by Jeff Elkins
“Yes, boss,” Moe said.
Stacie waved her finger at Moe as she spoke. “See, you thought calling me boss would make me pause and say something sweet like, ‘We’re partners.’ But, what you didn’t count on is how much I like telling people what to do. So I’ll take it. I’m the boss now.” With a final smirk, she got out of the car.
The Amtrak station was small. The parking garage was four stories tall. Connected to it was a small waiting room that contained twenty chairs and a ticket booth. Past the waiting area, there was a short covered sidewalk that led to the train track. On either side of the covered walk, there were stairs that lead to an elevated walkway that allowed passengers access to the other side of the tracks.
Moe watched Stacie walk to the waiting room. As soon as Stacie was at the door, Moe jumped out of the car. She crouched as she walked hoping the cars would hide her from anyone in the waiting room. Coming to a stop at the last car, Moe realized that to make it to the stairs she would be without cover for twenty yards. She peaked above the car she was behind. There didn’t seem to be anyone around. She tried to see down the sidewalk toward the tracks, but her view was blocked by the stairs. She couldn’t see what she was walking into, but the elevated walkway would give her the perfect view of any trains that arrived.
Moe bit her bottom lip and decided to go for it. She sprinted to the stairs. There were a few people waiting at the tracks, but none of them seemed to see her. She ran up the stairs to the top of the elevated walkway. She was alone. Sitting on the concrete floor and pressed her back against the wall. She took out her phone and texted Stacie, “Sitting on the sidewalk above the tracks.”
Stacie replied, “On my way.”
Moe moved to her knees, so that only her head was above the protective wall. She peered out the window. A few passengers waited on the far side of the tracks. They all had luggage with them and were dressed like they were preparing to sleep on a train. There was a train rumbling toward them in the distance.
The cell phone in her back phone buzzed. It had been buzzing every five minutes for the past hour. She pulled it out to read the new text. “Where are you! Train comes in 5. Did you get the girl? CHECK IN!” Moe laughed. She wondered if anyone had found Psoglavac in the prayer garden yet. She didn’t think anyone would venture back there until midday at the earliest.
Stacie arrived at the top of the stairs and walked over to Moe. “Next train comes in four minutes. It’s coming down from New York and finishes its run in Florida. That office was like a ghost town. Even the guy in the ticket booth was asleep. I had to bang on the window to wake him up.”
The approaching train pulled into the station, passing under their walkway. “You watch that side, I’ll watch this side,” Moe said.
They stood and took their positions. The train was long, stretching fifteen cars. After the engine, there were 13 passenger cars that all looked the same: silver with windows and doors at both ends. The last car looked like a mini-engine. Moe assumed it was some sort of caboose. The second-to-last car caught her eye. It was silver like the others, but there were no windows and only a central door.
The train came to a stop with a loud hiss and the grinding of gears. There was a momentary pause, and then passengers began filing off. “You see anything weird?” Moe asked.
“No,” Stacie said. “You?”
“Not yet,” Moe said, keeping her eye on the back car.
People began to fill the walkway around them, crossing the tracks to go to the parking lot.
“I’m still not seeing anything,” Stacie said, over the heads of two businessmen who were staring at their phones.
“Wait! I’ve got something,” Moe said.
Stacie ran over to her side and they watched as a gray van pulled up to the second to last car of the train. A thin woman and two men got out and walked to the train car.
“I think that’s that woman,” Stacie said.
“Caroline, the assistant,” Moe said.
They watched as the two men pulled open the train car door and climbed in. Caroline went to the van and opened the back doors. Moe took out her phone and began snapping pictures. They weren’t as clear as she wished they were because she was so far away. She hoped maybe someone could clean them up for her in the future.
One of the men emerged from the train car. Next to him was a young woman dressed in hospital scrubs. She dragged her feet and leaned onto the man for support. He walked her to the back of the van and helped her step in. Then he went back to the train and came out with a second girl. This one too seemed groggy, stumbling as she walked.
Moe put her phone away. “Come on, we need to get down there. We need to figure out where they are taking those girls,” she said.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
They followed the van out of the train station and onto the highway. It traveled south, out of the city, toward DC, but turned off at the small town of Columbia. Opened in the late sixties, Columbia was one of America’s first planned communities. Composed of ten villages and three artificial lakes, the community was a maze of twisting roads and intersections. Following the van was easy on the highway, but through sleeping neighborhoods before sunrise, it was difficult. Moe almost lost sight of it twice. It was dumb luck they were able to follow it all the way to the farmhouse.
The house sat at the end of a long driveway and was buried in trees, hiding it from the view of the road. Not wanting to alert the people in the van to their presence, Moe passed the driveway and parked. Guessing where the house would be, she and Stacie made their way quietly through the woods. The underbrush was thick but the trees were sparse allowing them to see the lights of the house from the road.
As they approached the edge of the yard, they crouched down in the underbrush. From their position, they could see the van and the front door of the house. The second Moe saw the porch, she recognized the place from Sasha’s memories. She shuddered as she recalled Caroline’s speech, and Nadia on the floor, and Psoglavac dragging her by the hair.
“I hope they don’t have dogs, like, guarding the place,” Stacie said, snapping Moe out of her trance.
“Sasha didn’t remember any,” Moe said. She covered the screen of her phone so its light wouldn’t give their position away and began recording what they were watching. The two men were walking the groggy women into the house as Caroline stood on the porch and watched. There seemed to be five women total. After all five women were inside, the trio spent a few minutes out of sight and then returned to the van. Moe and Stacie watched silently as the van pulled away.
“What do you think they did with those women?” Stacie asked.
Moe stood and looked down the driveway. The van was gone. “I don’t know, but I want to find out,” Moe said as she stepped out of the woods and onto the lawn of the house.
The house was a two-story white colonial farmhouse with blue shutters and a wraparound porch. Its yard was manicured and its flower beds were weeded and mulched. A passerby might stop and think a fine family had done a great job carrying for their beloved home. From its exterior, you’d never guess it was the headquarters for a human trafficking operation.
Moe ran across the lawn to the front door and tried the knob. It was locked. She checked the windows along the porch, they were all locked too. The drawn curtains kept her from seeing inside, but she could see the window lock. It was modern, meaning it would be difficult to jimmy. She passed Stacie as she ran down the steps of the front porch.
“What’s the plan?” Stacie asked.
“We need pictures, and we’re going to have to break in to get them, but I don’t want to mess with the front door,” Moe said.
“Makes sense,” Stacie said, following Moe around the side of the house.
Every window was covered with decorative drapes, making it impossible to see inside. Moe quickly checked all of them, hoping to find one that had been accidentally left unlocked, but she had no luck. They found a second entrance at the back of the house. While decora
tive, the door was heavy steel. It had a deadbolt and, Moe suspected, a chain on the other side.
Stepping into the backyard, Moe took the house in. There were windows on the second floor, but no awning to stand on to check them. Moe looked around the yard. It was void of anything that might be helpful. She sighed.
“What are you thinking?” Stacie asked.
“I’m thinking someone has given this house’s security a lot of thought, which means it probably has an alarm.”
“This sucks. It’s never this hard in the movies. Someone always leaves a door unlocked or something,” Stacie said.
Moe thought for a second. She could hear the traffic on the neighboring road start to pick up. It had to be close to 5:30. People were beginning their morning commute. Someone would likely be coming to check on the women soon. What would Kingsington-Ring do once they found Psaglavac and learned Moe had taken his phone? They were running out of time.
Moe walked to the woods and grabbed the sturdiest looking stick she could find. Walking over to a window, she smashed one of the panes.
“What about the alarm?” Stacie said.
“We’ve got to move quick,” Moe said. Reaching into the window, she felt for the lock. Flicking it, she gingerly removed her arm from the broken glass. She slid the window open and climbed inside. Turning, she pulled Stacie in after her.
They were standing in an empty room. The chandelier and tile floor indicated it should be a dining room, but there was no furniture. To the left was a kitchen that was missing all its appliances. The ghostly cabinets clung to the walls outlining where a stove, dishwasher, and refrigerator should have been. A closed door led out of the kitchen and a small opening led to the right. Moe went right.
She and Stacie stepped into a room that looked as if it was designed to be a living room. There was a blood stain on the hardwood floor that Moe knew from Sasha’s memory was Nadia’s. Around the room, there was a circle of cheap metal folding chairs. The five sleeping women were bound and gagged on the floor.
Moe and Stacie both moved toward different women. Moe bent down next to a brunette who couldn’t have been over twenty-years-old. Pale skin and her hair in a ponytail, the woman looked surprisingly similar to Sasha and Nadia. Moe felt for a pulse. It was faint but present. She held her hand in front of the woman’s nose and felt the woman’s slow but steady breathing.
“She’s alive,” Moe said.
“Mine too. Just sleeping,” Stacie said from across the room. She shook the woman’s shoulders, trying to wake her up, but the woman didn’t respond. “They’ve been drugged,” she added.
Moe took a step back and began taking pictures of the room. She captured the blood stain on the floor and each of the girls. She thought for a moment and then decided it was time to call for reinforcements. She texted the pictures to Robert with the address. Putting her phone away, she said, “Come on. I need to check on something else.”
Moving back through the empty dining room and kitchen, Moe was following the direction Nadia had been dragged. Standing in the kitchen, there was only one way to go. She opened the door and looked down the wooden stairs. Looking to the left, she saw a light switch. She flipped it and headed into the basement.
“Oh, Jesus,” Stacie said, arriving at the bottom of the stairs after Moe.
Moe’s mouth hung open at the sight before them. The far wall of the basement was filled with boxes. To the right were an industrial sink and a hookup for a washer and dryer. On the wall behind them hung a menagerie of lawn tools, most rusted and dust covered. What took their breath away were the two people in the middle of the room. Facing one another, tied to chairs that sat on a large plastic tarp, were Nadia and Giuliano. They were beaten and caked with blood. Giuliano had large gashes on both cheeks, one of his hands was deformed like it had been smashed with a hammer, and his left foot was turned in an awkward direction. Nadia's face was bruised and swollen. There were gashes on her legs, her right arm appeared to be broken, and there were sections of her hair missing like it had been ripped out.
Moe approached them slowly. Bending next to Nadia, she felt for a pulse as she explained to Stacie who the woman was. Nadia didn’t move when Moe touched her neck. “I can’t tell if she’s alive,” Moe said.
She moved to Giuliano and felt for his pulse, too. When she touched his neck, he flinched. Moe jumped back, surprised by the movement. Moving back in, she put her hand on his cheek and said, “Hey. Can you hear me?”
Giuliano uttered a soft moan.
“We’re going to get you out of here,” Moe said. Looking at Stacie, she said, “We need to call an ambulance.”
As Stacie took her phone out of her pocket, they both froze at the sound of the front door opening. High heels clicked across the floor above them. They were followed by heavy feet. “We need to hide,” Moe whispered.
She and Stacie ran to the boxes in the back of the room. Moe looked in the first one. It was full of nanny uniforms wrapped in plastic. She picked it up and was pleased to find it was light. Working together, she and Stacie pushed two the lines of boxes forward and then slid behind them. As long as the boxes didn’t fall, they should be hidden.
They listened, waiting. Moe could make out three distinct voices. From where they were walking, Moe assumed they were checking on the girls in the front room. Stacie grabbed Moe’s hand and squeezed. Moe tilted her head and leaned it against Stacie’s.
The three people upstairs made it to dining room. Moe could hear them examining the broken window, as the glass on the floor crunched beneath their feet. As they entered the kitchen, their voices were clearer, even though Moe couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. The one in the heels was Caroline. Her cold, high voice was unmistakable. The man was Psoglavac. The low rumble of his voice gave her chills. The final voice was one Moe had only heard twice – Martha Kingsington-Ring, the boss. It made sense she’d come. If they’d been discovered by a reporter or a passerby, she’d need to be here to do damage control, maybe pay some people off. If there had been police cars in the driveway, Moe guessed the trio would have driven right past the house to the airport.
Moe cringed as she heard Psoglavac’s heavy feet on the stairs. She squeezed Stacie’s hand again. “It looks clear,” he called. The two women made their way down the stairs as well.
“Maybe she left,” Caroline said.
“She doesn’t seem the type,” Psoglavac said. At that moment Moe was certain of two things: they were talking about her, and they didn’t know about Stacie. At least one of them would get out of this alive.
“You two need to clean up this filth,” Martha said. Moe heard her feet rustle the plastic beneath the chairs. Giuliano moaned again. “This is all your fault, you know. If you could have just kept your dick in your pants.” There was a smacking sound and Giuliano grunted.
“Shoot both of them and burn the house,” Martha said.
Moe tried to calculate in her head how long it had been since she’d texted Robert. Five minutes? Ten? He had to be close. If she could just buy some time, the cavalry would come and rescue them. She whispered to Stacie, “Stay hidden. No matter what happens.”
Moe stepped from behind the wall of boxes. “Wait. Just wait,” she said.
Psoglavac pointed a pistol at her. His forehead was cut and his face was bruised. “There you are, bitch,” he said with a sneer.
Moe held her hands up in surrender and said, “Listen, let’s just talk this out.”
“Ms. Watkins, you’ve made this impossibly easy tonight. Setting off the alarm. Hanging around until we arrived. Now revealing yourself to us. Would you mind setting the house on fire and then, shooting yourself, please?” Caroline said sarcastically.
Moe stepped forward in hopes of playing on any sympathy they might be hiding, but Psoglavac took a step back. The gun shook in his hand and Moe noticed the terror in his eyes for the first time. “Stop right there, bitch,” he growled. “Don’t let her touch you. She some kind of vedma.”
“So you’ve been telling us. It’s a shame we won’t find out,” Martha said.
Moe had an idea. One good monologue would save her. She just had to get them talking. Villains loved to talk, right? She decided to go for it. “So tell me, why Russia. Why steal the girls from there?”
“Shoot her,” Martha said.
“No wait,” Moe screamed. “I called the FBI. They’re on the way,” Moe said. She could feel time slipping away. They weren’t going to let her stall. Why couldn’t this be more like the movies?
“Thanks for telling us,” Martha said with a shrug. “So shoot her, please. We need to get out of here.”
There was a loud boom as the small basement filled with the sound of two gunshots. Moe cringed, expecting to feel the impact of the bullets, but the pain never came. Rather, Psoglavac fell to his knees. Blood trickled from bullet wounds in his shoulder and forearm. Moe turned to see Stacie holding the gun she’d been carrying in her ankle holster.
Martha and Caroline both lurched for Psoglavac’s gun but Stacie yelled, “Don’t move. I’ll shoot you too! Put your faces against the wall.”
Caroline and Martha exchanged looks.
Stacie stepped forward and pointed the gun at Martha’s head. “Do it,” she said.
Martha and Caroline exchanged another look and then complied. Walking to the back wall, they turned and pressed their faces against it.
Moe fell to her knees. Tears filled her eyes. “Thank God, you don’t listen to me,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” Stacie said with a laugh.
Moe took a deep breath. “Remind me to double your salary,” she said, laughing.
“Told you I could shoot. You didn’t believe me, did you?” Stacie said.
“Not for a second,” Moe said laughing.
Moe stood and walked over to Psoglavac’s gun. She kicked it across the floor.
He glared at her, as he tried to cover both gunshot wounds with his free hand. “Bitch,” he said.