The Trade

by Chris Thrall

  Crying like a child, he swam the last few yards to where the skiff’s cheerful bob belied a scene he couldn’t bear to witness. Throwing a bloody arm around the gunwale, Hans was about to haul himself on board when he heard movement.

  “Jeez, Hans! Does it always hurt this much when you’re wearing one of these?” She tried to pull open the Velcro flap on the bulletproof vest –

  “Oh, Penn—”

  – and collapsed into unconsciousness.

  - 85 -

  Hans sat reading a newspaper in a private room in Praia’s Agostinho Neto Hospital as Penny and Jessica slept soundly in the breeze of a gently whirring cooling fan. On a table were get-well cards, birthday cards, flowers and gifts from Hans, the Davenports and the nurses on the ward. Phipps guarded the door, and Clayton sat in a rental car watching the main entrance, both armed with 9 mm automatics, a convenience afforded to them by the Concern’s symp in immigration. Hans wouldn’t relinquish his Beretta to Karen until they were safely on board the Learjet the next day. The remaining traffickers in the mayor’s syndicate would likely go to ground following the events at La Laguna, but he would leave nothing to chance.

  Penny’s examination and X-ray showed two cracked ribs and severe bruising following the shooting. Jessica had a slight fever from opiate withdrawal and ugly bruises all over her body from the butler’s beatings. She made Hans proud, shrugging off her experience and expressing only concern for Holly’s welfare. Hans knew the full extent of her abuse had yet to manifest, but they would deal with that as a family when it did. It seemed crazy to imagine, but they had come through a lot worse.

  Hans had the lasting visible scarring. Fortunately, the bullet Enrique fired at him up at the castle only grazed his skull, but enough to leave a four-inch-long jagged cut on the opposite side of his head to the damage sustained from the gangrene. His wrist bandaged, he watched his girls sleeping, his wounds not an issue.

  The three of them could have departed Cape Verde the previous evening, since the Learjet had arrived with a highly skilled surgeon and medic from the Concern on board, but speaking to Muttley, Hans requested Eddy Logan flew stateside with them when the surgeon deemed his condition stable enough. Eddy lost two fingers and his right ear in the explosion. He also broke his collarbone and left femur, punctured both eardrums and experienced significant internal bleeding. Yet despite Logan’s fragile state, the surgeon felt he would be better off taking the six-hour flight in the fully equipped Learjet to reach the Ross Medical Center in Boston rather than remaining in the island’s humble hospital risking secondary infections and medical inefficiency.

  Logan’s former partner, Krystal, paid a tearful visit to the Agostinho Neto, the staff directing her to Hans when she asked them for information on what had happened. Hans was up front about Eddy’s involvement in the rescue operation, stressing his selflessness in volunteering to protect the islands’ orphans. He told Krystal to go to Logan’s villa and pack a bag for him and collect his passport, then do the same herself, explaining there was just enough space for her on the Learjet, and he would take care of her expenses while Eddy recovered in the US.

  Holly Davenport was in a room a few doors down. She’d come through her ordeal physically unscathed, the mental trauma not yet known due to the drowsiness induced by the drugs she’d ingested. The doctors had put her on a two-week reduction regime to lessen the withdrawal symptoms. For Mike and his wife it was nothing less than a miracle to have their little girl back, a miracle for which they owed Hans Larsson. Mike had apologized for notifying the police of their conversation about Eddy Logan, which had resulted in the police raid. Hans assured Mike it actually went in their favor – helping him to eliminate Eddy from his investigation and acquire his assistance in the rescue.

  The mayor’s and his butler’s deaths made the front page of Expresso das Ilhas, but with no mention of Enrique Ramos’ demise. From Hans’ limited knowledge of Spanish, he could work out the gist of the Portuguese text, enough to know the Cape Verdean authorities had declared the incident a “botched robbery.” Hans smiled and looked forward to hearing what Karen had to say about the cover-up.

  He didn’t have to wait long. Phipps knocked on the door and whispered, “Yo, Larsson, you got company,” in his usual gruff tone.

  - 86 -

  Karen entered the room accompanied by Special Agent Trudy Bansker, bearing gifts and flowers for Penny and Jessica and a twelve-pack of ice-cold Strela.

  “Thought you could do with a beer,” Karen whispered, setting the gifts down and giving Hans a long hug. “How’re they doing?”

  “Considering everything that’s taken place since Future sank, I’d say they – we – are doing okay.” He turned to acknowledge Agent Bansker. “And that’s thanks to this woman.”

  Bansker stepped forward, beaming, no longer clad in drab attire suggestive of an orphanage manager from the African outback but a pair of figure-hugging black jeans, blue-satin heels and a short-cut leather jacket.

  “Ha, I gotta whole team thing going on behind me!” she was quick to remind him.

  They shook hands and hugged politely.

  “I’d love to hear about it,” said Hans. “There’s a visitors’ room down the hall. How about we take a couple of beers and give these guys some peace?”

  With a lot to discuss, Brenda and Karen happily agreed. Hans patted Phipps on the shoulder and led the two women along the corridor.

  In the visitors’ room they found a few simple gray office-type tables with overflowing ashtrays, and a glass-fronted counter displaying curled-up sandwiches, cartons of juice and a selection of demented flies. A bored, obese woman sat behind the counter, charged with serving up instant coffee and tea – at her own pace – from a steaming urn.

  “So,” Hans began as they cracked open beers, “how did Trudy Bansker end up hunting down child traffickers on Cape Verde?”

  “Actually, I have a question for you first, Hans. How did you know I wouldn’t shoot you back there at the castle?”

  “I was watching you down on the seafront the day before – at the restaurant, following a tip-off from the police. I saw you go to the restroom and swap SIM cards – it’s not as if ‘Brenda Umchima’ would have any reason to do that, so I figured you had to be law enforcement.”

  “To cut a long story short, Hans, the real Brenda Umchima was a government official in Mali. She fled the country after her American mother and Mozambican father were murdered at the start of the Tuareg uprising and entered the States on her US passport. Because of the political unease in the region, she got flagged by the CIA. I’ve worked for the agency in West Africa for the last ten years and have a working knowledge of the region and its languages. As well as my mixed parentage, it made me a good candidate for a classified investigation the agency was instigating. My handler was John Kellan, deputy head of the organization. I reported only to him and his trusted inner circle on the project – Operation Marianas.”

  “Into people trafficking on Cape Verde.” Hans nodded thoughtfully, noting the CIA’s ironic use of geography, the Marianas island group being on the same latitude as Cape Verde but on the opposite side of the planet.

  “With a particular focus on a CIA agent here they felt had gone bad.”

  “Enrique Ramos,” Hans murmured.

  “Correct.” Bansker took a sip of beer.

  “How come Ramos came under suspicion?” asked Karen.

  “Every two years CIA agents come under scrutiny from the directorate in a process called ‘the Sweep’ – bank accounts, liaisons, personal issues, choice to stay in positions, everything.”

  “And Ramos appeared to have an unhealthy interest – or interests – in Cape Verde,” Hans proffered.

  “Cape Verde is what’s known in agency circles as a ‘dumpster’ – a draft an agent might take to further their career, but not for more than a couple of years. Yet this guy had been here for ten.”

  “So he had to be getting something more out of it,” Karen muse
d.

  “Most agents can’t wait to get back stateside and tackle some nitty-gritty homeland crime. The longer an agent stays outside the zone, especially if he has no family tying him to the area, the more likely it is that he’s developed connections – good or bad. It was increasingly obvious Ramos was living above his means – contrary to what the public might think, agents don’t drive vintage Porsches – but his investments were untraceable.”

  “And Nicaragua?” said Hans. “Enrique as the US’ man down there, helping Gonzales smuggle cocaine and turning a blind eye to his abuse and murder of kids. Was that flagged up in this sweep?”

  “It’s no secret to the agency that Ramos and the mayor had relations going back to the Contra affair, but there’s no evidence of these guys being partners in crime today and linking them to the trafficking.”

  “So what did?” Hans asked.

  “It was actually what didn’t. Enrique was using his insider privileges – like accessing trafficking syndicates through the database – to help the mayor make connections. But he was also using his position and knowledge to compromise antitrafficking operations conducted in the region. The agency and Interpol have spent millions trying to infiltrate the gangs in the last few years, only for the operations to fall on their ass each time – suspects going missing, Internet forums suddenly shutting down, factories using child labor emptying overnight . . .”

  “So in the end everything pointed to him,” said Karen. “Ramos was the only official here that could have known about the operations.”

  “Yes, but we still didn’t have any proof. That’s where I came in. For operational security, it was imperative I work alone and without agency backup.”

  “Men in dark suits and Ray-Bans wandering around the island would have soon got back to Ramos or the mayor,” said Hans.

  “They’d be more subtle than that, but you get the point,” said Bansker. “I had to enter the country unarmed and couldn’t even meet a fixer here to pick up a weapon. We broke just about every national and international law by carrying out the mission without the Cape Verdean government’s permission. Any chance of plausible denial went out the window when I blew the mayor’s brains out and ended up with a casualty and two kids on my hands.”

  “Fortunately, our two governments are ‘cooperative,’” said Karen, making air quotes.

  “We came up with the cover story of Brenda Umchima fleeing to Gambia as an asylum seeker, and then we set up the bogus orphanage – at least we set up a website and staff for it.” Bansker smiled.

  “Staff?” Karen raised an eyebrow.

  “If you ring the number on the website, you’ll speak to the orphanage’s delightful but rather inept secretary, Isatou, and hear raucous children in the background—”

  “And in reality Isatou is a CIA agent in a room in Langley with a soundtrack playing in the background.” Karen raised an eyebrow.

  “In Silver Spring actually.”

  They all smiled.

  Bansker opened another can of beer, and Hans and Karen could see she had already told them far more than her remit dictated.

  “Will you stay with the agency?” Hans asked.

  “From what I can see, from my limited time with it, the agency’s basically a legitimized crime bureau covering for the sick ills of the ruling elite.” She shrugged. “John Kellan is a good man, but he’s out there on a limb surrounded by hyenas.”

  Hans and Karen flicked eyes at each other – this woman wasn’t stupid or brainwashed by the machine. Having spent years in West Africa, she had witnessed the reality of international food programs, economic sanctions and puppet governance and wasn’t about to buy the party line.

  Karen casually gripped her neckline with two fingers.

  Hans tapped an innocuous fingertip against the strap of his watch – twice.

  “The reason Operation Marinas was set in motion,” Bansker continued, “wasn’t about doing the right thing to protect innocent children. It was that one of the main traffickers was a US government official, and the repercussions for the country’s reputation if they’d gotten exposed didn’t bear thinking about. Times have changed. Corporate fraud and Internet crime are the new black or orange or whatever – stuff operated remotely and later easily denied. To conduct such old-school rackets as human trafficking – like drug running – is asking for trouble.”

  “Wait.” Karen raised a ruby-red fingernail. “I thought you said there were ops into trafficking here even before Enrique became a suspect.”

  “He’s not the only bad egg in the box. About five years back an investigation by the FBI found approximately a sixth of foreign adoptions in the US were shams, and that most of them had been expedited by a single official – who conveniently shot herself in the head the day the feds went to arrest her.”

  “Are you saying that someone higher up the chain had their claws into her?” Karen’s nail pressed into her beer can.

  “Someone was abusing their power to coerce her into letting these adoptions go ahead, and when it all hit the fan they pulled her plug.”

  “And do you know this person?” Hans asked.

  “I’m too small a fish for that kinda intel. But from what I gather, no one in the agency ever managed to find out. I think they were hoping Enrique Ramos would tell us – with a little ‘gentle’ persuasion.”

  “I guess I put paid to that option.” Hans downed his beer and looked up at the huge whirring ceiling fan as he recalled his and Ramos’ last meet.

  “So Mr. Big is still out there,” said Karen.

  “Not just out there, but bigger than we thought.” Bansker took an envelope from her bag, removed a photograph and slapped it down on the table. “This was left at my hotel reception.”

  The picture, taken in the States, featured a boy of about eight years old dressed in school uniform clambering into a smart sedan outside school gates. On it someone had scribbled in red ink “He’s next!”

  “My son, Jake,” Bansker confirmed without emotion.

  “Whoa!” Karen leant forward to examine the photograph. “Can you get it tested for DNA and prints?”

  “I can, but if this person’s smart enough to deliver the threat in less than twenty-four hours after the mayor’s and Ramos’ deaths, it ain’t gonna lead anywhere.”

  Sitting there bending the tab on his beer back and forward, Hans kept silent. He knew Enrique and Gonzales were by no means the top of the food chain – with the mayor’s Illuminati connections, this thing went much higher. However, he’d planned to leave the island with Penny and Jessica and put this behind them – for the time being at least – perhaps buying that RV and traveling the Good Ol’ US of A for a while. The fact the men responsible for the heinous crimes committed against his child were still out there and active put something of a damper on things.

  After a time he piped up, “Karen, as US ambassador, how are things since yesterday?”

  Karen took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Was US ambassador, Hans. I resigned this morning. Have you read the paper?”

  “You mean the police putting the shootings at La Laguna down to a botched burglary? No mention of Enrique’s demise or the trafficking ring?”

  “I spoke with Chief Inspector Amado and my seniors back in Washington. I can accept that an open investigation into child trafficking would be bad for tourism in these impoverished parts, and that to broadcast a US intelligence operation would cause all sorts of questions and make the traffickers go to ground—”

  “But you sense a cover-up.”

  “It stinks, Hans, and I won’t be party to it. Why initiate a CIA op if they’re not going to see it through?”

  “Because,” said Bansker, “John Kellan, the director, conducted this op completely off the books, put his career on the line to preserve its integrity. But now that it’s out in the open” – she tapped the photograph with a blue-painted nail matching her shoes – “you can bet our friend here is pulling the strings.”

  - 87 -


  When Brenda and Karen left, Hans stayed in the dreary cafeteria and downed another beer. Irrespective of whoever else was involved in the trafficking, he had decided to leave it all behind and return to the States to spend time with Penny and Jessica, but something bugged him, and he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  After a visit to Eddy Logan, who lay semicomatose with Krystal holding his hand, Hans returned to Penny and Jessica’s room and, following a quick chat with Phipps, crept inside and picked up the daypack containing his high-tech camera. He snapped a few pictures of his sleeping girls, then pressed a button to review them on the Canon’s display screen. The camera was in gallery mode, showing the most recent photos in a psychedelic grid.

  One of the thumbnails was the shot Hans took, using the self-timer, of him, Penny and Gonzales at La Laguna. He smiled, remembering the pedestal displaying a Soviet-made RPG head he’d rested the camera on. The Soviets had backed the Sandinista government in Nicaragua and supplied such weapons to their troops. The mayor must have taken the missile as a memento. The connection with the area also explained Gonzales’ use of Latin American Spanish.

  Feeling morbid curiosity, Hans navigated to the thumbnail and enlarged it to fill the screen – Ahhh!

  That was what bugged him!

  There was a photograph on the mayor’s wall right behind his fancy desk where they’d stood either side for the shot – four men in combat fatigues kneeling in a line holding M16 rifles. When setting up the camera, Hans had spotted it immediately, purposely shielding his interest from the mayor and focusing the lens on the picture instead, intending to use the Canon’s high-pixel clarity to enlarge it later.

  Hans ejected the camera’s memory card and powered up his notebook. After saving the photographs to the hard drive, he opened FlickerView, double-clicked the shot in question and then zoomed in on the four combatants.

  A twenty-three-year-old Enrique knelt next to Gonzales – Commandante 380 – both wearing olive-green foraging caps and the intoxicated grin of war. Alongside them, Fernando stared dead ahead, a vacant expression on his dumb face.