The Body Market: A Leine Basso Thriller

by Berkom, D. V.

  “Like I said,” she continued, “you’re in pretty bad shape. I’d say you’ll bleed out in a matter of minutes unless someone does something. I can make things easy or a whole lot more painful for you. What’ll it be?”

  The driver drew in a shallow breath as tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. He’s close, she thought.

  “One more time. Where’s Elise? And, for the bonus round, tell me what ‘the bitch’s mother’ did to betray Ivan.”

  He clamped his lips closed. She lowered the gun to his crotch. Sweat ran in rivulets along the side of his face.

  Leine lowered her voice. “If you don’t tell me what I need to know, I will make your last few minutes a living hell.”

  The driver closed his eyes and bowed his head. His shoulders sagged.

  “When the mother… did not pay money she owed Ivan, he sold daughter.”

  “What money? And who did Ivan sell her to?”

  He didn’t respond. Leine applied more pressure.

  He pulled in a ragged breath. “She betrayed him, I don’t know how. He lost money and took her daughter to make her pay him.”

  Belinda Bennett’s responsible for this? “The daughter is still alive?”

  The driver nodded.

  “Who has her?”

  He closed his eyes, opening them an obvious strain. “His name is Felix Garcia Otero. He runs many businesses in Tijuana.”

  Otero. “Elise is in Tijuana?”

  “No. There is a place several kilometers outside of town—a ranch where Otero supplies the men who work for him with young women.” He coughed and blood bubbled between his lips. “Ivan will receive a percentage of what she earns there.”

  He must have her at the whorehouse Herrera mentioned, Leine thought. “Do you mean the one where he keeps the girls to service his ‘messengers of Christ?’”

  The driver nodded. “Yes. I show you.”

  “No. You’re going to tell me.”

  With a little more encouragement the directions came. Leine looked the location up on his phone. From the satellite imagery she identified three buildings and a couple of smaller structures on the property—maybe sheds or a well house—and nothing but desert for miles in any direction.

  The driver died not long after that. Leine walked behind the truck where Grigori had arranged the cots as seating for the children. They were watching Grigori pantomime a story. A few giggled as he grimaced in pain. She glanced at his bloody pant leg. Probably not acting out that one, she thought.

  “Can anyone tell me where home is?” she asked with a smile.

  “La Paz,” the girl in the green dress replied, her voice small. The other children looked at her with solemn expressions. Leine turned to Grigori.

  “Did you call Nicholas?” she asked in a low voice.

  “Da. His people wait for us at other end. He refuses to come to Mexico.” Grigori shrugged. “An old problem, I think.”

  “You take the shipment and the money. I’ll stay here. Someone needs to get these kids back.” Nicholas was going to be one happy Russian when he saw the pallets of money.

  Grigori shook his head. “You must wait. I will come with you after I deliver to Nicholas the shipment.”

  “Your leg needs medical attention, Grigori. No offense, but you would be of no use to me in your condition. Get the wound tended to. I’ll be fine.”

  “But your arm—”

  Leine glanced at her blood-soaked shirtsleeve. “I’ll fix it. I’m sure there’s a first aid kit of some sort in the Yukon.”

  Grigori sighed and shook his head. “You are very stubborn, you know this?”

  “So I’ve been told.” She paused. “Before I leave, for my own peace of mind—who are the kidneys for?”

  “I thought you knew,” he said, surprise evident on his face. “They are for Vladimir’s wife. She has rare blood type and will die soon if she does not receive transplant.”

  “Of course. I should have known.” No wonder Vlad sounded more stressed than usual. It didn’t make it right, but at least now Leine had an answer. She turned and faced the kids. “Are you ready to go home?”

  Her words were met with shy smiles and enthusiastic nods.

  “Come with me.” She gestured for them to follow her. “I left Zamir for you,” she whispered to Grigori. He nodded.

  “Thank you, Leine Basso.”

  The children, all of whom were eerily quiet, followed her to the SUV. Leine’s heart squeezed tight at the thought of these innocent children being terrified into silence. They were supposed to be rambunctious and happy.

  Not inventory in a body market for criminals.

  The keys were still in the ignition. Leine opened the doors and helped the kids pile inside, making sure everyone was accounted for. Then she got in and turned the key. The engine roared to life, and she backed out of the Quonset hut and shifted into park, nose out.

  A crack of a single gunshot reverberated through the air. A few moments later, the refrigerated truck’s engine caught and idled for a moment, echoing in the silence before fading underground.

  Zamir would no longer be a problem.

  Leine turned to look at the kids. Two sat beside her in the front passenger seat, four sat in the middle, three were in the back seat, and three peered at her from the cargo area.

  “I need to do one more thing before we go. While I’m inside the building I want you to put your seatbelts on.”

  “But there are not enough for all of us,” one of the older boys said.

  “I know. You’re going to have to share. The bigger kids can hold the smaller ones on their laps, okay? You three in the back, I want you to come up front and get in on the action too.”

  The kids began moving around, trying to figure out how to get each other belted in. Leine got out and walked back inside the now silent metal building. She grabbed two of the gas cans and a length of jute rope, and walked over to Andre where she cut off a section of his shirt with the knife attached to his belt. She paused where Zamir slumped against the dump truck, a bullet hole in his forehead. She felt his carotid, just to be sure he was dead. Then she followed the ramp down to the first section of the tunnel and set everything on the ground. A few trips later, and she’d transferred all six of the gas cans to the tunnel entrance.

  Leine stood the cans next to each other and removed the grenades from her pockets. After tying one end of the rope to the strip of shirt, she stuffed the material into the mouth of one gas can and poured fuel over the rest of the rope with another, leaving the last few inches dry. Next, she balanced the grenades between two of the cans and let out the rest of the rope behind her as she moved up to ground level. The jute ran out a yard past the top of the ramp.

  She waited a few minutes longer, thinking about Grigori and whether he’d be through the tunnel yet.

  With one last look around the Quonset hut, Leine slid the book of matches from her pocket and bent one of them up and away from the others. She lit it and tucked the burning matchbook underneath the dry section of twine. The end would burn once the matchbook caught. Then she left the building.

  She walked quickly to the SUV, got in, and was halfway to the main road when there was a whoompf! and the ground shuddered. Leine and the kids turned toward the sound at the same time. Dust streamed through the open door of the Quonset hut.

  It would take whoever owned the tunnel a long time to excavate.

  ***

  Leine continued driving as she slid the gunman’s cell phone out of her pocket and punched in Santa’s number. It went to voicemail. She left a message, telling him to call Bob Herrera. Then she called the DEA agent.

  “Herrera,” he answered.

  “Bob. It’s Leine.”

  “Where the hell are you?” Herrera told someone nearby she was on the line. “Hold on. There’s somebody here who wants to talk to you.”

  Leine waited while he handed the phone over.

  “Leine? It’s Santa.”

  “Hey,” Leine ans
wered. “What are you doing with Bob? And where are you?”

  “I was just going to ask you the same question. Thank God you’re all right.”

  The sound of traffic whooshed by in the background.

  “Lou was worried about you and called me,” Santa continued. “The software on your phone stopped tracking you this morning in Ensenada, so I called Bob and asked him to take a look. He didn’t like what he found and I drove down.”

  You always have my back, don’t you, Santa? Leine allowed herself a small smile.

  “I’m currently about an hour northeast of Tijuana with a dozen kidnapped kids who belong in La Paz. You might want to let Bob know I just destroyed the entrance to a tunnel running under the border. A big one. It’s about three kilometers north of me.”

  “What’s your position?”

  Leine read him coordinates on the GPS display.

  Santa relayed the information to Bob. There was another pause and Bob came on the line.

  “There’s a feeder road that leads to the main highway seven kilometers southwest of you. Meet us at the carne asada place in TJ. I’ll make sure the kids get back to La Paz. Now what the hell’s this about you blowing a tunnel?”

  Leine gave him a rundown of the tunnel and the Quonset hut, leaving out Grigori, the refrigerated truck, and the money.

  Bob whistled. “As soon as I report this, there’ll be a posse of Mexican Marines, DEA and ICE agents headed your way—part of a joint task force. I’d rather not be present—I’m already on the local cartel’s shit list and this would just make it harder to do my job. Santa certainly can’t be, since he’s not here in an official capacity.”

  “I should be there in about an hour. If I’m going to be late, I’ll call you.”

  Leine ended the call and checked the rearview mirror to make sure they weren’t being followed. The road was deserted. She glanced over her shoulder at her passengers.

  “You guys were very brave and did really, really well. We’re almost home, okay?”

  The children were mostly silent, although a few sniffles could be heard. One young girl appeared to be sleeping. Leine caught the attention of the boy sitting next to her.

  “Is she all right?”

  The boy nodded, his eyes huge in the fading afternoon light.

  Amazing what kids will do under stress, Leine thought. She’d like the ability to fall asleep when she was scared.

  Now that her favor for Vlad had been repaid, she’d make sure the kids were safe and then she’d be free to find Elise.

  If she wasn’t too late.

  Chapter 35

  Elise paused at the top of the rise to wait for Julia. She leaned forward and put her hands on her knees, breathing heavily. The adrenaline pumping through her veins added to the urgency she felt.

  “Come on, Julia,” she called, anxiety spiking through her at the delay. They needed to travel as far as they could as fast as they could before Garcia discovered their escape. Sebastian had led them past the guards and to the point of no return—the place in the desert where he warned them not to pass—but she and Julia had hugged him goodbye and kept going.

  “I’m coming.” Winded, Julia clambered up the hill and stopped to catch her breath. “I don’t think we need to worry—it’s really dark out here, you know?”

  Elise glanced at the lights, tiny in the distance, and shook her head.

  “As long as we can see the ranch, I don’t think we’re safe. They could have night vision equipment.” Josh had been crazy about action movies, and Elise went to a few, at first to humor him. Surprisingly, she’d ended up enjoying them as much or more than he had. Along with the dope guys playing the leads, the girls were usually bad asses and wore awesome clothes. Most of the time the characters would have scopes on their rifles or somebody would pull out a pair of night vision goggles, or NVGs.

  She wished she had a pair of them now.

  Her heart skipped at the thought of someone sighting on them through a scope, and she focused on the ranch’s lights again. The tiny dot of a vehicle moved away from the main building. Elise willed the person behind the wheel to continue down the drive. The headlights did as she wished, and she was about to say something to Julia when the vehicle veered off into the desert, the headlights aimed straight toward them. Elise sucked in a breath and spun around.

  “We have to go, NOW,” she said, and took off down the back of the hill at a dead run.

  ***

  Cruz glanced at the dog, Max, who sat in the passenger seat staring out the windshield, waiting for his command. Training the pit bull to intimidate and attack had been easy, and Cruz felt a deep kinship with the fiercely loyal animal. Tonight would be a test of all the time he had invested, would show Cruz how best to use this living weapon.

  The dog man’s heart raced as though he had guzzled a thousand Red Bulls. When he realized the American girl had run, he couldn’t contain his excitement. He alone would be the first to have her, out in the desert among the cactus and rattlesnakes, the rocks ripping the sensitive flesh of her back. He kicked himself for leaving the monitoring room to eat dinner. He’d missed the warning signal and lost precious time.

  The last runaway had been such a disappointment. She hadn’t fought back at all, just lay on the ground and whimpered like a mewling, helpless kitten. Unable to get it up, Cruz would have killed her for being so weak, but Garcia refused to pay if he delivered any of the whores dead. Once, when Cruz had no recourse but to kill one of them, Garcia had even suggested he pay him for lost earnings or some other nonsense. When Cruz explained what he would do to him in his sleep, Garcia reconsidered.

  The American girl would fight him—of that he was certain. She acted like she was better than the other girls and Cruz couldn’t wait to take the bitch down.

  A green dot blipped on the tracking device mounted on the dash of the SUV, representing one of the girls. Cruz wondered if the two of them had split up, since there was only one indicator, but when he scanned the surrounding area there was no answering ping from a second transmitter.

  Then another dot appeared, blinked twice, and vanished.

  The tracking device must be faulty, he thought and mentally shrugged. At least one signal was strong.

  It was all he needed.

  Cruz licked his lips in anticipation. Once he’d found them, he’d make the American girl watch as he took his time with the redhead, and then, depending on what kind of shape they were in, he would inflict additional injuries without Garcia’s infuriating interrogation.

  He smiled, looking forward to capturing the girls. The terror in their eyes when they realized what he was going to do to them would be the icing on the cake. He’d threaten them with torture if they said anything to Garcia, and would set up a schedule with the American whore, just like he’d done with the other one before she ran.

  His frustration grew when Garcia chose to make an example of her in front of the other girls. Cruz had barely gotten her to agree to sneak him into the yellow house on the nights she worked before she escaped. He’d have to start over with the American. Although, thinking of how he would intimidate the arrogant bitch into submission gave him endless pleasure.

  Cruz turned on the CD player. He smiled as the first bars of Patti Page’s, “How Much is that Doggie in the Window?” floated through the cab of the SUV. Max whined in answer to the bark in the song, adding his own and pacing in his seat until the next stanza played.

  The dog man continued further into the desert, humming along with the tune and following the blinking dot on the monitor.

  ***

  “How could they know so fast?” Julia asked, breathless from their rush to put distance between themselves and the headlights. They’d run a zigzag course intended to throw off their pursuers.

  “I don’t know.” Fear fluttered in Elise’s chest. She’d bet on having at least two hours’ lead time. The doctor usually came by the barracks once the girls who weren’t working were locked in but rarely did a full
head count. Even so, she and Julia had made lumpy dummies of themselves underneath their blankets. The other girls’ ambivalence should have worked in their favor. No one cared enough to look.

  It was as if Garcia couldn’t imagine anyone trying to run away. Not after he’d practically whipped that poor girl to death in front of them all. Elise had been relieved to find out the doctor and the other gunman dragged her off toward the main house, but Julia burst that small flicker of hope.

  “Remember when I told you that the girls who have been here a long time go into the main house to see the doctor and don’t come back?” she’d asked. “It’s the same with runaways.”

  “But that could mean they sent them away,” Elise had argued.

  “They send them away, all right,” Julia had answered. “In a body bag.”

  The thought of being whipped again or even killed spurred Elise on, pain from the sharp rocks and spiky plants scarcely registering. Tunnel vision blanked out all else as she ran, her focus entirely on cresting the next rise, taking them further from their trackers.

  If we can just make it to the border, she thought. Then everything will be fine.

  Julia was sure that when they got to the busy, well-lit traffic jam of the Mexican-American border, that they’d be safe from Garcia’s thugs. No one would stand for two young girls to be held against their will and used as sex slaves. She was certain they would be especially horrified when they told them about the others having their organs removed.

  Elise stopped to catch her breath. She could barely make out the lights identifying the three buildings on the ranch. She scanned the dark terrain, searching for headlights, but didn’t see any. Julia joined her and they rested, waiting for their breathing to return to normal.

  “I don’t see lights anywhere, do you?” she asked, her voice tinged with hope.

  “No,” Elise replied, still watching, not yet daring to believe. “Let’s wait a minute to make sure, okay?”

  “Okay.” Julia sighed and wiped the perspiration from her forehead with her arm. “The first thing I’m going to do when I get to America is call my mother in El Salvador and tell her I am living in America now, and that she should come.”