Stolen Lives

by Jassy Mackenzie

  Thanks to Salimovic’s brutal treatment, her left arm was virtually crippled and both her hands were swollen and weak. She flexed her fingers, hoping the movement would help the circulation get going again.

  The only potential weapon she could see was the pair of long metal tongs that Salimovic had used to pick up the coal. Using her stronger right hand, she eventually managed to pick them up. The tongs weren’t much of a defence, but they might allow her to break the padlock on the gate motor if she needed to get away.

  And, right now, she did need to get away. She was outnumbered two to one, and she had no gun. There was no time for anymore heroics.

  The trophy room had an archway at each end. Which one to choose?

  Salimovic had taken the one on the right. To be safe, Jade took the other one.

  It led into a big kitchen, with a scullery door which proved to be locked. Another passage led to two bedrooms. Empty of all furniture, with no keys in the locks. From there, a short corridor led into a lounge. Double doors opened into a hallway, and beyond that Jade could see the big front door.

  Stepping as quietly as she could, Jade crept into the hallway.

  Cold air flooded in under the door. She grabbed hold of the bolt and tried to push it open, but it was old and stubborn, and her hands were still so weak that the metal proved impossible for her to shift.

  As Jade turned away, something on the ground caught her eye. Bending closer, she saw three new-looking South African passports.

  These must be the fakes that the syndicate at Home Affairs had been forced to supply. For these, David’s wife had been threatened and his son had been abducted.

  Now, here they were, lying discarded on the floor.

  Jade hesitated only a moment before picking the passports up. With difficulty, because bending her wrists was agony, she slipped them into her jeans pocket.

  Then she tensed as, right beside her, a cellphone began to ring.

  The phone was under the hall table, where somebody must have dropped it.

  It must surely belong to Salimovic. And any moment now, Jade was sure he’d be coming to find it.

  She had no choice but to go back to the trophy room, where she’d been tied up.

  As she entered the room, the coals shifted in the grate and the sound made her jump.

  She knew she couldn’t have much time before he came back.

  Think, she urged herself.

  She could hide. But where?

  Behind one of the heavy velvet curtains that framed the main window, perhaps.

  But as she moved towards the window, Salimovic walked into the dining hall. He was aiming her gun at her and when he saw she was free, he grinned widely.

  “Still all alone?” he said, a comment which she didn’t immediately understand. “You got out of those ties by yourself? Your precious Xavier didn’t manage to rescue you?”

  He spat out the last words, and with a sick feeling, Jade realised that Salimovic and Xavier were not, in fact, on the same side. Worse still, he now clearly believed she was the black man’s female accomplice.

  “Hands up,” he said. “Drop those tongs. And if you try and run, I’ll shoot you in the back.”

  Jade released the tongs and they clattered to the floor. Then she raised her hands slowly above her head. Or tried to. Salimovic’s grin widened as he saw the red-raw skin on her wrists.

  “So you burnt your way free. Did you enjoy it? Want to do it again?”

  He took a step closer, and Jade saw his gaze focus on her bulging pocket.

  “Take them out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The passports. You’ve got them there. You’re hiding them in your jeans pocket. Throw them to me. Now.”

  No point in resisting. Wincing, Jade managed to tug out the three documents. She tossed them towards Salimovic’s feet. They landed in a little riff, like cards dealt in a casino. He picked them up and put them in his own pocket.

  “Your friend tried to screw me using these,” he said. “So I screwed him back. I never paid him. But you know what? I think you can be the payment.”

  Jade said nothing.

  “Where is he now?” he asked her. “Tell me where Xavier is, and I’ll let you go free.”

  “He’s not my friend,” Jade said. “I don’t know why he tried to rip you off. And I don’t know where he is.”

  The fingers on Salimovic’s left hand twitched and Jade saw a knife appear in them. On its blade was a streak of blood that still looked fresh.

  “Oh, I think you do know,” he said, and took another step towards her.

  Xavier Soumare stood very still, his emaciated body pressed back against the window, staring through the tiny nick he’d made in the velvet curtain with his fourth and last knife.

  It was an awkward shooting angle, because he couldn’t let the muzzle of the gun disturb the fall of the curtain. In addition, he was consumed by the need to cough, so badly he could feel blood bubbling in his lungs. Working slowly, with every movement a monumental effort, he managed to get his right hand into a workable position.

  Through the tiny gap, he could see the woman’s back. She was just a few feet in front of him. He couldn’t see Salimovic at all— the woman was blocking his narrow view—but he could hear him speaking.

  Xavier aimed for the exact centre of Jade’s black jacket.

  He let his breath out slowly, his hands steadying as his finger tightened on the trigger.

  52

  David been on raids before; many of them. Most of them in his younger days, back in Durban, before he was promoted to detective.

  Most of them had been routine raids on illegal casinos, nightclubs, adult entertainment venues. And yes, the occasional raid on a brothel. He remembered one of the sex workers, a well-built coloured woman, pretty until she’d opened her mouth. Boy, she’d let rip, sending a volley of curses his way in a high-pitched screech.

  “Fokken big policeman, I’ve got a right to earn an honest wage. Why don’t you fokkoff and go hassle daaie charras that are busy giving cheap bjs next door? Jou ma se poes!” she’d yelled, and David had been glad that his sketchy knowledge of Afrikaans hadn’t allowed him to translate her last words with any accuracy.

  He’d got the idea, though.

  He’d seen a lot in his raiding days. He’d thought he had seen it all.

  Now, David realised that he hadn’t. He hadn’t had any idea how bad it could get.

  They pulled up outside the Bez Valley brothel in the orange Mazda, the Pimpmobile as Jade called it, because nobody could possibly suspect it was a police vehicle. It was followed at a distance by two unmarked backup cars which would cordon off the entrance as soon as the Mazda was safely inside.

  Once a modest residential suburb characterised by small, quaint houses, Bez Valley had been engulfed by the urban rot spreading southwards from Jo’burg’s city centre. The streets were empty of everything except crumpled plastic packets and smashed bottles; the low walls in front of the houses chipped and eroded. Every bit of glass that wasn’t already broken was protected by wire mesh and thick with dust.

  For the brothel’s customers, off-street parking was mandatory. Thembi rang the bell and the guard shone a torch into the Mazda before allowing it inside.

  David was glad he was sitting in the back. He was so distracted, so concerned about his son, that even with the help of the gps he knew he would have lost his way. A bmw with similarly mirrored windows left the premises, driving fast, as the Pimpmobile parked in the otherwise empty lot.

  This property had replaced its low wall with a high, barred fence and an electric gate. Not just to keep criminals out, but to keep prisoners in.

  Where was Kevin now, David wondered, as he eased the back door open and climbed out into the hot, breezy night. He’d checked in with Naisha on an hourly basis throughout the afternoon. The last time he spoke to her she had been crying, and there was still no news.

  Where the hell was his boy?

  U
nlike their British counterparts, the South African police were fully armed when they conducted raids. David’s service pistol was securely holstered on his hip, and he was wearing a Kevlar vest.

  “The main entrance is this way,” Thembi whispered. “And there’s a second door just down there, if you follow that path.” He’d been into the brothel the previous week, under the guise of a client who would prove too nervous to avail himself of the facilities, and had given David a full report on the building’s layout and the numbers of the staff who worked there. Without a doubt, Thembi had confirmed that this establishment was using trafficked workers who, from the looks of things, were permanently imprisoned in their rooms.

  When he’d checked the gps coordinates on the white van from Heads & Tails after driving back from Jade’s house, David had seen that the van had indeed travelled to this address.

  He couldn’t wait to begin questioning the owners.

  “Go round to the back,” David directed the third officer in a low voice. On the way to the main entrance he walked past a dirty window with thick blinds. He followed Thembi to the front door.

  The rusting security gate that protected the premises was standing wide open.

  “Police,” Thembi announced, stepping inside. “Now, if everyone could please … ”

  He stopped just inside the door, and behind him David stood in silence as he took in the cramped and stinking room.

  The reception area, where the Nigerian manager should be, was deserted. His threadbare chair was knocked over; a cash box lay open and discarded on the floor.

  Moving inside, David saw that the owner’s office in the adjoining room was also unoccupied, although the radio in the corner was still playing softly, the dj’s cheerful voice incongruous in this rathole.

  All evidence of a hurried escape. Thembi shook his head in dismay. “They obviously had a tip-off. Somebody warned them we were coming.”

  “The car that left when we arrived,” David said. “Get one of our backup vehicles onto it. That could have been them, making a last-minute run for it. They must have had a lookout on the street who phoned in when he saw the backup waiting. Jesus Christ, the slippery bastards.” With an effort, he controlled himself, fighting the surge of anger that threatened to overwhelm him.

  A failed raid. No arrests made, no suspects detained.

  But at least they could help the trafficked victims.

  “Let’s get the workers out of here.” David gestured towards the dimly lit passage.

  He made a detour into the owner’s office as he passed. Surely there must be some evidence here? With so hurried a departure, perhaps something of value had been left behind.

  David was out of luck. Apart from one full magazine of ninemillimetre bullets at the back of the desk drawer and two empty syringes on the floor, there was nothing. He smashed his fists onto the desk in frustration.

  David had already turned back towards the door when a shout from Thembi made him break into a run.

  “Sup! Come here, quick!”

  David pounded down the passage, over weathered floorboards that creaked loudly under his weight.

  Thembi was in the first bedroom, a gloomy, cramped prison. The naked bulb in the ceiling had blown, and dark blinds covered the room’s small window.

  His captain was crouched over the bed in the corner.

  “There’s no pulse here!”

  David felt his own heart quicken with fear.

  “He’s got no pulse at all,” Thembi repeated.

  He?

  Pulling the torch from his belt, David switched it on and aimed the beam at the figure on the stained foam mattress, curled into a semi-foetal position, one arm outstretched.

  A slight, brown-skinned figure.

  Kevin?

  David felt his world tilt. The torch-beam wavered, arcing up onto the filthy basin near the bed before he forced it back down again and stared numbly at the sight before him.

  A young Indian man, naked and emaciated, his eyes staring sightlessly ahead. Peering down, David realised, with sick relief, that the youth was too tall and his hair too long for him to be his son.

  He trained the beam on his face. It wasn’t Kevin, but it could so easily have been.

  Would he end up suffering the same fate?

  In the crease of the dead youth’s left arm, a forest of needle tracks bore witness to the methods that his captors had used to subdue him.

  David lifted the arm gently. To his horror, it was still warm.

  “They obviously gave him an overdose,” he said in a voice that sounded hoarse and tense and strange. “Forcibly injected him with something—heroin, probably—to get him dependant, to keep him subdued, and then used it to kill him.”

  Thembi glanced up and David saw his own dismay reflected in his captain’s eyes.

  “The others,” he said. “What about the others?”

  Together, they rushed from the room.

  An hour later, the failed raid was over.

  Paramedics had pronounced four of the trafficked victims— two men, two women—dead on the scene. The fifth, a woman, had suffered a fatal heart attack as they were loading her into the ambulance.

  The witnesses were dead, the owners were still at large, and the security guard had vanished into thin air.

  David stood with his team outside the gates of the brothel and stared at their blank, exhausted faces. He felt sick inside, filled with a toxic mix of anger and desperate anxiety. This disastrous, failed raid marked the end of Project Priscilla.

  Worse still, all the daily markers—rush hour, home time, sunset, supper time, each one inspiring a new surge of hope, had been and gone. Now it was midnight. It was indisputably the end of the day, and Kevin was still missing.

  Standing in the yellowish glow of a streetlight, David pressed his fists to his chest as he felt his world shatter around him.

  53

  “Xavier’s not your friend?” Salimovic smiled at Jade again. “That’s a pity. Such a shame. It would be so easy for me to open the front door and let you go.”

  “You aren’t going to let me go,” Jade said. “Even if I told you Xavier’s life history and gave you his exact gps coordinates, you still wouldn’t let me out of this house.”

  She stood her ground, even though she was tempted to turn and run. The action would be pointless. If she did, she knew she’d have four bullets in her before she even reached the door.

  She couldn’t see a way out of this.

  Suddenly, Jade wished she could speak to David, just one last time.

  The stuffed animals on the wall looked down at her, their beady eyes seeming to convey silent sympathy.

  “True,” Salimovic said. He thought for a moment and then nodded once, as if he’d reached a workable solution to a problem that had been bothering him. “And you know what? I think I believe you. If you aren’t with him, I have no further use for you.”

  He raised the gun.

  And then Jade heard the whisper behind her, as soft as smoke.

  “Toulouse.”

  Down.

  Without giving herself time to think, Jade flung herself onto the floor, her chin hitting the flagstones just as a shot went off, so loudly she thought her eardrums might burst.

  Salimovic staggered backwards, looking down in disbelief at the bloody hole in his stomach. He tried to raise her Glock, but Jade was too quick for him. On her feet in an instant, she managed to wrench it out of his hand. The effort made her wrists burn, and she was forced to hold the gun in a two-handed grip.

  She backed away from Salimovic, swinging her weapon round to aim it at the black man who had now emerged from behind the curtain.

  Xavier Soumare simply held out one rake-thin arm and limped towards the trafficker. Salimovic had dropped the knife and was clutching his stomach, his face twisted with pain and his hands slippery with blood.

  Xavier shot him again in the gut, and Salimovic grunted. He took another step backwards, and then his knees buck
led and he sat down hard, as if he had been pushed.

  His fingers scrabbled for purchase on the flagstones as he tried to get up again.

  Aiming carefully, taking his time, the black man fired two more shots, one into each of the trafficker’s hands.

  Salimovic let out a high-pitched wail.

  He lifted his arms and gaped at his damaged hands. Sheets of blood flowed over his wrists and down onto the floor. He sagged sideways and, with an agonised groan, crumpled to the floor.

  Lying in a pool of his own spreading blood, he started to scream and shout out words in a language Jade did not understand.

  Then Xavier turned to face her, but even with her trusty Glock aimed squarely at his chest, Jade still shivered when she saw the coldness in his eyes.

  “Out,” he said.

  Slowly, Jade moved towards the doorway.

  Outside, Salimovic’s tirade was still audible. The wind had dropped and a few stars were visible. No storm after all, not tonight. Just the threat of one.

  After he had slammed the front door, Xavier began to cough; it was a rough, rattling, phlegmy sound. And once he’d started, he couldn’t seem to stop. At one point he doubled over, spluttering and gasping for breath so desperately that Jade thought he was going to choke to death. She watched him intently, gripping her gun with hands that felt increasingly stiff and painful.

  Toulouse.

  By whispering that word, Xavier Soumare had saved her life.

  Jade bit her lip. How could this man have known the secret language that she and her father had shared?

  When he had stopped coughing, Xavier collapsed onto the grass like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Struggling into a sitting position, he turned his blank, unsettling gaze on Jade again.

  He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. It was difficult to see in the poor light, because both the sleeve and his skin were dark, but Jade thought that what he was wiping away was blood. “Jade de Jong,” he said in a hoarse, unsteady voice.