Tracks

by Niv Kaplan

  He identified the turnoff to Santa Katarina, the famous monastery high on the Katarina ridge, and decided to turn off and head that way. The mountainous area offered places to hide.

  The asphalt road turned to rocky dirt as the incline began to get steeper and more winding. They had to considerably reduce their speed to be able to maneuver the rough terrain in which the road had been cut into. The sun was just coming up above the horizon to the east its rays bouncing off the sharpened granite cliff faces. The rental skipped and bounced but kept a steady pace up the ravine.

  After an hour they stopped to listen. The near perfect silence was disturbed only by a faint hum of a convoy of engines heard in a distance, far below where they had just come from.

  The posse had found their tracks.

  They kept driving until the passage leveled off somewhat and the car gained more speed. A few minutes later behind a bend in the canyon they came upon a Bedouin retreat, nearly ramming into a herd of goats passing the road. The camp was arranged in a semicircle with a small campfire burning in its middle. Two shepherds were bent over the fire paying no mind to the scattering herd.

  “We may be able to employ their services,” Jack suddenly said, stepping out of the car signaling the group to join him.

  “Clair, can Ibrahim translate for me?” Jack asked as they approached the Bedouin camp.

  Clair relayed the request to her son in French getting a nod for approval.

  “I want one of them to take the car up as far as possible, and the other to lead us along these mountains to the Israeli border,” Jack explained.

  The women exchanged glances. “This might be a long walk,” Christine remarked.

  “I’ve looked at the map,” Jack went on. “With a Bedouin who knows his way around, we should have about seventy kilometers to cover, most of it in this type of mountainous terrain.”

  “That’ll take days,” Christine exclaimed. “We’re not equipped for it.”

  “Could take up to a week if we do ten kilometers a day though the last bit we should cover faster,” Black Jack stated.

  “Where will we get food and water?” Clair asked.

  “I was hoping to buy some from these Bedouins. Also, if they agree to help, they should be able to walk us among their various tribes, from one camp to another.”

  “Won’t they get in trouble, helping us?”

  “They might, but not likely. In this barren country, they rule. The Egyptians stay away.”

  They reached the center of the clearing. Jack bent down to talk to the two herdsmen, gesturing for Ibrahim to do the same. He spoke in English, translated to French by Clair, then to Arabic by Ibrahim. The older of the two Bedouins replied in Arabic which Ibrahim translated to French and Clair back to English.

  “They are members of the Tarrabin tribe and would be glad to escort us if we let them keep the car,” was the reply.

  “Tell them they can keep the car only after they have used it to divert our pursuers,” Jack said.

  "They understand that,” Ibrahim informed him without turning back to the Bedouins. Jack was not so sure. Such a car was a prime possession for these poor people and he was not sure they would not turn on them in order to persuade the Egyptians to let them keep it. But they were in a hurry and he was in no position to negotiate. There was no time to spare. Jack nodded his head in agreement and the two Bedouins ran to one of the tents, talking excitedly, waking up whoever was inside. Black Jack and his crew rushed to the car for their meager belongings.

  Jack, having left the car in the road, asked Ibrahim to make sure and tell the Bedouins to keep driving on straight and not veer off the road to prompt suspicion with their followers.

  A third Bedouin was awakened and rushed to the car. Apparently, the other two possessed no driving skills. The older Bedouin got in with him and off they drove leaving a cloud of white dust behind.

  The third Bedouin, Samir, motioned for them to follow him. He took off walking briskly toward the cliffs that enveloped the road and disappeared within its walls. The four scrambled behind, disconcerted at the sudden change in circumstance. They climbed for a while, following a narrow path which took them high above the plateau. After a half hour of hard climbing, all of them except for Samir sweating profusely, they reached a point overlooking the road below just in time to watch the Egyptian convoy pass by.

  It looked as if the diversion had worked. The posse did not bother with the quiet Bedouin encampment by the side of the road. They just kept plowing along after the fresh tracks of the rental car.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Mai-Li sat at the hotel bar, anxiously scanning the faces. None of them looked familiar.

  She had checked in at London’s Bailey’s Hotel, across from the Gloucester Road Underground station, soon after landing at Heathrow. Stashed in her briefcase was the evidence Harley needed to take on the job.

  The barman came over, handing her an envelope. She opened it nervously finding an airline ticket with round trip fare to Edinburgh, Scotland, leaving at eleven the following morning. The attached itinerary showed a one-night hotel stay at The George.

  Exhausted from a hectic week of gathering the evidence Harley had requested, and alerting key contacts in anticipation of fulfilling his two other requests of funding and authorizations, she went straight to bed and slept like a log.

  She reached Edinburgh at just past noon the next day and by one pm had completed checking in at The George. There were no additional instructions from Harley as far as she could gather, so she took a stroll down the Royal Mile from Edinburgh Castle to the parliament building, stopping at the small tourist attractions and shops along the way. The day was a typical drizzly and gray but it did not take away from the historical magic of Edinburgh’s ancient stone structures and brick passageways.

  It was turning dark when Harley appeared out of nowhere, joining her at a small coffee shop she had stopped in for tea. He ordered an espresso and faced her expectantly.

  Having anticipated such circumstance, and not willing to leave her evidence at the hotel, she handed her material over to Harley in a brown manila envelope. He sat scanning it for over an hour, studying the details and asking questions from time to time.

  The background, written material, and photographs were sufficient but the most overwhelming evidence was found in a video clip taken by an Indian journalist moments before he was shot and killed. The 8mm video was in Mai-Li’s envelope. She had obtained it through contacts in New Delhi who claimed to have found the video camera in some bushes not far from a burned Jeep found with the corpses of an unknown driver and the Indian journalist out covering the Indian-Pakistani tensions in Kashmir.

  The Lambda-B organization was believed to be Afghan in origin, operating out of Pakistan on the border with Kashmir. Kashmir’s vulnerable, undetermined status offered a heaven for criminal activity - unchecked and uncontrolled. Besides other unlawful activities associated with the group, child labor was believed to be their main “line of business”. They kidnapped children from the immediate Kashmir border area, and sold them mostly to rich landlords for excruciating hard labor in mines situated in remote sections of the Himalayan Mountains where they would be almost impossible to track.

  The group not only made profits selling the children but also, securing their “investment”, they were responsible for guarding against escape attempts.

  Their methods varied. In India they could just grab children out and about in rural areas or in crowded markets, stuff them in enclosed vans and haul them off to Kashmir where they would be held prisoners until some landlord paid to take them.

  In higher elevations, Pakistan, Nepal, and even China, they would ambush buses along narrow mountain roads, scatter the passengers and take whatever children they thought fit the description needed for the labor they were providing.

  Reports of child abductions were not unknown in those areas but were never properly investigated by local authorities. The combination of the difficult land
scape, lack of properly trained law enforcement personnel, budgets, means, and corruption, all contributed to making Lambda-B’s child labor activities prosper.

  The slave auctions were conducted in secret locations, presumably in Kashmir, where the children were kept under lock and key, fed only enough to look worthy for the buyers. They would be sold for approximately five hundred US dollars a head, then taken to the mines, where they would be worked to their death. A strong child would be expected to survive ten years on just rice and water, easily returning profit for the initial investment.

  The meager evidence provided on the activity came mostly from rumors, word of mouth, and speculation as to the fate of a growing number of missing children. This prompted an Indian magazine to investigate the phenomenon more closely and it was the magazine that first exposed the activity. The pictures Mai-Li had shown Harley during their first meeting at Langley were taken by one of two Indian journalists investigating the matter. They were both murdered after an initial article was published and the matter was laid to rest by the publisher, who had personally received threats on his life. The Lambda-B organization further showed its ruthlessness when they ambushed an Indian police unit sent to investigate. Growing concern prompted further investigation by Indian authorities which stopped short of entering an open conflict in Kashmir near the Pakistani border.

  The attached video clip taken by the Indian journalist in Kashmir would show Harley filmed evidence of teenaged children being hauled in bamboo cages, presumably to a slave auction. Lambda-B tattoos were clearly visible on few armed men spotted around the cages.

  Trying to prompt action by both the Indian and Pakistani authorities to stop the atrocities, Mai-Li’s pleas had fallen upon deaf ears as a result of the two countries squaring off around Kashmir. The long and loaded dispute gave no quarter for them to cooperate and therefore, no action could be taken inside Kashmir.

  Harley stuffed the paperwork back in the envelope, promising to watch the video carefully. He looked hard at Mai-Li.

  “How many children do you suppose have been subject to this?”

  “It’s hard to say because many missing children in those areas don’t get reported. From what we’ve been able to gather, its well over two hundred children in five years of activity.”

  “How’d you come up with this location on the map?”

  “I went to Kashmir and followed the trail the two Indian reporters left. With my looks and fluent Chinese no one suspected anything. I actually reached the indicated village where a few of the auctions have taken place and quietly managed to extract a possible location. I hired a trail guide who took me above the suspected area. I managed to pinpoint a clearing with human activity in the dense jungle which after a full day of spying and thanks to a last second inspiration of taking powerful glasses along, I managed to determine it was a site that held children locked up.”

  Harley got up and they moved outside. “I’ll need three months to complete the job,” he said, towering over Mai-Li in a darkened corner just outside the coffee shop. “Two months to prepare and gather information, and hopefully a month to deal with the problem.”

  Mai-Li kept silent, her heart pumping with excitement.

  “I’ll need to verify the location before we can take any action. I’ll need five hundred thousand pounds sterling and a nod from my Foreign Minister and MI6 before I ever attempt to cross into Kashmir, if indeed, Kashmir is the target.”

  Mai-Li nodded, though she felt much less certain she could swing it now that she heard his two other requests.

  “I believe the evidence is sufficient and I will oblige if the money and political support are there,” Harley concluded.

  Mai-Li nodded again and shook his outstretched hand, her tiny palm disappearing in his.

  “I’ll expect you right here, same time, same coffee shop, in exactly two weeks if we are to proceed. Otherwise, my unit has other things to do.”

  With that Colonel Joe Harley turned and disappeared down a darkened Edinburgh alley.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Peka opened the cab door for Natasha and she stepped out into a freezing wind-chilled Bucharest morning. They hurried into a gray brick building, through the metal detector to a high ceilinged lobby, dark and hostile.

  A tall, hawkish man, appropriately suited, with dark, unsmiling features, came down a flight of stairs to escort them up. They followed him, without introduction, to the second floor then along a narrow corridor to a conference room where he left them alone. Ten minutes later, the deputy minister appeared, escorted by the same hawkish man and a well-dressed, blonde woman.

  “Deputy Minister Raja,” the Deputy Minister of Interior introduced himself, taking Natasha’s hand. “This is my assistant, Lena Taler,” he nodded at the blonde woman. The hawkish man was not introduced, he just stood at the conference doorway grim and aloof.

  “Natasha Usher,” Natasha introduced herself, not bothering to introduce Peka, assuming they knew him.

  “We’ve taken some measures,” the deputy minister began, getting straight to the point, “to control the advertisements for female services in our newspapers.”

  “Do you control the media?” Natasha asked.

  “No, but they can be persuaded,” Raja said.

  “I doubt that,” Natasha remarked, “but what about border control?”

  “The police handle that,” Raja said. “I’ve arranged for you to meet with them tomorrow.”

  Natasha looked around the room. She noticed the walls were totally bare. Not one picture or illustration or even the simplest decoration.

  The deputy minister went on. “Miss Taler here has received authority directly from the minister, under my supervision, to work with the West at curbing the problem. We expect she will cooperate with the likes of you and achieve results.”

  Natasha ignored the contemptuous remark and turned to Lena Taler.

  “What is your plan then, Ms. Taler?”

  The blonde woman studied her carefully before answering. She sat very alert in her seat, her back straight, her blonde hair flowing down below her shoulders. She had a handsome, proportionately carved face, a sharp look, with eyes a deep shade of green. She appeared in her thirties and was not only striking, but seemed calculated and very intelligent.

  “Does the US discuss its internal affairs with foreign entities?” she shot back in perfect English.

  Natasha was caught off guard. “I’m here to help you,” she managed to blurt.

  “Help or approve?” the Romanian reproached.

  Natasha needed a few seconds to gather her wits. “You didn’t seem eager to solve the problem until we intervened.”

  “And how would you know that Ms. Usher?” the woman asserted.

  “Your country, Ms. Taler, has quite a record,” Natasha retorted.

  “This may be true, but it does not mean we are not eager to solve the problem.”

  The room fell silent for a few moments. Everyone assessed the stalemate. Natasha caught a glimpse of the deputy minister’s satisfied grin and Peka’s look of concern.

  “We need money to deal with the problem,” Lena finally said and the saw was out of the bag. “We haven’t got the needed resources. Are you willing to help us?”

  “We can’t just hand out money without knowing where it goes,” Natasha remarked.

  “It will be under my personal supervision,” Lena stated with sincere confidence.

  Now it was Natasha’s turn to stare and something made her trust the insolent woman.

  “We will expect a combined work force and access to information.”

  Lena looked to the deputy minister for the first time since she received permission to speak. Raja nodded.

  Lena produced a file from her briefcase opened it and leafed through it a moment, taking her time.

  She closed it and slid it across the table to Natasha.

  “This file contains statistics, names, organizations, suspects, and a general plan to deal with our pr
oblem,” she explained as Natasha quickly leafed through it herself. “It’s all top secret and cannot be in your possession outside this room.”

  Natasha nodded. “Can I have a few minutes to study this?” she asked.

  Raja nodded, and he and Lena stood up.

  “We’ll be back in twenty minutes,” he said and strode through the door, Lena at his heels. The hawkish bodyguard remained in his place, guarding the door.

  Peka slid over and they both studied the document. It estimated some three thousand Romanian females, aged fifteen to forty-five, to be missing, assumed to be involved in international flesh trade, the vast majority of recorded cases, within a five year period, coincidental with the fall of the Eastern Bloc.

  Extreme poverty with meager employment opportunities forced Romanian families into such extremes as responding to misleading advertisements drawing young females into international scams designed to use them as sexual objects. From escort services, to massage parlors to straight prostitution, Romanian females would be caught in a web of deceit and pay with their bodies and sometimes their lives.

  The Romanian Ministry of Interior, under Deputy Minister Raja, had tracked the traffic from its inception to its execution. It was run via bogus companies creating deceptive fronts for international crime organizations who would trap the girls into situations they could not escape from. Far and away from any proper counsel, the girls would be kept just hungry enough and poor enough to have no means to flee even if they understood their dire situations. In the few cases where families were able to locate their missing children, “employers” would produce a hoard of legal documentation binding the girls to signed contracts, not allowing them to leave. With no means to fight such enterprises, the families would be forced to withdraw empty-handed, leaving the poor girls at the mercy of white-collar pimps.

  The document produced lists of names, girls reported missing and their presumed whereabouts, country and city. It listed names of suspected organizations, bogus companies, sources of media advertising, magazines, newspapers, even TV slots. It had names of suspected government collaborators, police, military, immigration and customs authorities.