The Stolen Ones (14 page)

“I DON’T GET IT,”
Windermere said. “So the girl’s still not talking? What did we accomplish here, Stevens?”

Stevens watched the electronic floor numbers flash by above him as the elevator climbed. “She’s staying put,” he said. “Nancy’s moving her to a halfway house under U.S. Marshal supervision, and in return, she promised not to flee the country or go underground.”

“Yeah, but she’s not talking,” Windermere said. “So what?”

“So she’s still here, I guess,” Stevens said. “We can keep working on Irina while we search for Catalina. And in the meantime, the Dragon doesn’t kill her.”

“Great.” Windermere rolled her eyes. “This sounds like a really good deal for Irina Milosovici, Stevens. But it doesn’t do jack shit for us. How are we going to save this girl’s sister if she won’t help us?”

Stevens leaned against the wall. “Yeah,” he said. “When you put it that way.”

“It sounds pretty damn slim, doesn’t it?” she said. “We need something better.”

The elevator doors slid open. Stevens and Windermere walked out into the FBI’s Criminal Investigative bullpen and across to Mathers’s cubicle, where the junior agent was just hanging up his phone.

“Where do we stand with Interpol?” Windermere asked him. “Stevens here just undid the damage you caused with Irina and bought us a little time, Derek, but we need leads to work with. So I hope that was a long-distance call.”

Mathers scribbled something on a notepad. “It
was
a long-distance call,” he said. “But not to where you’re thinking. Agent LePlavy and I are still tag-teaming with Interpol and the Financial Crimes guys. In the meantime, maybe you can do something with this.”

He handed her the notepad. Windermere took it. “What is it?”

“Anonymous tip made to the field office in Billings, Montana,” Mathers said. “Guess someone called in, said they saw those sketches we sent out of Irina’s bad guys.”

Stevens felt his heart syncopate. “They made the drivers.”

“That’s right,” Mathers said. “The scar-faced thug and his buddy both. The tipster said both guys came into his restaurant, parked their big truck in his lot. Said they had heavy accents and they didn’t talk much, but they ate sandwiches and kept checking their watches.” Mathers paused, his smile growing. “Said he overheard something they said just before they paid the bill. Something about needing to go meet the buyer.”

“Billings, Montana,” Windermere said. “That must be where they were headed after Duluth.”

“It’s a straight shot down I-90,” Stevens said. “It makes sense.”

“I’ll say it does.” Windermere grinned at Stevens. “I’ll book us a flight, partner. You go pack another suitcase. We’ll hit Billings tomorrow.”

THERE WAS A TEENAGE BOY
sitting in Stevens’s living room when he returned from Brooklyn Center. The kid was sprawled out on the couch, watching some kind of gross-out teen comedy, soda cans and empty potato chip bags everywhere. He sat up quickly when Stevens walked in.

“Oh, hi,” he said. “You’re Mr. Stevens.”

The boy was Andrea’s age, tall and skinny, his hair sandy blond. He wore flower-print shorts and a faux-vintage tee, a typical teenager, and he blushed and shifted his weight and looked away quickly when he caught Stevens’s eye.

“Dad?” Andrea Stevens poked her head in from the kitchen. “Hey,” she said, hurrying into the living room and picking up the garbage from the couch. “Hi. You’re home early. We’re just watching a movie. I’m making some lunch. Are you hungry?”

Stevens regarded his daughter, then her companion. “Am I to assume this is Calvin?”

Andrea blushed bright red.
“Dad.”

“Calvin Tanner,” the kid said, holding out his hand. “It’s good to finally meet you, Mr. Stevens. Andrea said you were away on business?”

“I was.” Stevens shook the kid’s hand. “I will be again shortly.”

“You’re a cop, Andrea said?”

Andrea was still blushing. “A BCA agent, I said.”

“So what are you working on?” Calvin asked. “Anything crazy? Andrea said you hunt down crazy bad guys, like that guy from our school, Tomlin. That was you, right? What are you working on now?”

“Nothing so crazy,” Stevens said. “Where’s your brother?” he asked Andrea.

“At Greg’s house,” she said. “I think they went swimming or something. Are you going away again?”

He nodded. “Tomorrow probably. Billings, Montana.”

“It has to do with that woman? From up north?”

“It does,” he said.

“Cool.” She shifted her weight. “Okay, so you met him, Dad. Can I have some privacy now?”

Stevens looked at her. At Calvin. At the TV, where a man in a diaper was running through a shopping mall. Calvin glanced at the TV and then grinned up at him, sheepish. “It was sure nice to meet you, Mr. S.”

Mr. S.,
Stevens thought, as he went upstairs to pack.
Can I have some privacy, Dad?

Maybe he was romanticizing things a little, but Stevens figured it wasn’t so long ago that his daughter would have run to the door to greet him, would have begged him to tell her all about his new case. Hell, she’d even started talking about becoming a cop herself. Now, his biggest case yet, and all she cared about was a little privacy with Calvin.

Kids these days,
Stevens thought.
No wonder Nancy’s frustrated
.

ACROSS TOWN,
Carla Windermere stared at Derek Mathers across her living room and wondered how she was supposed to feel.

On the one hand, the guy had screwed up her investigation, the biggest damn case she’d ever worked. He’d made a dumb mistake and nearly scared Irina Milosovici back to Romania, and even now Windermere figured the odds the girl would do any more serious cooperating were long, long,
long
.

But he’d apologized for it. He’d spent the night at his desk, busted his ass with Interpol, and managed to dig up a damn solid lead. Tomorrow, if there was any justice in the world, she and Stevens would track down another buyer in Billings, while Mathers and LePlavy pinpointed the identity of the shipper who’d imported the Milosovicis’ container. Her colleague had done good.

Even so, Windermere kind of hated him.

“I said I’m sorry, Carla,” he told her from the window. “I said it a hundred times, it was an honest mistake. What am I supposed to do about it?”

“You should have known better,” she said. “I told you to wait until Stevens and I got back, and you didn’t listen. You just have to be smarter.”

Mathers flinched, and she knew she’d touched a nerve. “I guess I’m just a big dumbass, huh?”

She closed her eyes. “Come on, Derek.”

“Just a big dumb lug. That’s what you call me, right?” He glared at her. “Guess I finally proved you right.”

“Derek—” She approached him, but he turned away.

“This is stupid,” he said. “It was a bad idea to begin with, us hooking up. We work together. Something like this happens and it all goes to shit.”

“It wouldn’t have happened if—” She caught herself too late.

“If I hadn’t fucked up, Carla, yeah, I know. If I wasn’t the department meathead.” He sighed. “Look, the point is, I don’t even know what we’re doing anymore. Even before I fucked up your case.”

“
Our
case,” she said.

“Whatever. It’s
your
case, Carla. You and Stevens.”

“
Please
don’t bring Stevens into this.”

“Well?” he said. “You’ve always been hung up on him, Carla, even while you’re hooking up with me. I don’t even know why I bother.” He turned to leave, brushed past her. “I should go.”

Windermere followed him to the door. “Don’t go,” she said, and knew she meant it. “Just forget it, Derek. I’m sorry. I’m an asshole.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he told her, one hand on the doorknob, his blue eyes dark. “It makes you a hell of an agent anyway.”

Then he walked out, and the door slammed closed, leaving Windermere standing alone in her little entryway, feeling like, however she was supposed to be feeling about the situation, this wasn’t it.

BOGDAN URZICA RUBBED HIS JAW
as he piloted the big Peterbilt into the outskirts of Chicago. Beside him, Nikolai chuckled in the passenger seat.

“That will teach you to get in between a man and his woman, Bogdan,” he said, smirking across the cab at his partner.

In the driver’s seat, Bogdan said nothing. He still hurt from the haymaker Nikolai had thrown at him, and he’d driven all night on minimal sleep, replaying his conversation with Andrei Volovoi in his head.

“I mean, seriously,” Nikolai continued. “I was only trying to get to know her better. Test her out for the Dragon. Quality control, do you know what I mean?”

Bogdan ignored his partner. Kept his eyes on the road as the highway widened, a collection of warehouses and train tracks and truck-stop motels peeking through the trees. He watched a highway patrol cruiser approach in an oncoming lane, held his breath until it had passed. There were sketches on the news now, Bogdan knew. His face and Nikolai’s, too. The truck was a liability. The police would be hunting for it.

I’ll deal with Nikolai,
Andrei had promised.

Nikolai leaned over and spat brown tobacco juice into his ubiquitous Big Gulp cup. “You are such a princess, Bogdan,” he said. “Do you really think the Dragon is going to give you a gold star for bringing him his little bitch?”

Bogdan wondered if Nikolai could sense his apprehension. “We will not be delivering the little girl to the Dragon,” he said. “Andrei is coming. He will take her off our hands tonight.”

“He’s coming out
here
?”

“To meet us,” Bogdan told him. “He will take the girl himself. It’s too risky to leave her with us.”

Nikolai said nothing for a moment. Studied the road. Then he laughed. “You pussies,” he said. “You’re all so afraid of that fucking Dragon.”

“And you’re not?” Bogdan said.

“No, Bogdan,” Nikolai said, “I’m not. He’s an ugly punk with a terrible beard. Let him come for me. I will shave that beard off of him.”

Nikolai laughed, that ugly, terrible laugh. Bogdan said nothing. Just drove.

“Let Andrei Volovoi come for the girl,” Nikolai said finally. “The little bitch stinks anyway; he can have her.”

“I’m sure he will be happy to have your permission,” Bogdan said.

“We’ll hand the girl over tonight,” Nikolai said. “Andrei will pay us. Then we’ll find a steak and somebody to fuck us, Bogdan, what do you say?”

Bogdan said nothing. Kept driving.
You’re already fucked, Nikolai,
he thought.
It’s only a matter of time
.

NANCY STEVENS
gestured into the sunny little room and smiled and said something in English. Behind Irina, Maria began to translate, but Irina waved her off. She understood the American well enough.

It was a nice little bedroom, with a twin bed and a writing desk and a closet with a handful of droopy wire hangers. The curtains were dusty, and the walls were bare, but it was better than a prison cell—or that fetid box. It was, Irina understood, her new home.

“It’s a house for battered women,” Nancy Stevens had explained, through Maria, on the drive over. “Many of them are new to America, like you. It’s very safe. It’s communal. A way to help you feel like a human being again.”

A human being.
Irina had wondered how she could feel anything close to normal ever again with Catalina still missing. She couldn’t imagine ever feeling safe on the streets, couldn’t picture a night without terror and that paralyzing guilt. But she’d followed Nancy anyway, up the front steps of the facility—a shabby old house in a quiet neighborhood—and into the lobby, where a friendly, middle-aged woman had written Irina’s name on a clipboard, and a handful of other hollow-eyed women had lingered like wraiths, watching her.

Her English was still rotten. Maria wouldn’t be around, not all the time, but Nancy Stevens wasn’t dissuaded. “You’ll pick it up quickly,” she said. “The staff here can help you, and if you ever do need her, Maria’s just a phone call away. So am I, for that matter.”

“My sister,” Irina said.

Nancy’s smile didn’t waver. “My husband’s making progress,” she said. “Believe me, if anyone can find her, it’s Kirk. In the meantime, you just take it easy and try to relax, okay?”

Irina wondered how the woman could be so optimistic. If it was an American thing, this relentless positivity.
Your lives are so easy,
she thought.
Big-screen TVs, movie stars, McDonald’s hamburgers. Of course you’re happy; you’ve never seen hardship.

But that was mean. Nancy Stevens was trying to help her, and if Irina had to be anywhere while she waited to find out Catalina’s fate, it might as well be here. She sat on the bed, tested the mattress. Met Nancy’s eye and nodded. “I can stay here.”

“Sure you can.” Nancy pulled back the curtains and gestured out the window. “Come see.”

Maria translated, and Irina joined Nancy at the window. Followed her gaze to the dark American sedan parked across the street, the two men inside.

“The marshals are staying,” Nancy said. “They’ll be watching the house day and night, to protect you.”

Irina pictured the men inside the dark sedan. They’d been kind enough on the drive to the house, quiet and deferential. But she had been terrified of them nonetheless.

“And if you ever feel worried, or anxious, or anything . . .” Nancy took a business card from her pocket. “Day or night, okay?”

She winked at Irina. “I’ll work on my Romanian.” She hugged Irina quickly, shocking the hell out of her, and then waved good-bye from the door. Irina waved back, forced a smile, waited as Nancy and Maria closed the door behind them. Then she walked to the bed, lay down and stared up at the ceiling, and thought about Catalina and Nancy Stevens, and hoped the pretty American’s faith in her husband was well placed.

THE CLIENT WAS A SHORT MAN,
narrow and nearly bald. He was among the richest men in Manhattan. He was also a pervert, and knew plenty more of the same.

“Blondes,” he told Volovoi, leaning across the table. “That’s my taste, personally. There’s something about a pretty young blonde that just—” He laughed and cut a piece of his steak. “Well, you know what I mean.”

Volovoi looked around the restaurant, at the skyscrapers outside the windows, and struggled to calm his queasy stomach. Beside him, the Dragon appeared far more at peace.
This is the man who will make us both rich,
his expression seemed to read.
This is the only way you’ll survive.

“We can supply blondes,” the Dragon said. “Can’t we, Andrei?”

Volovoi glanced at the Dragon. Then at the client. “We have plenty of blondes,” he said slowly.

“Plenty of blondes,” the Dragon repeated. “What did I tell you, Lloyd? Do your friends share your tastes?”

Lloyd shrugged. “Hell, they like all kinds,” he said, chewing. “I don’t exactly keep a database.” He grinned back at the Dragon. “But I know they like them young. The younger the better.”

The Dragon matched his smile, played up the charming salesman act. “But of course.”

“There are thousands of beautiful women in this city, and all of them can be bought,” Lloyd said. “Not so much if your tastes skew below the age of the average college freshman.”

“Young is no problem,” the Dragon told him. “Young is our specialty. We can supply women as young as your friends desire.”

Volovoi thought about his family. Thought about the lines of red numbers in his accounting spreadsheets. Thought about the Dragon’s wolfish smile, his outstretched hand. The thousands of dollars that bled from the operation directly into the Dragon’s accounts every month.

You were stupid,
he told himself.
You were played. This is what the Dragon wanted from you all along. Your name on the lease. Your face on the franchise. Your neck in the noose if anything goes wrong.

And his hand in the cash register as the money piles up. As the girls arrive for sick bastards like this.

You were played, Andrei Volovoi. Like a mouse in a trap. And there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it now.

The client was studying him. So was the Dragon. “We can do young,” Volovoi said, forcing the reluctance from his voice. “So long as the price is agreeable.”

Lloyd took another bite of his steak. “Of course,” he said. “Let’s talk numbers.”

Volovoi looked out the window again. The restaurant sat high atop a midtown skyscraper; far below, the city bustled and blared with midday traffic. Up here, though, the air was calm, the restaurant soothing and airy and quiet. This was privilege. This was wealth. Volovoi felt as comfortable here as he would at the bottom of the ocean. He did not belong. He would never belong. And he was sure that everyone in the restaurant could see it.

“Two hundred thousand,” the Dragon told Lloyd. “Minimum opening bid. We will negotiate on a per-case basis from there.”

Lloyd pursed his lips. The Dragon waited. A highway patrol cruiser approached in an oncoming lane. Bogdan waited, tense, until it passed. There were sketches on the news now, he knew, his face and Nikolai’s, too. Two hundred thousand per girl was a significant upgrade. Even if the Dragon continued to demand his percentages, there was no way that Volovoi wouldn’t get rich.

Forty girls in a box at two hundred thousand a girl meant eight million dollars a shipment. Surely, the Dragon had been greedy. There was no way that Lloyd would agree.

But then the client nodded. “Two hundred sounds reasonable,” he said. “My contacts shouldn’t have a problem with that kind of ballpark.”

“Perfect.” The Dragon turned to Volovoi. “Then I’d say we’re in business. All right, Andrei?”

Volovoi pretended to stall, though he already knew his answer. At this price point, there was no way he could decline. Not with the Dragon’s claws so tight around his neck. Not with his operation at the brink of failure.

“Cash up front,” he said finally. “Wired overseas.”

The Dragon laughed. Lloyd smiled.

“There is a shipment arriving in two days,” the Dragon told Lloyd. “I will make sure Andrei has the merchandise ready for you as soon as possible.”

“Perfect,” Lloyd said. “And no pressure from the authorities, I assume? You run a clean operation?”

“Perfectly clean,” the Dragon said. “We take care of any issues quickly and with finality. Right, Andrei?”

Volovoi thought about the FBI insects. About Bogdan’s and Nikolai’s faces on the news. He would have to kill them both, he realized. The Manhattan expansion was the big leagues. Both men were now liabilities.

“I run an airtight operation,” he told Lloyd. “Your contacts are safe.”

“A couple of days, then.” Lloyd reached for a bottle from the bucket that waited tableside. Then he winked at Volovoi. “Champagne?”