by Chris Allen
“Like Dee,” said Ştefania. She wouldn’t dare say “the Witch” out loud.
Jovana nodded. “And … like you, I suppose.”
“This is too random,” said Ştefania. She sat down on one of the sunloungers and Jovana did the same. The whole situation was starting to make sense. Ştefania was moving out and Jovana was being moved in to replace her. She started thinking closely about her encounter with Marcos. He knew Godek. She’d seen them talking like friends … “We really shouldn’t be seen together,” she realized suddenly.
“But why? No one’s ever told me anything like that. Why can’t we talk?”
“Because every minute of your day is planned for you – what time you get up, what time you can swim, eat, shower, piss – am I right?”
Jovana remained silent.
“That’s because she doesn’t want you to see anybody you shouldn’t.”
There was a clamor of activity coming from the house. Male voices. They’d returned from their night off.
“Fuck! They’re back already,” said Ştefania, frightened. “They can’t find us together. Come on!”
She grabbed Jovana by the hand and the two of them ran back to the house, avoiding the main path as they did. Ştefania led the way through the palms and ferns, the branches whipping at their arms and faces as they ran. Soon they were through and clear. There were just ten feet of open space between the end of the garden and the tiled path back to their rooms in the guest wing. The two of them stood still for a second, watching and listening. There was nothing. The men were all over on the other side of the house, on the floor above. No one had come outside on to the balcony.
“OK,” whispered Ştefania, still holding Jovana’s hand. “They’re all inside. It sounds like they’ve brought some girls back with them. Quickly!”
With that, they broke cover and ran for the door.
*
Standing just far enough back from the balcony so he couldn’t be seen from below, Godek Kajkowski watched the girls. His right arm was outstretched and in his hand was an iPhone. The phone gave a series of digital clicks, capturing the scene perfectly. He dropped the phone back into his pocket and headed downstairs.
CHAPTER 45
Jovana was in her room. She was on the bed, clutching her legs protectively against her body. Her eyes were closed tight and she was rocking back and forth.
She was thinking about the girl, Ştefania, and what she had said about Dee. Why did they look so alike and why had Dee chosen her, Jovana, when she already had another girl who was identical to her, almost her twin? And what did Ştefania mean about every minute and every day being planned? It had seemed that way at first but Jovana thought that was just because it was all so new. Was she being taken care of or was she being used – again? Why did it always have to be so hard? Why did this have to happen to her? All she wanted was her freedom, her life back. Why did people always think they could own her?
She’d heard a commotion outside in the corridor. A lot of noise, the voices of men, cajoling, howling and whistling. “Ştefania!” they were calling. “Ştefania, where are you? You’ve been a bad girl again.” It was the younger guys. Two or three of them, she thought. Assholes.
Tentatively, Jovana got off the bed, went to the door of her room and pressed her ear against it, listening, terrified. What did they want with Ştefania? Had they been seen together? She stayed pressed against the door as the voices passed by and continued further along the corridor, still calling out, taunting.
She reached for the handle and grabbed it, but froze immediately.
A loud series of bangs – one, two, three – in quick succession startled her and she jumped away from the door. It happened again – bang, bang, bang! The sound of a heavy fist pounding on a door down the corridor.
“Ştefania! Open the door!”
She heard the voice and knew it immediately, deep, cruel and older than the others. The leader of the pack; the animal with no compassion – Godek. He had given Jovana the worst of the treatment she’d received on the night they’d brought her back, fucking her as if she was nothing more than a lifeless sex toy.
“Ştefania!” Godek demanded again. And then, when there was no response from the room, she heard him bark at one of the other men, “Open it!”
What followed terrified Jovana. As the men burst into the room, she heard Ştefania screaming, pleading with them to leave her alone, but that wasn’t going to happen. Jovana fell to the floor and curled into a fetal position by the door, shaking and crying, covering her ears, trying to block out the unimaginable trauma of hearing the girl, one just like her, being attacked by the men. Her attempts to block it out proved futile until Ştefania’s exhausted screams became nothing more than muted cries.
Sometime later – Jovana didn’t know how long – she was wrenched from a fear-induced semiconsciousness by a deafening thump on her door. It sounded like a kick. Instantly she was awake. She scurried over to the bed to huddle there before the door opened. She waited in panicked silence, clutching a pillow, shaking uncontrollably. But the door didn’t open. All she could hear was the sound of an utterly defeated Ştefania protesting in vain as she was dragged from her room and along the corridor. Jovana tried to call out, to offer her comfort or even hope, but fear froze the words in her mouth. Outside, the volume of the girl’s cries diminished as they took her away.
A key rattled in Jovana’s door. She recoiled, stumbled into her en suite bathroom, slammed the door shut and locked it, pressing herself as far back into the room as she could, looking for something to defend herself with – realizing that there was absolutely nothing that she could use as a weapon.
An unnerving silence ensued. It lasted for about thirty seconds and then a voice, very close to the door, jolted her.
“You’re lucky you’re not getting the same treatment as your friend right now, little princess,” whispered Godek. “But the Witch has other plans for you.”
“Leave me alone,” she screamed. “Go away!”
“Don’t worry, I will,” he sneered. “But when I come back, you might not be so lucky.”
CHAPTER 46
“So, the investors want to send some of their people along to attend your meeting with the Chinese. What’s the problem with that?” Morgan asked, purposely rattling Voloshyn’s cage. They were in the Mercedes SUV returning from Placencia Airport. You could cut the air with a chainsaw. The Witch was in the back with Dariusz and Morgan was up front with the driver. Voloshyn had her eyes glued to her iPhone, tapping furiously. She looked disturbed, like she’d received bad news, and Morgan wanted to push her buttons. “Sounds like they’re protecting their end of the deal. Makes sense.”
“Why the fuck does it make sense?” she demanded, annoyed, dropping the iPhone back into her lap.
“Well, from what you’ve told me, they’re investing some serious money in your operation and the uncertainty around this Hong Kong angle seems important to them. Fair enough, too. After the trouble you had there – you said so yourself, something about putting the deal back by weeks? Well, if you ask me, it makes sense that they’d want one of their own people on the ground here.”
“I don’t care what they want. I don’t like being fucking supervised,” she snapped. “And nobody fucking asked you! You’re on the payroll to make sure nothing goes wrong, not to give me fucking business advice. So start thinking about that.”
Morgan remained silent for the rest of the drive. He was pleased with her reaction, albeit with reservations. She was definitely on edge, as he’d seen from the moment she had emerged from the meeting with the investors back in LA. He had been relegated to nothing more than a guard dog, sitting obediently outside the hotel suite. Occasionally Dariusz would come out to see if he was still there, behaving.
Morgan had decided to play the bodyguard role to the hilt. If they wanted him to be a hired gun, then that’s what he’d be. At least now he was on the inside and close enough to see exactly what was going o
n around her. When the meeting eventually finished, he had escorted her back to her suite – after making a show of clearing it – and withdrawn to his own room until they checked out that morning.
When Morgan had first climbed into the Mercedes for the trip from the airport, he’d known nothing at all about the outcome of the meeting. Now, by listening to their muted conversation, grabbing the few strands he could decipher, picking his moment and choosing the correct strategy, his direct questions had unsettled her. In the space of just a few minutes, he’d confirmed that Wu Ming was coming to the villa in two days’ time to close the deal, and that the “investors,” whoever they were, were sending down a representative. For Morgan, this was a potential goldmine of intelligence and, more than anything, an unprecedented opportunity to rattle Voloshyn’s cage to maximum effect.
“Rather than enduring any more of your silent treatment,” he began, after a few moments, “I’d actually prefer to enjoy the rest of my day. You can drop me back at the hotel. If you decide you’d actually like to utilize my expertise then one of your boys can collect me in the morning. If not, I’m going to squeeze some quality downtime out of the next few hours and wish you all the best with your meeting. I’ll fly out tomorrow.”
Morgan didn’t receive a response but noted an exchange of looks between the driver and Voloshyn via the rear-view mirror. Then, as they approached the Paradise Palms Resort, the driver suddenly spun the wheel hard left off the main road and the Mercedes came to a stop in front of the hotel’s reception foyer. Morgan stepped out calmly and just managed to extract his bags from the back of the SUV before the driver planted his foot again and they all sped away.
“Cheers,” he said to the back of the vanishing car.
“Welcome back, sir. May I help you with your bags?”
It was one of the hotel staff Morgan had met when he’d first arrived in Placencia. He was smiling broadly and holding the doors open.
“Thank you very much,” Morgan replied as he wandered through. “But I can manage.”
“Good afternoon, Mr Culliford,” came an equally pleasant greeting from a young woman who appeared to have been waiting for him personally at the reception desk. Her nametag said “Emily.” She turned and withdrew an old Lockwood key on a tag from a board behind her. They hadn’t quite advanced to smartcard technology here yet. “We’ve kept your room for you.”
Morgan considered the futility of requesting another room within a hotel owned by his adversary and filled to the gunnels with staff on her payroll. He accepted the proffered key without protest. If the Night Witch wanted someone to access his room they would do it. Changing rooms wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference. Besides, he had nothing on him or in his luggage that could compromise him. He wasn’t even carrying a gun – or any other weapons, for that matter – which made him feel naked. Even the cell phone he was using was a standard, commercially available iPhone. That said, before he’d left LA he’d managed to get a call through to his friend Bill in Guatemala. He, like Morgan, was ex-Parachute Regiment and they knew each other well enough to call in favors. If things were going to heat up as much as Morgan expected they would, then he was going to need some tools. He checked his watch and looked around the foyer, hoping Bill remembered that today was the day he needed them. Nothing and no one. Shit.
Morgan made his way back through the hotel, up to the third and top floor, and meandered to his room. Despite the east-facing, ocean-view aspect, and the fact that it was being advertised as a four-star luxury destination favored by international guests, the hotel was three star at best. Morgan didn’t care. Anything that didn’t involve him sleeping on the ground under a square of porous plastic was five star in his eyes. He was just glad to have some time away from Voloshyn and her crew. Over the past couple of days, he had found his necessary association with them, particularly her, nauseating. He knew it was a gamble, leaving her with an ultimatum as he had, but he felt she’d take the bait. She was panicked, stressed and vulnerable. She knew it and she also knew she was surrounded by morons at a time when she could least afford to be. Above all, with the pressure of the visit by Wu Ming and her investors’ watchdog looming ever larger on the horizon, she was desperate. She needed Morgan more than she realized.
When he entered his room, he dropped his bag on the spot made for it, sat on the bed to pull off his R. M. Williams boots, and then dialed reception.
“Hello, sir. This is Emily, how may I help you?”
“Hello, Emily. I wonder if you would book me a flight to Belize City, leaving late tomorrow morning?”
“I’m afraid the earliest flight out tomorrow isn’t until two pm, sir.”
“That’s absolutely fine,” he replied. “Go ahead and make the arrangements for me and I’ll pay the airline once you let me know.”
“Very well, sir. I’ll call you back shortly.”
“Thanks,” he replied, and hung up.
That would take no time at all to get back to Voloshyn. At least she’d know he was serious about leaving. Now he had time to think and knew he needed to focus on how to approach his duties over the next few days. He would be expected to pull out all the stops ahead of an important meeting with her commercial partners involving a deal worth multimillions, in fact billions, of dollars. He’d nettled her enough. When she sent her driver to collect him in the morning, and she would, he needed to show her that he knew what he was doing, and to do that he needed to have a look around her villa without her knowledge.
He walked over to the writing desk and found a map of Placencia among the piles of tourist guff. He laid it out on the bed and refreshed his memory of the key landmarks along the coast between the Paradise Palms and Voloshyn’s villa, about six miles due north. If he took a cab even partway, word would get around within seconds of his leaving the hotel. Scratch that. Alternatively, it’d take him a bit over an hour and a half to walk it or about forty-five minutes to run. That was an idea. He loved to run. It was a rare bonus when an opportunity to strap on the trainers occurred while deployed on a mission.
Back home in Surrey, running was his morning ritual, usually about five miles. Twice a week, time permitting, he’d stretch it out to a fifteen-mile circuit – from his house on the outskirts of Farnham, through the town, up the hill past Farnham Castle toward Odiham, then Fleet, then back via Church Crookham and home. It would usually take him around two hours, give or take. Running kept him honed physically and grounded mentally. The inherent stress of his profession and living in the constant shadow of his own mortality obliged him to take care of himself. If he let the ritual slip when he was at home it would be too easy to fall into old habits from his army days.
Morgan loved a drink to shut down, always had, and never more so than when he could enjoy a few with his closest friends, but with a nagging tendency toward melancholy – which he blamed on his Welsh genes – he wasn’t about to allow complacency to get the better of him. So, he decided, after all the traveling and sitting around he’d done so far on this mission, a run would do him a lot of good right now.
Then there was a knock at the door.
Morgan sprang across the room noiselessly and waited a moment. There was a pause of a few seconds followed by a second tap and then a business card was pushed under the door. Morgan reached across and picked it up.
AJ ARMSTRONG
PRINCIPAL CONSULTANT
IRONSIDE SECURITY
There was an email address and a series of numbers – cells, landlines and faxes – all listed by country and all prefixed with the international codes for Mexico, Guatemala and Belize respectively. Morgan flipped the card. A handwritten note on the back read: Bill says hello.
Standing next to the wall for cover, Morgan reached across and opened the door.
“All right, boss?” came a jovial greeting, accompanied by an equally jovial face. The man was about Morgan’s height, somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties, a rugby player type. He was stocky with dark hair shaved alm
ost down to the scalp, cauliflower ears and a flattened nose. He was dressed in the obligatory soldier’s “day-off” rig: cargo shorts, sports sandals and T-shirt. Looping a finger through the collar of the T-shirt he dragged it down just enough to reveal the cap badge of the Parachute Regiment with the Roman numeral II beneath it, tattooed across the left side of his chest. Morgan smiled warmly, holding up three fingers in response to indicate he had served with 3PARA.
“Right to come in, am I?” asked the new arrival.
“Of course, mate,” Morgan replied, relaxing and shaking the man’s hand. He held a cautionary finger to his lips, indicating that he expected the room was bugged. He got an “acknowledged” nod back from the other man as he stepped into the room. “Come in. Great to see you again.”
“So how are you, boss?” the man asked. The two men had never met before. “It’s been a while.”
“I’m good, AJ,” replied Morgan warmly. “Jesus, I haven’t seen you in ages.”
“Yeah, it’s been fucken forever. Kabul, I s’pose, when you was with the Aussies, yeah?”
AJ crossed his eyes and made a wanking gesture with his hand, taking the piss. He knew the score. While he spoke, he slipped a daypack from his shoulder and extracted a heavy but compact parcel from within it. It was an olive drab waterproof dry-sack fastened tight across the top. He handed it to Morgan and made a pistol signal with his finger and thumb, followed by a slitting motion across his own throat. Morgan nodded gratefully and gave him the thumbs up.
“Hope you don’t mind me droppin’ in unannounced and all that but, you know, I was sure I saw you down the bar a couple of nights ago only I was with a client then, know what I mean? So, here’s me, I had time up me sleeve today an’ I thought I’d see if you were still here, like. And, fuck me, no sooner had I walked into the foyer than there you were disappearing into the fucken lift. I’ve knocked on almost every door on this fucken floor.”