The Trade

by Chris Thrall

  Holly tried to stifle her tears.

  “Hey, what comes down but never goes up?”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s a riddle. You have to tell me the answer. What comes down but never goes up?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The rain! Because the rain can only come down and can never go back up!”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Knock, knock.”

  “Who’s there?”

  “Major.”

  “Major who?”

  “Major answer the door – hee-hee!”

  Holly giggled.

  “Look, go and get your blanket and I’ll get mine and we can sleep down here. Then I can talk to you if you get scared.”

  “But how long do I have to stay here?”

  “Erm, not long. My papa’s probably gonna come tomorrow and then him and Penny will look after us.”

  “Okay, I’ll get my blanket.”

  “I’ll get mine too.”

  - 39 -

  Karen’s holiday home, a white-walled bungalow with terra-cotta roof tiles, sat right on the edge of the sea five miles from the city. It nestled in a secluded spot between greeny-black basalt cliffs topped with sparse dry scrub.

  “Look at this!” Penny stepped out of the jeep and breathed in the fresh, salty air accompanying a stunning vista.

  “Now that’s what I call blue!” Hans crossed the flagstoned patio and hopped up onto the parapet to see waves lapping the rocky shore ten feet below.

  “I’d say turquoise,” Penny remarked, gazing out over a lagoon sheltered by rolling headland. “Do you think that’s the boat Karen mentioned?”

  An orange plastic skiff moored to a buoy bobbed contentedly a few yards out.

  “Looks like it. She said the outboard’s in the shed, if you fancy a spin,” Hans said, grinning.

  “Have we got time?”

  “There’s not a lot else to do while we wait for Jonah and Enrique to come back to us with anything. Besides, it will give me time to think, and we can unpack later.”

  Hans took out his wallet and cell phone and laid them on the wall. Then he peeled off his polo shirt.

  “What are you—?”

  “Geronimo!” He launched into a spectacular backflip, still grinning as he entered the inviting water with hardly a splash.

  “Mr. Larsson!” Penny looked down, laughing. “And how am I supposed to follow that?”

  “You could start by digging out that motor,” Hans yelled, shaking water from his hair.

  “Aye aye, skipper!” Penny threw a mock salute and went to fetch it.

  Hans duck-dived and in a few powerful strokes emerged by the boat and climbed on board in one fluid movement. He untied the painter and rowed ashore, then helped carry the five-horsepower motor down the steep steps carved into the rock, which led from the house to the water’s edge.

  Penny took the tiller, and they cruised out of the lagoon, the sunlight sparkling on the water doing wonders for their mood. After a circuit of the bay, she cut the motor and lay down opposite Hans on the plastic-molded seating.

  Hans had stripped to his boxer shorts, revealing ugly red welts where the life raft had rubbed his joints raw, resulting in huge infected ulcers.

  “Your wounds have healed well,” Penny complimented him.

  “Yeah, I can’t say I miss that foul stench. Kinda felt for the staff in the hospital. But this still gives me a lot of pain.” He fingered the jagged scar running down his temple. “The doc said there’d be nerve damage.”

  “He said you needed cosmetic surgery too, but I told him fat chance of that!”

  “Saved me telling him.”

  They lay there, basking in the late-afternoon heat and listening to the waves splashing the hull.

  “It was good to see Enrique again,” Penny piped up. “He was a pillar of support when you were rescued.”

  “He’s a good guy – not your typical CIA type.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “I was surprised he didn’t push me to file a missing persons report. You know, to do things by the book and get the backing of the agency on this.”

  “I guess he bows to your and Karen’s better judgment.”

  “Seems so. The last thing we need right now is a meddling bureaucrat. Did you see him scribbling stuff down in a notebook?”

  “I don’t remember it. Why do you ask?”

  “Because being CIA, he knows exactly what information we would need about Logan. He didn’t have to write it down.”

  “Perhaps he was nervous – like big intelligence fish in a small pond needing to get things right to impress the ambassador.”

  “That could be.”

  “Why did you ask him to access the CIA’s databases when you can do that yourself?”

  “Because it’s what any good private detective would request. He doesn’t know about the Concern, remember.”

  “I see.”

  “There’s something else I’ve been thinking too.” Hans shifted onto an elbow.

  “Go on.”

  “I’m gonna call Silvestre and get him to drop me on the wreck of the Rosa Negra.”

  “You think it might hold some clues?” Penny turned her head to face him, shielding her eyes from the sun with a hand.

  “A little forensic work might turn something up.”

  “Do you think the police have done a search?”

  “More than likely, but the authorities seem intent on putting it down to an accident, so even if the cops do figure out what caused the explosion, it’s not information they’re gonna share – and certainly not with us.”

  “Are you fit to dive . . . ?”

  Penny realized it was a stupid question before the words left her mouth, her remit as scuba instructor thinking for her. In view of the former Navy SEAL’s single-mindedness, not to mention the thousands of technical dives he had successfully logged, they’d be no way of stopping him.

  “Wanna see fit?” Hans sat up and stretched. “Race you to the seabed!”

  Penny looked over the side, and even though the boat had drifted to within forty yards of the rocks, she reckoned it was still a good thirty feet down.

  “Okay, but last one to the bottom fires up the barbecue!”

  She stripped off her T-shirt and shorts and, without warning, dived over the side. Hans laughed and leapt after her, catching up easily and teasing Penny by turning on his back to pull stupid faces as they descended. Both were as at home in the water as a couple of dolphins.

  Upon reaching the coarse black volcanic sand making up the seabed, they swam along hand in hand, until Hans pointed to a scattering of rocks and headed for them. Penny followed, vision blurred by the salt water, wondering what Hans had spotted, her curiosity turning to surprise when he picked up a melon-sized boulder and handed it to her.

  Despite the increased density of the seawater, Penny struggled to keep on her feet while holding the hefty rock. Hans lifted a boulder for himself and began running along the seabed into the darkening blue.

  Penny’s body craved oxygen, her lungs feeling as if they were about to implode. She managed five steps before a pang of anxiety sent her shooting to the surface, where she trod water while waiting for Hans.

  A good thirty seconds later he’d yet to appear, and Penny began to worry. She swam back to the boat and was about to climb on board when she heard “Whoop! Whoop!” over her shoulder, turning to see her favorite idiot clambering onto the rocky shore.

  “I don’t suppose you could pick us up?” he joked, then dove back into the sea and swam front crawl to the boat.

  Penny smiled. There was a barbeque to light.

  - 40 -

  Karen’s villa couldn’t have enjoyed a more idyllic setting. Hans and Penny lay on sun loungers on the terrace, charcoal smoke wafting over them, witnessing a fiery spray sear across the sky as the sun burned into the horizon. It should have been paradise, but a dark cloud hung over the two of them.

  “It w
as her idea, you know.” Hans sat up and rested his chin on his hands while gazing at the myriad of colors making up majestic backdrop. “The yacht trip, I mean.”

  “Really?”

  “We were gonna do a double crossing of the Atlantic originally, as a family, but when Kerry and JJ died that idea seemed doomed. I didn’t feel like crossing the goddamn street, let alone an ocean.”

  “What changed?”

  “Jessie asked me one day, when are we gonna sail to England and back like we planned? It hadn’t even occurred to me she would still wanna do it. She’d even started mapping our itinerary and showed me a book called Secrets of the Caribbean she’d borrowed from the school library. She’d bookmarked all the touristy things she thought would be interesting – beautiful waterfalls in Jamaica and cave tubing through underground rivers in Belize.”

  “Pretty smart for a seven-year-old.”

  “Yeah, it was – although she was only six at the time. You know the backpacking trip I told you about, the one we went on in Peru?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Kerry and I let the kids decide everything – what to eat, where to visit, which hostels to stay in. Gave them a little help, of course.”

  “In modern parlance they call that inclusion. It never ceases to amaze me when parents bring kids into the world and then drag them around like unwanted accessories.”

  “We even walked the Inca Trail. You know, up to Machu Picchu, the ancient settlement high in the mountains.”

  “What, all of you?”

  “No, JJ stayed in Cusco with his mom – he was too young.”

  “Hans, that’s like twenty miles!”

  “Twenty-six, hence why no tour company would take us. They said the minimum age was twelve due to the arduous route and challenging conditions. So we went on our own – me, Jessie, and Bear.”

  “No!”

  “Apparently, it’s forbidden – to go without guides – but we just hiked on through, overtaking the tour groups, and they had all their gear carried by porters. We slept in a little two-man tent every night and cooked up backpacker broth under the stars.”

  “Backpacker broth?”

  “It was a recipe Kerry came up with to keep it simple for the kids. Fry up vegetables from the market and then add an instant soup mix or a pack of noodles – delicious after a day’s hike.”

  “Sounds like sea rations. When you’re cold, wet and hungry, any combo tastes amazing.”

  “The whole experience was amazing. We trekked through cloud forest and jungle, crossed wild rivers and climbed mountains. Jessie never complained, not once. Insisted on carrying her bag the whole way and was good with the map too.”

  “How was Machu Picchu? I’ve only ever seen pictures.”

  “Unbelievable. One of those places that looks surreal in photos but is ten times as impressive when you see it for yourself. We climbed the last mountain, which went up and up and up, and then came over the brow – wow! – to find a complete Inca settlement, all the stonework rebuilt, in the most surprising setting you could ever imagine.”

  “In what way?”

  “It’s so high in the sky it’s totally hidden from the valley beneath – hence why the Spanish conquistadors never discovered it when they plundered the Inca gold – and all around you is rolling jungle and rivers so far below they look like tiny gray lines.”

  “It’s on my to-do list.”

  “And you know the best thing?”

  “Go on.”

  “We wanted to watch the sunrise from inside the site. Like, wake up in our tent and there it is! But they kicked everyone out at 5:00 p.m. So Jessie and I climbed to the highest point, up these ancient rock steps carving through the crags, and then we waited until the evening to see if we would be asked to leave.”

  “And no one did?”

  “Not a soul. We sat there on the peak with the most incredible view over the whole of the settlement, the forest sloping off thousands of feet all around us. The sun went down and the insects chirped up, and we’re sitting there in the exact same spot the ancients did before modern civilization existed. Hell, being there with Jessie I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else at any other time in history.”

  “Did you pitch camp?”

  “We crashed out the sleeping bags and slept right where we were. In the morning we woke up to watch the sunrise, and Jessie says, ‘Aw, look, Papa. It’s a little snake.’ And right there curled up on her sleeping bag is a fer-de-lance.”

  “Aren’t they extremely dangerous?” Penny shuddered as she pictured the scene in her head.

  “Third most poisonous snake in South America, but it didn’t bother Jessie one bit!”

  They chuckled and drifted off into their own thoughts.

  After a long silence, “Hans,” Penny said quietly, her face tense as she looked him in the eye, “where could she be?”

  “Oh.” Hans lifted his broad shoulders, pulling a face that said the question was never far from his mind. “I’m guessing in a halfway house somewhere in the islands.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because I know how the Trade works. There’s a massive global market in trafficked children. Thousands go missing every year, mainly between tier-three countries.”

  “Tier three?”

  “Nations whose governments don’t comply with internationally agreed standards to prevent people trafficking – Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Cuba, for example. The kids are forced into labor, slavery, like sweatshops and begging syndicates, but some end up in prostitution rings or brothels or sold to pedophile gangs.”

  Penny winced.

  “Then there’s the sham adoption rings. Third World kids are bought from poor and often illiterate parents, or plucked from homelessness, and placed in phony orphanages alongside genuine orphans. The child’s given a false identity, and officials are bribed to ignore the illegality and speed up the international adoption procedure – pretty appealing to wannabe parents faced with all the red tape and bureaucracy that’s standard in the West.”

  “This . . . this . . .” Penny struggled to find words.

  “Some kids are stolen to order – which is probably what happened to Holly Davenport. Blond hair, blue eyes and young enough to be brainwashed into a new identity, she’d be the ideal child for an amoral European couple looking to adopt – or some sicko’s fantasy.”

  “But who arranges all this, and how do they get away with it?”

  “It starts with an agent, who works on behalf of the end buyer. They’re part of long-established underground networks and know how to cover their tracks. They can spot websites providing ‘domestic services’ and ‘cheap labor’ that are actually a cover for human trafficking, and they communicate via secure forums that require certain browser certificates, special computer settings and recognized IP addresses.”

  “How can you be sure Jessie hasn’t already been sold abroad?”

  “Because even for children stolen to order it takes weeks to get the necessary documentation together – forged passport, new birth certificate, adoption paperwork – and then there’s the brainwashing the kids undergo before being transited. Jessie’s kidnapping was opportunistic. Alvarez plucked her from the water to make a quick buck. So the whole process wouldn’t even begin before they found a buyer. Plus, with her European looks the traffickers will be after a hefty paycheck, which requires time to find the right buyer.”

  “I guess it’s not as if she’d be sold into some sweatshop in a developing country. She’d stand out like a sore thumb.”

  “That’s why the traffickers will look for a buyer in the West.”

  “God these people are sick.”

  “In their minds they’re just predatory capitalists, no different to corporate criminals or the warmongering politicians most folks vote for every four years.”

  - 41 -

  While Penny placed vegetable-and-snapper kebabs on the glowing red embers, Hans called Silvestre to ask his advice on diving on the Rosa
Negra.

  “Senhor Hans, it is no problem, but best we do it alone and after dark, no?”

  “Understood,” Hans replied, knowing their interest in the wreck needed shielding from prying eyes, arranging a flight to São Vicente to meet the treasure hunter the next day. He was about to ask Penny how the kebabs were doing when his cell phone rang. It was a number he didn’t recognize.

  “Hans, it’s Enrique. I have the information we spoke of. Do you want to meet up tomorrow, or I can come to you now?”

  “If you could come now, it would be appreciated.” Hans didn’t want to waste any more time.

  Within ten minutes the throaty rev of a sports car’s engine filled the villa’s driveway. Enrique stepped out of a vintage silver Porsche, dressed casually in three-quarter-length cargo pants, leather flip-flops and an Armani shirt.

  “Hey, Hans.” He beamed and held up an expensive bottle of wine.

  “Thanks for coming this late, Enrique. You hungry?”

  “Always hungry!” the CIA man replied, giving Hans a hearty hug. “Where’s Penny?”

  “All shall be revealed.” Hans smiled and ushered him through to the patio.

  “Penny!” Enrique embraced her with Latino affection. “Food, food, food!”

  They sat around a picnic bench to eat, and Enrique briefed them on what he knew.

  “Logan served four years in jail for money laundering, but under a new provision in UK law, the Proceeds of Crime Act, he agreed to pay back the money he had made in order to receive an early parole, only—”

  “He didn’t pay back a cent,” said Hans.

  “Exactly.” Enrique took a gulp of wine. “And due to the fickle nature of the legislation, he was able to relocate to Cape Verde, meaning it would take up too much time and money to chase him for the debt. It seems everyone on the island knows he’s got his fingers in a lot of pies, but there’s been no firm evidence to prove it.”

  “Has there been any evidence?” Penny asked.

  “There was a child abduction allegation leveled against him a couple of years back by the Cape Verde police after the coastguard stopped him leaving the harbor in his million-dollar speedboat and found a local kid aboard. Logan claimed the kid was wandering along the marina and he offered to take him for a ride. Said he loves kids, and where’s the law against that? In the kid’s mind he was going on a boat ride, so Logan got off scot-free.”