by Beth Abbott
“I love you to the stars and back.” Sacha whispered. “Stay out of trouble.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Like that was an order he could obey! “I’ll speak to you later, baby.”
“Bye!”
Zach disconnected the call and returned the phone to his pocket.
He hated the thought that she was going through all the emotional shit without him.
Maybe he could ask Tuck to have a plane ready to get them back to London early Monday morning, as soon as they were clear of the ship?
It wouldn’t hurt to ask!
Chapter 31 – Micky
Micky finished supervising the unloading of the roughly forty trafficked women into the large spare room at the back of the dining area, and looked around at the group, tired and bedraggled as they were, standing huddled in the middle of the room.
“There are showers in the bathroom at the back, along with soap, shampoo, toothbrushes and toothpaste. There are also boxes of fresh clothes for you all in a range of sizes.” She said loudly. “You will clean up and place all your dirty clothes in the bin in the bathroom.”
Micky looked around.
“There aren’t enough mattresses for all of you, so some of you will have to double up for now, but they’re clean.” She explained. “You’ll be here for a few days at least, so make yourselves comfortable.”
She glanced around the women, looking for someone who looked like they might be a spokesperson.
“Do any of you speak English?” She asked, hoping to find someone who would be of use to her.
One of the women in front of her nervously put up her hand.
Micky smiled at her, switching to English.
“Good, you can act as a go-between.” She informed her. “What’s your name?”
“Olga.” The woman answered hesitantly.
“Ok, Olga.” Micky waved her over. “Come with me.”
Micky led the woman off to one side while the others started to make their way into the showers.
“I’m going to entrust you with some information which if it gets back to my employer or the other men on the ship, will almost certainly result in my death, and a lifetime of slavery and torture for most of you.” Micky explained, watching the woman’s reaction. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
The woman had paled considerably so Micky had a fair idea that her English was pretty good.
“You are currently on a ship bound for West Africa, where you will all be sold as sex slaves.” Micky explained, watching the tears appear in the woman’s eyes. “I’m trying to find a way of rescuing you, but that won’t be for a few days, and between now and then, my employer is hosting a weekend of fighting. There will be a lot of gambling going on, and for the men my employer is hosting, there will be plenty of entertainment. Unfortunately for you, he also intends to offer some of you women to the fighters as a reward for winning.”
She watched Olga’s eyes widen.
“You mean…” Olga stuttered.
“I mean that my employer’s plan is that the fighters will pick amongst you, and the women they pick will almost certainly be expected to have sex with them and like it.” Micky kept her eyes on Olga, making sure she understood what she was being told. “I don’t exactly know what sort of men the fighters will be, but I can’t imagine that they’ll turn down the offer of a woman to pleasure them.”
“Wh… why are you telling me this?” Olga asked quietly, frowning. “What am I to do with that information?”
“I really am doing everything I can to get you free, but it’s going to take some planning, and it’s not going to happen by the time we need the women later tonight. I’m going to pretend that there’s a sickness bug amongst you all and try and keep most of you safe for a day or two.” Micky explained. “You’ll need to make sure this room smells as bad as possible, so it puts everyone off coming in here. You can start by not flushing a couple of the toilets. Ever! But, in case my boss doesn’t buy that as an excuse, you need to find some women who’ll agree to sleep with the men to protect the rest of you.”
Olga glanced around the room, and Micky could tell she was looking for women who might agree to the proposal.
“You need to find maybe eight women who would be prepared to have sex with these men tonight.” Micky explained. “Another eight will probably be needed tomorrow, although we may be able to use some of the same women.”
Olga stared at Micky, and she could almost hear the cogs turning as the younger woman tried to assimilate the information.
“How do I know that you’re telling me the truth?” Olga finally challenged. “You might just be telling me this to make the women comply with something they would never normally agree to.”
Micky took Olga’s arm and steered her to the door which she pushed open a few inches.
“Look.” She pointed at the workmen. “They’re setting up the ring for the fight, and the seating area around it. The hostesses from my employer’s casino will be entertaining his guests, and a selection of the women in this room will be picked to look after the fighters. Whether they come willingly or are dragged kicking and screaming is up to them, but don’t be surprised if anyone who puts up a fight ends up pumped full of rohypnol being raped repeatedly. These are not people you want to upset.”
Olga turned away from the door and leaned against the wall.
“Why do you work for them?” She whispered accusingly.
“It’s not because I love my job, that I can promise you.” Micky hissed. “Look, in a couple of days, if everything goes to plan, we’ll all be free of this ship and safe from Sergei Lebedev and his goons. When that happens, I promise I’ll tell you everything. But for now, you have to believe that I’m doing the best that I can to keep you all alive and keep as many of you as possible free from harm. I’m sorry if that can’t be all of you, but this is the best I can do.”
Olga stared at Micky for long seconds before nodding.
“There are some older women who probably have more experience with men.” She nodded. “They might agree to do this to stop the younger ones from being terrorised. I’ll speak to them and see whether any of them will agree.”
“Thank you.” Micky nodded. “Make sure they’re on standby in case they’re needed.”
Micky didn’t wait for Olga to agree. She stepped outside, locking the door behind her and pocketing the key.
With just the quickest glance around, Micky headed for the stairwell, taking the steps three at a time. When she reached the upstairs landing, she headed straight for cabin twelve, pulling the key-card from her pocket and letting herself in before she could be seen.
As she quickly closed the door behind her, Micky turned to see five pairs of eyes staring in her direction.
She glanced around until she found Abram, and as he stepped towards her, Micky felt her knees start to give way.
She lurched towards him, and just as she reached him, the man-mountain almost plucked her out of the air into a bear hug.
Micky wasn’t used to feeling weak, but for a split second she felt the overwhelming urge to burst into tears. The feeling of relief at no longer being alone was all consuming.
“Hey, baby girl.” Abram kissed the top of her head. “How’re you doing?”
Micky snorted a laugh. Abram had always called her his baby girl, despite the fact that there was no more than a year or two between their ages.
She leaned her head back and smiled up at him.
“I’m so much better since I saw your silly grin.” She chuckled. “I never thought I’d ever say these words, but God, am I ever glad to see you!”
“I’ll take that as the compliment you meant it to be.” Abram laughed, stepping back.
“You said you had a message from my father?” Micky urged.
“I did.” Abram nodded. “He said to tell you to come home. Your time is up.”
“My time?” Micky frowned. “Why did he say my time was up?”
“Your ten years’ serv
ice is done, sweetheart.” Abram confirmed. “As soon as we get you out of here, and you’ve given your final intelligence report to your superiors, your time as an agent is done. You’re free to go wherever you like and do whatever you like.”
Micky found it difficult to breathe. She’d been working undercover for so long, she barely knew what year it was, let alone what month it was.
“How is it all happening this weekend?” She asked, looking around at the different men.
She remembered some of their names. Drago and Kris were the other Russians, although Kris was now more American than Russian. The big blond giant she recalled as Zach. He was pretty hard to miss.
Finally, her eyes fixed on the black-haired guy with the fascinating steel grey eyes. She tried to remember his name, but nothing came to her.
“Why are you all here?” She asked, still staring straight at those mysterious eyes.
“We recently took down a well-known Russian criminal you’ve probably heard of, by the name of Ilya Federov.” The dark-haired man explained. “His sister helped us, and she’s now working with us, or will be soon, at least. Drago was another undercover officer, and he’s now convinced Lebedev to do business with him. The rest of us are here as his fighting team, but that’s just a cover so we can get close enough to get you out and rescue the women, amongst other things.”
“I knew Ilya quite well. His death didn’t exactly reduce me to tears.” She shrugged. “But what other things are you talking about?”
“What Kellen was referring to was the arms deal we’re trying to set up with Lebedev.” The man she remembered as Drago spoke up. “We need to get access to Lebedev’s bank accounts.”
Micky shook her head.
“I’m in his accounts every day.” She snorted. “Why do you need access?”
“We have someone back in London who is hopefully going to wipe out all of Lebedev’s money.” The guy she now realised was called Kellen was talking again. “She’s a computer genius and has created a programme that will link all his accounts together and basically bankrupt him overnight.”
“If you have access to his accounts, could you help us with that?” Zach asked. “I think Hannah only needs to get into one to be able to freestyle her way through the rest.”
“I can only access them when Sergei gives me his passwords.” Micky shrugged. “He changes them virtually as soon as I log out. He monitors every keystroke, so if I tried to do anything with his accounts that he hadn’t authorised, he would have someone put a bullet in my head as soon as look at me.”
“Would you be able to give us the account numbers?” Kellen asked. “The more you can give us, the better the chances are that Hannah will be able to identify all the accounts.”
“I don’t have them written down because I’ve never needed to take the risk. Sergei is always watching me.” Micky explained. “When I try and log on, they get entered automatically by my computer as asterisks from where Sergei has already entered them. Once I’m in his accounts I don’t ever bother with the numbers. Of course, now I know you need them, I might be able to copy some of them. If I got the chance to take my laptop with me when we get out of here, I could probably let your friend know what they were inside five minutes. The problem I have is that the original programme was set up by my predecessor, and according to Sergei, it has built in safeguards which tell him if I’m doing something I shouldn’t. Andre and I were never sure if that was bullshit or not, but we both valued our lives too much to test it.”
“And you definitely don’t know the passwords?” Kellen checked.
“No. Like I said, he changes them every time I log off, and gives me the new ones the next day.” Micky shrugged. “They’re always completely different, and totally random.”
“Does he ever repeat them?” Abram asked.
“He might do, but not frequently enough for them to become familiar to me.” Micky shook her head. “Besides, he gives me about ten different passwords each day. His money is well spread out.”
“Does he transfer money between his accounts? Between the different banks?” Kellen pressed her for information. “Offshore as well?”
“He transfers money all over the place, from Russian accounts to the Cayman Islands, Panama, Switzerland, Mauritius and Singapore.” Micky explained. “The accounts are all set up in the names of shell companies and corporate entities that benefit from the zero tax rates you get in those countries. It’s no different from what the big American multi-nationals do to protect their income from being taxed heavily in the US, but, of course, apart from the casino, Sergei’s money doesn’t come from legitimate sources. And even the casino launders money from his other businesses.”
“How so?” Abram asked.
“It’s easy.” Micky shrugged. “Any deal worth roughly half a million dollars or less, gets paid through the casino. Someone comes in with the payment for arms or a drug shipment, places all of it as a large bet, which obviously loses, and they walk out. Simple. The money is bankable because it’s already laundered, and perfectly legitimate. Occasionally it works the other way around when Sergei needs to pay someone off. They come into the casino, place a few bets, win big and walk out with a large wad of cash or a bank wire transfer. Clean money.”
“Don’t casinos get watched for that kind of thing going on?” Kellen frowned. “It’s a bit obvious.”
“It’s more heavily regulated in other countries, I guess.” Micky nodded. “But in Moscow where Sergei has ties with most of the criminal underworld, and a lot of senior officials on his payroll, nobody looks too closely.”
The big blond guy looked at Abram and Drago.
“It looks like Lebedev’s got the financial side of his business tied down.” He scowled. “We just have to pray that Hannah can do her magic once we have access to one of his accounts.”
Micky stared at the different men.
“Is it my turn to ask questions yet?” Her gaze landed on Abram, who grinned at her.
“No, I’m not still a virgin.” He laughed.
Micky couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me, Abs.” She glanced at Kellen. “You said that you want to get at Lebedev’s money, right? If we could get off the ship tonight, I could take my laptop and we could get the money moved while he slept. What’s wrong with that for a plan?”
“It’s not quite that simple.” Kellen said quietly. “We need to get the arms deal to go through if at all possible, if only to stop the weapons getting into the wrong hands. It’s not just what he has on this ship we have to worry about. There is a warehouse full of stolen Russian military hardware in Kaliningrad that we need to get our hands on. That won’t happen unless we can win this fighting contest, and that won’t be over until Sunday night. If we win, Lebedev will give us the location of the warehouse, and we can take possession of the weapons overnight.”
“What about the women being trafficked?” Micky demanded. “Don’t you care what happens to them?”
“We’re going to make sure they get off the ship, I promise you.” Abram reassured her.
“That’s not what I meant.” Micky shook her head. “For the next three nights Sergei will be giving the winning teams their choice of the trafficked women to do with what they like. Rape will probably be the least of what will happen to them. Can’t you stop that?”
Micky watched the expressions on the men’s faces harden as they understood her fears.
“We’re doing everything we can to make sure we win our fights, Micky.” Kellen frowned. “We’ll play along and bring the women back up here afterwards, and I can promise you they’ll be safe with us. But that will only be half of them, because we’re only going to be fighting two matches tonight and two tomorrow.”
“You’re right, it will only be half, and even then, only if you’re successful.” She pointed out. “If you lose, that will be eight women being raped or beaten each night.”
“You don’t seem to have much faith in
us.” The Russian expat, Kris, pointed out. “Do we look like a bunch of pussies to you?”
“No, you don’t.” Micky acknowledged. “But you haven’t seen the other teams yet. I have, and they’re not going to be easy to beat.”
“Look, we’re going to do absolutely everything we can to protect as many women as possible.” Kellen reassured her. “But we’re just not going to be able to protect everyone. And as sick as that makes me feel, it’s an indisputable fact. We’re trying to achieve as many objectives as possible, but we’re simply not superhuman. I’m sorry, but we have to be realistic here, and I refuse to lie to you and tell you we’ll do something that’s beyond our capability.”
“Isn’t there anything you can do for them?” Abram challenged her. “Can’t you get the hostesses to fill in for them?”
Micky shook her head.
“There aren’t enough hostesses for the fighters as well as Lebedev’s men and the buyers.” She shrugged. “I’ve put a plan in motion that might help somewhat, but it’s not ideal, and Sergei might not accept it.”
“What’s your plan, honey?” Abram’s voice had softened.
“I’m going to tell Sergei they’ve all gone down with a sickness bug, and that I want to keep them isolated to stop it spreading.” Micky explained. “I’m going to make sure the room they’re held in smells of shit and puke, enough to deter Sergei and his men from going in there.”
“I really don’t want to know how you’re going to achieve that.” Abram pulled a face.
“I’m going to do it exactly the way you imagine.” Micky smiled reluctantly.
Predictably, a few of the men pulled a face.
“I’ve spoken to one of the women and explained what’s going to happen.” Micky explained. “I’ve asked her to talk to some of the older women to see if any of them will volunteer to go with the fighters.”
“You’re asking hostages to have sex with the fighters?” Kris repeated.
“There are about a dozen women in their mid to late twenties. The rest are teenagers, and a few of them look to be under sixteen.” Micky explained. “I’m hoping that we’ll get enough… shall we say ‘experienced’ women to volunteer. It’s the only way I can think of to protect the youngest girls. They’re still children.”