The Stolen Ones

by Owen Laukkanen

  Not that it had much to do with Windermere. If Kirk Stevens hadn’t tabbed her to join the joint BCA-FBI major crimes task force he was putting together, she’d still be at a cubicle somewhere in the middle of the Criminal Investigative Division, slowly losing her mind in the chaos of the bullpen.

  Derek Mathers appeared at the door. “You going to answer that phone, or what?”

  “Thought you were my secretary, Mathers,” she replied. “Isn’t that why they keep you around?”

  The junior agent pretended to pout. “Always doing your grunt work.” He crossed into the office, and before Windermere could stop him, picked up her phone and held it out of her reach.

  “Carla Windermere’s office,” he said, his voice syrupy sweet. Then his smile disappeared. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, sure. She’s right here.”

  He handed the phone to Windermere, wordless. Windermere cocked her head at him as she took the handset. “Agent Windermere.”

  “Carla.”

  Stevens. Windermere let her breath out. The BCA agent had a maddening ability to knock her off her game, even after three cases together. “Kirk,” she said. “Thought you were on vacation. Communing with nature or something.”

  “I was.” There was something to his voice, an electricity that automatically got Windermere’s heart pumping faster. “Got called in to do a little day work. That sheriff’s deputy up in Walker, you see that?”

  “The shooting?” Windermere replied. “Yeah, I saw. Some girl did it, right?”

  “That’s what they thought anyway. What we all thought, in fact.” He cleared his throat. “Listen, how’s your caseload right now? You working on anything big?”

  “Kinda killing time, to be honest,” Windermere said. “After that Killswitch ordeal, I’m pretty much pushing paper. Why?”

  “I have something here, Carla,” Stevens said, and she could sense that same urgency in his tone. “Something major. I could really use your help.”

  21

  “TRAFFICKING.” SAC drew Harris tented his fingers. “And what does Stevens intend to do with this girl?”

  Across the desk, Windermere met her boss’s eyes. “He’s hoping we’ll take her,” she said. “Bring her into protective custody while we search for her sister and the others.”

  “We,” Harris said. “You and Stevens?”

  “And whoever else we can spare,” Windermere said. “If this thing is as big as the girl says, we’re going to need help. Homeland Security, State Department, Customs and Border Protection, whoever we can find.”

  Harris held up his hands. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he said. “I don’t want to be calling in a task force when we haven’t even heard this girl’s story.”

  “Yes, sir,” Windermere said. “Of course.”

  “I don’t have the resources to be chasing this thing down, you understand? Not as long as antiterrorism is top priority around here. Let Stevens and the BCA have the ball in the short term. Bring the girl in and we’ll hear what she has to say. Then we’ll evaluate, okay?”

  “Yes, sir,” Windermere said. “I’ll get her down here ASAP.”

  “Good stuff.” Harris grinned. “Kirk Stevens again, huh?”

  Windermere stood. “Yes, sir.”

  “Guy can’t seem to stay out of trouble.” Harris winked at her. “Have fun.”

  22

  VOLOVOI WAS WORKING LATE when his phone rang. The burner again. The business line.

  The Dragon.

  He looked up from his computer, surveyed the empty loft. He’d kicked the idiots out earlier, ruined their party. Sent them out into the streets to get their thrills elsewhere, told them to be happy they still had jobs. Then he sat down in front of his computer, opened up the accounting software he was trying to learn to use, the small-business textbooks, and settled in for another long night of headaches and tough decisions.

  The trick was finding redundancies, he knew. And in his business, like most, there were plenty of redundancies. Those idiots, for one thing, spent most of their days sitting on their asses, getting high. It was only when new shipments came in that Volovoi really needed all of them. Still, he paid them whether they worked or not.

  Switch them from salaried employees to independent contractors, he thought. Pay them when you need them. You’ll sacrifice loyalty, but you’ll save money.

  It was an idea. But it wasn’t a good idea, to Volovoi’s way of thinking. He paid his idiots a day wage because he wanted them happy and out of trouble. Because he didn’t want them getting bored and getting popped for some dumbfuck break-and-enter, some assault charge, and ratting him out to save themselves a couple years in a cell. He’d never made decisions based on money before. He’d always taken the safest path.

  So, he would keep the idiots. He could sell the Cadillac. Move out of the loft and find something smaller, a little more practical. But then, what was the point of becoming a crime boss in America if you couldn’t enjoy the trappings of success?

  The real problem, Volovoi knew, was the Dragon and his ridiculous percentages. His royalties crippled the whole operation.

  So they do, Volovoi thought, but you can’t get out from under him now. You don’t have nearly the capital to buy out his partnership, and if you simply stop paying him, he’ll destroy you. You’re stuck.

  No, you’re not.

  New York. Volovoi knew the Dragon was right, knew the city was awash in easy money, if you could provide the right product. And Volovoi knew his supplier in Europe could find younger women for sure. Anything the market wanted, Mike could deliver. And the profit from one box of Manhattan-grade product would trump six months’ worth of women at Volovoi’s current rates.

  Still, he held out. The Dragon terrified him, and this current business venture had caused Volovoi nothing but sleepless nights and paranoia. He would find the Dragon’s money somewhere else. He didn’t need New York.

  The phone was still ringing. Volovoi checked the number again, made a face, answered anyway. “If this is about your expansion, I haven’t reconsidered,” he said. “I am happy enough doing business my own way.”

  “I am sorry to hear that, Andrei.” The Dragon’s voice was syrup-smooth. “But this isn’t about New York.”

  “No?”

  “Do you have something you want to tell me?” the Dragon said, and Volovoi could imagine him licking his lips. “Is everything okay with the last shipment? Anything your business partner should know about?”

  The girl. The Minnesota girl. Volovoi cleared his throat. “It is nothing,” he said. “A little speed bump. This is no cause for concern.”

  “I hear through my connections that a police officer is dead,” the Dragon said, still deathly calm. “The FBI is involved, Andrei. They are bringing your missing girl to Minneapolis.”

  This was news to Volovoi. Earlier in the day, he’d checked on the story. Found that the girl was in custody in a little town in northern Minnesota, the state police investigating. Details were scarce, though. Nobody knew much.

  “I heard also,” the Dragon said, “that the girl has a sister. A younger sister, Andrei.”

  Volovoi thought, involuntarily, of his little nieces. “A younger sister,” he said. “I had not heard this.”

  “She is still in the box,” the Dragon said. “The eldest sister escaped, but the younger remains. She is still ours, assuming your idiot thugs haven’t sold her already.”

  “She is probably gone,” Volovoi said. “The drivers are near the end of their delivery. The odds are she has been sold already.”

  “I want her, Andrei.” The edge was back in the Dragon’s voice. “We will use her to teach her sister a lesson. To teach the world not to fuck with the Dragon. We will kill her.” He paused, and Volovoi could hear his breathing. “I will kill her. Have your drivers bring her to me.”

  “That wil
l be difficult,” Volovoi said. “If she is already sold—”

  “They will have to retrieve her,” the Dragon said. “You have already disappointed me once this week, Andrei. Please don’t do it again.”

  He ended the call. Left Volovoi listening to dead air. Volovoi sat there, struck stupid for a moment. Then he took the phone from his ear and dialed another number.

  “Bogdan,” he said when the driver picked up. “Listen to me very carefully.”

  23

  BOGDAN URZICA put down the phone. “Pull the truck over,” he told his partner. “I need to get in the back.”

  From behind the wheel, Nikolai Kirilenko raised an eyebrow. “What for? Are you horny, Bogdan? Do you want a fuck?”

  “Those filthy bitches?” Bogdan shook his head. “Andrei has new instructions for us. The Dragon has a special request.”

  Nikolai grimaced. “A special request.” He pulled the truck onto an empty side road. Cut the engine. “So what does the Dragon want with us now?”

  “The girl who escaped,” Bogdan said. “She has a sister in the box. The Dragon wants us to bring her to him.”

  “The poor girl.” Nikolai looked across the cab at Bogdan. “So, what are you waiting for?” he said. “You want me to show you where your pula goes?”

  Bogdan climbed from the cab and slammed the door. Crossed around to the rear of the box and scanned the road, both directions. Deserted. Almost completely dark. Perfect.

  He drew his pistol as he unlocked the rear doors. Hoped that none of the bitches had any more cute ideas. Hoped the damn lock on the false front had stayed shut this time.

  No women leapt out of the truck at him. The door to their compartment was locked and secure. Bogdan set his gun on a stack of boxes, unlocked the compartment. Switched on a flashlight and shined it into the darkness. “Sora.” Sister. He didn’t know the girl’s name. Didn’t care.

  A pause, a rustling, and the girl emerged from the gloom. She was as dirty as the others, as pale and as gaunt. He supposed she’d been pretty, back when she was clean. She was young, though. Very young. He remembered her now. Remembered her sister.

  The girl stared at him. Behind her, her companions rustled in the darkness. Bogdan shined the flashlight in her eyes. Removed his cell phone and pointed it at her. “Look at me,” he told her in Romanian.

  The girl looked at him. He pressed a button on his phone, took her picture. “Good,” he said. “Go away.”

  The girl didn’t move. “I’m hungry.”

  “I bet you are,” Bogdan told her. “You’ll eat tomorrow.”

  “I’m hungry now,” the girl said. “We all are.”

  She fixed her eyes on his, defiant. “You’ll eat tomorrow,” Bogdan repeated. “Now disappear. Don’t make me tell you again.”

  Wordless, the girl backed into the stinking compartment. Bogdan closed the door and locked it. Retrieved his pistol and replaced the boxes that hid the door. Closed the outer door to the box and turned off his flashlight, locked the box closed, and circled the truck to the cab, where Nikolai waited.

  “So?” Nikolai said when Bogdan had climbed back into the passenger seat. “Is she pretty at least?”

  “As pretty as the rest,” Bogdan told him, “but she belongs to the Dragon now. So keep your hands off of her.”

  Nikolai smirked. “It’s not my hands I’m thinking about,” he said, and he laughed, an ugly noise that echoed in Bogdan’s ears, harsh and grating and incessant, as his partner fired up the truck and pulled out onto the road once again.

  24

  THE PHONE WAS BUZZING. The Dragon reached for the nightstand. A text message. A picture. A grimy little girl: Catalina Milosovici.

  Perfect.

  The Dragon forwarded the message to his contact in Romania. Then he dialed his number. “Find this girl’s family,” he told him. “Teach them a lesson.”

  The Dragon examined the picture of the little girl, the sister, and felt his heart start to race. She was pretty, this girl. He would take his time with her.

  He leaned over to the bedside table, to the cocaine he’d piled beside the phone. Dove in and inhaled, saw fireworks behind his eyes, the little urchin from the box, the knife hanging from its scabbard on his belt.

  Yes, he thought, studying the long blade. He would savor the wench before he ended her sorry life.

  25

  AT ONE POINT IN HIS LIFE, Kirk Stevens had been terrified of flying. Three cases with Carla Windermere had all but cured him. Still, he felt no small relief when the BCA’s chartered King Air touched down in Minneapolis. The flight had been smooth, the pilot calm and confident, but nothing could shake the funny feeling in the back of Stevens’s mind.

  They’d moved Irina Milosovici out that morning. Driven her to the little airfield north of Walker in a convoy—the sheriff’s pickup and a couple of cruisers—Stevens’s eyes searching the road for threats the whole way. Probably just paranoia, but as Dale Friesen might have attested, but anyone who shipped a bunch of women across the ocean in a box was bound to be a little bit ruthless.

  Nancy was going to drive down with the kids and Triceratops later in the day. They’d packed up the Cherokee together, and he’d caught Nancy looking at him.

  “Make sure she’s okay, Kirk,” Nancy had told him. “She’s still going to be scared of you and the deputies. Treat her gently, okay?”

  Stevens had thought about Irina, how she’d shivered when she’d seen him, as if a light breeze could blow her over. Felt that same twinge in his heart again. “I will,” he said. “I’ll make sure they go easy on her.”

  He gave his wife a kiss. Held her for a moment. Then he kissed his daughter’s forehead and ruffled his son’s hair. “Gotta go,” he told them. “I’ll see you back in town tonight, okay?”

  Andrea looked up from her phone. “Is everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine.” He forced a smile. “Duty calls.”

  “Daddy.”

  She studied Stevens, wide-eyed and serious, and he felt a pang of sudden tenderness toward her. Andrea had been a hostage, briefly, in one of Stevens’s earlier cases, and since then had viewed her dad’s job with a kind of worldly concern. She wasn’t going to buy his reassurances, Stevens knew. Not now that she’d seen what cop life was really like.

  Stevens bent down, wrapped his daughter in a hug. “We’re going to be fine,” he told her as Triceratops licked at his ear. “We have a woman in custody, and we figure she’s in a little bit of danger, so she’ll be safer off with Agent Windermere in town. That’s all.”

  Andrea let him hold her. “Just be careful.”

  “I will,” Stevens said. “You be careful, too. Help your mother take care of JJ, okay?”

  She hugged him tighter. “Okay.”

  He held her a minute or two longer. Then he kissed Nancy again, waved about fifteen good-byes, and walked the couple of blocks to where Irina and the translator waited with Sheriff Watkins, ready to get the heck out of Walker.

  Irina Milosovici didn’t say much the entire flight. Stevens had the translator explain the situation, watched Irina’s brow cloud over.

  “My sister,” she said.

  Stevens nodded. “We’re working on it,” he told her. “We’ll get her back for you. We’re just going to need a little more help.”

  Irina studied his face. Didn’t react. Turned away to stare out the airplane’s window and watch as Walker disappeared beneath them.

  The flight took a couple of hours. Terminated at Crystal Airport, a small public facility northwest of Minneapolis. Stevens checked his phone, found a text message from Nancy. On the road, it read. See you tonight. xoxo.

  He wrote a quick text back—Made it to Mpls. Hurry home. Love, K.—then put the phone away. Followed Irina off the plane and found Carla Windermere waiting on the tarmac.

  Even now, three ye
ars after their first meeting, the sight of her made him pause. She was a beautiful woman, tall and slender, looked more like a movie star than a badass FBI agent. But she was badass, the toughest partner Stevens had ever had, and as he stepped off the plane and walked toward her, he felt his nerves suddenly calm, as if Windermere’s mere presence could deter Irina Milosovici’s kidnappers.

  “Stevens.” Windermere was smiling, sly, those deep chestnut eyes fixed on his. “Even on vacation, you couldn’t resist me.”

  26

  IT WAS GOOD TO SEE STEVENS AGAIN.

  Even with Derek Mathers in her life, Carla Windermere still held a soft spot for the BCA agent, whose unassuming looks belied, she believed, dynamite cop instincts and an extraordinary calm under pressure.

  Except this case was shaking her partner, she could tell, as they brought Irina Milosovici through the myriad security checkpoints outside the FBI’s new Brooklyn Center offices. The place was a fortress, built to withstand the kind of attacks that had destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, and sometimes Windermere caught herself thinking the new security measures were overkill. Not today, though. Not with one cop already dead on this case.

  Windermere and Stevens shepherded Irina Milosovici and her translator through security and up into the Bureau’s Criminal Investigative Division. Found a conference room with a couch and a coffeemaker and waited as the two women made themselves comfortable.

  “Okay,” Windermere said, glancing at Stevens and Agent Harris, who’d slipped into the room to listen in. “So let’s hear what we’re dealing with.”

  > > >

  BUT IRINA’S MEMORY WAS HAZY.

  “It was very bright,” she told Windermere and Stevens. “Every time the door opened, I hid my face. The men were taking women out. We all tried to hide. I tried to hide Catalina so they wouldn’t take her.”