“What is the KLA doing in Mexico?” Eastern European thugs in Mexico? Recent events connected in Leine’s mind. Had they set their sights on Latin America because of the perceived lawlessness there?
Vlad shrugged, distaste evident in his voice. “Drugs, weapons. Who knows what is in mind of criminal?”
Leine bit her lip to keep from voicing the sarcastic remark that sprang to mind. Vlad truly didn’t view himself as a criminal. More like a businessman with unorthodox methods.
“How is it they’re allowed to operate in Mexico? The cartels generally don’t like to share.”
“KLA is involved in drug trade since before Mexicans. Think Colombia. Afghanistan.”
“Is this shipment in Tijuana?”
“No, why?”
“Just curious.” Tijuana was in the Baja. Maybe she could work in a side trip.
“A curious Leine Basso is not to disregard.”
“Really. There’s no reason.”
“I see.” He paused. “Then you are meeting Nicholas tomorrow, yes?”
“Yes, Vlad. I am meeting.”
Chapter 23
The next morning Leine pulled into the IHOP parking lot and got out, locking her door behind her. The blast of the restaurant’s air conditioning hit her full force and she pulled her jacket closed. It didn’t take long before she spotted Nicholas sitting in a booth at the rear of the restaurant, his back to the wall.
A grossly overweight Peter Lorre instantly leapt to mind, or perhaps Jabba the Hutt from Star Wars; large, expressive dark eyes in a mottled face, thick lips and cheeks over a bullfrog chin perched atop a freezer-sized body encased in an expensive navy blue suit and tie. His crisp white shirt strained at the buttons, unable to accommodate his bulk or the meal he was in the process of shoveling into his mouth: a double stack of Belgian waffles covered in boysenberry syrup with fried chicken, side order of sausage, side of bacon, and a plate of chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream.
“What, no hash browns?” Leine asked, walking up to the table.
Nicholas grunted and waved her into the seat across from him.
“Is coming,” he replied, his mouth full. He leaned back, breathing heavily as he chewed, watching her with the interest of someone scrutinizing a wasp. Will it come close enough to sting? Should I kill it before it does?
Leine sat down, placing her bag next to her.
“Nicholas, I presume.”
The mountainous man nodded and hoovered another forkful of waffle into the gaping chasm of his mouth. A waitress came by and briskly delivered the aforementioned hash browns, fussing over him and giving him the Best-Customer-of-the-Day smile before she disappeared into the kitchen. A scene from an old Monty Python movie flashed through her mind as Leine wondered how anyone could ingest that much food at one sitting and not explode.
Talent. Sheer talent.
“Vladimir gave me a brief rundown of what you want me to do, but I have to tell you, shepherding a shipment of unknown origin and content isn’t my idea of a stress-free gig.”
“Is not to worry.”
“Right. Then why do you need me to babysit?”
Nicholas shrugged, washing his breakfast down with a large glass of milk.
“I do not trust people,” he said, dabbing at the corners of his mouth with a napkin.
“Yeah, well, neither do I, but that doesn’t tell me what I need to know.” Leine leaned forward. “Vlad mentioned I’d be working with a former member of the KLA. I’m familiar with the organization, but I need to know a bit more about them. For instance, what did they do in the war?”
Nicholas frowned, his face folding onto itself as he did—evidently in an attempt to convey disgust.
“He is idiot son of diseased, dick-sucking whore—” He stopped, an apologetic look on his face. “Forgive. Is bad person. No morals.”
“I gathered that. But why? Does he steal? Cheat? Kill?”
“Da. All of these things.” Nicholas paused, resting his fork on his plate. His gaze lost focus as he stared into the restaurant. Leine turned to see what he was looking at, but everything appeared normal.
“Is good with knife,” he finally said, and jammed another forkful of waffle into his mouth.
“Is that all you’re going to tell me?”
Nicholas shrugged a shoulder and continued to inhale his breakfast.
Leine sighed. It wasn’t like she’d never gone into a job blind before, but common courtesy dictated she be given at least some background.
Oh, wait. What was she thinking? The words Russian mafia and common courtesy normally weren’t used in the same breath, let alone the same conversation.
“I can’t do the job without more information, Nicholas. I’m not suicidal. You have to give me more than that.”
He wiped a meaty palm on the napkin and picked up a manila envelope from the seat beside him. He slid it across the table, narrowly missing a pool of boysenberry syrup.
Leine took the envelope and glanced inside. It contained the photograph of a man with a blond crew cut and hard eyes, clipped to a street map of Ensenada. A red circle indicated an address outside of town.
“This isn’t even close to enough, Nicholas.” Leine could feel her blood pressure begin to rise. Goddamn Russians. You can never get a straight answer out of them. This is my fucking life he’s playing with.
“Da, I know. The rest I tell. You must memorize,” he said, tapping his temple with his finger.
By the time Nicholas finished, Leine had learned the basics. She knew she was to fly to Ensenada that evening on Nicholas’s private jet and meet with a man named Grigori, who would supply whatever weapons she needed. Early the next morning, she and Grigori would go to the place indicated on the map where she would meet with a man named Zamir, the former KLA member, and pick up the shipment. From there, with Grigori’s help she’d accompany the shipment into the US where she was to hand it over to Nicholas’s representative. He assured her there would be no problems crossing the border. When she’d pressed him as to why, he said Grigori knew a special route and had done it many times before.
Jabba was cagey about what was actually in the shipment, but he’d assured her there were no drugs, human beings, or weapons. That left an ocean of possibilities, most of which Leine didn’t like.
Unfortunately, that was the plan, and she had to go along with it, or Vlad would make good on his threat to her daughter or herself. Of that she had no doubt.
The only problem being, in her world things rarely went according to plan.
Chapter 24
Belinda Bennett flinched at the sound of the front door slamming shut. Dick Bennett’s last words had a ring of finality that sent Belinda’s heart rate into the stratosphere.
What am I going to do now? Her husband had been adamant that no money be paid to the animals that had their daughter. She’d presented what she thought was a clear argument for caving in to the kidnapper’s demands, citing expediency as well as not having to involve law enforcement, which in turn could lead to a leak of the situation to the press. But Dick refused to budge. Where would it end, he’d countered. If they paid them the exorbitant amount they were now asking, what would stop them from extorting more?
And more importantly, there’d be no guarantee they wouldn’t kill Elise.
No, Dick Bennett couldn’t be persuaded, especially when he thought he was right. This tendency made him formidable in business dealings but hell to live with. There had to be another way.
She peered out the upstairs window to make sure he’d gone before opening her laptop and signing into her video conferencing account. She pulled up an encrypted phone list, found the number she wanted and entered it into the program. It took several moments before the man she knew as Ivan appeared on the screen.
“You have news for me.” Ivan’s eyes glittered like icicles in harsh sunlight. As usual, the dark green wall behind him didn’t give her any clues to his current location.
“I need more time,” she said in a h
ushed voice. Belinda looked over her shoulder to make sure Teuta wasn’t hovering outside in the hall. The housekeeper had been in the kitchen finishing up the lunch dishes. “He refused. He’s afraid the demands for money won’t stop.”
“Then persuade him.” Ivan’s lips pulled back in a sneer. “You are good at that, remember?”
“I’ve tried. Perhaps if you reduced the amount—”
“No.” Ivan’s voice rose, his expression darkening. “This is not negotiable.”
“Please, be patient.” Belinda’s tone softened. “I’m working on him. If he knew everything he’d go to the police or the FBI or the CIA with the information. You know I’d pay you the entire amount right now if I could, but I don’t have that much at my disposal. I need access to his offshore accounts.”
“You do not seem to understand the seriousness of this situation. I have no love for your daughter. To me she is a means to an end. Either you pay me the money you owe, or I recoup my loss in other ways that are not so pleasant. For her.”
“She’s only seventeen.” Her hand shaking, Belinda brushed at the tears pooling in her eyes. Nicknamed the Ice Queen by her colleagues, the terror Belinda Bennett felt for her daughter had cracked through the rigid persona she’d developed through years of business negotiations, leaving her raw and exposed.
“You have twenty-four hours.”
The screen went blank. Belinda stared at it for a long moment before rising blindly from her chair. She never believed Ivan would use her daughter as a bargaining chip, but now that he had she wondered how she could have been so sure. The man was a terrorist. It didn’t take him long to find out her real name and where she lived. Anonymity on the Internet was a myth. No matter how much security she hid behind, her information was still within reach.
And that information could destroy everything.
Fighting the panic threatening to overwhelm her, she turned away from the laptop. Teuta stood in the hallway, startling her. Belinda sucked in a breath and brought her hand to her throat.
“Let me explain,” Belinda started, but the housekeeper glared at her with a reproachful expression. Her hand shook as she pointed an accusing finger at her employer.
“Eliseka will die because of you.”
***
The door banged open and the overhead light blinked on, temporarily blinding Elise. She slid to a sitting position, squinting at the two men who came through the door. One was the man with the tribal tattoos. She didn’t recognize the other. The tattooed man walked over to where she sat, unfastened the chain from the leg of the bed, slapped a second cuff around her other wrist, and wrenched her onto her feet.
“Wait,” Elise cried, panic scaling her throat. “Where are you taking me?”
Tattoo said nothing and jerked the chain as if she were a dog on a leash. Instinctively, Elise balked, digging her toes into the floor and throwing herself back toward the bed, but he was too strong, and the cement was too smooth, and she skidded behind him toward the door. The other man came up next to her and yanked a dark hood over her head, securing it around her neck. Terrified, Elise could only gasp. Her chest squeezed tight, and she found it hard to draw a complete breath as she fought the rising claustrophobia.
The two men led her through the building. They took several turns before they hustled her outside and into a waiting vehicle. Elise guessed from the lack of traffic noise that it was late evening, although it was possible they were somewhere in the country. The balmy weather surprised her. It was so cold in her small cement room.
Elise ran her hands around the space, stopping when her fingers closed around heavy wire. They’d thrown her into a cargo area, probably an SUV similar to the one they’d used in Tijuana.
The vehicle began to move, and Elise inched back until she could go no further. Where were they taking her? Had her parents paid the ransom? A tiny flame of hope ignited in her chest at the thought of being able to leave this nightmare behind her. She promised herself that as soon as she got back she would finish high school, immediately enroll in Stanford or wherever her parents wanted her to go, and never, ever take her life for granted again. She even went so far as to imagine setting up a non-profit in her name to benefit those less fortunate.
What started out as a smooth road soon turned to gravel. Rocks pinged the undercarriage as the vehicle hit pothole after pothole, throwing Elise around like so much baggage. She planted her feet and braced herself against the side.
Sometime later, the vehicle stopped and the door opened. The chain rattled and Elise was yanked by out by the wrists. She winced at the sharp stones gouging her bare feet but remained silent, realizing during the drive that cooperation would net better results. She didn’t want to make the kidnappers angry.
Whoever was holding her chain jerked her forward. She stumbled up the steps, across a smooth surface and into a building. Someone ripped the hood from her head and she blinked at the overhead light.
They stood in a simple front room with a wood floor. Straight-backed chairs lined the walls, punctuated every so often by a small side table. A couple of rundown sofas hunched against the far end of the room, a low coffee table in front of them. Cheap prints adorned the walls, most of them depicting beautiful women in traditional Spanish clothing.
A tall man with a precisely trimmed goatee walked into the room and the man beside her stiffened. Older than the men who had abducted her, he had an air of authority Elise instantly recognized. She looked at the floor, hoping to appear submissive so he wouldn’t have reason to hurt her.
“I want to see her eyes,” the tall man snapped in Spanish.
The man next to her grabbed her chin and forced her head up. Elise continued to stare at the floor.
“Look at me,” he commanded in heavily accented English.
Hesitantly, Elise forced her gaze to his. His eyes held a cold intensity she hadn’t encountered before. Her gut clenched while he surveyed her from her feet to her face as though inspecting a piece of furniture. She quickly averted her gaze, frightened.
“Tell him I’ll pay the usual,” he said to the second man. “He can return in a few months for the rest.”
A few months? Elise’s heart beat wildly in her chest and she wobbled, her knees suddenly unsteady. She wasn’t going home. Her parents didn’t pay the ransom.
Tattoo kept his grip on the chain and nodded at his partner. “Start the vehicle,” he said. Without a word, the second gunman left.
“What?” the tall man asked Tattoo, his tone clipped.
“He expects more for this one,” Tattoo said, shrugging.
“How much more?”
“She’s young, blonde, and healthy.” Tattoo ran his hand along her cheek. Elise stifled the urge to scratch at his eyes. “He wants double.”
The tall man laughed, the sound harsh in the low-ceilinged room.
“He should be paying me to take her off his hands. Look at her dress and the way she stands. She obviously comes from wealth. A female raised with money will be hard to train and poses a risk to my operation. Her people will have the resources to search for her.”
Elise froze at his words. They were going to train her? To do what? Foreboding crawled up her spine as visions of domestic servitude, and worse, flashed through her mind. She had to escape. She cast a furtive look around her, frantically searching for a way out. A partially open window stood near one of the couches, the curtains fluttering in the evening breeze. She wondered how far they were from a town.
“Possibly, although Zamir assures me that won’t be a problem. Besides, she’s an American. You can charge more.”
Tall Man appeared to think over what he’d said and nodded.
“An additional twenty percent. This is more than fair.”
Tattoo fished in his pocket for his phone. “With your permission?” he asked, holding up his cell.
“Of course,” the tall man answered.
Tattoo walked onto the porch to make a call. Tall Man sighed impatiently and turne
d to look behind him as though waiting for something. Elise eyed the open window.
It was now or never.
She bolted across the room. The tall man roared as he dove for the chain and yanked her backward. She lost her footing and landed hard on the floor, knocking the wind from her lungs. She rolled to one side, wheezing. His face dark with fury, Tall Man hauled on the chain, dragging her across the floor.
“Raul! Get in here,” he bellowed. Whimpering, Elise shielded her head and face with her arms as he grabbed her by the waist and jerked her to her feet.
Moments later, an older man with gray hair and glasses and carrying a valise hurried into the room. The tall man shoved Elise toward him. Tattoo appeared at the door.
“This is she?” the older man asked calmly in Spanish. Tall Man nodded as he struggled to control his anger. Tattoo walked over to Tall Man and handed him a key.
“He says it’s a deal,” he said, nodding at the key. “For the chain,” he added.
The older man walked up to Elise and squinted. His breath smelled like tequila and garlic. She swallowed several times to quell the nausea rising in her stomach.
“Open your mouth and stick out your tongue,” he ordered in English. Trembling, Elise did as she was told.
He peered down her throat and felt the sides of her neck. “Turn.”
Elise turned, stiffening when he slid his hand over her bottom and up her spine. He lifted each arm and jabbed at her armpits, and then took out a stethoscope, which he placed against her back.
“Breathe deeply,” he instructed. Elise drew a shaky breath.
He finished examining her and put the stethoscope back in his bag. He nodded to the tall man. “Her blood work is good,” he said, returning to Spanish. “There was no evidence of drugs other than alcohol, and I discerned no diseases.”
His anger contained for the moment, Tall Man grunted, gesturing toward the back of the house.
“Take her. I will finish the negotiation.”
With a nod, the older man picked up the chain attached to Elise’s wrist.
The Body Market: A Leine Basso Thriller Page 14