Seeking Refuge

by Alana Terry

  Chapter 37: Plans and Tunnels

  FINDING THE BUILDING plans for the Winged Beast Nightclub was harder than Hadassah had anticipated. The manager of the records recommended searching by the club name, and when that failed, they looked up by the building’s previous name. This search yielded the name of a possible builder, but the file only had a few permits for electrical and HVAC upgrades. No blueprints.

  After another two hours, Zach found blueprints under the builder’s name. There were two sketches: one of the bar and one of the dance floor, both with the building’s previous name at the top. On one of the pages in the lower right hand corner was the architect’s name, scrawled in Arabic. After searching files and asking the staff at the hall of records, they discovered that this man was retired, but his firm was still in the city, two streets up and a mile east.

  “I’ll take over from here,” Zach said.

  “Get copies if you can,” Hadassah requested.

  FROM THE HALL OF RECORDS, Hadassah followed the maps on her phone to the closest entrances of the sewers and underground tunnels. Some entrances required tickets, and the tourist lines were long. Other entrances required cover of darkness and empty streets to conceal her activity.

  As she walked down one of the streets, Hadassah did a double take. A man, surrounded by a whole crowd of official looking men, bore an uncanny resemblance to Liberia’s Minister of Justice, Xavier Rhodes. For a brief moment, they made eye contact and she knew beyond a shadow of doubt: this was him. But why would he be in Rome? There wasn’t enough time to stop and ask, and there was no way she’d give away her involvement with the operation that took down Augustus Lavo.

  AT THE MEETING WITH Eli after dinner, the team analyzed the maps from Hadassah’s phone which she projected on the wall, then the rolls of blueprints Zach had secured.

  “The architect who gave these to me said they were pretty old, and a lot of changes had been done since,” Zach explained, “but he said the original architect took the newer blueprints with him when he retired. Apparently the man was quite secretive about his work, his clients and his pay.”

  Pedro raised his eyebrows. “Sounds like he’s got a few connections in the Mafia.”

  “Ha—just like I thought.” Zach tapped on another section of the blueprint.

  “What is it?” Pedro asked.

  “The air duct from the men’s room goes right past the members’ room,” Zach said. “I’ll go ahead and plant the listening device there on Saturday.”

  “Hold up, everybody,” Hyun said. “Look at this.”

  Everyone looked close to where Hyun pointed. “It’s a door from the lower level of the building,” Hyun continued. “To where?”

  Hadassah matched it up with her map of the sewers. “It looks like it goes right into some of the sewers.”

  “I’ll investigate the door from the sewers this week,” Hadassah said.

  “Tell me before you try to go in,” Eli said.

  “Keep your phone on,” she retorted.

  EARLY ON THURSDAY MORNING, when the sun’s first rays tickled the cirrus clouds pink and the trash collectors attempted to wake everyone, she threaded her way through the alleys until she found the entrance to the sewer closest to the nightclub.

  Just as Hyun suggested, a door stood in the murky walls right where the basement of the nightclub would be. It was locked on the outside with a padlock. A simple screwdriver would open this. Hadassah took out the bag of tools Eli had loaned her and began rifling through it with her flashlight in her teeth, admiring the strange assortment. When would she need a hand held welder and its tiny canister of propane?

  Suddenly, Hadassah heard a clank, a rustle and a sharp cry down the corridor of the tunnel. Her limbs stiffened. Then she realized this cry belonged to a baby and the mother was gently shushing the child. But someone was walking toward her.

  A round barrel of cold steel pressed against her temple. “Who are you?” the man beside her demanded. He spoke Italian with a very poor accent.

  The flashlight dropped from between her teeth and rolled along the floor. She cringed and scrambled through her mind for a suitable response. One that wouldn’t get her killed. “Please, sir,” she replied in Italian, “I am looking for a friend.”

  “Leave my family alone, we mean no trouble,” he told her gruffly.

  “I mean you no trouble, sir.” She fought the tremble hijacking her limbs.

  The man lowered the steel barrel. “If she is behind that door, she is crying every night, just like all the girls. But I beg you, do not bring trouble to my family and me.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Be quieter, please. Many of us are trying to sleep, and the police ignore us here if we’re quiet.”

  “I’ll be quiet.”

  Hadassah’s hands were still shaking when she picked up her flashlight and took out the Philips head screw driver. It might not have been a gun he held, but after Manila she always expected a trigger to be pulled; it took more than a few deep breaths to calm herself.

  Once the padlock was removed there was only a door handle with a simple lock. This door was locked as if to keep people inside.

  She turned the lock, twisted the handle and pulled the door open. Its creak echoed throughout the tunnel. She winced, anticipating another threat. When silence resumed, she looked to the door again.

  She turned her flashlight back on. There before her was a thick sheet of plywood nailed against the door frame, and beyond, the sharp, frightened voice of a woman speaking in Italian. “Who’s there?” Her accent sounded remarkably Hebrew.

  Hadassah took a chance with Mom’s native tongue. “If you want to get out, I’m a friend.”

  Soft weeping lasted for a minute or longer. “Praise the Living One! You are Jewish,” she replied in Hebrew. “I have waited so long. But it’s not safe today. It’s only safe on Fridays. Please come back tomorrow, if you are able, at noon.”

  “Is it just you?”

  “There are seventeen of us.”

  Hadassah remembered the feature of her phone Yitzak showed her. She plugged in the ear buds and pressed them against the door to verify the count the woman gave. The screen of her phone showed warm bodies all over the small room, crammed in like sardines. “I can try to get this plywood off for you.”

  The woman whimpered. “Please, I cannot talk anymore. He may come back.”

  Hadassah closed the door again and reattached the padlock.

  The next day, at lunchtime, she brought Christina with her into the tunnel leading to the door. They shined their flashlights down the corridors to make sure no one else was around. A young mom huddled in an alcove nursing her infant. Hadassah walked toward them and dropped a small gift bag a few feet away.

  “Some diapers and a few cans of food,” Hadassah chanced in Italian.

  The woman looked up fearfully, then softened. “Thank you.”

  When Hadassah took the padlock off again, the girl she’d talked with the previous day spoke almost immediately.

  “You came back!”

  Hadassah smiled. “I did. And I brought a friend with me to see about getting this plywood off.”

  “I have worked away some of it.” The girl spoke through a small hole at the bottom of the board. “Please come close with a light if you can, so I may see you.”

  Hadassah crouched low and put her face to the ground, holding her flashlight so it shone down on her.

  “Are you an angel?” the girl asked.

  “No, but we come in the Name of the Lord, Yeshua Ha’Mashiach,” Hadassah replied through the hole in the plywood.

  There was a long pause on the other side, so long Hadassah began to push herself up from the filthy ground.

  “Wait,” the girl said. “Please don’t go. I had a dream about your Yeshua two weeks ago, a dream where He said He would set me free. I thought I had the dream because I was crazy after... after being here for so long. But here you are. And blessed are you who comes in the Name of the
Lord.”

  “We’re going to try to pry off the plywood,” Hadassah said. “After each pause tell us if it’s safe to continue.”

  “I will.”

  Hadassah tried her hand with the crow bar.

  The first pry was so loud it echoed through the sewers: the nails screeched through the wood like a warning alarm.

  “Stop, please,” the girl begged with tears in her voice. “I don’t want anyone to come back.”

  After a long pause, Hadassah asked, “Do you want us to try once more?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Do you want us to wait a minute?”

  The girl remained quiet, but after another moment she replied, “Go ahead.”

  Hadassah handed the crow bar to Christina. The second pry was not quite as loud as the first, but it was loud enough.

  “No more!” the girl begged. “Not today. Maybe we can try from our end when it’s safe.”

  “We can come back next Friday,” Hadassah told her.

  “Please do,” the girl said.

  “And I can visit you every day during the week until then.”

  “Yes, please, but only early morning.”

  “PERHAPS IT WAS FOR the better we were unable to pry the wood off today,” Christina said once they were out of the sewers again.

  Hadassah shrugged her shoulders hard. “Maybe. My heart hurts for these girls.”

  “Mine too,” Christina said.

  The next evening, Saturday night, Hyun, Tameka, and Christina accompanied Pedro and Zach all the way to the edge of the club district to pray in proximity as the two men went to the club again. Hadassah stayed at the House of Prayer. A special session of prayer had been arranged on behalf of the mission.

  Chapter 38: La Bestia Alata

  AS SOON AS ZACH AND Pedro paid the €50 entrance fee into La Bestia Alata, they separated. Zach threaded through a thin aisle in the sea of people to the one empty slot at the bar.

  “Seltz,” Zach shouted to the bartender as he set three €2 pieces onto the dented wood. The bartender looked at him askance, then kept a watchful eye on him as he poured the soda.

  “You saving your money up for one of them?” The bartender snickered as he gestured toward the waitresses and dancers.

  No part of Zach wanted to look at them. He took a swig of the carbonated water to calm the rising nausea. But the bartender kept watching him with suspicious glances. Why would he be in this sort of club if he didn’t want to look? He tried his best to think of reasons but they all made him look questionable. He glanced up, vowing to make this his final night.

  That’s when he saw her, dancing and parading herself on the stage with eyes full of lust so fake his heart broke.

  “I see you found her.” The bartender’s sneer made Zach want to leap over the bar and leave that man with a permanent scar.

  He prayed a desperate prayer in the last quiet place of his heart as he responded. “Excuse me?”

  “You are young and nervous, I see. I will arrange a ticket for you. You will like that one, she is the favorite of everyone. But she will cost you.”

  Zach relaxed the tension in his jaw. Even now he couldn’t give away the fact that this was his sister—it might spawn trouble for her. And for the rest of his team. He tried to smile. “How much?”

  The bartender’s chuckle riled him. “Six hundred for a half hour. But looks like you may only need fifteen minutes.”

  “I’ll be right back.” Zach’s jaw tightened again as he stepped away from the bar. Where could he meet with Pedro in this crowd? He raised his wrist to his chin. “Meet me by the men’s room.”

  “I’ll be there in thirty seconds,” Pedro replied through the comlink. “What’s up?” he asked when they met up.

  “I need as much money as you can give me.”

  “Do you think it’s wise to exchange it here?”

  “Please, man.” He knew Pedro saw his desperation. “It’s gotta be now.”

  Pedro slid his wallet out and slipped a folded purple bill into Zach’s hand.

  “What’s this?”

  Pedro quickly flashed five fingers.

  Zach sighed. “Thank you. And pray for me. Please.”

  He acknowledged Pedro’s nod before returning to the bar. Sliding into the last vacant space along the wooden slab, Zach pounded the bar with his fist and with his stare he bored a hole into the bartender, hoping to gain attention amid the techno, the catcalls, the yelling.

  The bartender rubbed the €500 and €100 bills between his fingers before addressing Zach again. “Half hour ticket for you.”

  The muscles in Zach’s arm ached with all the punches he restrained as he shouldered his way through the crowd toward the door he needed. A large man with shoulders even wider than his stood beside the door, towering over him and glaring down. As soon as Zach handed the man his ticket, the man opened the door and shut it quickly behind him. The room, dimly lit in various shades of red, was empty. There was a reeking bed and a fragile wooden chair, but no Ileyah. At least the room was a little quieter than the club; he might be able to think of what he’d say when he finally saw her.

  End game, keep in mind the end game. His heart pounded.

  The techno blared again as the door opened then closed.

  Zach turned to face her.

  The whole room filled with her gasp.

  “Ileyah.” He quivered.

  The young woman threw her arms around her body as best she could and began to hyperventilate as she backed into a corner.

  “Ileyah.” He stooped to catch her glance, which shot all over the room.

  “Please, Zach, don’t kill me. Just pretend you never saw me and leave this place. You don’t know what I have to do here to keep the others alive.”

  Zach sank to his knees. In his relief to have found her, he forgot how, the last time his sister saw him, he was hostile to her faith and trying to arrange a date with a nice Muslim man. He wept until his tears splashed on the grimy floor between his knees, then held his hands toward her.

  Once their hands met, he stood again and pulled her close to rest her head between his shoulders. “I will never, never hurt you, Ileyah. I want to hurt those who have done this to you, but our Lord Jesus forbids retaliation like that.”

  At the mention of Jesus, she broke out in renewed sobs and wrapped her arms around him. “I wish Jesus would receive me again so I could share the joy of salvation with you.”

  Zach held her cheeks gently in his strong hands. “Do you want to leave here, Ileyah?”

  “Every day I look for a way to escape, but they post guards at the doors. Once, I got as far as the police station and a policeman escorted me back here, so I haven’t tried again. I’m learning Italian—”

  Zach laid his index finger against her lips. “You need to listen to me, okay? I need your help to get you out of here.”

  “What will you be able to do, Zach? You could pay the thousands to the owner for my so-called ‘debt’, but what about the rest of the girls here?”

  “I have a team here with me, and we’ve come to blow the whole operation wide open.”

  A glimmer of hope crossed Ileyah’s face. “Are you with Hadassah?”

  “She is one of the team members with Operation White Stone.”

  “She’s been talking to my friend, Channah, through the plywood in the basement.”

  “Does it look like you can get out that way?”

  “We’ve started to pull the plywood away from the wall so we can get out through the sewers when Hadassah comes back next Friday. But what was your plan?”

  “I need you to help me plant a listening device in their private back room.”

  “I can’t. They never let the girls in there.”

  Zach sighed. “Then I’ll have to go through the men’s room after all.”

  “What good do you think a listening device will do?”

  “We believe the ring leaders meet in there, and if we can prove it, then the police will have
to raid the whole facility.”

  Ileyah let out a laugh of disbelief. “The ring leaders? You mean, of all the countries and clubs, they meet here? How is that possible?”

  “Just trust me. They’ve been shadowed for a while.”

  Her glance shifted about the room again. “We’ll have to go soon, or they’ll come in. The half hour’s almost up.”

  “If only I could get you out of here tonight. I can’t leave you.”

  “You’ll have to, Zach.” She gave his cheek tear-soaked kisses. “You’ve gotta do this, or they’ll hurt both of us. But please, I’m sure we have a minute or two left. Please pray with me, my brother.”

  Zach lifted his eyes to the heavens. “Lord of mercy, I plead for Your protection upon my sister, Ileyah. Please hide her under the shadow of Your wings.”

  When he finished praying, she wiped her cheeks of tears, smiled morosely at him and snapped back into character before opening the door again. He stumbled after her, melding once more into the crowds, hoping no one noticed the anger he couldn’t hide. He walked up to the bartender again and slapped another €100 bill on the wood. “A tip.” Maybe they’d treat her well for a few days. At least until the police raided.

  He headed straight for the stall in the men’s room which he had seen in the blueprints. “Pray for me, Pedro,” he whispered into the comlink once he pulled himself into the air duct.

  Chapter 39: The Device

  WHEN THE AUDIO TRANSMITTER was in place, Hadassah received a text from Zach to let her know. That was the last any of them had heard from him.

  The rest of the team gathered back at the House of Prayer late and forlorn. Tameka wept. Pedro hardly said a word.

  “ANY NEWS ABOUT HIM through the transmitter?” Hyun asked Eli during their meeting the following Monday.

  Eli straightened the papers in the file in front of him, then closed the file and placed his folded hands on top. “There was a reference made indicating he’s alive, but nothing about where he is. They mostly talked about whether or not they will follow through with some plan, but the plan was discussed in coded speech.”