by Lauren Rowe
“I can’t make that promise—not when it comes to these fuckers. Regarding anything and everyone else, yes, I promise—cross my heart and hope to die, I’ll always tell you the truth and never, ever keep anything from you. But when it comes to these motherfuckers, I’m gonna protect you no matter what I have to do, without any limitation on that statement whatsoever, even if that means not telling you something that’d be better for you not to know.”
Chapter 28
Jonas
Henn looks bloodshot and bleary-eyed, like he hasn’t slept a wink all night. We’re all gathered around the table in the suite—the table where my baby became a butterfly so delectably last night—to hear what Henn and his two elves have uncovered about The Club thus far. Kat and Josh don’t look particularly well rested, either, but, clearly, those two have slept, unlike Henn—and, if I’m not mistaken, Josh and Kat are sitting awfully close together at the table, too.
“Well, to summarize,” Henn begins, “we’re dealing with some big shit here, fellas. Like, oh my fucking God.” He cracks a huge smile. “Totally awesome.”
Sarah and I look at each other with nervous anticipation.
“I’ve been dive-bombing down this rabbit hole all night, and every which way leads me down yet another rabbit hole chasing yet another Ukrainian rabbit—I’m running a whole shitload of stuff through translation software, by the way, which isn’t nearly as good as a human translator, but at least it’ll give us an idea—”
“Take a deep breath, Henn,” I say. “Slow down and start from the beginning. You’re like the Energizer Bunny on meth right now.”
Henn stops short and shakes his head. “Sorry, man. I’ve had like three quadruple-shot Americanos in the past twelve hours, plus two red bulls—”
“Jesus, Henn. That shit’ll kill you,” I say.
“Occupational hazard.” He smirks.
“Just summarize what you know so far.”
“Yes. Okay.” Henn takes a deep breath. “We got a pretty good lay of the land last night and it’s cuh-razy-corn chowder.”
I wait.
Henn takes another deep breath. “Almost everything of any interest is in Ukrainian, but there’s also a bunch of stuff in Russian, too—Ukrainian and Russian are distinct languages, did you know that?”
I blink slowly, trying to remain patient. “Just tell me—were you able to get into The Club’s system?”
“No, not yet. Wherever it is, it’s buried deep, deep, deep in the web, way deep. But I’m getting close. I’ve got lots of breadcrumbs to follow. I’m hot on their trail, fellas. And very pretty ladies.” He smiles adoringly at Kat and then as a seeming afterthought shoots a polite wink at Sarah, too.
“You should have seen how Henn figures things out,” Kat says. “He’s a techno-Sherlock Holmes.”
“The man’s a fucking genius,” Josh adds.
Why is it always like herding fucking cats around here? “What do we know so far?” I ask.
“Okay,” Henn says. “Let’s start with their scope of operations. Gigantic. Massive. Huge. Colossal. Mammoth. Way beyond what I expected. This is not some podunk mom and pop prostitution ring—not that I have any basis of comparison with another prostitution ring, of course—but, I’m just saying what I’ve seen has surpassed anything I expected—and, get this, it turns out prostitution is only part of the business.”
“What else do they do?” Sarah asks.
“Well, Oksana runs the prostitution side of things, but Max runs a bunch of other stuff—drugs and weapons, mainly.”
Everyone’s mouths hang open all at once. Holy shit.
“And he’s got a lot of guys working for him, all over the country, but mostly Vegas, Miami, and New York.”
Sarah can’t stop shaking her head. She looks totally floored.
I’m reeling, too. “What kind of volume are we talking about?” I ask. “Like, in terms of dollars.”
“I don’t have access to the banking yet, but I’m guessing the numbers are gonna be big.”
“Define big,” I say.
“Well, extrapolating on a few things I saw in their records—and I’m only extrapolating at this point—I’m guessing half a billion dollars a year. Maybe more.”
Everyone in the room expresses complete shock.
“What about a member list? Any luck on that?” Sarah asks.
“Not yet. The actual data is buried somewhere in The Club’s system, which I’m working on getting, but Oksana’s got this prized list of VIPs she personally handles herself. She doesn’t use real names—it’s all managed with codes and nicknames—but I’ve traced a few things and figured out a few of these guys’ identities. So far there are a bunch of CEOs and corporate bigwigs, some high-profile athletes—you know that guy on the Yankees who just signed that huge deal?—and at least two congressmen have been pretty big clients for quite a while. And there’s this one guy I think might be a really big deal, some sort of über VIP—but I haven’t figured him out yet. But, just from that sampling alone, we’re talking about some high-profile people who’d be pretty bummed to find out they’ve been funding the Russian mafia—or, I guess, the Ukrainian mafia. Although, more on that later.”
Sarah and I exchange a look. I didn’t think about them as “the mafia.” Is that what they are? Shit. My stomach is churning. I’ve been sitting at the table, my knee jiggling wildly, but now I stand and pace the room.
“The identity of that über VIP guy seems like something we’d better nail down,” Henn says. “His emails are double encrypted but I cracked an email from Oksana to Max forwarding one of the über VIP guy’s emails—and the guy said shit like ‘my security personnel will post outside the door.’ He’s got security personnel? And they ‘post’ outside doors? Like, who the fuck says that?”
Sarah looks at me, her eyes bugging out of her head, and I return the sentiment.
“A rock star?” Sarah suggests. “Guys like that always have bodyguards.”
“No,” Henn says. “Not based on what I’ve seen.”
“Yeah, I know plenty of rock stars with bodyguards—and they don’t talk like that,” Josh says. He looks anxious.
“I’ll keep working on it,” Henn says. “Okay, so are you guys ready for your minds to be officially blown?”
“You mean there’s more?” Sarah asks.
“Oh yeah. The next part is what makes this so much fun.” He turns to Kat. “I figured this next part out right after you left last night.”
Kat looks at the rest of us sheepishly. “I finally had to get some sleep.”
“That’s what happens when you don’t subsist on a diet of caffeine and nicotine,” Henn says.
I steal a quick glance at Josh. He doesn’t know what Henn’s about to say, either.
“Did you leave to get some sleep, too?” I ask Josh.
“Yeah, I couldn’t keep up with Henn, either,” Josh says. “I think I left around the time Kat left.” He glances at Kat. “Maybe just a little bit later.”
Holy shit. They’re fucking. I look quickly at Sarah to see if she sees what I see, but she’s pale-faced and anxious, not the least bit interested in whether Kat and Josh are having sex.
“So what is it?” Kat asks, on the edge of her seat.
“I’m still waiting to get a bunch of stuff translated—I’m kind of handicapped by all the Ukrainian and Russian, so I’m not finished yet, but you guys, oh my God—Oksana’s like some kind of political activist. She’s like the Ukrainian Ché Guevara, man. She’s in constant communication with these Ukrainian guys about ‘Donbas.’ I didn’t know what that was, so I looked it up, and it refers to some kind of Ukrainian revolution.”
“The separatists,” I say. This has been all over the news lately.
“Yeah, right? That’s what I thought.” Henn says. “There are all these messages back and forth with these dudes in Ukrainian and she’s spewing propaganda shit, and talking about ‘the cause’ and they’re talking about needed funding and weapons. Lik
e, serious weaponry, guys. Crazy shit. And Oksana keeps saying shit like, ‘Keep the faith.’” Henn says this last part in a cartoon-Russian accent.
“Oh my God,” Josh mumbles.
“What?” Kat says.
“They’re funding the Ukrainian separatists,” Josh explains.
“Which means Oksana’s funding Putin through the back door,” I add.
Kat looks blank. “You guys, break it down for me. Sorry.”
“Okay, back in the day, there was the U.S.S.R., right?” I say. “Then it got broken up into all these pieces—Russia and Ukraine and the Baltic states. Well, now Putin wants to put all the pieces of mother Russia back together again, to resurrect the former empire—and he wants the diamond of his new Soviet Union to be Ukraine.”
Kat nods. “And is Ukraine down with that plan?”
“No, not the official government. But there’s a faction within Ukraine—the separatists—and they want to separate from their government and go along with Putin’s reunification plan. So the separatists have waged armed conflicts with their own government, funded by the Russians.”
I look at Josh. We’re both thinking the same thing: Holy fuck, we gave our money to these people.
Sarah looks the way I feel right now. Mortified.
“Holy shitballs,” Kat says softly.
“Yeah, most definitely,” Henn says. “Well said.”
“We’ve got to find out who Mr. Bigwig VIP is,” I blurt, my stomach lurching into my mouth. “We need to know who all the heavy-hitters are. You said congressmen are involved in this shit, right?”
“Yup,” Henn says.
“That could be really, really bad,” Josh says.
“Seriously. ‘Oh, hi, constituents. Please re-elect me,’” Henn says, putting on his best congressman-voice. “‘I added more police to our streets, got a library built, and voted to increase the minimum wage. Oh, and, I paid a whole bunch of money to a Ukrainian prostitution and weapons ring to fund the reunification of the Soviet Union. Can I count on your vote during the next election?’”
I can’t even laugh. Shit. I didn’t see this one coming at all.
“This is too big for us to handle on our own,” Sarah declares emphatically. “We’ve got to hand this over to the FBI.” Her eyes widen. “Or the CIA? I don’t even know which one. I mean, jeez, I’m a first-year law student at U Dub.” She shakes her head. “This is like, a matter of international significance—and that’s not even an exaggeration.”
She’s right. That’s no exaggeration. And she’s also right—we’ve got to hand this over to the right authorities. But I don’t have the first clue how to handle something of this magnitude any more than she does. “The question is how and when,” I say. “We can’t just waltz into the FBI and ask for Johnny the Next Available Special Agent and say, ‘Hi. There’s a prostitution ring in Las Vegas that’s laundering arms and money for Putin. Now go on—go get ‘em, guys!’ Even if they take us seriously, which is doubtful, who knows how long it’ll take them to investigate and take meaningful action, if ever? If they take too long, how long before Max and Oksana get paranoid and decide Sarah’s not as valuable to them as they thought? The only thing I care about in all this is protecting Sarah.”
Sarah groans. “This ain’t no casino heist, guys. We’re gonna need a helluva lot more than George Clooney to pull this off.”
I exhale. “How much of this can we prove as of right now, Henn?”
“The ‘Funding the Evil Empire’ thing is all circumstantial right now because I don’t have the banking records yet. I can prove quite a bit with lots of creativity, putting the pieces together, but to immediately convince anyone else about all this you’d have to have an audience with a long attention span that’s willing to listen closely and make certain leaps in logic.”
“We can’t count on that.”
“I know. Everything will be airtight and clear as a bell when I’m able to hack into The Club’s actual mainframe—and I’m super close on that.”
“We need to be able to show them the money,” I say. “That’s the key—the only way we’re gonna get anyone’s attention.”
“I agree,” Henn says. “I don’t have all their accounts or passwords yet—but I’m working on it.”
“How long ‘til you’ve got everything you need to make this airtight?”
“A couple more days and I’ll be solid. Maybe not airtight, but solid. I mean, I could do this for months and months and still be gathering new information. But as far as having something to use as an opening salvo, something that’ll get the good guys’ attention quickly and make them take immediate action, I can get you what you’ll need in a couple days.”
“Excellent,” I say.
“Henn, I’m your new best friend,” Sarah says. “I’m gonna start collecting and collating the information you find and synthesizing it into one concise document—like a legal brief. We have to have something to hand over to the good guys and get their attention quickly. I’ll make it easy for them—outline the facts, The Club operations, all potential criminal counts—RICO, wire fraud, money laundering, racketeering, etcetera, etcetera—and summarize the evidence collected thus far in relation to each count.” Sarah’s mind is really clicking now. “Kat.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“For each and every criminal count, I’m gonna need a piece of supporting evidence—something to show them we’re not making this stuff up. I’ll tell you exactly what kind of thing I’m looking for, and then you’ll go digging through whatever Henn’s been able to find so far to get it for me. You’ll be my research assistant.”
“I can do that,” Kat says.
“That’s good,” I say. “And Josh and I will pow-wow and figure out our best strategy for the hand-off. I agree—we’re going to have to turn this over to someone—but to whom, that’s the question. If we put it in the wrong hands, we might just buy ourselves an even bigger enemy than The Club.”
“What does that mean?” Kat asks, her eyes wide.
“It sounds like there are plenty of powerful people on that client list who wouldn’t want this scandal to see the light of day.”
There’s a long beat while everyone lets that sink in. We’re about to open a very large and dangerous can of worms.
“It’s all gonna come down to the money,” I say. “Money talks.”
“I agree,” Josh says.
“Henn, that’s top priority, okay?” I say. “Track the money. Get access to it.”
“Roger,” Henn says. “Shouldn’t take me more than a couple days.”
“We can do this,” Sarah says, but she doesn’t sound convinced. “Look at the talent in this room. We don’t need no stinkin’ George Clooney and Brad Pitt and Matt Damon.”
“Yeah, but I sure wish we had that Chinese acrobat guy,” Henn says. “He was cool.”
“The one they stuffed into the little box?” Kat asks. “I loved him.”
“Yeah, he was rad,” Henn agrees.
“Yen. Wasn’t that his name?”
Henn laughs. “Oh yeah. Good memory, Kat.” He taps his temple. “Brains and beauty.”
“Hey, guys, sorry to interrupt your profound musings, but I’m kind of getting tunnel vision here,” Sarah says. “There’s a lot to do and I wanna get started right away.”
“Sure thing,” Kat says. “Whatever you need, boss.”
“Hey, Sarah,” Henn says. “One more thing. What do you wanna do about Dr. Evil’s text to you?”
Sarah’s face turns bright red.
“I’m monitoring his phone, remember? ‘I’m not a patient man.’ What was that all about?”
Sarah obviously can’t speak at the moment, so I grab her hand and explain Max’s demand for a “freebie” from Sarah and the gist of his follow-up text. (I don’t mention the specifics of Max’s text—as far as I’m concerned, no one needs to know about Max’s reference to a ‘low-class strip club’ and ‘masks’—and, thankfully, Henn has the good sense not to
reveal those details, either.)
“What should I do?” Sarah asks the room, her voice small. “Ignore him? Answer him? Hide?”
“Ignore him and hide,” I say. “I don’t want you saying a fucking thing to that motherfucker.”
“I agree,” Josh says. “Ignore him and hide.”
“No,” Kat says flatly. “Answer him and hide. Ignoring him will piss him off, and we don’t want to piss that guy off. We want to keep him calm and confident and predictable.”
Everyone looks at her, considering.
“Dr. Evil’s real boner isn’t for Sarah—it’s for Jonas.”
I grimace. “Jesus, Kat. Please don’t say it that way.”
“Not sexually. He’s got an alpha-male boner for you, Jonas. This is all about a beta silverback wanting to knock off the obvious alpha. He wants what you’ve got so he can win. Hence, his Jonas-boner.”
“For Chrissakes, please stop saying that,” I say.
“So how should I reply to him, then?”
“We have to keep him off your back and convince him you’re motivated solely by greed and absolutely not by loyalty to Jonas,” Kat says. “The more he thinks your interests are the same as his, the safer you’ll be. You’ve got to keep him trusting you. If you ignore him, he’ll start getting paranoid.”
Sarah looks at me. I nod. Kat’s making a lot of sense.
Kat sees my nonverbal exchange with Sarah and seems encouraged. “Tell him that right after your meeting with him, Jonas went totally ballistic—out of his mind with jealousy. Jonas saw the obvious chemistry between you and Dr. Evil and he accused you of lying about never having met him before. Jonas is convinced you two are an item, and he thinks you wanted to be alone with Max just so you two could have sex in the bathroom. And now, dang it, there’s absolutely no way you can get away without arousing Jonas’ suspicion even more. Jonas the Jealous Boyfriend is watching you like a hawk now, not letting you leave your room without him. Just make Jonas out to be a wacko. Tell Max not to text—Jonas is monitoring your phone—and he’s just on the cusp of giving you another humongous check. That way, you play right into his egomania and also appeal to his greed. No matter how much he wants his little freebie to satisfy his Jonas-boner—”