Finding Thyme

by TJ Hamilton

  “Secondly, get someone to tap into Tench’s conversation immediately. I need to know whether they’re onto me or not. I still have a job to do,” I whisper.

  “Miranda. It’s Mei-Mei … Simon and Liz are still out. I thought they’d be with you?” Her voice sounds puffed.

  “You’re breathing heavy. Where have you been?”

  I hear her chuckle once. “I ran to the communications room as soon as I heard your voice.”

  That makes sense.

  “Is someone monitoring the conversation in the room next door to me at the hotel suite?” I quickly ask Mei-Mei.

  “Yes we have agents monitoring it now, why?”

  “Does Tench suspect anything?” I whisper.

  “We’ll get back to you. I have to cut the signal now before it gets intercepted. I’ll get Liz to make contact as soon as she gets in, Miranda.”

  The call cuts short. Something tells me that there’s something not right about that whole conversation.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Just as I walk out of the bathroom, Tench comes back into the bedroom.

  “I’ve got to go for a few hours, but Luka is bringing Tatiana over to take you to the safe house where Dima is. That way I know you’ll be safe.”

  I force a smile out, but little does he know that the safe house with Dima is probably the least safe place for me to be. I flex my calf muscle and feel my firearm inside the boot. I need to be prepared to act quickly if I notice a threat presenting itself.

  Within minutes Toni comes into the room. “They’re here, boss.” He tilts his head to me and smiles. “Come on, let’s get you down into the car, Miss Miranda.”

  “But what if they come after you?” I ask Tench, knowing there’s no threat to him at all—apart from me.

  “Don’t worry about me.” He shakes his head and puts his arm around me once I’ve collected my bag and coat. “I’ve got Toni and the other guys.” He squeezes me into his hard body.

  A few minutes later, Tatiana beams her iridescent smile the moment I step into the Mercedes van. I wonder how much she knows. I scan across to Luka sitting next to her and try to read his face, but get nothing. I hug Tatiana and sit down on the seat in front of them.

  “Are you okay, Miranda?” she asks.

  My eyes flick to Luka again.

  Luka smiles and speaks. “This is Russia.” He shrugs. “Kidnappings are a little too common. It’s a shame you had to see this side of our beautiful country.”

  “I’ve had a few abduction attempts on me too, but these guys have always taken care of it.” Tatiana smiles.

  Her lips are perfectly coated with a bright red lipstick that matches her porcelain skin perfectly. I want to tell her everything the moment I get an opportunity. But what if she’s the rat? What if Tatiana is the one feeding information back to Luka and the rest of the Bratva gang? My head swamps itself with theory after theory about who the traitor is. Whoever it is, they are close to my brother, Liz and I, but also the gang. Mei-Mei and Tatiana have both been around us, but only Tatiana has that kind of access to the Bratva. There’s no stronger explanation than that.

  We arrive at another old building that’s covered in scaffolding—the scaffolding wrapped in a fibrous cloth to hide the renovations happening within. Luka steps out of the van first and checks the street before reaching in for me to take his hand. Tatiana takes his hand after me and steps out beside me.

  We all walk together into a hollowed-out building. There is rubble and building materials everywhere. Guards dressed in black carry fully automatic machine guns and wander between the empty rooms of the building.

  We ride the workers’ elevator all the way up to the tenth floor and Luka takes us past another set of dilapidated rooms. He slows his pace when we get to a thick reinforced door at the end of a long hallway. The huge Russian Boris who I met on my first day here stands beside the door. He opens it and steps aside while we all enter the room.

  Dima is looking out the huge floor-to-ceiling window on the far side but turns to us the moment we step in. He holds his arms out to greet us.

  Luka hugs him and pats him on the back. “Dima, how many times have we told you to stay away from the window?” he asks in English for my benefit.

  Dima smiles and shakes his head at Luka before he turns his attention to me. “Miranda. How can I begin to apologise for this terrible situation we’ve put you in?”

  I want to punch him in his grubby face, but instead I smile. Tatiana doesn’t give him the same courtesy. She ignores him completely and carefully sits on the old couch in the corner of the room.

  “Scan them for weapons,” Dima commands Boris. Boris grabs my handbag and runs the detector across it before stalking towards me to wave it all around my body. I know the pistol is going to be undetected, but I still hold my breath out of fear. The scanner’s pitch doesn’t signal the presence of a weapon when he runs it past my boot, and I relax. Boris then runs the scanner over Tatiana and her handbag.

  I see Dima smirk. He thinks he’s safe. I feel far from safe right now, and my eyes bounce between Dima, the man who wants me dead, and Tatiana, my friend and potential infiltrator. I focus on feeling my pistol in my boot, just to reassure myself, while Dima and Luka speak to one another in Russian. I regulate my breathing to try and steady my nerves. From the corner of my eye I see Tatiana trying to get my attention so I go and sit next to her on the old couch. Three other men come into the room just as I take a seat. They look down at Tatiana and I and start talking to one another in Russian.

  “Do you have your gun on you?” Tatiana whispers.

  I consider my answer for a moment. What are her motives for wanting to know? She looks over at me.

  “Please don’t tell me you didn’t bring it? The detector didn’t pick it up.” Her furrowing brow quivers. She looks down at her hands and I see her bottom lip trembling.

  “What’s going on?” I whisper back to her.

  “There’s something not right about Dima, and he wants Luka and the others out of here. Luka keeps trying to convince him that he needs to stay, but Dima won’t have it. I think he’s going to kill both of us.” She shoots me a glance.

  Her tear-soaked eyes are full of fear. The men stop talking to one another and Tatiana starts shuddering. I put my arm around her.

  “I won’t let anything happen to you. Don’t worry.”

  Luka notices my arm around Tatiana and comes over and kneels down. He rubs her chin between his thumb and index finger and soothes her with some words in Russian.

  “You’re both safe here now.” He smiles at me.

  I nod. “Thank you, Luka.”

  “There are four men right outside the door and Dima is staying here. You’re both completely safe, okay? Just stay away from the window in case of any snipers.” He smiles at Tatiana but she is having none of it.

  I pray that she pulls herself together soon. Luka says something to her again in Russian and kisses the top of her head as he gets up. He’s so tender with her and seems completely oblivious to Dima’s true intentions. She looks across to me and I tap my boot with the pistol inside it twice and wink at her. She nods and smiles and I feel her body relax a little.

  As the men leave the room, I whisper, “Get it together, Tia. I’ve got this. Dima isn’t going to do anything to us, okay?” She nods again and wipes her tears.

  Dima shuts the door behind the men as they leave and locks it. He pauses for a moment at the door before he turns. I feel my heart pick up pace. My hand slithers down my leg and feels the firearm inside my boot. Once I have it in my grip, I command it to engage. The familiar high-pitched hum of the pistol signals that it’s ready, and so am I.

  I watch Dima. He doesn’t turn to us as he walks towards the kitchenette. I tug the gun out of my boot and stand up with it behind me. I motion for Tatiana to get up and stand behind me. I feel her hold onto my arm.

  “I know my cousin is very fond of you, Miranda. He’s what you would call a fool for love.” His
thick accent makes his words sound even more menacing. He leans on the bench and opens up a drawer and takes out a shiny pistol. “So I did a bit of searching around. It seems you have a big secret, Miranda. Or should I call you by your real name: Mia?” He casually strolls over to the unglazed window, his gun gripped in his hand.

  I was a fool to trust Tatiana! She is part of the Russian syndicate. Pushing back from Tatiana, I point my gun towards her but Dima still remains facing away from us. “It was you, wasn’t it?” I sneer at Tatiana.

  She shakes her head frantically. “Mi, I wouldn’t do that. I don’t know how he knows this.”

  Dima laughs from the window. “Ah, how quickly you stupid women turn on each other.”

  Tatiana holds her hands up to me. “I promise you, Mia, you have it wrong. I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

  I narrow my eyes at her words. Can I trust her? I nod for her to get down beside the couch and manoeuvre myself around with my gun pointed straight at Dima. Two in the chest and one in the head in case he’s armoured, I say to myself.

  “Tell me where you keep the girls and I’ll spare your life, Dmitri,” I say with a low voice.

  He laughs again. “You really think I would tell you that? My cousin may be stupid but I am not, Mia. I’ve thought about the things I want to do to you, which is why I’ve kept your little secret. Ask Tatiana how I like to treat my women. You will stay in the pit, a place that Tatiana knows well. Don’t you Tatiana? You whores are all the same.”

  Tatiana trembles in the corner and then looks across to me before she gets up and stands beside me. She fires off Russian at him and it sounds nasty, whatever she said.

  “Kill him, Mia. He is nothing but a filthy dog. I’ve seen what he does to women. He has slaves at his house. I can show you. He kept me there for months once. He threatened to break my legs so that I’d never dance again if I didn’t do as he said.”

  What if she’s telling the truth? If it wasn’t Tatiana who told Dima, then who was it … Mei-Mei!

  “Mia, please do it. I can’t sleep because of the things he’s done to me. He does them to other girls, too.”

  Dima spits at the ground. “Nothing but a bunch of filthy animals. They’re not even worth the money we paid for them. They’re just the whores not suitable for sale. I keep them for me and my men, that’s all.”

  A prickly heat trails across my body. How dare he call them whores? They’ve had no choice in this. They’re slaves.

  “Drop your gun and turn around, Dmitri … or I can just shoot you in the back. It’s your choice.”

  “So you have a gun that is undetectable? You’re smarter than I gave you credit for. Who do you work for, Mia? You know the men outside will be in here the second you fire that gun,” he says as he holds his hands out. The gun is still in his right hand.

  “Turn around now, you piece of shit coward,” I yell.

  Dima turns around slowly with his hands still in the air. I see the evil in his eyes, begging to be drawn out of him. He will kill me within a second from this distance, facing each other. My ears ring with the coursing adrenaline running through my body but I realise he’s so arrogant that he probably believes I won’t shoot. He has underestimated my abilities.

  “Keep your hands in the air. I will shoot you straight between the eyes the moment you move.”

  His mouth contorts into a snarling smirk. He still doesn’t believe what I’m capable of.

  “You know your time’s up, Dmitri. There are two things I’m good at … one of them you will never know, and the other you’re about to find out. Tatiana, scream!”

  I hold my breath and slowly squeeze the trigger as I tell FLOS to fire. The first shot hits him straight in the left side of the chest. The impact of the bullet makes him stumble backwards. His eyes don’t react. I fire two more rounds into his chest and he’s pushed back to the edge of the open, unglazed window. His eyes now widen. I bring the firearm up and line up his forehead behind the two sights on top of the slide. I smirk and fire.

  TWENTY-TWO

  As my senses finally come back to me, I hear Tatiana piercing the air with a blood-curdling scream. I grab her and pull her over to the couch, throw my gun into my handbag and start screaming with her. Boris bowls through the door, followed by four other men, guns drawn as they scan the room. Tatiana and I hold onto each other and keep wailing. Luka runs over to us. He looks straight down to me and Tatiana.

  “What’s happened? Are you okay? Are you hurt? Where’s Dima?”

  Tatiana sobs into me. I force the tears out and look to Luka. Is he part of Dima’s plan? Who else knows about me?

  I make my voice tremble. “We were just talking to Dima and then he looked like he was exploding. I didn’t know what was happening, then Tatiana grabbed me and pulled me here. That’s when I realised he’d been shot. Then he … he …?” I don’t finish the sentence and cry back into Tatiana.

  I cry for all the girls Dima’s hurt in his evil existence. I cry for what he may have done to Tatiana, and I cry the hardest because I could’ve killed my old friend thinking she was a traitor. Luka rushes over to the open window and looks down at the ground below. He stomps his foot and curses some harsh Russian words. I can still smell the distinct residue of gunpowder in the air. I pray they don’t smell it too. Luka yells something out to all the men in Russian and they leave out the door with their guns still drawn.

  “I’ll be right back. Stay clear of that window.” Luka rushes out of the door too.

  I turn to Tatiana the moment they leave. “Are you okay?”

  She wipes her face and nods. I quickly go over and lock the door. Grabbing my firearm from my handbag again, I throw it in the freezer in the kitchenette.

  “You can’t hide it in there,” Tatiana finally speaks.

  “I’m not,” I whisper. “I need to cool the barrel down so they don’t know it’s been fired if they search us.”

  “How are you going to explain even having a gun, Mi?” Tatiana looks more composed, but I can tell she still has so much doubt about whether to trust me. She looks every part the scared little girl.

  “Haven’t I told you that you need to trust me enough times already?”

  She slowly smiles. “I can’t believe we got him, Mi!” she whispers. Her green eyes widen as her body allows her to bask in the victory.

  I grab the firearm from the freezer and throw it back into my handbag, and then sit on the couch next to Tatiana. I take a deep breath and go over the next plan of attack. I need to warn my brother and Liz that there’s a rat in the agency who also worked for Dima. I can’t use the earpiece, in case Mei-Mei hears it. She’s the only other person who it can be.

  “You need to show me to these girls at Dima’s house. We need to get them out. Then we need to stop the shipment of girls leaving for Australia. They’ll be at the port. That’s where Tench was going.”

  Tatiana nods at me. “Okay,” she whispers.

  I smile and we hug again. “I’m so sorry I doubted you,” I whisper.

  I hear the lock being twisted on the door just before Luka bursts through. “Are you girls okay?” He sounds genuinely concerned. “Joe is on his way, Miranda.”

  Luka gives his attention to Tatiana. Boris comes rumbling in and bellows out some angry Russian. Misha, Dima’s brother, comes into the room looking pale.

  “Was it one of you?” Misha yells at us.

  Luka gets up and towers over Misha and yells something back to him in Russian. Misha continues to yell and point to us. Here we go. I look to Tatiana and put my arm around her again. I can pretty much predict what they’re saying to each other.

  “Check our bags if you think we did it,” I say.

  I feel Tatiana stiffen under my arm. Misha stalks over to us and holds his hands out.

  “Give me your bags, now,” he demands.

  We give them our handbags and Misha throws them on the table. He empties them both out, snatching up the gun like a prize the moment he sees it. H
e points it straight at me and Tatiana. She cries out and grips onto me, burying her face into me.

  “Misha, it’s not a real gun. I got it from the street vendor down near the Bronze Horseman. I thought it might come in handy if someone tried to mug us when we were out. Why do you think the detector didn’t pick it up. It’s fake! Plastic!”

  He stares me dead in the eye. Knowing that the same gun just killed Dima half an hour ago, Tatiana continues to quiver next to me.

  “Pull the trigger if you don’t believe me,” I say, already knowing that nothing will happen. Luka’s eyes search between me, Tatiana and Misha.

  “Misha, no,” Luka says and then stands in front of us. I hear Misha try and pull the trigger anyway, but it doesn’t work.

  “Now I see whose side you’re really on, cousin,” Misha spits out at Luka. He throws my gun to the ground, then storms back out the door again.

  Tatiana looks to me. I give her a fraction of a smile to tell her she’s okay now. Luka rushes over and Tatiana says something to him and wraps her arms around his neck.

  About an hour later, Tench runs through the door with Toni behind him. The moment I see him, I spring to my feet and throw my arms around him.

  “Thank God you’re alright. I panicked at the thought of losing you,” he says as he pulls me close.

  I feel safe the moment I’m in his arms. That thought alone has so many levels of fucked up going on inside my head, but I hold onto him just as tightly as he does me. I don’t want to let him go.

  “Come on. Let’s get back home,” Tench says, and I nod. “No, I mean let’s go home. We’re leaving for Australia in two hours.”

  I look at him and smile on the outside, but on the inside my head runs through a checklist of the things I need to do before we leave. How am I going to rescue all the girls they’re selling before then?

  “What about your business?” I ask Tench.

  “I wanted out of this business a long time ago, and this is the exact excuse I need to do it now. I’ve cancelled all business from Russia.” He runs his hand through my hair. “Plus, we’ve got the future to think about now. I want to leave all of this for a chance at happiness with you.”