“What way?”
“Like you want to hurt me.”
“Don’t worry I’m not going to harm you, Lena Novak,” he said. “At least not right now. In fact, I’m going to give you a chance to win your freedom.”
“That’s why I’m here. I want to pay for my liberty. No woman should have to put up with you around her neck for the rest of her days.”
“What about the money you owe me?”
From her handbag, she took out a bank statement, along with a money transfer for one million pounds, and handed them to him. “All this transfer needs is my signature and a passport to accompany it. You can fill out the details of the account you want the money paid into.”
His eyes flicked over the bank details. She produced another piece of paper, one that was crumpled and covered in her handwriting. It was a list of the women who had been trafficked and forced to work in the border brothel. She pushed it toward him.
“What’s this? Your Christmas card list?”
“I want you to free these women as well. The money will pay all our debts and compensate you handsomely for any losses.”
He allowed a minute to pass as he considered her proposition.
“Before I grant you your freedom, I’d like you to play a little game with me.”
He placed a set of dice before her.
“Fate set a trap for you, Lena,” he said with a sympathetic smile. “It took you away from your family and brought you to this country. Now we will find out whether you and the others deserve to go home free women. Odd or even numbers—you choose. If you win, then you are free to go with your friends. If you lose, then I get the money. And you go back to the business you know the best.”
“I already have my freedom. I’m not your slave anymore.”
“I’m not treating you as my slave. We’re equals at this table. Take the dice and when you throw make sure you don’t blink.”
He stared at her, awaiting her decision. “Come on, Lena. One thing I know about you is that you’re not a coward. You’re a woman of action. Winning and losing are part of life, except for cowards. And they never win.”
“They also never lose,” she replied.
She was tempted by the gamble. She felt enticed by his words, caught up by his promises, but it was not just the roll of the dice she was betting on; it was the belief that there was a kernel of honesty in his heart, in spite of all the evil that he had perpetrated. She lifted the dice.
“I take it this means yes.”
“How do I know you’ll keep your promises?”
“Why would I invent this game if I wasn’t convinced by it? I have everything, and you have nothing but a bank account you can’t access. If I wanted to, I could take the money off you right now. Throw the dice and we’ll see what fate has in store for you.”
She sat poised at one of those points in a life that can change everything. The dice felt cold and dead in her hands. She took a deep breath and threw them, trying not to think that a more deathly cold might await her.
42
“Your luck has run out,” Mikolajek said with a sneer when the dice rolled to rest. He stood up and enthusiastically pocketed the dice along with the bank documents Lena had left on the table.
She sat and looked around her. The bar was empty. There had been no one there to wish her good luck or witness her defeat.
“Just so you know, the police know I’m here,” she said without looking at him. “They’ll be looking for me.”
Mikolajek merely nodded. He did not appear concerned.
“Now that you’ve gambled your life away, Lena, I’m going to sell you for a good price,” he said. “To a man who’ll know how to control you. He does his business in the city. When he comes here, he’ll want to have a good look at you.”
“What makes you think I won’t run away again?”
“That would be a reckless course of action.” He removed a gun from his jacket. “Then you really would be screwing with your life.”
“I don’t belong to you or anyone else.”
“Let’s go. It’s time.” He grabbed her by her arm and dragged her to her feet.
“Why didn’t you just kidnap me in the first place?”
“It’s against the law in this country to take someone against their will.” He smirked. “Gambling, however, is not. The Irish understand gambling. They understand why someone like you with nothing to lose would gamble away her entire life.”
He took her out through the back of the pub, down a side street, and into a small garage. They walked into an office with a locked door. On the wall was an out-of-date calendar from Croatia showing the wrong month beneath a picture of snowy mountains and dark pine forests. It was like looking through a window at the past. The feeling of homesickness left her breathless.
Mikolajek took out a key and opened the door. Then he took down a length of rope from a shelf and shoved her into the room and onto a narrow bed. She fought him off as his hands reached to tear off her dress. This was the last time, she decided, as she felt his robust body press down on her with unrestrained lust and violence. She went down into the darkness where his groping hands did not reach. She drew strength from an inner reserve and came back up again for air just as he was coiling the rope around her wrists.
When she spoke, it was as if she were someone else, as if nothing she was saying had anything to do with her situation.
“Before you continue I have a confession to make.”
“What’s that?” He paused and stared at her pale face.
“I came here with a secret plan.”
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t come here to collect a passport. I came to see you and learn something about myself. To discover whether I’m a coward or not.”
He grinned at her, still uncomprehending. “You’re a prostitute. Deep down you enjoy these little sex games.”
“Perhaps you’re right. But why don’t you let me show you what I can do in bed. Let me be in charge. Just this once.”
Chuckling to himself, he climbed off her, propped a pillow behind his back, and leaned against the headboard.
“Take off your clothes,” she said, her voice commanding, with just a hint of wickedness in it. “Men always pay me to do what they want, not what I want.” She leaned toward him with the rope in her hands.
Mikolajek’s voice was dry. “I’ve done everything a man can dream of doing with a woman. And I’m still not satisfied. This time I want whatever you want.”
“Then you must give me a gift.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Something that truly belongs to you.”
“What’s that?”
“Your fear.” She threw the length of rope at him. “I want you to tie yourself up.”
Without hesitating, he bound his hands together and secured them to the bed rail with his teeth. The game totally absorbed him, his growing arousal distracting him from any sense of danger. He felt a vitality course through his veins that he had not experienced in months. She kneeled in front of him and secured his feet with the rest of the rope. Then she stood before him. For a long time she said nothing.
He waited, growing uncertain. “Why are you staring at me like that?” he said aggressively.
She did not reply.
Arousal was beginning to drain from his body. He felt uncertain and vulnerable. “What type of game are you playing?”
He started untying his hands with his teeth, but before he could struggle free, she had removed a gun from her handbag. He was surprised to see her hold the gun correctly, like a professional. They sat at opposite ends of the bed. He was aware that she had only to let her little finger slip or be startled by a slight noise for the gun to go off.
“I can smell your fear,” she said. “I can see the blood pumping in your
throat.” She had the confidence of someone who for the first time in her life was playing a leading role in her destiny. “You’ve been losing a lot of business recently.” Her voice was mocking.
“What makes you think so?”
“That’s the way it looks to me. First your brothel goes, and your illegal fuel plant, then your little money-laundering operation at Home Sweet Home.”
“You think someone is trying to put me out of business?”
“Someone has put you out of business.” She smiled. “It’s been good to know that you’ve been suffering. I’ve had a lot of fun watching your evil little empire fall apart.”
Mikolajek frowned. He did not like the vulnerable position he was in, and he liked even less her line of questioning. What was she hinting at? That she was somehow behind the trouble he had been having. His brain grasped at the meaning behind her words as he stared at his bound feet, which were as white and helpless as the feet of a corpse.
“No one likes having his life hurled into chaos,” she said. “Think of what it must have felt like for a nineteen-year-old girl to have her heart deceived by a beast like you.”
The door opened behind her. A man with a limp stepped into the room and waited discreetly as though attending the scene of an execution.
Lena turned and acknowledged his arrival with a brief nod. Then she ran the muzzle of the gun along Mikolajek’s throbbing throat.
“I have given away too much pleasure, Jozef. Now all I have to offer is pain. I am Lady Death. If you want to sleep with me, you must sleep with death.”
43
A hand grabbed Mikolajek and shook him fiercely, summoning him back to consciousness, to the nauseous smell of sweat and cigarette smoke, every hair on his body bristling as he took in his surroundings. Someone had placed a gag over his mouth, but left nothing to shield his eyes. Although there was more darkness than illumination in the room, he could make out a window with a set of metal bars and, in the wall to the right, a door with no handle. His body ached where they had tied him with ropes.
He watched a set of bluish shadows move and converse around him. Beneath the throbbing surface of pain, his thoughts revolved slowly, taking in the hushed voices. A sense of panic overwhelmed him when he realized he was trapped in a room full of lost people, the women he had taken from families and loved ones in the villages of Croatia and Albania. His body writhed on the ground, struggling against the ropes that bit into his flesh, until someone placed a damp rag over his nostrils and he slipped back into unconsciousness.
He opened his eyes to find himself looking at a creature with inquisitive gray eyes. This time his body was strapped tightly to a chair and he could not move. He wondered, was it a bird or an animal? Perhaps a fox or even a wolf? His body contorted and his eyes bulged as he tried to strike out, but they had tied his hands too tightly. The pair of eyes gaped closer, widening all the time, drawing him into the darkness of its pupils. He recoiled in terror, realizing that it was the face of a woman inspecting him hungrily. A smile appeared on her face.
“For God’s sake, help me,” he whispered in his own tongue, but she did not flinch. He kicked back in the chair and struck his head against a cement floor. Everything went black again.
The voices returned, striking through the haze of his consciousness. This time, they had blindfolded him.
“Are the others ready?” said an anxious voice. “Will they agree to be part of this?”
“Of course they will. Evil must be matched with evil. That’s the only solution for women like us who are beyond the reach of justice.”
He drifted back into darkness.
“How will we do it?” A woman’s voice roused him again.
It seemed he had awoken at precisely the right moment in their conversation. A voice he recognized as Lena’s spoke. “He will die like a dog. That is all he deserves.”
Then the women spoke in unison, some of their voices trembling, as they swore an oath of allegiance. He could not make out all the words, but the determination they expressed seared into his consciousness. A pair of hands removed his blindfold. He blinked, eyes burning in the bright light. A circle of hooded faces surrounded him, jolting him back to cold reality.
“We are your sisters,” announced Lena. “Lost women from broken places. We have no names, no faces. We have taken you hostage so that we can wear your face and you can wear ours.”
44
Daly spent the first hour after Lena’s disappearance frantically trying to reach Irwin on his mobile. He was beside himself with anxiety for her safety. All he could hope for was that somehow she might be able to free herself and make contact with him again.
“They might kill her!” he shouted at Irwin when the detective feigned indifference on the phone. Daly promptly requested a raid at the pub where they had arranged to collect their passports.
Although it was one of the few things that Special Branch did well, the swoop proved fruitless. The bar was deserted, and there were no signs that Lena had even made it there in the first place. That evening, police officers mounted a series of roadblocks around Armagh, and Mikolajek’s name and details were circulated to detectives in neighboring jurisdictions. The press was alerted, too, and an appeal for information on the whereabouts of Lena Novak made it onto the late news bulletin.
When Commander Boyd heard that Lena had in all likelihood stolen Daly’s gun, he made him go over repeatedly what had happened, especially the role that Daly had played in the plot to ensnare Mikolajek.
“I want to hear the whole story, Daly. From the start. This woman is beginning to worry me, and that’s something new.”
They reconstructed the events and examined the decisions that Daly had made in the cold light of reality.
“If she uses your gun to kill someone, you could be charged with conspiracy to murder,” Boyd warned him. “She could even arrange it so it looks like you were the murderer. The gun can only be traced to you.”
Daly said nothing. His face was white. Boyd ordered him not to take part in the search. “The situation is too dangerous and you’ve already compromised yourself. There could be any number of dead bodies found at the end of today.”
“Mikolajek may be a hardened criminal, but he’s not a madman intent on killing anyone who crosses his path,” replied Daly. “Perhaps his plan is to take Lena and the other women and set up a brothel somewhere else along the border.”
Boyd rubbed his brow. “When did she steal your gun? Was it while you were driving?”
“I’m not sure. I barely took my eyes off the road.”
“Is there any other detail of the journey you can remember?”
Daly ran through the drive that morning, the empty road ahead, the frantic phone calls to Irwin, the pale blur of Lena’s face as she mouthed a kiss at him, and then the black shape of the Jeep whipping past followed by the screech of brakes.
“Maybe she tried to say good-bye. I can’t remember.”
“We’ll find her. We’ll make this our top priority. We can’t let people like Mikolajek find a new hiding place.”
Daly did not know if the guilt he felt was because he had overstepped the boundaries between a police officer and a suspect, or because he had failed Lena and betrayed her through his incompetence.
That evening, he returned to the cottage and waited for bad news. He thought about the missing gun and the fact that Ashe had been able to track down the Jeep at his cottage. Lena’s abduction had happened so suddenly, it left him perplexed. He recalled her face as she walked away from the opened hood. The kiss she had blown, flying through the air toward him, like a mystery or a riddle that only she knew how to answer. He froze, became rigid, his eyes wide open, as the darkness swept in from the lough like a rising wind. The dramatic events of the past week hit him at full force. He went to bed with the strong suspicion that he had played an unwilling part in a darker, more
twisted plot.
The phone woke him just after dawn. He reached out and answered it without getting out of bed.
“The ceremony is about to begin,” a familiar female voice whispered in his ear.
“Lena? Where are you?”
“In the middle of a forest by the border. We’ve kidnapped Mikolajek. When you find us, the ritual will be over and the fire out.”
“What are you talking about?”
Silence. She had disconnected the call.
45
Cold rain fell on Jozef Mikolajek’s bare skin. His flesh writhed as he returned to consciousness, his memory and sense of place wiped once again, as though a series of bad accidents had befallen him. He tried to stand up, but a more robust body pressed against his, robbing him of any movement. His eyes blinked as someone ripped off his blindfold. The first thing he glimpsed was a woman sitting astride him. Now that he had regained consciousness, she sat up and brushed aside a loose tangle of hair from her eyes. She had a lipstick pen in her right hand. He gagged with fear as she ran its moist edge along his throat.
Looking around, he saw that they had tied him to a pile of wood in a forest clearing. He breathed harshly, trying to quell his rising panic. What time of the day it was he did not know. The shadowy trees at the edge of the grass danced in the gathering wind. His naked body shivered. Before his feet lay a picnic rug and basket. A meal had been assembled, with different types of cold meats and breads, olives and condiments. Five women sat on the rug in various states of relaxation. When his eyes met theirs, their heads rocked back in laughter. Silent laughter, like that of ghosts with mouths opened wide.
One of the women was missing, he realized. Her absence played on his mind. He thought of all the things he had done to her, and then of all the things she might do to him. Although he had only been awake for a few moments, he was out of breath, not from exhaustion, but from terror.
Martha Havel rose from the rug and stood in front of him. She held a pocket mirror to his face. His eyes filled with icy tears of frustration as he took in his grotesque reflection. They had placed a blond wig on his head and covered his face in makeup. His lips were painted a purplish red, and his eyes caked in mascara. He felt as if he was no longer present, inhabiting his body in the way people normally do. They had replaced him with a garish mannequin version of himself. A sudden sob rose in his chest, but never reached his lips.
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