The Stolen Ones

by Owen Laukkanen

  No keys anywhere. Damn it.

  Someone would drive past soon enough. Someone would happen along this road and see the truck. Maybe they would get curious. Maybe they would want a closer look.

  Maybe they would find Nikolai Kirilenko’s body.

  He had to get out of there.

  Volovoi wiped his fingerprints from the Peterbilt’s door. Scanned the parking lot one more time, saw absolutely nothing that could help him. He pressed the strip of torn cloth tighter against his bloody shoulder. Then, wincing from the pain, he walked to the road.

  It was a two-lane country highway. If Volovoi thought hard, he could remember Bogdan Urzica driving the Cadillac out of the lot. He’d turned left, not that it meant anything. Given their head start, Bogdan and the girl could be anywhere by now.

  Volovoi went left anyway. Hobbled along the shoulder in darkness and silence. Tried Bogdan’s number on his cell phone and got nothing—no surprise. He wondered what the dumb asshole would do to the girl.

  A noise behind him. Volovoi turned, saw headlights in the distance, getting closer. He hid the pistol in his waistband. Stepped out onto the road. Let the headlights find him, let the driver get a good look. The car slowed to the shoulder. A door opened. A woman’s voice.

  “Are you okay? What happened?”

  Volovoi hobbled around to the driver’s side. The driver was a young woman, her eyes wide. Her car was a Subaru, a station wagon.

  “Do you need help?” the woman asked.

  Volovoi took out his pistol and shot her. The woman stared at him as she fell out of the car and to the ground. Volovoi kicked her body out of the way and slid into the driver’s seat. Pulled the door closed and drove.

  74

  HE’D BARELY GONE A MILE when he saw it. The Escalade, wrecked, on the side of the road. The idiot Bogdan had driven it into a tree.

  Volovoi slowed the station wagon to a stop behind the Cadillac. The truck’s brake lights still blazed; they lit up the night. He turned off the engine and searched the scene for any sign of the thug or the girl. He saw nothing, just the truck, ruined, half in a ditch.

  Volovoi reached for his pistol again. Checked the chamber. Pulled the driver’s door open and stepped out of the Subaru, holding his gun steady as he approached the wreck.

  75

  CATALINA WOKE TO MOVEMENT outside the wrecked truck. Somebody’s footsteps, whispering through the grass. She raised her head and saw starbursts, felt pain behind her eyes. Something warm dripped down her forehead. She was bleeding.

  The thug was still gone. He’d disappeared through the hole in the windshield and he hadn’t come back. She wondered if he was dead. She hoped so.

  She tried moving again. Felt the pain like an ax to her brain and groaned and lay her head back. She could see shattered glass, the thug’s iPhone on the floor, the tree through the windshield, the truck crumpled around it, the headlights still burning. The truck had hit the tree hard. Catalina supposed it was a miracle she was alive.

  Whatever had been moving outside was still moving. Catalina twisted her head around, saw nothing but pain bursts. Closed her eyes and left them closed. Whatever was out there would find her soon enough.

  When she opened her eyes again, there was a man by the tree. Catalina recognized him. He was the man from the gas station, the man with the gun. The man whose truck the thug had stolen. Somehow he’d caught up to them. And he still had his gun.

  He was standing in the beam of the headlights, just past the tree. Catalina shifted in her seat, craned her neck. Could just barely see the body splayed out on the grass beneath him. The blood. The man studied the body for a minute or two. Then he looked back at the truck, squinted at her through the headlights. Catalina held her breath. Pretended he couldn’t see her. It was too late. He was coming her way.

  Before he could reach her, Catalina leaned down, stretched out her fingers and felt for the thug’s iPhone. Snatched it, quickly, from the floor, and stuffed it in the waistband of her underwear. Then she felt around for the seat belt release. Couldn’t unclip the belt before the man wrenched open the door.

  He was an average-looking man. He was tall, and his face was kind of flat, as though he’d been struck dead-on with a shovel. He was not as big as either one of the thugs, but that didn’t make him any less scary. He held a bloody strip of cloth to his wounded shoulder, but that didn’t make him any less menacing. He wore the hint of a smile on his face. It was not a mean smile, necessarily. It wasn’t a victor’s smile, either.

  It was relief, Catalina decided. The man was relieved to see her.

  The man reached in and unbuckled her. Lifted her from her seat. Catalina didn’t struggle. She didn’t have the energy. She let the man carry her away from the wrecked SUV to a waiting station wagon, let him buckle her into the passenger seat. She didn’t say anything, and as soon as the man had her strapped in and secure, Catalina surrendered to another rising tide of blackness, closed her eyes, and passed out again.

  76

  RENO, NEVADA.

  It was noon by the time Kirk Stevens and Carla Windermere finally said good-bye to Agent Fast and Billings, Montana, for good. They left the Blue Room’s hapless johns in the custody of the local PD, while the FBI’s Salt Lake City division took custody of the trafficked women. None of the women shared Irina Milosovici’s desire to escape. They were terrified, all of them, thankful to be in government protection—unaware, maybe, of the lengths the Dragon would go to keep them quiet.

  “Please,” Sanja told Windermere as she boarded the FBI’s transport van for Utah. “Find Amira. If you can.”

  “We’ll try.” Windermere watched the women climb, wide-eyed, into the van. Probably their first real view of America, she realized. They’ve spent the rest of their time here in shipping containers and shitty bedrooms.

  Sanja took a window seat. She waved as the van pulled away, and Windermere watched until she’d disappeared. Then she turned away to find Stevens.

  He was watching, too, a few feet away, lost in his own thoughts. She punched him on the shoulder. “This story ain’t over yet,” she said. “Wake up.”

  Stevens forced a smile. “Just waiting on you, partner.”

  They caught the afternoon flight to Denver, drank beer and watched baseball in the airport bar, and jumped on the connector to Reno. No FBI agent waited to greet them this time, so they caught a taxi down the highway to the Bureau’s local detachment, where Windermere wrangled them an unmarked Ford Taurus and a head start on some leads.

  “Got us a list of brothels, strip clubs, and escort services from the local vice squad,” she told Stevens as she slid into the driver’s seat, “but most of it looks pretty clean.”

  “I thought brothels were legal in Nevada,” Stevens said.

  “They are,” Windermere said, “except for Las Vegas, Reno, and a couple other spots. So you have to leave city limits to find the legit stuff. Makes it kind of a pain for the casino guests, I guess.”

  “Sure,” Stevens said. “Who wants to drive all the way out to the desert for some action?”

  “Exactly. So there are some escort agencies and the like, but I’m not sure our guys want their girls doing out-calls.”

  “Out-calls?”

  “Like, the girl comes to you,” Windermere said. “As opposed to in-calls, where you go to the girl.”

  “Like the Blue Room.”

  “Pretty much. Mostly, an in-call is a private condo or a hotel room. Not so much a shitty warehouse blasting Nickelback over the loudspeakers.”

  “Roger.” Stevens cocked his head. “How do you know this stuff, anyway?”

  “Research.” Windermere winked at him. “Unlike someone I could mention, I didn’t sleep on the flight. Spent most of my time Googling Nevada hookers. God help me if Harris’s IT people get ahold of my browser history.”

  Stevens laugh
ed. “Okay,” he said. “Anything else?”

  “Let’s see.” Windermere drummed on the steering wheel. “I checked in with Mathers, got the latest from him, which is to say, not much. And I got pictures of the Dragon’s two thugs out to Reno PD and all of the hotels and casinos in town. Figured maybe the delivery boys stopped in for a little gambling on their way out of town.”

  “Good thinking,” Stevens said. “Lots of lines in the water. So what are we doing while we wait for a bite?”

  Windermere turned the Ford onto a highway on-ramp. Gunned the engine. “What we do best, Stevens,” she said. “We’re going to talk to more strippers.”

  77

  VOLOVOI DROVE THE SPEED LIMIT away from the wreck. Beside him, the girl slept in the passenger seat. Slept or was unconscious, he wasn’t sure, though judging by the gash on her head, she’d been lucky to survive when the Escalade crashed.

  Bogdan had flown through the windshield. Volovoi had discovered him on the grass in front of the Escalade, his head nearly torn off, his face smashed and bloody. He’d lost control of the truck somehow. He’d driven straight into that tree.

  Volovoi muttered a silent prayer. Somebody was looking out for him. It was about time he experienced a little good luck for a change.

  He’d stripped the plates from the Cadillac. Removed the registration, wiped it clean of fingerprints. Hunted around for something flammable to set the truck on fire but found nothing. He had to leave the truck as it stood, but no matter. The thing was registered to a shell company, anyway.

  The girl had stayed unconscious while Volovoi tidied the scene. While he had fussed over the truck, and over Bogdan Urzica. He’d taken Bogdan’s identification. Put a bullet through his face so the first responders wouldn’t recognize him from the police sketches on the news. They would trace his identity soon enough—Volovoi didn’t have a hacksaw to remove the man’s fingers to avoid fingerprinting—but they would not follow him back to the trafficking operation, not at first.

  The girl hadn’t moved when Volovoi climbed back in the dead woman’s Subaru. She was very young, he noticed, filthy and bruised, her clothes no more than rags. He’d dug around in the rear of the station wagon, found a T-shirt and shorts in the dead woman’s suitcase. The girl would be swimming in them, but she would be covered.

  Volovoi drove east into darkness. Ditched the Subaru outside Brookville, hot-wired a beat-up old Honda Accord and carried the little girl to the passenger seat, his wounded shoulder stinging from the exertion. It was barely a flesh wound, though. Volovoi decided he would survive.

  Just get the girl to the Dragon. Then deal with your problems.

  The girl looked around sleepily as he lifted her from the car, whimpered when she saw his face.

  “Hush,” he told her. “Go back to sleep.”

  Her eyes flashed defiant for a moment, her muscles tense, but Volovoi held her tight and the moment passed quickly. He deposited her in her seat and slipped behind the wheel, drove a couple miles in the Accord and swapped the plates with a rusty old Ford F-150 parked in an empty warehouse lot. Then he drove back to the interstate and pointed the Accord toward Manhattan.

  The car smelled like mildew and rotten eggs, and the radio buzzed, but it drove okay, and there was plenty of gas in the tank, and as the miles passed beneath him, Volovoi relaxed a bit, even smiled a little. Whatever else had gone wrong, he’d recovered Catalina Milosovici. The Dragon would get his prize after all.

  78

  CARLA WINDERMERE had never seen so many fake breasts in her life.

  She’d spent the evening combing strip clubs with Stevens, searching for any hint of a lead, any industry gossip about unwilling sex workers, trafficking, illegal brothels, anything. By and large, the club managers weren’t willing to talk. The dancers, though, seemed to relish the opportunity.

  “European girls?” A dancer named Amethyst scrunched up her face. “I heard something about that, some underground club. Really top secret, though.”

  “Some asshole complained because I wouldn’t blow him in the VIP room,” another dancer told them. “Swore he knew a couple new girls would do it for half the price of a lap dance.”

  “You know where?” Windermere asked them.

  Both women shook their heads. “Hush-hush, like I said,” Amethyst told her. “They’re here, though. Pushing the legit girls out of business.”

  Windermere thanked them for their time. Thanked their friends, too, and their colleagues, and the competition next door. Every woman wanted to be helpful. They all gave up information. It just wasn’t enough to point to anything real.

  “Maybe we need to start talking to the escort agencies,” Stevens said, blinking in a sea of neon outside another strip club. “The agency women might have a better idea who their competition is.”

  “Probably be happy to point them out, too,” Windermere said. “Seeing as how they’re undercutting the prices.”

  “Just have to convince them to talk to us,” Stevens said. “Might be easier said than done.”

  They walked back to the Taurus, but before they could climb inside, Windermere’s phone rang. She checked it, answered it. “Windermere.”

  “Agent Windermere, it’s Andy Tate with the Reno office. How are things?”

  “Things? Things are slow, Agent Tate. Slogging through a pile of strippers, trying to get a clue. What’s up?”

  Tate laughed. Windermere had met the guy earlier, when they’d dropped by the office to pick up the Taurus. Tate had been the only one in the office, a slight, wry-looking man with an easy smile. She’d liked him immediately.

  “Got a hit for you,” Tate told her, and she liked him even more. “Cocktail waitress at the Peppermill says she might recognize your guys. I told her you’d drop by to talk to her.”

  “The Peppermill. All right.” Windermere caught Stevens’s eye. “I’m sick of strip clubs, anyway.”

  79

  THE MAN DROVE FOR HOURS. He didn’t say a word.

  Catalina woke up to darkness. Her head hurt, and the new car smelled funny. She groaned and sat up and saw a vast highway outside the window, a few cars. She watched the cars as they passed her, wanted desperately to signal somebody for help. Knew the silent man would kill her the moment she tried.

  He’d given her clothing at least, a T-shirt and shorts. The clothes were too big, and kind of ugly—the T-shirt had a picture of an oversized panther on it—but they were better than her rags. She’d slipped them on, taking care not to dislodge the thug’s iPhone she’d hid in the waistband of her underwear. Felt a little better, now that she was covered. She was still dirty, though. She smelled bad, and her head hurt. And the silent man scared her.

  The man drove at a steady speed as the darkness passed outside, and Catalina slumped down and tried to doze in the passenger seat. She could not. She was terrified. Where on earth was this man taking her?

  Then the man drove his little car off the highway. Pulled into a service station. He narrowed his eyes at her. “Behave yourself.”

  Catalina did as she was instructed. Sat in the car as the man filled the tank. When he came back, she shifted in her seat. “I would like to go to the bathroom,” she said.

  The man looked at her, then at the service station. It was a vast, shiny plaza. There was a McDonald’s inside, and a coffee shop, and a little store. There were other cars around, other people. “Five minutes,” the man said. “Nothing stupid.”

  Catalina followed the man out of the car and into the plaza. There was a map on the wall in the corridor to the washrooms. CLEARFIELD, PENNSYLVANIA, the map said. Catalina didn’t know what it meant, or how to pronounce it, but now she knew at least where she was.

  The man walked her to the women’s washroom, made her wait until there were no other women inside. Then he pushed open the door. “Five minutes,” he said again.

  “Five minutes
.” Catalina hurried into the washroom. Studied herself in the mirror and tried to wash the blood and grime from her face. The blood smeared; she was far too filthy for hand soap and paper towels. Anyway, she didn’t have much time.

  Catalina ducked into a stall and sat down on the toilet. Then she reached into her waistband and pulled out the thug’s iPhone. Mercifully, the phone was unlocked. But she had no idea who to contact, or how.

  She did not know the number for the police. Anyway, she could not speak enough English to tell them her situation. The police could not help her. But she had to do something. And time was running out.

  Catalina felt her heart pounding. Think, she thought. Think, you stupid little cow.

  She stared at the phone. At the menu of buttons and icons. At the bottom was an Internet icon. Catalina pressed it, and a search window came up. Okay, she thought. I can use this.

  80

  THE COCKTAIL WAITRESS was named Kara. She wore a tight dress and an easy smile, and she stood out like a precious stone among pebbles in the Peppermill Casino’s dreary confines.

  “Yeah, I remember him,” she told Stevens and Windermere. “Nikolai. The dog. Looked at me like he hadn’t had a woman in years.”

  “You met him here?” Stevens said. “At the casino?”

  Kara nodded. “Craps tables. Double vodka sodas. Every time I came around, he would double his bet, showing off. Couldn’t keep his hands off me.”

  “You talk to him?”

  “A little.” She shrugged. “He was betting pretty decent. They like us to flirt with the clientele, keep them happy.”