Delta_Ricochet

by Cristin Harber

  “You two have made your point. I don’t comment on what people move. I am only a booker.”

  “Two, three weeks, easy.” Adelia’s fury grew as she eyed the rusted metal boxes and couldn’t imagine the conditions inside.

  “You people move guns. Kiss my ass,” Silvio snapped.

  Adelia wasn’t in the frame of mind to fight an argument about what was the better of two evils. “My people? But those are people—women and girls—kidnapped from their homes and sold.”

  “I’m a booker.” His eyes dulled again. “Shipping freight. I book container space.”

  “You know who moves what.” Adelia could remember conversations over the years that she’d had with her network of old ladies when the women and girls that they’d purchased and rescued had been in bad shape, dehydrated and malnourished. There had been questions of exposure, but everyone had assumed it was before procurement. No one would’ve believed that shipping could take this long under these conditions. Or at least she wouldn’t. “Open the door.”

  Silvio remained silent for the longest of prayers that Adelia had ever uttered before he turned and unlocked the padlocks, hauling the rusted door open.

  Putrid scents overpowered them as cold, stale air leaked from the dark box.

  Lenora whistled. “Quite a few souls going to hell over this one.”

  Vomit. Urine. Feces. Decay. Adelia couldn’t separate the aromas but knew they were all there. “Not everyone lives, do they?”

  “I have no idea what happens with merchandise.”

  She pulled her shirt over her mouth and nose, gagging as she stepped into the cold, metal death box. How could it be that much colder inside the container, she had no idea.

  “You’re telling me.” She slowly paced the length of the cargo hold. Every step made her boots echo with a cold metallic rattle, and she clanked back to the edge, pulling her shirt away from her lips. “This was our container?”

  He kicked the toe of his loafer against the edge of the container. “Mayhem’s had more than—”

  “God, you bullshit a lot.” Adelia pulled her shirt up again.

  He ran a hand over his slicked-back hair. “This transported Mayhem’s recent shipment.”

  Waves of nausea stole the strength from her legs. Nothing about this container said anything about their smuggled assaults rifles. No scent of guns or the coffee beans coming from South America. She wasn’t looped in on the weapons purchases and had no idea where the shipment had originated. Russians, Irish, or Mexicans—it didn’t matter. “This smells like death.”

  Lenora stepped inside the cargo container and backed against the metal wall. Adelia moved next to her.

  “This was a cage.” Lenora slapped her hands against the rusted walls. “A torture device.”

  “How did they survive?”

  Silvio grunted, motioning to the corners of the grooved metal walls. “It works.”

  Adelia’s eyes narrowed on the slices running along the seams. Only when she looked did she spot obvious signs that the container had been rigged to support ventilation. “That’s inadequate at best.”

  “We weren’t running the Ritz.”

  She sliced a gaze Silvio’s way. “You think this is funny?”

  “Ease up. Okay? If they don’t use me, they use someone else.”

  Asshole. Lenora was right. Souls would burn in hell. “The temperatures alone could kill.” The sun would bake, or the cold could become extreme.

  Adelia wasn’t sure she could leave the metal box even as the scent of urine and feces stained her nostrils and throat. This could have been her. She’d been so close to this a lifetime ago. There was no telling where she would’ve gone if Mayhem hadn’t saved her. And… this was what she’d supported. “I had no idea.”

  “Most people don’t,” Silvio added. “She’s—”

  “She’s?” Lenora cut in. “We’ve gone from they to she.”

  She… A woman was doing this to other women? Not that it was any better or worse if a man did it.

  “Who?” Adelia asked.

  Silvio laughed harshly. “Like hell. We’re both going to die, but if I have my druthers, I’m opting for the cyanide route and as little pain as possible.”

  She charged forward, wrapping her hands around his thick neck, digging her fingers into his tendons and windpipe as he strained, falling backward. They piled onto the concrete, and she waited for Lenora’s command to let him go. His eyes searched for the same. Silvio clawed to unwrap her hands. It didn’t come. Lenora would let her do it.

  Adelia dropped her face to his. Her rage fueled her strength, pumping blood into her muscles and making her temples pound and pulse. “Who is she?”

  He gasped and choked, sputtering until he nodded. She released her chokehold. “Who?”

  “You’ll,” he panted, “never… believe.”

  “Try me.”

  “Gloria Astor,” he said slowly.

  Adelia sat back on his drumstick stomach, and Lenora snorted so hard she coughed.

  “Bull,” Adelia snarled. “Who?”

  “I swear.” He propped an elbow up. “Get off me, and I’ll prove it.”

  Adelia cast a glance at Lenora, who lifted her chin. Adelia pushed off, and they let him stagger up. On his feet again, he put his hands on his knees, hanging his head. His shiny bald spot on swayed side to side.

  “Start talking, my friend,” Lenora encouraged.

  Silvio straightened, smoothing his jacket. “You know who Gloria Astor is?”

  “Yeah,” Adelia snipped. “A living legend for all the good she’s done in the world.”

  “Man,” Silvio said quietly. “She’s got you fooled. The entire world. It’s right in front of your faces. Quite literally, and you can’t see it.”

  “What are you talking about?” Adelia took a step closer. “You said you could prove it. Do it.”

  “Look around!” He threw his arms to the side. “I shouldn’t even have to say a word. Look the fuck around.”

  Adelia did and saw nothing but the same hideous hole that smelled like death and shit. The door read ASTOR SHIPPING. Lenora must’ve seen it at the same time because their glances collided without a word.

  Every muscle felt a hundred pounds heavier, colder. She tried to move, but dread froze her in place until Adelia forced herself into the walkway. ASTOR SHIPPING. The two words were on almost every shipping container she could see.

  “Like I had a choice about what I could double book,” Silvio said. “She owns the transport for the majority of every port, every liner, every shipment in the world.”

  “You said…” Adelia’s voice shook. “She.”

  “She.”

  “Stop playing games,” Lenora demanded.

  “I’m the one playing games? You act like it’s just me who double dips.” He sealed his teeth together and shook his head. “I know the games Mayhem plays.”

  “Don’t change the subject. She!”

  He inhaled deeply and then, squinting at Lenora, squared his shoulders. “Gloria Astor is the brains behind the operation.”

  “Cut the crap.” Lenora rolled her eyes. “You’re spewing all kinds of BS.”

  “Like what?”

  Adelia clung to the hope that Lenora didn’t believe him.

  Doubt like the kinds only a first-rate litigator could conjure in a simple stare crossed Lenora’s face as she crossed her arms. “Like Mayhem’s double dipping and Gloria Astor’s involved with this.”

  “Untrusting.” Silvio rocked back on his heels. “How about I prove it?”

  “You can do that?” Adelia asked.

  “We’ll see.” Lenora remained skeptical. “You know who Gloria Astor is, right? Other than a name related to the labels on these containers?”

  “It’d be impossible not to know.” And not only did Adelia know who she was, she had placed her on a pedestal. The woman was internationally acclaimed leader in the fight against human rights violations. “That’s why he’s wrong.�
��

  “You’re not that naïve,” Silvio said. “Neither of you are.”

  No… She was not. Adelia faced Lenora, whose face was hard and angry. But if Silvio was right, the rest of the world might be that naive—if he was telling the truth, which they’d yet to see pan out.

  “Prove it,” Lenora ordered. “You said you would. That’s a tall tale, a lot of shock and awe to save your ass.”

  His hand twitched—

  “Hold your horses, cowboy,” Lenora demanded. “What are you reaching for?”

  “My phone. Jesus,” he griped. “Not a gun. Not a weapon. Just my cell phone.”

  Lenora nodded. “Slowly.”

  “Paranoid.” He extracted a low-tech, burner cell phone like the ones she and Lenora used and added prepaid minutes to on occasion and held it up. “Who wants to do the honors?”

  Lenora motioned to her. “Adelia.”

  Nerves boiled under her skin, and her hand trembled as she reached for the phone he extended.

  “The only contact under T.”

  Adelia scrolled until she saw Tea House, and her eyebrows arched. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Call. What do I care?”

  She pressed CALL, and the phone rang, answered a moment later with an efficient, “Hello, Astor Residence. How may I direct your call?”

  “Wrong number. I apologize.” Adelia ended the call, turning to Lenora with wide eyes. She hadn’t a clue how the world operated any more. Silvio had Gloria Astor’s home phone number? This sleazy guy, who operated out of a dirty office with half a dozen pots of burnt coffee, knew one of the wealthiest, most philanthropic people on earth.

  “That wasn’t the wrong number, was it?” he asked smugly.

  “No,” Adelia said. “It wasn’t.”

  “Now, if you could leave my name out of this so I can die in as little pain as possible...” He lifted his shoulders. “Or maybe luck is on my side today, and this is as far as this will go.”

  “No names,” Adelia whispered. “But you bet I’m taking this farther.”

  “Of course, she is,” Silvio muttered.

  “Of course, she is,” Lenora snapped at him.

  He beckoned them from the container and locked it, testing the lock twice before backing away. Lenora led their way back to the alley. Adelia followed, and he stayed close. “I don’t suppose I’m getting that cell phone back?”

  “Sure, I don’t want it.” They came out the pathway into the alleyway. “After I take down her phone number. Got a pen?”

  He groaned but pulled one from his breast pocket, and Adelia wrote the digits on the inside of her forearm.

  “Want anyone else’s number since you’re taking whatever you want?”

  “Remind me how much of a dick you are next time I have to pull some fancy moves to keep the assholes in your family out of jail.”

  “Today was a one-time deal.” He tipped his head to Lenora. “If I end up mincemeat, you two had better make whatever you’re doing worth it.”

  “Pretend you never saw us.”

  “I didn’t see you,” Silvio swore.

  “I truly hope you don’t end up dead.” Lenora led them back the way that Silvio had brought them in. “I like working with you, truth be told.”

  Their chatter continued in a cab, and Adelia faded away as she lost count of how many times she saw the words “ASTOR SHIPPING.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  A young girl in uniform appeared, eyes cast down, hair made up perfectly.

  “Green tea. Crushed mint. One sugar.” Gloria retired onto the fainting couch as she waited. The skyline was vast and beneath her. New York City. There was so much green if a person looked in the right spots. Right now, she saw parks and water, exquisite architecture.

  Bringing people to this mecca was a gift. Their other options were horrible: starve to death in a village, be raped and pillaged by God knows who or what in countries that were in the news nightly. What was the opposite of the angel of death? “Gloria Astor.”

  Her lips curled. The woman appeared in the doorway, silver tray in hand, eyes cast down.

  “Careful or the service will fall.”

  She righted her hands, using Gloria’s assessment as permission to enter, and brought the small china teapot to the heirloom side table and set the silver tray without the slightest clatter. Good, the girl was learning. And to think, she could be slurping from a river instead of working in the most powerful city in the world.

  “Now, the tea,” Gloria instructed.

  Steam rose from the delicate glass, and the scent of steeped green tea leaves with the hint of rose hips and mint kissed the air. The nameless girl let a sugar plop needlessly into the cup, and Gloria sliced her with cold disapproval. “That will be all.”

  “Madam,” she whispered.

  Gloria arched an eyebrow. “Yes?”

  “There’s a call waiting.” She bowed, stepping away as though Gloria might lunge from her chaise and whip her back to the shipping freighter from which she’d arrived.

  But a call? Her glance slid to her cell phone, knowing it hadn’t rung. The suite phone took only the most important clients who needed to discuss imperative matters, the type of calls that couldn’t be run through her boards of directors or C-level executives paid far too much in their perks and bonuses when they had no idea what went on in the Astor corporate conglomerate.

  Gloria picked up her tea cup and inhaled the serene scents that melted her worries and centered her mind then sipped her barely sweet, steaming-hot drink.

  Two sips and one long cat stretch later, she slipped off the couch and glided to the desk in the far corner of her sitting room. The barely-used phone waited for her, and with it, all the excellent business opportunities that had come from it.

  She lifted the pearl handle, carefully pushing coiffed hair from her ear. “Yes, hello?”

  Silence.

  Annoyance took her. She sank into the plush chair, agitated that she might wait for the caller. She took off her earing and laid the large ruby on the desk. Then she tried again, “Who’s there?”

  “It is you.” The quiet voice of a young woman came through the line, clear as the sky that overlooked the city today.

  Gloria’s brow furrowed. Of all the people who had this phone number, none were women, and none were young. Again, none would dare speak to her in that tone, accusatory and exhaustingly uninformed. It was almost too tiring to have this conversation. It sounded like someone she’d saved who had a deluded version of what their life could’ve been like. Even more tiring, it could be any number of activists who found reason to protest her, hating her corporate wealth and powerful empire, and yet having no clue what they’d likely despise. If they truly listened, they would have no choice but to agree with her.

  There was a twinge of a Midwestern accent—but mixed with a hint of an exotic twist to her letters that even years of servitude might not be able to rid a person of. “You’re better off, my dear.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You have an idealized vision of what could’ve been, and you’ve forgotten. Maybe too young or dumb, or even…” She flicked her wrist. “Hopeful? To remember what or where you came from.”

  “You have no idea who I am.”

  Gloria could’ve written the script. “Yet you’re all the same. You forget what you’ve been given and what you’ve avoided.”

  “You’re justifying what you do?”

  Why did she bother with these petty conversations? The ones who fought the system, who avoided their destinies—they were the ones who never made it through her process and couldn’t be saved. They’d have never made it anyway, wherever they came from or wherever Gloria sold them, not with that attitude. “You sound older. You’ve been here for some time now.”

  “You don’t know—”

  “In the real world, there are jobs in sales. Are you familiar?” The gaping silence proved that perhaps she was not. “And most sales boil dow
n to numbers. Ten leads could equal one sale.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” the woman snapped.

  “You’re a number. There has to be a certain number of good girls for every headache, and these headaches don’t recall how they were saved.”

  “You’re not saving anyone.”

  “On the contrary, I’m saving hundreds and hundreds.”

  “You’re a hypocrite!”

  Gloria sniffed, raising her nose to stare down at the phone as though she could smell the girl on the other end. Then it occurred to her: of the few times she’d clashed with an ungrateful girl, one that hadn’t learned her new place during the weeks of transport and hunger, it’d never happened without her trusted staff present. Never on the phone. Her phone, her direct line. “How did you get this number?”

  “Maybe you don’t know everything.”

  “Hm.” Gloria’s nonchalant dismissal hid her concern as she made a mental list of those with this phone number.

  “I know what you’ve done, and when I can prove it, the universe will too.”

  “Ha,” she snickered. “That’ll go over as well as the evening new announcing fairy tale princesses are also ax murderers. Your credibility is nonexistent, and mine is…” She smiled, thinking of the politicians and benefactors, fundraisers and publicists she could blink and have fall over themselves. “Well, mine is unblemished.”

  “If I can figure it out, everyone can.”

  Gloria’s senses tingled. Who was on the other end of the line? “Is that so?”

  There wasn’t much to figure out if the woman had been one of her girls. Astor shipping swept away villages of young women who had no better options and shipped them to auction or sale, exactly as they did with any other wholesale merchandise.

  “And who are you?” she pressed.

  “The woman standing outside your building, talking to you on a burner phone. I’ve tracked you down. Found your sources. I was one of your buyers, but now I’m ready.”

  She grabbed the base of the phone and eased to the window, trying to peer down to the sidewalk—impossible. “Ready for what?”