by D. V. Berkom
“Yes. But I also work for an anti-trafficking organization called Stop Human Enslavement Now, also known as SHEN.”
“Interesting change of pace. Tell me, how did you become involved in the business of finding lost souls?”
“I guess you could say I stumbled onto the opportunity.”
“So many are lured into being captured. Like a spider with its prey…” Kavi stared into the distance, seemingly somewhere else. He shook himself and smiled, refocusing on Leine and his beer. “Only good can come when a person like you helps these people. Not many have your talents.”
Leine smiled at her old friend. “I think that’s probably a good thing, Kavi.”
“Maybe,” Kavi replied with a shrug. “Maybe not.”
CHAPTER 8
EARLY THE NEXT morning Leine made her way into Chinatown, before the heat and humidity joined with gridlocked traffic and turned Bangkok into a convection oven, steaming everything by exhaust. She didn’t expect to find out much about the trafficker who had purchased Kylie—that information would hopefully come through Kavi’s efforts—but she couldn’t just stay in her hotel room and do nothing until he contacted her.
The district was busy, with shopkeepers and customers already ensconced in the age-old dance of commerce. Everything could be found for sale here, from cheap knock-offs to fetishes to exotic fare for that night’s dinner. There was a huge market for religious statues and talismans made of “certified ivory” although most were not, along with cages filled with exotic and endangered animals for sale. Black rhinoceros horn could fetch upwards of sixty thousand a kilogram and was thought to cure cancer and magically restore men’s youthful vigor. It always amazed Leine the extent to which some men would go in order to achieve an erection. Didn’t they realize the tongue was mightier than the sword?
Sex was a huge industry in Bangkok. A large proportion of the prostitutes were from rural areas and had been sold into slavery by their families to send money back to support them, but there were many who didn’t have familial ties. Leine knew of several non-profits that worked tirelessly to put sex trafficking rings out of business, as did the Thai government, but like most criminal enterprises, when you cut off one head, more grew back to take its place.
Bangkok had always been an interesting mix of modern and ancient that Leine found intriguing. Sleek, massive shopping malls with designer stores and high-end restaurants peacefully coexisted next to three-hundred-year-old temples boasting golden spires and building-sized statues of Buddha. Traffic was horrendous, and for much of the year the city was hot and exhaustively humid, but somehow Bangkok always wrapped itself around her psyche like an eel and wouldn’t let go. Even though the city was known for rampant petty crime, Thais were generally such positive and happy people Leine almost didn’t mind having her pocket picked.
Besides, they smiled when they did it.
Leine ordered a bowl of cow pot kai from a vendor at a food stall and stood off to the side to eat while watching the parade of humanity go by. People of all ages scurried past speaking different languages, accompanied by the clamor of the cars and three-wheeled, gas-powered tuk tuks. The colors and sounds, and especially the smells, washed over her as she sized up the neighborhood.
She had just finished her bowl of chicken fried rice and was preparing to go back to her hotel when her cell phone buzzed. She checked caller ID—it was Kavi.
“That’s pretty quick, Kavi. What have you got for me?”
“You were right. Your man Wang is involved with one of the local triads. He’s directly involved in purchasing women from the US and Canada. Apparently he’s a mid-level diplomat based in Tanzania who trafficks in ivory and black rhino horns to pay for the women. He then provides them to the highest bidder, often Middle Eastern and Asian traffickers who in turn either pimp them out or sell them to other buyers. Currently, it’s more lucrative to sell them to someone than turn them out to work the streets of Bangkok.”
“I assume he uses his diplomatic status for smuggling?”
“Yes. My source tells me he makes several trips a year for ivory, and rhino horn whenever his contacts are able to procure it.”
“Would your contact be willing to meet with me?” Leine asked.
Kavi paused. “That would be very dangerous. He is an extremely cautious man, and I did not tell him the nature of my inquiry.”
“Would he be willing to set up a meeting with Wang?”
“Possibly.” Kavi’s tone was wary.
“Tell him I’m the representative for a wealthy Saudi buyer who has a penchant for Western women and wishes to remain anonymous. I’ll do the rest.”
“I’ll see what I can do. I trust you remember your Mandarin?”
“Of course.” Leine checked her watch. “I’ll call Lou to let him know where this is headed. I’ll need the usual.”
“I’ll have it ready for you by this afternoon. Shall we say two o’clock at your hotel?”
“See you then.”
***
As promised, Kavi met Leine at her hotel promptly at two. When he left, Leine had additional ammunition and a suppressor for the nine millimeter Lou had secured, a fake passport with her photograph under a name she’d used during previous visits to Southeast Asia, and another burner phone with pre-programmed numbers for Kavi and his triad contact.
Leine activated the tracking device Lou had given her and then called to check in. The small tracker fit inside the back of her watch and uploaded the information to a satellite to pinpoint her location through her phone. In turn her location was transmitted to a website that could be viewed by anyone with a password in any part of the world. She’d given Kavi a link to the website and his own password so he would be able to monitor her whereabouts.
“I gotta say, I’m not thrilled about you doing this, Leine,” Lou said. “You know how unpredictable those guys are. Just when you think they’re your new best friend, they split your head open with a cleaver.”
“I’m a big girl, Lou. I’ve dealt with these types before.”
Lou sighed. “Yeah, I know. Just like I know what I’m about to tell you is going to piss you off.”
Leine stiffened. “What?”
“Your daughter’s on the flight to Dubai.”
“My daughter—”
“I’ve got Brigit and Andrew on the same flight, so the tongue-lashing I know you’re about to unleash on me can wait. April’s in good hands. Besides, she insisted—made a cogent argument citing her ability to get inside the trafficking ring and lead us to the next link in the chain.”
Leine took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“Look, she’ll be fine. Like I said, she’s in good hands with Andrew and Brigit. They won’t let anything happen to her.”
“She doesn’t have any experience. What if Andy and Brigit lose track of her? You know how easy it is to lose an asset, especially if the targets figure out they’re being tracked. What happens then, Lou?” Leine’s heart rate sped up to match the anger rising in her chest. “This is my daughter we’re talking about.”
“Look, she’s a good kid. She’s not going to do anything stupid. She’ll be fine.” Lou paused a moment. “She wants to be like you, Leine.”
The words stopped her cold, the chilling implication of that simple statement breaking through her like a wave.
“She can’t.” She could never allow her daughter to follow in her footsteps. The nightmares alone would be enough to stop most people from even considering the idea. Eliminating a threat—and, if April continued down the road she was on, killing someone was almost certainly in the cards—royally fucked with a person’s psyche—horribly, sickeningly, absolutely fucked with your sense of self, your sense of reality. Leine didn’t do what she did all those years—working for the agency and assuring April would never be a target—for her daughter to gravitate toward the one thing Leine didn’t want for her.
“No. You get her back, Lou,” Leine sa
id, keeping her voice steady. “If anything, and I mean anything, happens to my daughter I’m holding you responsible. We both know what that means.”
“April will be fine. You have my word.” Lou’s tone told her he meant what he said. The problem was they both knew good intentions weren’t enough.
“That makes me feel so much better.”
“I told her if she feels threatened to say so and Brigit and Andrew would get her out. She was absolutely fine with that.”
“Of course she was, Lou. She’s never been undercover before. Just because she can handle a gun and knows a few self-defense moves doesn’t mean she’s ready for this type of work.” Leine rotated her neck until it cracked, her anger at another end run by Lou and April surging to the surface. “You wired her, right?”
“Of course. She posted selfies on FindMe of her and two other girls she was with on the flight before takeoff, and we’re circulating their pictures through the proper channels. I haven’t seen any more activity on her account, and Brigit confirmed that the girls’ phones had been confiscated by their handler prior to takeoff. I notified our contact in Dubai and he’ll be there when the plane lands.”
“Keep me posted.”
“Of course.” Lou fell silent but didn’t end the call.
“What?”
“You know you have to let April make her own decisions, right? She’s over twenty-one, for chrissakes.”
“Lou? Lou? Are you still there? Damn. Bad connection. I’ll call you back later.”
Leine punched the end call button and slid the phone into her pocket. She didn’t need Lou or anyone else to tell her that she should let go of April, but not like this. Leine had been what she herself deemed a shitty mother up until a couple of years ago, and now that their relationship was on track to being what it was before Carlos’s death, she didn’t want things to go sideways. Yes, April traveled extensively and could handle herself, especially now that Leine had taught her self-defense and how to handle weapons, but she was still her daughter. April’s entry into undercover work for SHEN was unacceptable. She needed more training.
Tension pushing her, she grabbed the semiauto off the bed and retrieved a towel from the bathroom. She brought everything over to the table, and, with the practiced efficiency of someone who’d repeated an activity hundreds of times, methodically broke down the gun and began to clean each component. She needed something to take her mind off her daughter and to keep herself busy while she waited for Kavi’s call, and cleaning weapons relaxed her.
Once she’d finished with the gun she brought up the Internet and logged into an online language site, accessing the Mandarin modules to brush up her skills. Relieved to find she wasn’t as rusty as she’d anticipated, after quizzing herself a few times she lay on the bed and closed her eyes.
Five minutes later she got up and grabbed her phone, intending to call Santa just to hear his voice, but decided against it. He’d want to know how the case was going, and would probably be able to tell if she was leaving anything out. There was no need to worry him. His tone would raise an octave like it did when he was stressed out—especially if she told him she was posing as a trafficker and meeting with a member of Chinese organized crime. He’d go ballistic when he heard what April and Lou had done.
She sat down at the table and stared out the window at the overcast, smog-laden sky. Memories of a job she did in Bangkok years before flooded her mind, and before she could shut it down, an image from her past hit her full force in the solar plexus. Her breath caught as the scene unfolded in her head.
The way she remembered it was straight out of a B-grade Hollywood film from the forties: a dark night on a deserted street, droplets of water glistening from a recent downpour, Leine in deep shadow in an alley waiting for a contact.
She remembered checking her watch and growing impatient for Kavi’s predecessor, Bapit, to show. Bapit was fifteen minutes late, so Leine turned to leave and bumped into him—his lifeless form hanging from a sign advertising electronics. But a broken neck wasn’t what killed him.
He’d been gutted from breastbone to groin, his intestines wrapped around his neck like a scarf. His eyes were seeping holes, an exclamation above his open mouth, frozen in a terror-filled, soundless scream. The fingernails were gone, the flesh still bleeding.
Eric shut down the operation and called her back to the States, knowing it was too dangerous to continue. She’d never understood why the same people who killed Bapit hadn’t tried to kill her. Obviously, they knew she was going to be there or they wouldn’t have left the calling card. Bapit had been young and inexperienced, and Leine couldn’t shake the feeling of responsibility. She’d been the one to inform his family of his death: a young wife with a new baby on the way and two doting parents whose stoic reaction broke Leine’s heart.
She swore after that operation to never work with an inexperienced contact again.
Leine pulled up the Internet and checked her daughter’s FindMe page, studying her expression in the photograph from the plane for clues of what she was feeling. Excitement and laughter, but Leine also sensed fear.
Good. She needs to be afraid. She’ll be more aware of her surroundings that way.
Fear had been a constant in her work as an assassin. But fear was a good thing more often than not, as long as she didn’t allow it to overwhelm her thought processes. Fear kept her on edge, hyper alert to danger and anything out of the ordinary. At the agency, she tended to blow off the operatives who never admitted being nervous when they were in play. Their bravado did nothing for them, and more often pointed to a flaw in their psychological makeup. Many times they’d commit a fatal error that could be traced back to not permitting fear its due. Leine welcomed the feeling, was suspicious if it didn’t make an appearance, but never allowed it free rein.
A few minutes later her phone rang. Caller ID indicated it was Kavi.
“The meeting is at five o’clock tomorrow afternoon. I have received confirmation that an American girl is part of Wang’s next shipment, although I am not certain it is the woman you’re looking for.”
“When does the shipment leave Bangkok?”
“Late tomorrow night, so timing is critical. You will meet Wang’s associate at the Import Emporium Number Sixty Three in Chinatown, and he will take you to him. You’re to come alone, and I suggest you be unarmed. Weapons tend to make these people nervous.”
“Not a problem. Thank you for setting this up. I owe you a Singha.”
“You will owe me much more than that if the meeting is successful.”
“You know I’m good for it.”
“Of course. I will monitor your progress, but do forgive me if I remain many miles distant.”
Guilt from the reminder of his predecessor’s demise carved into her gut. “As you wish, Kavi. Like I said, I owe you.”
“Good luck,” Kavi replied. “I will say a prayer for you.”
“Thank you. I will do the same for you.”
Leine ended the call and slid the phone back into her pocket. It was a fifty-fifty chance that Kylie would be on that ship, although the timing certainly worked. Either way, Leine was closer to finding her. She’d have preferred to meet with Wang that evening but knew from experience he would need time to check her credentials, bogus though they may be. The name on the passport Kavi had provided, Claire Sanborn, had a history in this part of the world. The gap in activity wouldn’t raise alarms—many times, criminals would either drop from sight after being arrested or would go to ground if incarceration was imminent. The six or seven years between Claire’s trips wouldn’t be viewed with suspicion.
Leine picked up the phone and ordered an early dinner, opting not to deal with the energy-sapping humidity of late afternoon Bangkok.
There’d be plenty of time for that tomorrow.
CHAPTER 9
LEINE ARRIVED IN Chinatown at a quarter of four and made her way through the narrow streets of Sampeng Market, searching for the Import Emporium. The bruta
l humidity promised a singularly sodden and energy-depleting evening ahead, and the crush of shoppers didn’t make progress easy. The store’s black and red sign blended well with the rest, and it took her a couple of passes to find it.
She ordered tea from a vendor a few stalls away and sipped it while monitoring activity in and out of the store. An older man wearing dreads shot through with gray and what looked like a bone necklace swept the sidewalk in front of the establishment, his attention riveted to his task. Wiry and tall, he wore sandals and a vibrantly colored tunic over loose, flowing pants, and had an energy about him that seemed unusual given the weather.
The man finished his task and went back into the building. Occasionally a customer would disappear through the doorway, then reappear several minutes later carrying a small paper bag. Curious, Leine finished her tea and crossed the narrow street, dodging pushcarts and the occasional motorbike.
Inside was cool, dark, and musty. Hundreds of ivory statues depicting Buddhist and Hindu gods, lotus flowers, elephants, horses, and dragons crowded glass shelves, vying for space in the small store. Chinese coins tied with red ribbons hung from the ceiling, along with other good-fortune amulets. There was no one in front. A curtain of multi-colored plastic beads hung behind the register, leading to a back room.
She walked over to one of the shelves to examine the figurines. Most were supposedly made of legal ivory, indicated by a written explanation, paper yellow with age and taped multiple times to the shelf. Leine would bet most of her 401K that the “legal” ivory had been smuggled from East Africa into Thailand, probably by Wang or an associate.
“Good afternoon, madam. I am Abraham. May I help you?”
Leine turned as the man with the dreads appeared in the doorway at the back of the store. The cascading tinkle of plastic beads accompanied his entrance.
“Good afternoon. I’m curious about the price of your statues.” She held up a large likeness of the Buddha with gold accents on the deity’s head and hands. “And if they truly are legal ivory, as your sign says.”