PRIMAL Fury (The PRIMAL Series) (23 page)

CHAPTER 43

“He took Karla.” Kalista managed to get her words out between sobs. “He, he’s going to kill my sister.”

Kurtz sat down and held her hand. “No, he’s not. He’s not going to hurt her. He won’t have enough time to hurt her because I’m going to get her back.”

That seemed to calm her a little.

“What did he look like?”

“He, he, he was the one who cut me.” She burst into tears again.

The Yakuza boss, the one Bishop had described. That made sense, Kurtz thought; after escaping the battle with Bishop, he had stayed in Ukraine and requested reinforcements.

“You’ll find her, won’t you?” cried Kalista. “You found us last time. You can do it again.”

“I’ll find her, and I’ll arrest the man who cut you. If you think of anything that might help, you call, OK?”

She nodded, holding the cell phone he had provided earlier. “I will.” She forced a smile.

“Who are you?” a voice asked from the doorway. Kurtz looked up to see a policeman and a nurse. The officer had his hand on his pistol and was watching him warily.

“Interpol.” The PRIMAL operative took his forged credentials from his pocket and held it at arm’s length. “We’ve been protecting the girls.”

The policeman relaxed as he examined the identification card.

“There’s a lot of you in town,” the officer commented. “The nurse said an Interpol agent left with the other girl. I think he was Japanese.”

“I can’t tell you what this is about. Security reasons,” Kurtz explained. “But I need you to put a protection detail on this girl’s door. Her life may be in danger.”

“No,” the nurse said, pushing past them both. “Her life
is
in danger if you don’t leave her alone. I’m going to have to ask you both to leave.” She activated the buzzer on the bed stand and adjusted the IV bags feeding into Kalista’s arm.

Kurtz looked into the bright-blue eyes of the teenager and gripped her hand tight. “I’ll bring her back to you if it’s the last thing I do. I promise.”

She squeezed his hand in response and then closed her eyes, succumbing to exhaustion and the warmth of the increased pain medication.

Kurtz strode out of the room, leaving both the nurse and the police officer in his wake.

He found Aleks talking to another police officer at the front of the hospital. Kurtz threw him the keys. “Come, we need to go; you drive.”

Aleks excused himself and followed Kurtz.

“Where are we going?” he asked as he started the engine.

“Get us out of town and I’ll see if we can track her. Karla’s been kidnapped by the Yakuza. They need to get her out of the country and they’ll do that via an airport. Where’s the gear from the tangos at the yard?”

“In the bag behind your seat.”

Kurtz reached behind and pulled out a black plastic bag. He fished out two phones, unclipped their backs, and popped out the sim cards. One at a time he stuck the cards into his iPRIMAL and ran an exploitation app. When both cards had been exploited, he sent the data to the Bunker.

A minute later the phone rang. “Kurtz, it’s Chua. We’re running the numbers off the two phones you picked up.”

“Aleks and I ran into some trouble. The Yakuza have Karla again.”

“How? When? Are you both all right?”

“
Ja,
we’re OK. They led us into an ambush, and while we were occupied they kidnapped the girl.” He could hear Chua’s fingers dancing over the keyboard in the background.

“Flash has worked his magic and he’s got one of the associated numbers heading north on the E50. It’s our only lead.”

“That’s got to be him. He’ll be heading to Kiev International.” Kurtz nodded to Aleks, who punched the airport into their GPS navigator.

“Agreed. He’ll get her out on a private jet. I’m loading the phone’s ID into your interface; you can track him via that.”

“We’ll get her back as soon as we can.”

“No, we’ve got an opportunity to track these assholes back to the source. You will follow but do not make contact,” PRIMAL’s chief of intelligence ordered. “Bishop and Saneh will pick her up at the other end once we know the destination.”

“No! We can’t afford to lose her again.”

“Listen to me, Kurtz. She’s going to be fine. We’ll pick her up at the other end. This is our best chance to take down the guys abducting young women all over Europe and selling them into slavery. This is bigger than just one girl.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Look, first sign of danger we’ll pull her straight out. You continue to monitor and if you see anything suspect on the trip to Kiev, we’ll reevaluate.”

Kurtz clenched his fist and sighed. “OK.”

“Check back in an hour and I’ll let you know what else we got out of those numbers.”

“
Ja
, one hour.”

“Bunker out.”

Kurtz sat in silence, watching the road in front of the car. The sky had started to fade and he could make out the faint glow of the headlights on the asphalt. It was a golden color, reminding him of Karla’s hair.

“So, we follow to Kiev?” Aleks asked.

Kurtz activated the tracking app on his iPRIMAL. “Yes, we’re going to stay on their tail. No contact.” He turned to his partner. “They want to use her as a lead.”

Aleks nodded in silent acknowledgment of his partner’s pain.

CHAPTER 44

SVALYAVA TO KIEV

Two hours later the little white sedan sped through the darkness along the single-lane road that ran east across Ukraine. Kurtz and Aleks paid no attention to the forests and towns that flashed past in the moonlight. They were fixed on the tasks at hand.

Kurtz studied his iPRIMAL intently, watching the pulsing icon that indicated the location of the suspect phone. Aleks’s eyes stayed on the winding road as they traveled at breakneck speed.

Kurtz glanced at the speedometer. “Can we go faster?”

They took a bend at high speed and the wheels of the cheap sedan squealed in protest. Red taillights appeared in front as they came out of the corner. Aleks threw the little car into the oncoming lane and they narrowly avoided impact with a truck. The harsh glare of headlights filled the car as an oncoming vehicle raced toward them.

“Fuck!” Aleks muttered and he flicked the car sideways, narrowly missing the oncoming car and the side of the truck. “Don’t you think we’re going fast enough?”

“
Ja
.” Kurtz let out his breath. “They’re only a few kilometers ahead.”

“We’ll catch them in the next hour. Nothing is going to happen to her while they’re on the road.”

Kurtz’s eyes had returned to his iPRIMAL. “They’ve stopped up ahead.”

Aleks slowed their speed slightly. “We don’t want to shoot past him, he might recognize the car.”

The German gave him a stern look.

“Fine.” Aleks accelerated again. “But if we both end up dead and in hell, I’m not going to talk to you again.”

A few miles ahead a dark sedan was parked by the side of the road. Masateru opened the door and pulled Karla out. “If I take the handcuffs off, you will behave, yes?”

She sniffed, nodding.

“I will let you go to the bathroom but if you try to run I will go back to the hospital and cut off your sister’s hands.” He took the tanto knife from his jacket and flicked it open.

She burst into tears, her hopes of escape dashed. The Yakuza lieutenant waited for the sobbing to subside, then took a key from his jacket and removed the cuffs.

“Go, here.” Masateru used his knife to point at the ditch beside the road.

Karla rubbed her wrists, squatted over the dirt, and relieved herself. When she was finished Masateru directed her back into the car. They set off along the highway, Karla continuing to cry into her sleeve.

“These will make you feel better.” Masateru reached into his jacket and took out a pill bottle. He shook two large tablets into his hand and held them out.

Karla eyed them suspiciously.

“They won’t hurt you. If I wanted you dead it would have already happened.”

She took the pills and put them in her mouth. He tossed a bottle of water into her lap.

She put the plastic to her parched lips and downed the sedatives.

“You will find that if you behave things will not be so bad.”

“Being raped is not so bad?” She managed a teary laugh. “Have you tried it?”

“You will find that most of your clients will treat you very well. We will not let anyone hurt a beauty like you. You might even start to enjoy it.”

Karla tossed the water bottle back to him and looked away.

Masateru lowered his voice. “What I’m telling you now may save your life. And your sister’s. Listen carefully. You need to forget about your old life. This is your future now. Embrace it and you will lead a life of luxury and pleasure, just like our other girls. You will have everything you want: fancy clothes, fine food, even money to send to your sister. She will benefit from your service. She will be able to go to university. She will also have a good life.”

Karla looked at him through glazed eyes.

“Fight it,” he said, “and your life will end being gang-raped in a cheap hotel. Or maybe a businessman will pay a premium to cut your throat and fuck your corpse. Your sister will also bear the consequences of your actions. The choice is yours.” Masateru turned his attention to the driver. “How much farther?” he asked.

“Only a few more hours to Kiev.”

“Have you heard from any of the others?”

The driver shook his head.

Masateru checked his phone again; it had been hours since he had lost contact with his team. Not one of them would answer their phones and there was no doubt in his mind that they were dead or captured. He sighed and turned off his phone, almost out of power. The sooner he got out of this depressing country, the better.

“Can you see them?” Kurtz asked over the radio as he scanned the airport’s private hangars with his binoculars. From his vantage point on the other side of the runway, he had hoped to get a clear view of the aircraft the Yakuza were using.

“
Nyet
, it’s like they’ve disappeared.” Aleks was positioned out in front of the private terminal in the car.

“Fuck!” Kurtz could see all the hangars but not one aircraft. It was possible the private jet was behind a hangar or inside. “I have to move.”

As he lowered his binoculars, his iPRIMAL buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and checked the alerts. Their target phone was active again. On the digital map the hit was exactly where he was looking. The time of the signal intercept was only seconds ago.

“Aleks, you get that?”

“Can you see them?”

“Negative. It might be behind one of the hangars. You need to get eyes on.”

“Got it, I’m moving now.”

As Kurtz ran along the fence line looking for a better position, a sleek white business jet nosed out from the hangars and turned onto the airport apron. He skidded to a halt and pulled the iPRIMAL from his pocket. Lifting it up to his face, he let the camera sensor capture the scene. It took a few seconds for the augmented reality mapping to load, but when it did he could see a marker hovering over the location of the phone intercept. It was almost on top of the jet that was taxiing. He grabbed the binoculars.

“They’ve got a private jet. It’s white, currently moving away from me on the taxiway. I can’t make out the tail number.”

“I’m on it.” In front of the terminal, Aleks was out of the car and running between the security posts that denied vehicle access. Once he was on the other side he found alternate transport.

“Sorry, comrade.” He yanked the airport attendant from his seat on a golf cart and deposited him on the sidewalk. Taking his place he accelerated the cart to its top speed of fifteen miles an hour and aimed it toward the aircraft hangars. He waved his Interpol badge at the security guards manning the checkpoint and zoomed through. With security guards running behind him, he rounded the hangar sheds. A few hundred feet away the white business jet was taxiing down a feeder lane toward the start of the runway. He snapped a photo with his iPRIMAL as it swung onto the main strip and accelerated sharply. A few seconds later it was airborne.

“Did you get the tail number?” Kurtz’s voice came through his earpiece.

“Yeah, brother. I got it.”