The Stolen Ones (32 page)

“JESUS.”
Windermere watched the paramedic apply antiseptic to the scratches and claw marks on Stevens’s face. “That girl had some fight to her, huh?”

Stevens winced from a fresh sting. “Poor thing,” he said. “Probably didn’t even realize I was one of the good guys.”

“Probably feels the same as her sister, figures all men are evil,” Windermere said. “I just wonder what those bastards put her through.”

“Guess we’ll find out.” Stevens looked across the sidewalk to the DuPont, the shattered front door, the tabloid news photographers lining the sidewalk, angling for a good shot of the first gunman’s body. “Soon as the translator arrives.”

They’d locked Catalina Milosovici in the back of a patrol car, for her own protection. She’d struggled, fought like a cornered animal until they got her in the backseat, and then something seemed to break inside her and she collapsed and cried, bitter and angry. Now, her tears gone, she sat morose and sullen, staring at her hands in the back of the cruiser, unresponsive to any offer of food, drink, or first aid.

“Her feet were torn to shreds,” Stevens said.

Windermere nodded. “She’s a fighter. I wonder what she was planning to do to Volovoi.”

“Seemed like she was ready to carve out his eye.”

She made a face. “Gruesome. What do you think she was telling him?”

Stevens didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Something about the girl wasn’t really jibing for him yet. She’d fought harder than a girl who was lost and traumatized. She’d fought like he’d interrupted her somehow.

Probably she was just angry. The NYPD had guys in an apartment upstairs, said there were mountains of cocaine, guns, blood everywhere. Too early to tell just how the puzzle fit together, but Catalina was probably just trying to even the score.

Maybe.

Stevens let the paramedic fix him up, clean his wounds, apply a few bandages. Windermere watched. “You better hope those don’t scar,” she said. “Ruin your movie star looks.”

Stevens laughed. “Chicks dig scars,” he said. “At least that’s what I’ve heard.”

“Nancy tell you that?”

“No,” he said, “but she put up with me for this long, and I don’t figure I could get much uglier now.”

She eyed him appraisingly. “That poor woman.”

Movement behind them. Stevens turned to find a man studying them. He wore glasses and tweed—a professor. “Excuse me, agents,” he said.

Stevens and Windermere swapped glances. “Yeah?”

“I’m Dr. Fidatov,” he said. “The translator. I’ve just talked to Catalina, and I think there’s something you both should know.”

Stevens looked at Catalina’s patrol car. The girl stared out at them, her eyes dark and inscrutable.

“Okay,” Windermere said. “What’s up?”

Fidatov cleared his throat. Fiddled with his jacket. “She said she was trying to get information when you pulled her away from the dead man,” he said. “She seems to think you ruined her chance to save them.”

“‘Them,’” Stevens said. “Who’s them? The girls in the box? Tell her we’re on it. We tracked her container to the rest of the buyers. The women are safe.”

Fidatov shook his head. “The other girls,” he said. “The rest of the Dragon’s New York captives. They’re trapped in a warehouse somewhere, and according to Catalina, only the dead men could find them.”

“COME ON,” WINDERMERE SAID.
“Come on, come on,
come on
.”

From the other side of the apartment, Stevens watched her search and felt her frustration. With Fidatov’s help, they’d pressed Catalina Milosovici for information. They’d found out the man they’d killed in front of the DuPont was indeed Pavel Demetriou, the gangster who called himself the Dragon. They’d found out about his lavish apartment upstairs. But the girl had only shaken her head when they asked her about the lost shipment.

“I didn’t see the other girls after the Dragon took me,” she said. “He never brought me to his warehouse.” She glared at Stevens. “And this oaf pulled me off Volovoi before I could get any answers.”

He told himself she was wrong. Andrei Volovoi was seconds from death. He was beyond saving anyone. No way he’d have given up the girls’ location, no matter what Catalina did to him.

Still, though. Thirty young girls abandoned somewhere, and maybe—
maybe
—Catalina Milosovici could have convinced Andrei Volovoi to give her more information. Maybe he
had
consigned them to die.

“No,” Windermere said. “Bullshit. We’ll find these girls, Stevens. They’re not gone yet.”

But they’d searched the apartment and found nothing. Found drugs, a duffel bag full of guns, but nothing to point the way to the rest of the girls. No records. No phone numbers, even. If the Dragon had written down anything about his operation, he wasn’t storing it here.

“What about Demetriou’s cell phone?” Stevens said. “He had to visit the warehouse at some point, right? Maybe he made a call and we can trace the GPS location back.”

“His provider will want a warrant,” Windermere said. “And even if they cooperate, they’ll probably come back with like a million locations this Dragon guy called from, Stevens. Those girls will be long dead before we find them.”

“Try it anyway,” Stevens said. “I’ll find us something better.”

She walked into the kitchen, her phone to her ear, and Stevens turned to the window again. Far below, police lights flashed blue and red on the walls of neighboring apartment buildings.

Stevens felt a dead kind of numbness in his body. Thirty desperate women. Girls. And he was letting them die.

He would never forgive himself.

Shut up,
he told himself.
Fight it off. There’s still time.

Then he thought of something, just as Windermere came back into the room, shaking her head. “The Dragon owns this place,” he said. “I mean, this is his home, right?”

“Sure seems that way,” Windermere said. “But his name’s not on the deed, partner. It’s another shell corporation.”

“Of course it is,” Stevens said. “But what else do they own?”

“Good question,” Windermere said, reaching for her phone again. “Let’s find out.”

“MANHATTAN NUCLEAR.”
Windermere pocketed her phone. “They have a lease on this apartment and”—she grinned across the apartment at Stevens—“they own a warehouse in the East Village, Avenue A.”

Stevens felt his heart quicken, the numbness dissipate. “Hot damn,” he said. “That’s gotta be the place, right?”

“Gotta be.” Windermere was heading for the elevator. “Let’s go.”

L
E
PLAVY MET THEM IN ALPHABET CITY.

“Here’s the Manhattan Nuclear warehouse,” he said, leading them toward a plain brick building in the middle of the block. “Used to be a clothing manufacturer, but they sold out. Manhattan Nuclear bought the place about a year ago now.”

“Building a beachhead,” Stevens said. “So they could take over New York.”

They circled around the rear of the building, followed an alley into an open parking lot, a loading bay, a back door. A gray Bentley parked to one side, a little out of place. “HRT guys are stuck in traffic,” LePlavy told them. “Going to be a little while, another half hour, maybe.”

“Forget it,” Windermere told him, drawing her weapon. “If these girls aren’t in here, we need to cross this place off our list and keep moving.” She looked at Stevens. “You coming, partner?”

Stevens drew his own weapon. “Yup.”

Windermere marched up the stairs to the loading bay. Rapped on the back door. “FBI,” she called, “and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Open up, or face the consequences.”

Silence. She tried the door. It was unlocked.

“Slow,” Stevens told her. “Slow and steady.”

“Slow and steady,” Windermere said. She pushed the door open. The lights were on. The place smelled musty. She looked down at the floor. “Oh, snap.”

Blood on the floor, and lots of it. A body, an older man, well dressed, two gunshot wounds in the back of his head. “Shit,” Stevens said. “Who—”

Then the shooting started. Four or five shots, fast, from inside the warehouse. The doorframe splintered above Windermere’s head and she ducked away.
“Shit.”

Stevens spotted the shooter, big and ugly, his bald head gleaming bright as a beacon. Stevens drew aim, pulled the trigger, caught the guy with a shot to the leg. The thug howled, grabbed his thigh. Stumbled back from the door and disappeared out of sight.

Stevens started through the door. Windermere held him back. “Let me take this, partner,” she told him. “No way your wife lets me live if you get shot again.”

Stevens made to argue, knew from Windermere’s expression that he’d never win. Reluctantly, he stepped back, let her creep through the door, her gun drawn. Watched her duck into the warehouse and followed quickly behind.

It was an antechamber, a loading area. A little room to one side, an office, and a bigger room at the front of the warehouse, most of it hidden. Windermere started toward the big room. Stevens spread out, followed behind her, searching the shadows.

Then the world exploded ahead of him. Stevens dove for cover, the floor and the walls going to shit around him. Too much action to return fire, and the guy’s bullets were coming damn close. Stevens kept his head down, watched as Windermere leveled her Glock in the gunman’s direction. Watched her pull the trigger once, then again.

The gunfire stopped. The warehouse went silent again.

Windermere picked herself up. Examined the pattern of bullet holes above Stevens’s head. “Well, shit, partner,” she said. “I guess we found the right place.”

THEY SEARCHED THE WAREHOUSE.
The main floor first, a vast open space clogged with empty boxes and broken furniture, detritus. The manufacturing floor, dusty and abandoned.

Just off the main room was a bathroom. Traces of white powder on the sink. Cocaine. There was a small office, too, bottles of high-end booze and a futon bed. Dirty sheets. More cocaine. Condoms.

“Someone’s been spending time here, anyway,” Stevens said.

Windermere nodded. “So where the hell are the girls?”

Stevens walked back out to the main room. Studied the floor, the walls. There was a discolored patch of wall, freshly repainted. Stevens walked over and pressed on it, felt it give. A fresh panel of drywall, about four feet wide. Stevens traced the outline of the panel, pulled it away, found a heavy wooden door behind, a big padlock.

“Shit,” he said. “A key. Bolt cutters. Anything.”

“Watch out.” Windermere pushed him aside, raised her Glock. Stevens ducked away, heard the gunshot, the splinter of steel. “Boom,” Windermere said, reholstering her gun. “Who needs keys?”

They cleared the shards of lock free and unlatched the door. Then they looked at each other. “Ready, partner?” Windermere said.

“Hurry,” Stevens told her. “For God’s sake.”

She pulled the latch clear and swung open the door. A dark passage. A basement stairwell.
Bingo,
Stevens thought.
Here’s the mother lode.

The stairs were creaky. They were creepy. The basement smelled of must and mildew and stale urine and worse. Stevens took the steps slow, kept his hand at his holster. Hit the bottom and stopped cold.

“Holy,” he said. “Holy shit.”

A low ceiling. Dim lighting. More boxes. And girls everywhere.

Teenagers, all of them, every girl in a short dress and heels, heavy makeup. They huddled together beneath bare lightbulbs, the last of the Dragon’s human cargo. Stevens stared at them, couldn’t move at first, couldn’t help them. Just stood there and thought about his daughter, and felt suddenly, overwhelmingly, tired.

CATALINA DIDN’T HUG
her big sister the moment they were reunited. She slapped her.

“You are a stupid cow,” she said, flailing against Irina’s upturned arms. “A stupid, gullible,
selfish
cow.”

The FBI agent held her arms. Pulled her away. “You nearly got us killed,” Catalina told her sister. “Mother and father, too. And for what? So you could be famous in this stupid country?”

Irina lowered her arms. Said nothing, just looked at her sister, skinny and anxious and exhausted, and Catalina instantly felt guilty. Ashamed. She relaxed her body, felt the FBI agent release his grip on her. “I’m sorry,” she said.

It had been two long days since the FBI agents had pulled her away from Volovoi’s body. Catalina had spent them in an FBI building somewhere in New York City, though she hadn’t gone willingly.

She’d argued with the police for hours and hours. Forced the translator, Dr. Fidatov, to harass the cops for her, until he was sick and tired and refused to relay one more demand. So she kicked him out, demanded a new translator. Fidatov had stuck around, though. He moaned and cursed and muttered under his breath, but he didn’t leave her.

And why would he? He knew the situation was dire. Thirty girls abandoned in the Dragon’s warehouse, and the FBI wanted to feed her milk and cookies and talk about her feelings? Madness. She’d refused them. Hadn’t talked. Had shaken off all but one of their cookies, until a tired-looking FBI agent came into the room and told her the girls were alive.

“All of them,” Fidatov translated. “The FBI found the warehouse in the East Village.”

“And they’re alive,” Catalina said. “Dorina is alive?”

“They’re all alive. Every one of them. The FBI tracked them all down, thanks to you. So now you can cooperate, yes?”

Catalina felt like a chunk of concrete had been lifted from her chest. The girls were safe. Dorina was safe. Her parents, the FBI assured her, were safe. Even Irina was fine.

Fidatov watched her. The FBI agent stood at the door, an eyebrow raised. They wanted her cooperation. But Catalina wasn’t ready to give it.

“No,” she told the translator. “I want my sister.”

>   >   >

IT TOOK ANOTHER DAY
for the FBI to fly Irina to New York. By this point, Catalina had given up her hunger strike, but she had no time, still, for the army of analysts who paraded through her room, asking how she felt and how afraid she’d been, whether she’d had any dreams.

“My sister,” she told them all. “I want to see my sister.”

She’d waited, impatient. She dreamed of Irina, not of the bearded devil. He was dead, and so was his flat-faced friend. She knew it. She’d seen it. They couldn’t hurt her anymore.

So, no, she wasn’t afraid. She just missed her sister.

And then, the next day, the door to her little interview room opened, and the FBI agent ushered Irina in. She was pretty as ever, far prettier than Catalina, and she appeared far less pale, far less hungry than Catalina felt.

And suddenly, Catalina felt mad.

It was Irina who had done this, who had wanted so badly to be famous in America. It was concern for Irina and her stupid dreams that had brought Catalina to this country in the first place, to the box, to the brink of death. And now she was here, well-fed and tanned, and Catalina wanted to slap her.

So she did.

She slapped her sister until she felt stupid. Then she slunk back and caught her breath, aware of the FBI agent’s eyes on her. She looked down at the floor. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Then she said it again, because Irina was crying. And she’d wriggled free of the FBI agent, and then she really
was
hugging her sister, and feeling awful for being such a cow.

Irina hugged her back. “
I’m
sorry,” she said. “I’m the one who’s sorry, Catya.”

And Catalina felt her defenses crumble, and then she was crying, too. Like a useless emotional little girl.

Shut up. You can cry now. After all of this, you’re allowed to cry
.

So they cried. They cried until they were out of tears, and then they pulled themselves apart and dried their eyes, and Catalina told Irina about Bogdan and Nikolai, Andrei Volovoi and the Dragon, and Irina told Catalina about Mathers and Nancy Stevens and Maria. And when Irina was finished, she regarded the small interview room and made a face.

“I don’t know why I believed them,” she said. “The men in Bucharest. This is not paradise.”

“This?” Catalina said, gesturing to the room. “No, it certainly is not.”

“Not just here,” Irina said. “America. What’s so special? I miss Mother and Father. I want to go home.”

Catalina hugged her again. “I want to go with you.”