“Sir, maybe the Moore girl has something to do with it all,” says Justine, who’s sitting opposite me. She’s the CIA representative.
“Unlikely,” Tyler interrupts. “I mean, Anna was seeing Ben and seeing Vang, but I don’t think she had anything to do with the drugs, and I highly doubt she knows anything about Ben. I got to know her while she was seeing Vang. He had her hooked up to a lie detector and she passed it. I saw the results for myself. I think she was just sleeping with both of them,” Tyler’s face colors as he says that.
“Could she be playing them both?” Director Lomax asks.
Tyler glances over at the photos on the wall opposite him – pictures of Ben, his two sisters, Katsu Vang, and some key members of the Yakuza are in a pyramid with Vang at the top.
“I don’t think so. I saw how she was with Vang. I think she was after his money. But…”
“But what, Tyler?” Lomax interrupts eagerly.
“But there was a time I tried to convince her to leave Vang and she implied – no, she actually said, ‘I know what I’m doing’.”
“And where is the girl now?”
“Gone, and Ben’s left to find her,” I say because I’m certain of this much.
“What the hell do you mean she’s gone? And he’s gone too? What the hell is going on over there, Ophelia?” Lomax grates out, angrier now.
“I went to his house and his car’s there. His cell phone is in a drawer of his desk in his office. All I was able to get from him was that he was taking time off due to a family emergency.”
The Director stands and starts pacing. “What a fucking mess! Where the fuck is this Katsu Vang character?”
“He’s gone too. Slipped past us and disappeared as soon as he was bailed out,” Justine announces with a slight tremble to her voice.
“Can someone please tell me how the fuck he got bail?”
No one answers Lomax. He picks up a half-empty water bottle and takes a drink from it as his eyes rake over each of us. “So the bunch of you are telling me the head of the Yakuza here in Minnesota is who the fucks knows where? The girl he was banging, who incidentally was the same girl Ben Pearson was screwing, has disappeared and Ben Pearson has taken off somewhere too?” He turns and throws his bottle against the door, and it bounces back and lies, misshapen, on the floor at my feet. “How did this happen? And how do we know that the three of them aren’t actually a team? It seems that the girl is at the center here. Find her and you’ll find at least one of the other two.” Spittle is spraying from his mouth as his words become more heated. His face is red with anger and his neck muscles are straining against his shirt collar.
We are all silent. We all know we’ve screwed up. It looks like this is going to become an international search for three people, and we all know we have no fucking clue where any of them are.
“This is what we need to do,” Lomax says, taking a deep breath. Everyone around the table hushes so we won’t miss anything. “Petrov, you’ll go back to St. Cloud and continue your research into the dirty police station and get whatever information you can get. Lewis, go back to that fucking estate, keep your head down, and see if Katsu Vang makes contact. Let’s put an APB out on the girl. Have we got a photo?” Lomax looks around and everyone shakes their head.
“Sir, she visited the station, I should be able to get her picture off the CCTV footage,” I offer.
“Get it and contact me. Let’s keep our interest in Ben quiet until we find him. Put out an arrest warrant for Vang because he’s skipped bail.”
“Sir, he hasn’t missed his court date yet,” Tyler says.
“I don’t give a fuck. Just find the asshole and bring him in so we can sort this shit out. It needs to be contained before he or Pearson can cause any more fucking problems.” Lomax is clearly agitated. His body’s shaking and the veins in his neck are sticking out. “Now get the fuck out and don’t forget to check in on your designated days.”
Everyone stands to leave but before I get to the door, Lomax calls me back.
“Petrov, a word please.”
Shit, what the fuck is this about? Knots are tightening in my stomach as Tyler looks back at me before he closes the door, leaving just me and Lomax in the room.
“Sir?”
“I know that you and I spoke about your mother, and I know you want to find out who killed her. But are you sure this case isn’t going to be a problem for you? If you can’t keep your head where I need it, I’ll remove you from the Pearson investigation.”
“No, I mean…I won’t let my personal problems interfere with the case, Sir. I’ll put it aside until we find Ben.”
Lomax sits back in his chair and brings his hands to rest on the back of his neck.
“Alright. I’ll keep you on this case, Ophelia, but if I suspect you’re distracted, you’re off.”
“Yes, Sir,” is the only way I can answer.
Lomax leans forward in his chair and starts writing something – his way of dismissing me.
Natalia’s killer will need to wait, for now.
Anna
My eyes roll and I can barely lift my head off the pillow. There’s a strong stench of sweat, and dirt coats the inside of my nose. The room reeks, and I try to hold in the vomit that swirls in my stomach.
“Get up.” There’s a fat woman standing at the edge of the bed. I can barely focus on her because my body’s shaking uncontrollably, craving its next hit of heroin. Like a man dying of thirst, my body’s quivering with need for the drug to stifle this impossible hunger. “I said get up, whore,” the fat woman bellows out in a high-pitched screech that shoots straight through me.
Fighting the craving but losing to it, I painfully lift myself off the lumpy bed and stand in front of the bitch. She’s shorter than me but my God, she’s huge. Her eyes are a sinister, dull brown. Her hair stands almost vertical, teased and piled up on her head. It’s a mousy brown shade that’s close to the color of her eyes. Her fat face is wrinkled with lines that are a tell-tale sign of how many years she’s been a madam.
“Get your bony, ugly ass down to the office, whore.” Grabbing me roughly by my upper arm, she shoves me toward the open door of the room.
“If you want to keep your hand attached to your body, I suggest you remove it,” I spit out at her through my drug-induced lethargy.
A full belly laugh erupts from her gap-toothed mouth.
“You going to do something about it, whore?”
I keep quiet, not retaliating. Yet.
My head’s clouded but a small patch of clarity is blooming. It’s very small and I cling to it desperately because one day, very soon, I’ll be back to being myself…15.
This fat devil is pushing me in the direction she wants me to go.
“That’s a good whore. I’ve got your medicine ready for you. Then you’re gonna start fucking like the whore you are.”
“Not a fucking chance.” Venom spills from me but my body is so weak I’m not sure how terrifying I could possibly sound. I can hear my own voice breaking, not from uncertainty but from the need for the drug.
The devil laughs again but keeps pushing me down the hallway and past other rooms. Some doors are open but most are closed. In the ones with open doors I see women sprawled on beds, virtually lifeless. Their bodies must be logy with the heroin coursing through their veins, the dirty drug taking them away from this stinking shithole.
We get to the office door and the devil opens it with a key attached to a retractable key chain clipped onto her horrible, ill-fitting jeans. Once the door’s open she clutches my arm again and tugs me in.
My experience as a trained killer has me automatically assessing the room for weapons and escape routes. I see it’s filled with pictures of her, a stick-thin man and a fat kid. There are numerous images of the kid as she grows. She’s definitely the devil’s daughter; you can see the family resemblance with the same roundness in her face and body, and the kid’s own version of the devil’s features.
�
�Stand there and don’t move, whore.” She waddles around the desk and I keep looking around. There are plenty of things in here I can use to kill her, and while I’m deciding which one to use, I’m gathering my strength to leap over the desk. Then the bitch brings out a black box and opens it in full view.
Ahhh, my friend, my foe, and my nightmare are in that black leather-clad box. She takes out a spoon and a small vial of heroin powder. I watch and my mouth starts to water. She shakes some of the powder into the bowl of the spoon.
My body instantly reacts, shivering with excitement. She takes the syringe, draws in some water from the glass on the desk, and squirts a little into the bowl of the spoon to mix with the heroin. I try to swallow down the huge lump sitting in my throat as I watch her flick the lighter and start to heat the mixture to melt the dirty, man-made drug.
I’m totally mesmerized watching the white powder liquefy before my eyes. My body is drawn to the drug, wanting to feel that first delicious rush when the needle enters my arm and the warm liquid reaches deep down into every cell of my body.
“Do you want this, whore?” Salivating, I moan and nod. “What will you do for it?” she asks. Her voice is cold with malice.
“Nothing.” I breathe, though I don’t take my eyes off her offering.
“Then you don’t get it.”
Shit, I can’t detox in a place like this, not with these people. The powder, now totally liquefied, tortures me with need. Now, I’m simply a junkie with a craving.
Just as I’m preparing to leap over the desk and kill this bitch, the door opens and a seedy-looking fucker walks through. I assume it’s her husband from the pictures displayed all over the place.
“She behaving, love?” His voice…it’s the same one I heard when Katsu sold me.
“No, the slut won’t suck or fuck cock. Or so she thinks.” The devil laughs again and her husband walks up behind me, roughly grabbing me by my hips.
“She’s fucking pretty, though. I’m sure some of our regulars will wanna have a crack at her before we give her to someone with special needs.”
I’m zoning out the sounds of everything else and focusing on the words being spoken and watch the drug that’s being pulled into a syringe through a small wad of cotton.
“Love, can I break her in?” Bile immediately rises as I turn to look at the pock-faced, greasy-haired weed standing behind me, smirking.
“Mmmmm. I suppose we gotta know how she does,” she says as she flicks her hand at him, giving him permission. Before she finishes what she’s saying, he grabs me and pushes me face-down onto the desk she’s sitting at. I’m only a foot from her now.
This may be my only chance.
I leap forward, grab the syringe and stab it into her eye. Her shrieking echoes throughout the office, and undoubtedly through every room in the brothel. Her husband tries to restrain me, but a hard elbow to the stomach distracts him long enough for me to grab the pair of scissors lying on the table and slam it into his hand that’s splayed out on the desk for balance.
He screams in agony as I punch him with an uppercut and start kicking him. The bitch is trying to get the syringe out of her eye while I continue kicking the shit out of her husband. But my body’s adrenaline is depleting quickly and I need to get out now while I still can.
Just as I turn to leave, something strikes my head and I collapse.
Ben
“Welcome to Sydney, Sir,” the lady at the immigration desk greets me. Emily stands next to me as the lady takes both our passports. “Holidaying?” She casually asks as she looks at us. I’m sure she’s trained to spot fraudulence, but Emily and I have been hiding our entire lives; we’re good at it.
“Yeah, my sister and I are really looking forward to seeing the sights,” I answer casually.
“Where will you be travelling to?” Immigration Chick asks, still using her casual, relaxed Australian tone.
“Of course, Karli and I are looking forward to Bondi Beach and the Opera House. We still need to book our Harbour Bridge walk.”
“That’s what I can’t wait for,” Emily adds cheerily.
Immigration Chick smiles at us both, but continues her questions. “And where will you be staying while in Sydney, Mr. Collins?”
“Please, call me Jace. We’re staying at the…. Hang on.” I take out the paper that has the hotel’s name on it. Of course, Agent’s made it look like we’re staying there, but we aren’t. “The Quest Hotel at Potts Point.”
“Beautiful hotel, and how long are you and your sister staying for?”
“Jace wants to stay for two weeks, but I want to stay for three. So can we say two and a half?” Emily giggles as she plays her role well; she’s very convincing as an airhead.
“Will you be working while you’re here?”
“God no, we need a break,” I say, taking over from Emily.
“How much cash have you got with you? And do you have any credit cards?” Immigration Chick asks.
“I have a little over fifteen hundred on me and I have my Amex and Visa cards. Karli, how much have you got?”
“I’ve got about five hundred in cash and my Visa, too.”
Immigration Chick stamps our passports and with a pleasant smile and says, “Enjoy your stay in Sydney.”
We take our passports back, and along with all the other passengers from the flight, go to baggage claim to collect our small suitcases.
There’s a heavy police presence and several sniffer dogs are walking around with their handlers. We get to the conveyer belt and see our flight’s baggage is already looping around.
Emily and I remain quiet as we find our bags and go to customs baggage check. We aren’t declaring anything, but we line up and wait to be called. We need to play the part of innocent tourists to get into the country, so for now, that’s exactly what we’re doing.
A huge male calls Emily over and an older lady calls me. “Just wait for me, Sis’,” I yell out to Emily, establishing our connection for the baggage handlers, so when we steal looks to check on each other we won’t look suspicious.
“Sure thing, Jace,” Emily calls back and smiles at me.
“Anything to declare, young man?” the woman asks me.
“Nope, nothing at all.”
“Go on through,” the older lady says as she points me to exit. It’s time to begin my mission.
Emily gets through just as easily as I did.
Rolling our bags behind us, we head toward the airport exit. Before we make it outside my phone rings, and I answer it knowing full well who’s calling.
“Agent.”
“Ben, I’ve managed to track her to a brothel in Sydney. There aren’t any cameras so I don’t know how she’s faring. But it’s been a few days and I think you need to prepare for...”
“Don’t fucking say it. Just make sure that Doctor’s ready and send the coordinates for the house.”
“There should be a car waiting for you, under your travelling name. Hertz Car Rental. The car will be equipped with a GPS and I’ll send the address. Doctor should be arriving within the next four hours. I’m also trying to intercept their phone calls. I should have it soon.”
Emily and I head to the Hertz Car Rental counter and we’re greeted by an overly friendly young lady.
“Welcome to Hertz. Do you have a reservation?”
“We sure do, under the name of Collins.”
The transaction is painless and before we know it Emily and I are heading out to our Camry rental. The moment we step outside we’re assaulted by Sydney’s heat and humidity.
“Fuck me, it’s damned hot here,” I groan to Emily. Beads of sweat instantly pop from my forehead and roll down the sides of my face.
Throwing our bags in the trunk, I get into the driver’s seat and have to acclimate myself to all things Australian. The weather’s so damned hot, and everyone’s accents are thick and strange. The steering wheel is on the opposite side of the car, and they drive on the wrong fucking side of the road.
Emily gets a text and sets the GPS to the address Agent sent for the house we’ll be staying in. We drive for a while and cross over the Sydney Harbour Bridge into a residential neighborhood that has a mixture of houses and apartment buildings.
It’s an older area of Sydney, where the houses have charm and depth of character, with weathered roofs and chipped paint falling off the exterior walls. The yards are small but mostly green, the sidewalks lined with eucalyptus trees.
We find the house easily. It’s quite run down on the outside, but it fits in nicely, nestled among other similar houses. It sits further back on its plot and not too close to its neighbors, a good distance guaranteeing there won’t be much disruption to the neighborhood.
The inside is a complete contrast to the outside. The furniture is modern, the walls painted in calming colors, and the doors are reinforced. Immediately I call Agent.
“Ben.”
“What is this place?”
“You could say it was a dealer’s house. The walls are sound-proofed, the doors not so easy to break into or out off, and the windows are bullet-proof.”
“Fuck, what sort of dealer lived here?”
“One who’s now in jail, so you’ll be fine.”
“Tell me about the brothel that 15’s in.”
“It’s owned by a husband and wife, and they’ve got a reputation for letting anything go between their clients and their girls. They keep the girls drug-dependent. They’ve got a high turnover and the local cops are in their pockets. I’ve got CCTV from around the area, but nothing from inside. I’ll send the address. The wife runs it, her name’s Veronica White; her husband’s Alva White. They have a daughter, Chastity, and I hate to say it, Ben, but she’s just as bad the parents. I’ve done some digging around and found that she helps them run the place, drumming up business for them online and bringing men in for their ‘special services’.”
The HiT Series Page 44