by Tikiri
We stepped out of the room and joined them on the landing.
Tetyana and Luc had rearranged the room. Zero was on the floor, with my batter mixing knife in his right hand. I noticed blood seeping near his knees. The mobile phone Fred and his gang had lent to Luc was now placed strategically in his left hand. The screen was lit up.
“What about the delivery tonight?” I asked.
“They’ll come straight here,” Luc said. “No doubt about that.”
“And we’ll let gangs take care of gangs,” Tetyana said, with a smug smile.
“You know, guys,” I said, looking at the unconscious men in their twisted positions on the ground, “I just want that girl in the warehouse to not have died in vain.”
“I can kill them both now,” Tetyana said, pointing at the gun on her belt, the one with the silencer on now. “For that girl, I can do it.” Everyone looked at her wide-eyed. “But,” she paused. “It will be far more interesting to let them live. They’ll learn what true pain is, once the cops grab them and send them to jail.”
With that, we quietly shuffled down the stairs to the second floor. We should have felt elated to be escaping, to have got back at these evil men, but no one was smiling. No one seemed to want to celebrate. It felt like we were carrying a heavy burden on our shoulders—one that felt the pain and suffering of all the girls these men had hurt. That girl in the yellow blouse was just one victim of many.
Something in the back of my mind bothered me. It was a memory from not so long ago, niggling to come out. “Hey, Tetyana,” I said, “When we were at the warehouse, I saw you had your phone out. What were you doing?”
“I recorded it,” she said, “to blackmail the bastards.” She cocked her head at the third floor.
“Why don’t you send it to the cops?” I asked, feeling a smidgen of hope rise in me. “There must be good cops somewhere who’ll do something if they see it.”
“Wish I knew how,” Tetyana said, shaking her head. “I don’t have WiFi or a data plan. No one can track my phone. I keep things simple with one SIM card for voice only, and I throw that away every few days. Don’t know how I can do that without them tracing it back to me.”
“That’s too bad,” I said.
“I think I can do it.”
We all turned to look at Win. She blushed at the attention.
“I can put the video online.”
“Wow,” Katy said. “You can do that?”
Win’s face was a picture of innocence. “I can transfer the video to Zero’s laptop so they won’t know it’s coming from you.”
We stared at her.
“Zero made me fix his laptop all the time. I know his passwords,” she added, with an embarrassed shrug.
“That’s awesome, Win. Maybe we can tag Europol or Interpol,” I said. “So they’ll know.”
“I can send it anywhere you want, just tell me and I’ll do it.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Tetyana said, bringing her phone out and handing it over to Win. “Work your magic, hun.”
Win stepped toward the stairway and disappeared downstairs, presumably to find Zero’s laptop.
We looked at each other.
“We can’t hang around here for too long,” Tetyana said, looking a tad worried.
Luc nodded. “Fred’s gonna be looking for me soon, and there’s no police to stop them anymore.”
It took Win five minutes to upload the video. We gathered around her on the living room sofa and watched her handiwork, fascinated. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, lips pursed, face frowning in concentration.
“So this is going out under Zero’s own name and account?” I asked.
Win nodded. “He’s the only one with the admin password to this forum.” She had logged on to a private online forum, switched its status to public, before posting the video under Zero’s name. We looked at each other with raised eyebrows.
“Wow,” Luc said. “You’re good.”
“Genius,” I said.
“How’s he ever going to defend that?” Katy said with a smile.
“Wonder what else is on this computer,” Tetyana said in a thoughtful voice.
While the video was being uploaded, Win began to poke around Zero’s folders. “He’s so stupid,” she muttered, as she ran a password-unlocking tool to open a folder that had a series of x’s in its name. “He doesn’t even understand the basic stuff.”
She opened the first document in that folder, a plain text file with clearly the addresses of transit warehouses and brothels. Their network seemed to spread as far east as Russia, and as far south as Tunisia.
The next document Win dug up troubled us all. It was a list of women’s names, only first names. We stood silently as Win scrolled through them, reading name after name. She faltered for only a second when her own name popped up, but she kept moving. I felt a cold shiver go through me. All these girls going through unimaginable torture.
“Get rid of that permanently,” Tetyana snapped. “Safer for the girls, that way.”
“Didn’t realize how big this operation was,” Luc said, his face slightly pale.
Katy let out a loud sigh. “How did they get away with all this?”
Win trashed the list and pulled up an app to clean the file for good. “Anyone can read files in the trash can, even after double deleting,” she explained. “I have to run a clean up code to remove it for good.”
“Do what you have to, hun,” Tetyana said. “How long will that take?”
“Ten minutes, not even,” Win said, but she wasn’t even looking up, absorbed in her task.
“You’re amazing, you know that?” Luc said, giving Win a friendly nudge. Win blushed.
“You’re a total whiz,” Katy said.
Win’s blush deepened. “Zero only used RSA. Anyone can break that.” She pointed at a file with a long name of numbers and letters. “Can you believe how stupid that is?”
We shook our heads. I don’t think any of us knew what she was even talking about.
“How did you learn all this?” I asked.
“He gave me his computer every day, because he didn’t know how to use it. But if I made a suggestion, he yelled at me and said, just do what I say, so his security is really bad. Not what I’d do.”
“You learned all this by yourself?” I asked.
Win nodded, her head back in the computer now. “I used it every day and took my time. He didn’t know I was trying new things.”
Tetyana chuckled.
The app was still running in the background, and Win’s eyes fell on another folder. “This one has a long password,” she said. We waited patiently, trying not to breathe down her neck, as she tried to figure out how to open it.
I felt goose bumps as a spreadsheet sprang to life on the screen. Win scrolled through a list of names and telephone numbers.
“Mon dieu!” Luc said, bringing his hands to his head.
“Jackpot!” Tetyana said.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Look at those names,” Luc said, pointing at the screen. I peered over his arm. Most were foreign names, names I didn’t recognize. Win kept scrolling. The list was long.
“Minister Oaten,” I read out loud. “Michel Patim, Martin Shkel, Tony Berluscono, Chand Deepak, Rodrigo Duter, Mohamed Il-Fayad, Bob Halt—”
“It’s a list of Johns, isn’t it?” Katy said. “Bob Halt’s supposed to be the next James Bond. Wow. This is bad.”
“Uh-huh,” Tetyana said, and leaned back with a self-satisfied look on her face. “That list is going out to the world as well. Hit the button, Win!”
She did with a triumphant but shy smile on her face. Something about that smile made me feel sad. This is what half a decade of physical violence and mental manipulation does to you, I thought.
Grooming, Tetyana had explained to me earlier. It’s when they take a very young girl, beat and rape her into subjugation and allow no one else in her life, so she knows no other way of living. Mentally, s
he’s trapped. Win could have easily called for help or alerted the police through a myriad of online forums and tools, but she hadn’t. She hadn’t known any better. She’s just a kid.
“We gotta leave now,” Luc said, straightening up.
“Where are we going?” Katy asked.
“Far away from here,” Tetyana said.
“Wonder what Fred’s face will look like when he comes looking for his delivery,” I said.
“If the cops don’t come first,” Tetyana said. “Win, make sure to alert Interpol only just before we’re leaving, okay? By the time they call the right people in the right local department and they scramble to get here, we won’t be here.”
Win nodded.
We all got up.
“And one more thing,” Tetyana was talking to Win. “Can you check one site for me?”
“Sure,” Win said, opening the laptop again. Tetyana took a seat next to her.
“Okay, girls and boys,” Tetyana said loo king at the rest of us, “go find our passports, will you?”
Part SIX
Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all.
Emily Dickinson
Chapter Thirty-six
We whizzed along the highway, passing a small Belgian town called Liege.
On my lap was a torn map Luc had discovered in the glove compartment and had handed to me earlier. The word BENELUX was written on top, barely visible. Though every jolt of the van threatened to dismantle the map, and the passing streetlights were all I had to read by, I managed to trace our path out of Brussels.
When we stepped out of the house, leaving behind the two tied-up men, we had only one choice. There was no underground passageway, as Tetyana had hoped, and we couldn’t just walk into town, so we dug the car keys from Vlad’s pocket, piled into the white cargo van and drove out as quickly as we could.
Luc was driving, and Tetyana was sitting up in front with him. Her gentle snores meant the past few days had finally caught up with her and she’d collapsed with fatigue.
Crammed in the backseat, big enough to hold a couple of big dogs, were Katy, Win and me. Katy and Win were fast asleep, heads nodding together. Both looked worn out. Behind us, in the back, was the open compartment in which we’d been smuggled into Belgium. It was empty with lots of space, but no one wanted to get back in there.
I was drained too, but couldn’t fall asleep. Now I had time to think, my mind buzzed, trying to make sense of everything.
So much had happened since I’d left Canada only five days ago that even the craziest things I’d experienced in Toronto felt like a tea party in comparison. Bibi’s scarred face, Win falling down the stairs, and the bloodied yellow blouse of the girl in the warehouse kept playing in a loop in my head. I wondered if I’d have nightmares for the rest of my life.
In my pocket was the one thing that kept me sane: Preeti’s letter from India connecting me to the only family I had. I’d written to Preeti many times before that, but she’d never gotten my letters. I only found out the day I discovered them intact, still in their envelopes, stashed away in Mrs. Rao’s office. That was the day I learned she’d been working with Franky’s human smuggling ring in India all along. Franky and Mrs. Rao were good at what they did—they even managed to track me down at Dick and Jose’s bakery in Toronto. I’d been so naive.
Through all the running, evading and hiding, I never forgot my mission. No matter what happened, I promised myself, I’d get on a plane to India. I no longer had our airline tickets though. They were not good anymore, anyway. All Katy and I had were the clothes on our backs, our passports and the packet of stolen cash.
I took stock of all the crimes I’d committed in my life, starting from the day I stole a pair of ruby red slippers at the market for Chanda, in my childhood home of Tanzania. My need to see my good friend happy outweighed the theft at the market. It was the same feeling I got when I took the packet of cash from Dick’s safe to pay for Katy’s air ticket and to pay off Preeti’s captors back in India. It was the same when I walked off with that chocolate roll from Chef Pierre’s bakery. On one hand, I felt like I didn’t have a choice. On the other, I knew I was wrong.
Weariness finally overtook me and I fell asleep, only to jerk awake when the van revved to pass a truck.
“Hey, Luc?” I said quietly, to not wake the others. “Not falling asleep or anything, are you?”
“Nope, but you can sing to me, if you want.” He grinned through the rearview mirror.
“Let me know if you get tired and we can switch.”
“I’m good. I like driving.” His cheeky grin reappeared in the mirror. “Wish you were up here to tickle me or something though.”
I gave him a look.
“We’re almost at the border,” he said. “Saw a sign a minute ago.”
I wiped my eyes and sat up. I smoothed the map to see where we were, and traced the highway with my fingers.
“We’ll get to Aachen first,” I said, my finger hovering over the small German city across the border. “Then what?”
“I say we go to Frankfurt. It’s a real fun city. Great place to take you out on a date.”
“Luc, that ain’t happening.”
“Why not?”
“You’re seventeen and I’m nineteen.”
“So?”
“You’re underage, aren’t you?”
“That’s age discrimination.”
“It’s illegal.”
“You Americans are so stuck up.”
It was Tetyana who’d decided Germany would be the best place to lie low. As far as Katy, Win, and I were concerned, we just wanted to get as far from Brussels and London as possible. Luc had suggested a long drive down to Sicily, where he had “good colleagues,” but Tetyana ruled it out firmly, saying we didn’t need to meet any more “Freds.”
I looked down at the map, trying to learn this new world we were in. To the west of us was the rest of Belgium. To the north were the flat lands of the Netherlands. To the south were France and Luxembourg. And to the east was Germany, where we’d be within minutes. The map, however, stopped at the border.
I unfolded the bottom half. If Belgium was shaped like a foot, Luxembourg was its big toe. It was a tiny country nestled between Germany, France and Belgium. Luxembourg…why is that name so familiar? Then, I remembered. I reached into my pocket and felt Chef Pierre’s magazine still tucked inside. I was surprised it hadn’t fallen off by now. I pulled it out and flipped to the centerfold with the picture of the castle set in the middle of lush green Luxembourgian hills. That was where Chef Pierre and the Diplomatic Dragon Lady would be this weekend. I looked at her photo, wondering how in the world someone like me even got to meet her.
It was the Dragon Lady who’d singled me out from my more experienced competitors back in Toronto. She hadn’t judged me by the way I dressed, what I looked like or even by my experience. She’d only judged my work and handed me the catering contract. She’d been demanding, but fair. Plus, she’d passed my name to everyone else, so half the diplomatic community in town had started to call me for their parties. While the recent, and more urgent, events had been occupying my brain, I couldn’t ignore the niggling feeling of guilt I had for running away without letting her or her team know of my departure, and just before an important charity ball at that. The Diplomatic Dragon Lady had probably already fired me, in absentia.
“Hey, Luc? What do you know about Luxembourg?”
“Filled with snooty rich people is all I know.”
“What about Germany? Have you been before?”
“Once, to make a delivery.”
“Has Tetyana been to Germany?”
“Don’t think so. She spent a lot of time in Bucharest and Graz before going to London, when she was running away.”
“Why was she running away?” I asked.
He was silent for a long minute. “You’re gonna have to ask her,” he said, finally.
<
br /> I pulled my attention back to the map, wishing we had a proper GPS instead. But the phones belonging to Katy and me were both tucked in our bags and left in London, days ago. Win never had a personal phone in her life. Tetyana had one, but as soon as the video was uploaded online, she flushed the SIM card down the toilet and threw the phone out of the van into a giant wheat field, somewhere between Bierbeek and Hoegaarden.
“Would be much easier if I had a phone,” I said out loud. “This map’s so hard to read and there’s nothing after Aachen.”
“You can use mine,” Luc said, digging into his pant pocket and slipping a shiny mobile between the front seats.
“You brought your phone?” I said, taking it. “Didn’t Tetyana say—”
“She’s a bit paranoid. Thinks the whole world’s out to get her. Besides, it’s shut off.”
“But if I turn it on, the police will know where we are, right?”
“It’s brand new. Got it only a couple of days ago and it’s not even out yet officially. Besides, no one has my number yet.”
“Are you sure?” I said.
“Turn it on. It’s got the coolest apps, you’ll see.”
“But does it have GPS?”
“What do you think?” Luc sounded insulted. “It’s the latest version. You know how many people have that phone in the world?”
I switched the phone on and it rang as soon as I did. I dropped it, startled. It tumbled from my lap, bounced off my foot and landed with a dull thud on the floor.
“Allo!”
I froze. Somehow, the call feature had turned on.
“Allo, Monsieur Luc?”
Oh no. That sounded like Fred.
“Merde!” I heard Luc swear up in front.
“What happened?” It was Tetyana, waking up from the commotion.
I bent down and picked up the phone with two fingers, feeling like I was touching a live hand grenade. I turned it around and clicked on the red phone icon, cutting Fred off in mid-sentence. Holding down the main on/off button, I then switched it off for good.