by A P Bateman
The Beast reached behind his back and pulled out a small automatic. A 9mm Makarov. He smiled at her as he pulled out a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and threw them onto the bed. “Put these on,” he drawled, his Russian accent thick and guttural. “No funny business, or you get a bullet. Okay?”
Caroline picked up the handcuffs and begrudgingly clipped them over each wrist. The Beast raised the pistol and walked over to her. He reached out and gripped her left wrist, squeezed the cuff and it ratcheted tightly. He smiled as she winced, repeated it again with her right wrist. He let go, reached for her hair and yanked hard, bringing the pistol up into her neck.
“No funny business,” he said, then pushed her ahead of him, out of the bedroom and into the dark corridor.
Caroline’s heart was pounding. She tried to assimilate what was happening, told herself there would be an opportunity at some point, but there was an over-powering sense of dread that she could not shift. Her legs became heavy and her breathing erratic.
Ahead of her, a narrow staircase was lit by a window high above. She could see clouds scudding across the blue sky. She looked at the stairs, a strip of well-worn carpet, almost threadbare and accented by grimy painted floorboards on both sides. She could tell the house had not received attention in many years. Perhaps even decades. But the wear indicated that it was in constant use.
“Downstairs, turn right, go into the room,” The Beast ordered. “And no funny business…”
Caroline wondered if he had learned his English from forties American gangster movies. She did as she was ordered, slowly. She would not give the animal the satisfaction of obeying meekly. He moved closer to her and prodded her back with the muzzle of the pistol. She grimaced as she smelled stale cigarette smoke and body odour on him. She entered the room, a large innocuous area which had been set aside as a dining area. A large pine table some twenty-feet in length and half as wide and surrounded by at least twenty chairs. The table was grimy but had been wiped after use. The room was otherwise featureless and windowless.
“Sit,” ordered The Beast.
Caroline pulled out a chair and sat down. The beast walked around the table and sat down as well, keeping the pistol in his hand and aiming towards her. He had relaxed his hand, placing the pistol on the table, his hand loosely holding the grips, but was far too distant for Caroline to attempt anything other than suicide.
“Now what?” she spat at him.
“You shut up and wait.”
She did not have to wait long. Caroline looked up as a woman entered. She was strikingly beautiful, but predatory and severe. Her eyes were as dark as jet, her shiny black hair cut in a sharp bob. She looked different now though. Sad, where once she had exuded nothing but confidence. She had seen the woman once before. Until then, she had only seen her in magazines, barely-cohesive articles on the internet, or in a series of photographs from files within MI5. She had seen the woman in person in a derelict house. She had almost died, was still gasping for air and clearing her throat of muddy water when the woman had walked in. She had picked up the knife King had left for her, and for a moment, Caroline had thought she was going to help cut the bindings on her ankles. She had seen the look in the woman’s eyes, knew she was in trouble, but had been left far too weak from her ordeal to fight her off.
“Caroline,” she stated flatly, as she pulled out a chair and sat down next to The Beast.
“Helena Snell.”
“It’s Milankovitch now,” she corrected her.
“Congratulations. I’m sorry I couldn’t bring cake.”
Helena looked her up and down. “I wonder if you will still be so feisty after you have been forced to sleep with a thousand men?”
Caroline looked at her warily. “What is your problem? You had your husband killed, got caught out and want revenge?”
“I want revenge for my soulmate! Not that piece of shit you call a husband!”
Caroline nodded. “Viktor Bukov?”
“Yes.”
“So, where is he?”
“You killed him!” Helena snapped. “Or rather your precious organisation did.”
Caroline shook her head. “I don’t know anything about that.”
“Liar!” She pushed her chair back and it scraped on the flagstone floor as she stood up. She paced around, her arms folded, accentuating her slim waist. “Viktor was slaughtered on a rooftop by a sniper…”
“And what was he doing on the roof? No doubt attempting to assassinate another person on your death list.”
Helena glared. She had no answer. She had been waiting for him in the street below. It was to have been their last hit. They had almost been home and dry…
Helena smiled. “I think it’s time I showed you around,” she said. “Let you see what awaits you, if your boyfriend doesn’t make contact with me soon.”
“Why would he contact you?”
Helena smiled. “Do you know how the northern Sami and the Inuit use a wolf’s character trait against it? No?”
“No,” Caroline said quietly.
“Well, let me enlighten you. You see, the cold does many things to someone. Also, to the animals inhabiting the frozen wilderness. Feelings are one thing. The cold can numb the senses, dull the emotions. You are hungry, and there is food, but it takes so much effort. Nothing is easy. And therefore, nothing can be ignored. Every opportunity must be exploited. The wolf for instance, like your beloved Alex, well, it is in its nature to kill. It will use its skills to secure a kill, but it will also put itself at risk. This is in its nature. The opportunity cannot be passed up. And therefore, with a little ingenuity, the wolf easily becomes a target. Feared and revered, when it is known that a creature will exploit anything, it can be used against them. The wolf will be tricked, just by its very nature. And when you know that you are up against a wolf, well you have to use the wolf. You must use its tenacity, its persistence, its determination to trick it. You see, the hunters in the cold and unforgiving regions of the north use only two things to catch a wolf. An opportunity and a means of exploiting it. They take a knife and they sharpen it like a razor. Afterwards, they simply dip it in blood and allow the blood to freeze. They repeat this until the blade is heavy and thick with frozen blood. Then, they melt some ice, either with warm blood or their own piss, and then ram the handle of the knife into the melted ice. It freezes in no time at all. What then? They hide? They call the wolf? No. They simply leave the blade for the wolf to find. The wolf smells the blood, watches, but sees no sign of a trap, nothing but the blood. The wolf sniffs the blood, then starts to lick. It licks the blood, cold and hard. Its warm tongue melts the blood, and soon the wolf’s tongue is slashed to pieces. Its mouth is cut and bleeding, but the blood adds to the taste, the frenzy it finds itself in. Blood, blood, more blood. Warm and delicious; its tongue numb from the lacerations. The wolf cannot believe how easy this meal has been to find, to exploit. But soon, the wolf is bleeding terribly, soon the wolf is weakening as it bleeds and bleeds and bleeds; yet continues to feed, to drink its own blood. The wolf is dying but does not realise. Not even at the end, when the wolf finally collapses and dies…” she paused. “You see, you are the bloodied knife. King is the wolf. He is doing my bidding, but he will die doing it…” She nodded to The Beast and he walked around the table and pulled Caroline roughly to her feet. “Because he’s performing certain tasks for me. I suppose to buy you time while he mounts a grand rescue. It won’t work out that way, but I guess he’s desperate enough to believe he has a chance.”
“What tasks?” asked Caroline, as she was propelled forwards and walked in front of them.
Helena said nothing as they reached a door and The Beast pushed Caroline up against the wall. Helena opened the door, then caught Caroline by the arm, linking her own inside. They stepped outside and to any casual observer, it could have looked like two old friends meeting for the first time in an age.
“Your man is a killer. I’m merely using him for business.”
“He’s killed, but he’s done it for the right side,” Caroline corrected her, but already she felt a sinking feeling.
“I was part of the Bratva, the brotherhood,” she paused. “The Russian mafia. Well, I suppose I wasn’t as much a part of it, as a sex slave for it. They used and abused me, degraded me. Sold me, bought me back, hired me out. But I learned many things. About myself, and about them…”
“I’m sorry,” Caroline said. She meant it and sounded sincere. But she knew she wasn’t going to win over this woman.
“I learned that vengeance is a dish best served cold, as they say. I also learned how powerplay works. That if someone in power dies, how you can exploit that position entirely.”
Helena slowed her pace as they reached a stone-built barn. It had been refurbished, fitted with windows, but Caroline noticed that the windows were barred.
On the inside.
“What do you mean?” Caroline asked, to bide time as much as understand.
“King has killed two prominent brotherhood bosses for me. I had the resources and insight in place to take over. To appeal to those who were left, shown them that my way would be the best for all concerned.”
“What? In the brief time since the rug was pulled from under you?” Caroline asked incredulously.
“I had no options open to me. I am a fugitive. I had some money in a few offshore accounts, got the funds out in time. Bought bitcoins, mined and sold them on. Digital currency quickly becomes untraceable. But what I had to give me my in, to get me ahead, was a great many contacts within the brotherhoods,” Helena paused. She stood aside while The Beast stepped around Caroline and opened the door. It was padlocked and bolted from outside. “This has been up and running for years,” she said, sweeping her hand across the façade of the building. “Come see inside…”
Caroline followed tentatively. She could hear voices, but they were hushed tones and the voices soon stopped altogether when the door closed again behind them. The light was dim. There was a dank smell, the odour of fear and of poor hygiene. Her legs felt so heavy, it was an effort to maintain forward motion. She knew she was being toyed with. She knew she was about to see something terrible, and as hard as it was to move, she felt compelled to discover what secrets lay within this prison. For any building locked from outside with people within, was exactly that.
Helena smiled, but it was a mirthless, crocodile smile. “This is what your boyfriend has killed for,” she said. “To save you from this…”
Caroline rounded the end of the corridor and stopped when she saw the Perspex viewing panel. “What is this?” she asked, her eyes transfixed.
The room on the other side of the panel was approximately five-metres by twenty-five. At some time or other it had housed animals because the remains of the stalls were clearly visible where the blocks had been removed, and there were still metal cattle ties in place. Most were hanging uselessly, but a woman had been handcuffed to one of them and there were welts on her bare back. Another woman was giving her a drink from a dirty bottle. It was water, but it looked cloudy. The woman was drinking thirstily.
“Ignore her,” Helena said. “She was naughty. Tried to escape. Jurgen here, gave her a lesson.”
Caroline shuddered at the thought of The Beast whipping the poor woman. She shook her head. “Who are they?”
“Trash. Waifs and strays,” Helena said lightly. “Girls wanting comfortable jobs in the west. A better life. Ironic really…”
“You’re sick!” Caroline snapped.
“I’m a realist.”
“You said you were in the sex industry, forced into it by the Russian mafia,” Caroline paused, looked at her in bewilderment. “Have you no feeling for them? You’ve inflicted your own fate onto them. Worse, most probably.”
Helena shook her head. “We control our own fate,” she said. “Nobody was there to help me. Nobody came to my rescue…” She smiled cruelly. “… and nobody will come for you.”
“I get it,” Caroline said coolly. “But what happens to these girls?”
“Sex trade, mainly. Some will go back east, out to the Middle East. The blondes and the redheads. They’ll be the lucky ones. They will have some sheik who will only get it up so much, and he will want them clean and well-tended to. Some of them will even enjoy the lifestyle. Others won’t be so lucky and will go to super-brothels.”
“Where?”
“On your own doorstep!” Helena laughed. “Right under the noses of the middle-classes. Many throughout Europe. And then there’s pop-up brothels. The handlers bring the girls into a short-term house let, advertise locally and sit back and wait. A few weeks at a time, from town to town, always one step ahead of the police.”
Caroline watched the women, who were looking back at her. The girls were aged from mid-teens to thirty. Some were prettier than others, but all were attractive, or would have been before their soul-sapping ordeal had started. “So, this is a holding area?”
“Of sorts.”
“And you got into this line of work since…”
“It’s been happening for years!” Helena interrupted. “I have taken over assets and ventures, have the men on my payroll. I offered better incentives, a clearer picture for them to work from.”
“So, when do these girls get shipped out?”
“We’re still testing and sorting them.”
“Testing for what?” Caroline paused. “STDs?”
“Amongst other things,” Helena smiled. “Keep walking.”
Caroline glanced at the women again, as she walked onwards. There was a door ahead and another large room, which would have been a milking parlour once. It had been scrubbed clean and the stalls knocked down, but Caroline had spent summers on her uncle’s farm as a child, and she recognised the building’s former use. This next room had a hospital-style bed and medical equipment at the far end. Caroline watched as the door opened and a woman was walked in by two dirty-looking, wiry men. Another man followed, he wore a filthy white medical coat and carried a kidney dish with equipment in it. As Caroline neared, she saw it was a speculum. She stopped and stared at Helena, whose expression was impassive. “What the hell is this?”
The young woman was manhandled onto the bed and held down firmly while the man in the filthy, stained technician’s coat pulled the woman’s legs up and apart. Caroline took a step and went to rush forward but felt the impact of the tiny pistol on her ear. She fell forwards, sprawled on the hard, concrete floor, scraping her chin. She could hear the woman scream, heard the man grunting as he made his inspection. Caroline couldn’t look, but she heard the woman scream again, then the sound of the speculum dropping into the dish. When she got back onto her feet, Caroline had tears on both her cheeks. She couldn’t look at the woman, but she watched the man in the filthy medical coat labelling blood samples he had hastily extracted from the woman’s arm. The woman was pulled off the bed and handled back out through the door. Caroline could see blood dripping from the woman’s wrist, having travelled down her arm, the extraction points untended with cotton wool and tape, or even a sticking plaster.
“This is money,” Helena said. “Keep walking.”
Caroline’s legs refused to move, and she felt as if she were set in cement. She could feel her heart hammering against her chest, her breathing was so rapid, she fought to catch her breath. She felt herself shoved in the back and she carried on the momentum with her first step. She was walking slowly, the door looming. “I…”
“Oh, bless you!” Helena smirked. “You’re okay for a day or two,” she said, then added, “As long as your boyfriend makes contact soon. He’s been a naughty boy. He’s killed the next man on my list, but he hasn’t checked in. I do hope, for your sake, that he’s not lying dead in a ditch somewhere…”
“He won’t be!” Caroline snapped. “And he’ll look you in the eye when he kills you, if I don’t first!”
“Feisty!” Helena smiled, then looked at The Beast, her expression hardening. “Jurgen, punch her. Ha
rd.”
Caroline did not have time to dodge as The Beast punched her in the chest, hammering his meaty fist into her left breast. She yelped and fell backwards, then howled as the pain set in. She rolled on the floor, her teeth gritted and the agony for both to see on her face. Every fibre of her being wanted to stay down and recover from the pain, but she found herself dragging herself to her feet. She looked at The Beast, sneered and said, “If that’s the best you’ve got, then you’d better not be here when Alex turns up.” She looked back at Helena. “But I don’t need a man to do my dirty work. Mark my words, I’m going to kill you myself.”
“Hah! Words are all you have, my dear.” She pointed to the door. “Now, walk!”
Caroline did, and to her astonishment, she no longer felt the heavy legs, erratic breathing or the pounding of her heart. She held back while The Beast got the door and ahead of her she could see another Perspex panel. She was ready now. Or so she thought.
“The girls who are not good-looking enough to appeal to your average male punter are here. Well, most of them who make the grade.”
“Grade?” Caroline asked curiously, but then she could see. She didn’t need Helena to fill in the gaps for her.
“We have computer, or I should say web experts who can find the market. Buyers are easy to come by, transactions are made in cash or via automated bank transfers. We provide invoices for other goods, of course.”
Caroline watched a heavily pregnant woman struggle into a chair. Another, seven months pregnant, or so Caroline estimated, was rubbing the lower back of a woman who looked about ready. In fact, as Caroline watched, she could see the woman panting short, sharp breaths. The woman was already in labour.
Caroline could not help the tears forming, she reached up with her handcuffed hands and rubbed them away from her eyes. “You’re farming babies…”
Helena shrugged. “This has been in place for years. The dark web gives us the means and opportunity to plug a gap in the market,” she paused. “I struggle to think what to do with you. You’re a good-looking woman. You’ll probably do well for a sheik, but you’re pushing the age limit. Those horny bastards like women in their twenties, although we women knocking the door of forty know we’d certainly please them better than we would have fifteen years ago!” She laughed and shook her head. “But you don’t have children, do you? I think it would be worth a try. At least one before we send you somewhere…”