The Trade

by Chris Thrall

Jonah’s cell phone rang. He interrupted his Xbox game of Operation Berlin to see Sylvester Stallone’s image on the screen.

  “Orion!” He used Hans’ code name. “I thought you were like dead, dude, in some yacht accident and shit?”

  “Odysseus, my dear nerd, I can assure you I’m very much alive.”

  “Oh, cooool! I tried to call your cell before, but nada.”

  “Yeah, that one took a little dive. You still playin’ those crummy war games?”

  “I’m still playin’ ’em, Orion, and I’m still smoking the weeeeeeeed!”

  Jonah took a long toke of his doobie, blowing out a yellowy-brown plume in defiance of his fellow agent’s fatherly lectures.

  Jonah, code name “Odysseus,” lived in a converted Greyhound bus in a trailer park in LA. His Aspergic savant made him one of life’s interesting characters, a computer genius who’d hacked into NASA’s database at thirteen and retrieved highly classified information from the Apollo program. His subsequent arrest made mainstream news and, despite his learning disability, resulted in a stint in a juvenile correctional facility. Nonplussed, he’d used his skills upon release to expose a huge pensions and shares fraud committed by Weltertech Corps, his evidence in court putting several fat-cat criminals behind bars.

  Jonah knew his way around computers blindfolded. Under the screen name “Glaxo,” he ran one of the biggest torrent operations on the planet, providing free movie, music and software downloads to over a billion people worldwide. Having learned from the mistakes of his youth, he could also hack into any computer network in existence and cover his tracks – a talent of particular interest to the Concern, hence his recruitment and subsequent code name Odysseus, the genius behind the Trojan horse.

  “Odysseus, I need an address.”

  “Shoot, dude.” Jonah reached for a two-liter bottle of Cherry Coca-Cola sitting among the smoking paraphernalia cluttering his custom-built desk. He took several noisy slugs, oblivious to accepted social graces.

  “It’s the captain of a boat, the Rosa Negra, registered in Cape Verde. Name’s Alvarez.”

  “Dude, go to the Fisheries Commission. That shit will be registered there.”

  “It’s three o’clock in the morning here, fartface. I need the info now.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Eight minutes later Hans’ cell phone rang.

  “Orion, I got your address. It’s public knowledge, you know? I also scanned the CIA database and police records. There’s nothing on this guy.”

  “That figures. Gimme the address.”

  “Forty-eight Rua de Avis, Porto Alto, Mindelo. Anything else?”

  “Yeah, I love you, you nerd.”

  “I love you too, Orion.”

  Hans resisted the urge to tear around to Alvarez’s address and find out where his daughter was – using any means necessary. It was two months since Jessica’s kidnapping, and the odds of her still being in the fisherman’s possession were slim. Besides, an impromptu visit would warn the traffickers further up the chain and could result in dire consequences. Hans needed advice from Muttley, so he took a cab back to the hotel, calling Penny en route to let her know he was okay.

  - 20 -

  As Jessica came around on the filthy stone floor, she felt someone dabbing the back of her head with a wet cloth.

  “Ouch!” She opened her eyes, expecting to see her father.

  “Hello, Maria.”

  The awful reality hit home once again. Instinctively, Jessica lashed out with the right hook her papa taught her. The man jerked backwards, clutching a bleeding nose as his eyes watered. He raised his hand and would have given anything to belt the little pissant around the room, only he remembered his boss’s orders: Do not mark this one, for she will fetch us a high price in Europe or the East.

  The man grabbed Jessica’s hair and yanked her to her feet. Then, smothering her mouth and nose, he began to suffocate her. Jessica panicked, fighting for breath and flailing with her fists. The man held the little girl at arm’s length, mocking her with a sadistic grin, staring into her tiny blue eyes with his menacing bloodshot ones.

  Jessica’s body convulsed and she peed herself. The man released his hold and let her drop to the floor.

  She scurried backwards until she came up against the solid-wooden bedframe, where she sat, shocked, but managing to scowl.

  “Maria.” The man’s voice deepened as he hovered over her. “We can do this easy or hard.”

  “Didn’t hurt.” She screwed up her lips and gave him a look of utter hatred.

  The man lurched across the cell and, taking a firm grip of Jessica’s hair, went to pull her shorts down, his sick urge taking control. Again he remembered his boss’s words – Do not be tempted with this one. She must be intact, for we cannot be sure who will buy her – and went back to wiping the blood from the gash in the back of her head.

  Jessica tried to think of her beloved Bear and her father, but her mind was too afraid and confused to focus. She prayed with her whole being for this horrible experience to end.

  As the man finished wrapping a crepe bandage around her head, securing it in place with a safety pin, he heard Jessica mutter something.

  “What did you say, Maria?”

  “I said my papa’s gonna kill you, you prick!”

  The man felt the almighty impulse to pick the impudent little pissant up by the ankles and smash her head against the cell wall, and not to stop smashing until her skull caved in and her brains spread across the stonework in a satisfying spray of dark-green and yellow globules. But he had been by his boss’s side for twenty-five years and would be lost without his protection and guidance. He couldn’t go against his word.

  There was a time in that war-torn place when he did as he pleased with the innocents, where the only authority was that of the other man, who was equally if not more sick than he was. But that time had passed, and now the game had rules, and if he dared break them, the Trade would suffer, as would he.

  “Strip!” he ordered.

  She looked at him, puzzled.

  “I said strip!” he bellowed. “Take off your clothes!”

  “No!”

  Jessica was horrified. Her parents had always warned her that this type of behavior was wrong and she must refuse at all costs, despite the threats made.

  The man thrust his hands out and began to suffocate her again. Jessica’s legs gave way, and he let her go.

  The man lifted his foot and placed it inches from her head. “I give you one more chance.” He shook with anger. “Or I smash in your head, you little pissant.”

  Everything became a blur to Jessica. Without realizing, she began to sob and, sitting up, pulled off her shorts and filthy T-shirt. Huddling naked on the floor, she continued to cry and slipped deeper into shock from the acute embarrassment.

  The man picked up her clothes, grunted and left the room.

  - 21 -

  “Hans!” Penny cast her laptop aside and leapt off the sofa. “What happened?”

  “Sorry, honey. I couldn’t really talk in the cab. Things just got serious.” He held Penny’s shoulders and looked into her eyes. “She’s alive – but she’s been kidnapped.”

  “Wh-wh—?” Penny burst into tears, Hans holding her in silence as droplets rolled down his own cheeks.

  “Take a seat. There’s a lot to tell you. But first I need a drink.”

  Hans went into the kitchen area and pulled a bottle of rum from the fridge. He poured the amber spirit into cut-crystal tumblers and took a big gulp before continuing. “There was a woman at the seafront watching us, an African, who I saw at the marina. I knew it couldn’t be coincidence, so I followed her to her home. She told me Jessica was picked up floating in her scuba gear by local fishermen and sold on to people traffickers.”

  Penny listened without interruption, horrified as the truth was unveiled. “But, Hans, you have to go to the police, surely.”

  “It’s not that simple, honey. It’s not like they can a
rrest the boat captain on hearsay. And if he’s not taken into custody, he’ll warn the traffickers we’re onto them and . . .” Hans shook his head. The ramifications didn’t bear thinking about. He downed his rum and refilled the glass.

  “But we must do something. What about speaking to Karen? As the US ambassador—?”

  “No, I need to speak to Muttley again,” Hans replied, having given his controller an update on the search earlier in the day.

  Hans checked his watch. It would be 10:00 p.m. in Boston. He took out his cell phone and stabbed at the keypad.

  “Orion, dear boy,” Innes Edridge answered in his stately Scottish tone.

  “Muttley, the game’s changed.”

  “I figured that,” said Muttley, knowing the special operative wouldn’t call at this late hour for nothing.

  Hans filled him in on the details in the short-and-to-the-point manner the organization favored.

  “The way I see it is this, Orion: with no clear evidence, the most the police will do is knock on our friend Alvarez’s door and ask for a cozy chat. At which point he’ll slam it in their face and immediately warn his paymasters.”

  “But what about Arachne?” He referred to Karen by her call sign. “Can’t she pull some strings?”

  “Hans, even as US ambassador she has little sway over the way the locals do things. This isn’t Baghdad, you understand?”

  “Of course.”

  “In addition, this, errhum, ‘trading’ business is Cape Verde’s dirty little secret – hell, it’s half the world’s bloody secret. You’ll be blocked every way you turn trying to get to the truth. We know from our own intel this stuff goes all the way to undesirables in Washington.”

  “That figures.”

  “Besides our symp in immigration and one or two others, Carter doesn’t have any influence in the territory.”

  “Carter,” or the name of any former US president, was a code word Concern operatives used for the organization during unprotected communications. “Symps” were useful individuals sympathetic to the cause.

  “While we’ve been speaking, I’ve run a sweep on this guy Alvarez, and I can’t find any information linking him to a higher chain. He doesn’t even have a bank account.”

  Hans smiled. Muttley could carry out a casual phone conversation while tapping on a computer keyboard and conducting a call on another line without you even realizing.

  “So unless you hear anything more from me by seven in the morning your time, my advice is to liaise with Arachne to make a plan and pick up the necessary toys and a get-out-of-jail-free card, then go around to this guy’s house and beat the information out of him. Don’t hold back, Orion. You have nothing to lose but a lot to gain. He’s a lowlife who can’t exactly go to the police and report you roughing him up. Once you get what you need, I would recommend buying him a lollipop to prevent him talking, you understand?”

  Hans did understand. “Lollipop” meant a termination.

  “Orion, be discreet, but if anything comes of it we’ll get you and your good woman out of there.”

  “Thanks, M.”

  “And O.”

  “Sir?”

  “Give that bastard one from me.”

  - 22 -

  Penny awoke in bed alone feeling a pang of alarm. “Hans?”

  “Here,” came a shout from the living room.

  She pulled on a bathrobe, stepped into flip-flops and entered the front room to find Hans, coffee in hand, staring at his notebook computer.

  “I was worried.”

  “Sorry, Penny, I’ve been up a couple of hours getting some work done.”

  Penny looked at her watch – 6:00 a.m., meaning Hans had less than two hours’ sleep.

  “How’s the head?” he asked, kissing her on the cheek.

  “Nothing a double espresso won’t fix. What are you doing?” Joining him on the couch, she peered at the official-looking data on the notebook’s compact screen.

  “Checking the CIA database for anything on Alvarez.”

  “What! You’ve hacked into it?”

  “Not exactly hacked. The CIA uploads amended files every twenty-four hours onto an external server to back up their database. By placing the electronic equivalent of a filter in the upload process, we effectively take an image stream of the data for our own use.”

  “How do you bypass their security protocol?”

  “We don’t. We’re not hacking into the system, just accessing data from the inside, and bar a clever little box on a fiber-optic cable buried under six feet of concrete in Langley, the tap’s impossible to uncover.”

  “Aren’t you worried about using the hotel’s Wi-Fi? I mean, can’t people trace your movements?”

  “There’s ways to prevent it, like browser software and proxy servers, but I’m not using the hotel’s Wi-Fi.” Hans held up his cell phone, connected to the notebook by a cable. “I’m using my cell phone provider, Bluebird. It’s a budget company that buys network downtime from Velafon and uses their coverage.”

  “And let me guess. Bluebird is owned by the Concern.”

  “Ha! You didn’t hear that from me, but yes. Bluebird provides a regular phone service as a front and source of income – but as an operative, your comms are automatically scrambled. It’s not fail-safe, though near enough, hence why we still use codespeak.”

  “And there was me thinking you just enjoy playing James Bond.”

  “Well, there is that.”

  Penny got up to make coffee. Hans took a break from his research, sliding open the door to the balcony and stepping out into the warm morning air. As the island’s ever-present breeze fluttered the palm fronds lining the Grande Verde’s immaculate boulevard, he found himself staring at the shimmering ocean beyond.

  The sea had always been a part of Hans, one of the few stables in his turbulent upbringing. His late grandfather, a US Marine Corps veteran, bought him an aging wooden daysailer for his twelfth birthday, and Hans spent more time at sea in her exploring the coastal inlets around Misty Port than he did at home or school. It came as no surprise to anyone when he joined the navy at seventeen to serve as a radar operator on board USS Nimitz, nor when his thirst for adventure saw him transfer to the elite Navy SEALs. Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan – Hans had seen his fair share of desert, but it was the open ocean where he felt most at home.

  Only now, fixating on the wave crests glistening like diamonds on their endless surge from the horizon, all he could see was Jessica’s face, the yacht dragging her into the deep, her desperate eyes fixed on his, on the man who said he would never let her down . . .

  “Coffee, hon?” Penny shook him out of his muse, and then, sensing his thoughts, added, “You will find her, Hans.”

  “I know.” He feigned a smile.

  Changing the subject, “Hans, can you tell me more about the Concern?” she asked.

  “There’s not a lot more to tell. After Vietnam a group of pissed-off vets and flag-wavers got together to bring a few of the bad guys to justice – the warmongers and profiteers. A couple of office chairs decided to throw some cash behind the project, and it grew from there. We try to keep it under wraps, not for any wrongdoing – although the rules do get bent occasionally – but to keep us out of the media, hence the code names. The operatives are figures from Greek mythology, and cartoon characters for the handlers.”

  “So the US ambassador, Karen – ‘Arachne.’ Wasn’t she transformed into a spider?”

  “By Athena, for blasphemy. If you think ‘Black Widow’ – Karen’s husband was killed in the embassy bombing in Nairobi. The handlers allocate you a moniker that’s a little left field and easy for others to remember.”

  “Right.”

  “Tell me the time.”

  “Sorry?” Penny glanced at Hans’ Rolex, thinking she’d misunderstood something.

  Hans grinned. “It’s our version of Cold War spyspeak. If someone’s checking your authenticity, they’ll order you to give them the time rather than ask poli
tely. So you reply with ‘It’s four o’ four’ or ‘six o’ six’ or ‘two twenty-two’ – any alliteration with the right hour but the wrong minutes. Then you apologize, as if you’ve made a mistake, and give the correct time.”

  “Hmm, neat. But who manages the organization?”

  “The Alþingi – it’s an ancient Icelandic word meaning parliament – made up of a hundred and ninety-three representatives, known as goðar, who are the senior handlers in each country. Technically each country, as not all have a senior handler, and some have more than one. Every year they meet at a secret location somewhere in the world for a gathering known as the Þingvellir, where the senior council, the Lögrétta, made up of seven individuals to represent the seven continents, presides over the issues on the agenda. Heading up the Lögrétta is the chief of the Concern, the Lögsögumaður – the law speaker, or Logso for short.”

  “I see.” As Penny sipped her coffee, it was as if the endless procession of waves symbolized the million questions flowing through her mind. “And the Lögrétta – do you ever get to meet them?”

  “In my lowly role I don’t get to know who they are. I don’t think Muttley does either – if so, he keeps one helluva secret. Some say they’re the Concern’s founding members. Others that they’re voted in by the Alþingi and rotated every so often to avoid the power going to their heads.”

  “So in theory the Logso could be the president of the United States.”

  “Ha!” The irony made Hans chuckle. “It could be, but judging by the amount of bombs he drops on behalf of the corporate brat pack, I doubt it.”

  “Do you know how many people work for the Concern?”

  “Technically none – with the exception of the Lögrétta and a core of administrative staff, plus a few vital bods, like techies and consultants, held on retainers. The rest of the network is made up of sleeper agents – SOs, handlers, enablers, and symps.”

  “Explain.”

  “SOs, ‘special operatives,’ are people like me – folks with specialist trades who get tasked with the risky stuff. Handlers, like Muttley, who you’ve met, oversee us on operations. Enablers are the corporate types who back us with funding or services – like the airline owner who provided the Learjet we flew in on. Symps are people sympathetic to the cause who can’t offer significant financial support but who have other services of value, like Karen for example. There’s no hierarchy to speak of – in fact, we’re kinda communist in that respect – and everyone plays a crucial part. We all undergo the same initiation and provide our services for a token fee plus expenses, and that stops division and hubris and corruption.”