Sammy she spent the night with him as well, would place her own credibility as someone strong and resilient, down to the same level of her or Natasha by submitting to this man.
