‘Does she know you?’ asked Pritchard.
‘We’ve met a couple of times,’ said Shepherd.
Mia went to the bar where the barman poured her a shot of slivovitz which she downed in one. She asked for another and the barman shook his head but then the heavy waved that he was to give her another so he poured it and again she drank it down in one gulp.
A man appeared at the top of the stairs, buttoning his flies. He was huge, close to seven feet tall, with a shaved head and a square chin, and thick eyebrows that met over a bulbous nose. He staggered drunkenly down the stairs and over to the front door. The heavy with the diamond stud in his ear already had the door open for him and he pretty much fell across the threshold and lurched towards the car park. The heavy closed the door, took out his smartphone and studied the screen.
Mia leaned against the bar and surveyed the room. Her eyes settled on the three of them and she jutted up her chin and blinked as if she was trying to focus. Shepherd looked away, desperately avoiding eye contact. There was no way she would have expected to have seen him in a Slovenian brothel so with any luck she wouldn’t recognise him, especially in her drunken state. It was every undercover agent’s worst nightmare, to come across someone who knew who they really were.
She tottered towards them. Shepherd stared at the floor. Her high heels came into view. ‘Dan?’ he heard. ‘Is that you?’ She was slurring her words and swaying unsteadily. She had met Dan twice before when he had visited the family with Katra.
Shepherd looked up and tried to throw her a warning look, but she was too drunk to pick up any subtext. ‘It is you!’ she said.
She rushed over, pushed Pritchard to the side and sat down next to him, grabbing his arm with both hands. ‘You have to help me,’ she said. ‘They won’t let me go.’ Unlike her sister she had a very heavy Slovenian accent, but he understood every word.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Shepherd. ‘What about Katra and Liam. Are they here?’
Mia shook her head. ‘They took them today. I don’t know where. Please, you have to help me.’
‘Okay, okay,’ said Shepherd. ‘Just stay calm.’ He looked around the room. Her voice had carried and the barman was looking over at them, frowning. The heavy with the diamond stud in his ear had put away his phone and looked in their direction.
‘Liam and Katra, are they okay?’ asked Pritchard.
Mia nodded, then looked at Pritchard, clearly wondering who he was. ‘He’s a friend,’ said Shepherd. ‘His name is Colin. And this is Andrej.’
She flashed Andrej a tight smile, then tightened her grip on Shepherd’s arm. ‘Please, take me out of here.’
‘We will,’ said Shepherd. ‘Who has got Liam and Katra? Who took them?’
‘The man who owns this house,’ she said. ‘He is a Serb. Zivco Žagar. He’s a gangster.’
The heavy walked over from the door, glared down at Shepherd and said something in Serbo-Croat. ‘Da,’ said Shepherd, waving him away.
The man growled again and this time Pritchard answered.
Shepherd didn’t understand what they were saying but guessed it was because Mia was sitting with them and they hadn’t bought her a drink. The heavy tried to speak to Shepherd again. Shepherd shrugged. Again Pritchard did the talking but that just seemed to annoy the heavy even more. He pointed at Shepherd and started shouting. Mia shouted back.
Andrej stood up and backed to the side, his arms loose. He was clearing his line of sight, Shepherd realised; getting himself into a position where he could fire his gun without hitting Shepherd or Pritchard. Andrej began to talk to the heavy, presumably asking him to calm down. His words had no effect.
The other heavy walked across the room to stand by his colleague. They both stood with their feet apart, arms folded and heads tilted back.
Andrej fell silent and he stared at the two heavies.
Pritchard started talking again. He stood up as he spoke, the action appearing casual but Shepherd could see that he was preparing himself to pull out his gun. Shepherd looked at Mia and gestured with his chin for her to get off the sofa. She didn’t get the message and gripped his right arm even tighter. That was going to be a problem because he was going to need it when the shooting started, and it looked like that was going to be sooner rather than later. Liam and Katra were probably already in Ljubljana. The heavies would be on the phone the moment Shepherd, Pritchard and Andrej left the building and as soon as Žagar found out they were heading his way there was every chance he would just cut his losses and kill his hostages. The only way they could reach Žagar was to incapacitate everyone in the brothel, or at the very least make them incapable of reaching out to him.
Mia interrupted Pritchard and started shouting at the two heavies. The one with the diamond stud pointed at her. ‘Zatvori usta kučka!’ he hissed, which presumably meant ‘shut up’ because she did, staring down at the floor.
Pritchard had stopped moving. Like Andrej, he had cleared his line of sight. The two heavies didn’t seem to realise the danger they were in. They were just thugs who relied on their physical bulk to intimidate, they had no military training or understanding of tactics.
A third heavy appeared at the top of the stairs. He was shaven-headed and had a pair of sunglasses on top of his head and a thick gold chain around his neck. From the way he shouted down at his two colleagues it seemed he was their boss. He came down the stairs two at a time, his game face on. These were bog-standard alpha males, used to getting their own way with a show of force. They had a shock coming.
Shepherd put his face close to Mia’s and held her look. ‘Stay down,’ he said.
‘What?’
Sunglasses reached inside his jacket. So did Diamond Stud.
‘Just don’t get up,’ he said to Mia. He stood up, grabbed her and threw her over the back of the sofa. As he turned he pulled the Glock from the waistband of his jeans.
The heavy with sunglasses already had his gun out. So did Andrej, but the heavy was staring at Shepherd and didn’t see him. He was still staring at Shepherd when the two bullets ripped into his chest. Blood blossomed on his white shirt and a look of confusion flashed across his face before his eyes went blank and he collapsed to the floor.
The heavy with the diamond stud had his gun out and he aimed at Shepherd’s chest and pulled the trigger but nothing happened. He didn’t have a round in the chamber. Shepherd did and when he pulled the trigger his Glock kicked in his hands and the man staggered back as blood spurted down the front of his chest. Shepherd raised his gun and his second shot hit the man in the centre of his face. Blood and brain matter splattered out of the back of his skull and he went down.
The heavy with cauliflower ears was carrying his gun in the small of his back but he was having trouble reaching it and he was still struggling when Pritchard shot him in the face.
The barman ducked down behind his bar. He didn’t seem the type to be hiding, so Shepherd kept his attention focused on the man and sure enough he reappeared holding a pump-action shotgun. As he pumped in a cartridge and swung the gun around, Shepherd fired twice. Both rounds hit the barman just below his neck and he fell backwards against a display of bottles that crashed around him as he slumped to the floor.
The room was suddenly deathly quiet and Shepherd’s eyes were stinging from the cordite in the air. The customers who had been on the sofa with the girls had jumped over the back and were cowering behind it. The man with the ponytail who had been playing pool was standing with his cue in both hands as if he was preparing to use it as a weapon but he hurriedly dropped it when Shepherd glared at him and it clattered to the floor.
‘Andrej, check upstairs,’ said Pritchard. ‘Bring everyone down.’ He went over to the door and bolted it, then flicked off the outside lights. He looked over at Shepherd. ‘That back room by the bar, see what’s in there,’ he said. Shepherd hurried over to the bar.
Pritchard raised his gun in the air and spoke loudly in Serbo-Croat. The girls and customers moved
towards the bar, holding their hands in the air.
Mia appeared from behind the sofa and stood where she was, shaking with fear.
Shepherd pulled open the door. It was a storeroom, about ten feet wide, lined with shelves full of bottles and cans. There was no window and no other door.
‘We can put them in here,’ said Shepherd.
Pritchard nodded and barked instructions at his captives. They began to strip off their clothing. As each person disrobed enough to prove they weren’t carrying a weapon or a phone, Shepherd ushered them into the storeroom. No one argued or protested; they realised that the alternative was to join the dead heavies on the floor.
Andrej appeared at the top of the stairs. There were three middle-aged men with towels wrapped around their waists and four girls in various stages of undress. Andrej herded them downstairs. There was no need to search them and they were pushed into the storeroom. Pritchard spoke to them harshly, waved his gun, and then closed the door.
Mia was watching them anxiously. ‘What do we do with her?’ asked Pritchard.
‘We can’t leave her here,’ said Shepherd. ‘She can stay at our hotel.’
Pritchard thought about it, then nodded. ‘You’re right. Okay, so we have to go to Žagar’s place. That’s presumably where we’ll find Liam and Katra.’ He gestured at the storeroom door. ‘The question is, what do we do with them?’
‘They’re not the bad guys,’ said Andrej. ‘Just working girls and customers.’
‘Except the girls are being held against their will,’ said Shepherd. ‘This isn’t their fight.’ He waved Mia over. She threaded her way between the bodies on the floor, tottering on her high heels. ‘Mia, you don’t want to work here, right?’
She shook her head tearfully.
‘So why are you here?’
‘I owed Žagar money. He said I had to work here to pay off my debt.’
‘And the other girls? They owe money to Žagar?’
Mia nodded. ‘Most of them.’
Shepherd looked at Andrej. ‘See what I mean? These girls are being raped on a daily basis.’
Andrej nodded but didn’t say anything.
‘No one’s suggesting we hurt them, but we can’t let them go, not until we’ve resolved the situation in Ljubljana,’ said Pritchard. ‘If they tell the police or Žagar then we’ll never get to Liam and Katra. I don’t see any way of locking this door and even if we do there’s no guarantee that they won’t break out. Someone has to stay. It can’t be Mia, obviously. You need to get to your family. So that leaves me and Andrej.’
‘I’ll stay,’ said Andrej.
‘Are you sure?’ asked Pritchard.
‘It’s fine. I’ll turn off the lights and you can call me when you’re done.’
‘What about transport?’ said Shepherd. ‘We’ve only got the one vehicle.’
‘You can take my car. When we are done, I’ll take one of the cars outside and dump it in Ljubljana.’
‘That works for me,’ said Pritchard. He patted Andrej on the shoulder. ‘Thanks for this.’
Andrej grinned. ‘I had nothing planned for tonight.’
Pritchard put his gun back into his holster and went over to Diamond Stud. He picked up the dead man’s gun. ‘It’ll muddy the waters if we use these guns,’ he said.
Shepherd followed his example and picked up the gun that Cauliflower Ears had been carrying. It was a Glock 19. Shepherd ejected the magazine and checked it. It was full. He slid the magazine back in and pulled back the slide to slot a round into the breech. ‘Mia, do you have any things you need to take with you?’ asked Shepherd.
‘Upstairs,’ she said.
‘Go and grab what you need,’ said Shepherd.
Mia took off her high heels and ran upstairs.
‘You should call the negotiator and get him to make a call to the Slovenian number again,’ said Pritchard. ‘He can say anything, we just need to confirm the location.’
Shepherd nodded and walked over to the door. He took out his phone and called Chris Thatcher. He answered and Shepherd asked him to make a call to David. ‘Tell him we have the money ready and we want to confirm a handover location,’ said Shepherd.
‘Is that true?’ asked Thatcher.
‘No, but by the time he realises I don’t have the money, it’ll be over one way or another.’
‘Usually I’d spend more time getting the price down,’ said Thatcher.
‘I appreciate that,’ said Shepherd. ‘But this is more about getting his location. Just keep him on the line as long as you can.’
‘I will do,’ said Thatcher. ‘How’s it going out there?’
Shepherd looked down at the dead heavies sprawled across the floor like broken toys. ‘So far so good,’ he said.
Pritchard was a careful driver, his eyes in constant motion, flicking to the rear-view mirror and the side mirrors. Shepherd had put the Glock that Andrej had given him in the glove compartment and the gun he had taken from the dead heavy was tucked into his belt. The beams of the BMW cut through the night. There were now streetlights on the road and they could see the beams of oncoming traffic long before they reached them.
Mia was sitting in the back, her legs drawn up against her stomach, but she seemed happier now that the brothel was several miles behind them. ‘What happened, Mia?’ asked Shepherd, twisting around in his seat. ‘Why were you working there? You said you owed Žagar money?’
‘Our farm had bad luck,’ she said. ‘Our cows got sick and then we lost our sugar beet crop and our mother couldn’t pay the bank what we owed them.’
‘Why didn’t you tell Katra?’
‘We did. She said she’d talk to you. I don’t think she realised what a big problem it was. Anyway our mother needed money to pay the bank and someone said if I went to Žagar he’d lend me money and he did. Five thousand euros, which was enough to pay the bank for two months. Then we had a fire and we lost a barn and a load of equipment and it turned out our mother hadn’t paid the insurance. So I went back to Žagar and he was so nice, he lent me another three thousand euros. I was supposed to pay him a thousand euros a week for twelve weeks but then I lost my job and …’ She shrugged. ‘We had so much bad luck.’
‘And then what happened?’ asked Shepherd.
‘Two weeks ago I couldn’t get the money to pay him. I went to see him and he said if I couldn’t pay, I could repay the debt by working. That sounded like a great idea because I didn’t have a job so he said I could work in a restaurant.’ She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. ‘I knew as soon as I walked in that it wasn’t a restaurant. I tried to leave but they wouldn’t let me. The barman, he grabbed me and took me upstairs and raped me. Then the other men there came into the room, one by one.’ She shuddered. ‘They all raped me. They said that they owned me, that I was their property, and that if I tried to escape or refused to do what I was told, they’d kill me and they’d kill my family. That first night I had four customers. The busiest night I had seven.’ She shuddered again.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Shepherd. He didn’t know what else to say. There were no words that were going to make her feel better.
‘After a week I managed to call my mother. A customer was in the shower and his phone didn’t have a password so I called her and told her what had happened. She said she would call the police and I told her the police wouldn’t help. The cops come to the house, I’ve seen them. They come to have sex. They know what’s going on, they just don’t care.’
‘They’ll be paying off the police,’ said Pritchard. ‘Par for the course with places like that.’
‘I just wanted to let my mother know I was okay.’ She forced a smile. ‘Well, not okay, but I was still alive. If I worked long enough then I’d pay back what I owed and I could go home.’
Shepherd shook his head. ‘No, Mia, that’s not how it works. They were never going to let you go home.’
She sniffed and nodded. ‘I know. There are girls who have been there f
or two years. They said no matter how many men they went with, Žagar always said they were still in debt.’
‘So your mother called Katra?’
‘I don’t know. All I know is that on Saturday, Katra and Liam arrived at the house. They locked them in an upstairs room so I couldn’t talk to them. Then this afternoon the men came back and took them.’ She put a hand up to her face. ‘I called out to Katra when they brought her downstairs and Anton slapped me.’ She rubbed a bruise on her cheek.
‘Anton? Which one was Anton?’
‘The barman,’ said Mia.
Shepherd smiled tightly. Anton wouldn’t be slapping or raping anyone else. He’d had no regrets about shooting the barman but now he was actually pleased that he’d put two rounds in the man’s neck.
‘Do you have any idea where they were taking Katra and Liam?’ asked Pritchard.
Mia shook her head.
‘What about when you went to see Žagar? Where did you go?’
‘He has a big house in Ljubljana. Everybody knows it.’
‘Can you show us the house?’ asked Pritchard.
Mia nodded.
Shepherd’s phone rang and he answered it. It was Chris Thatcher. ‘I’ve spoken to David,’ said Thatcher. ‘He has agreed on three hundred thousand euros and he wants it paid at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. Charing Cross station. Do you want the details?’
‘Sure.’
‘The money is to be in a backpack. No tracking devices, no tricks, whoever picks up the money will check. The person delivering the money should wear a blue baseball cap and carry a banana.’
‘A banana?’
‘I know,’ said Thatcher. ‘I don’t know what movie he’s been watching. But yes, a banana. I suppose it’s one way of making sure the wrong person isn’t approached. The handover is to be under the clock on the concourse. The money is to be handed over and the man who collects it will walk away. Once it has been confirmed that the money is okay, Liam and Katra will be released in Ljubljana. Close to a police station.’
‘Okay Chris. Thank you. Can you monitor the phones for a few hours more, then I think we should have this resolved.’
Short Range (The Spider Shepherd Thrillers Book 16) Page 28