Inhuman Trafficking

by Mike Papantonio

  Michael said, “My turn to ask. Are you okay?”

  “Of course. I just did not want our conversation to end without my saying, ‘We love you.’”

  * * *

  Three hours later, Michael thought about his wife’s parting words. Even now they sustained him, providing an irreplaceable warmth. Thinking of her made his mission easier. No, it wasn’t so much a mission, he thought, as a wing and a prayer.

  Or maybe a leap of faith.

  He wasn’t making that leap alone. There were plenty of people who had put their necks on the line for him. If he failed, it could mean the end of their careers. Michael would have understood had they refused his request for help, but no one had even hesitated. His band of brothers had made this mission possible.

  The airspace around Las Vegas, like all metropolitan cities, was carefully regulated. Michael was fortunate that air traffic control at McCarran International Airport had a longstanding relationship with Nellis Air Force Base. Because of their proximity to one another, the civilian and military air traffic controllers were used to working closely together. McCarran was also used to accommodating a wide variety of military training missions involving aircraft.

  Tonight was supposedly one of those missions. The Cessna 182 that was transporting Michael was flying at a low altitude toward the restricted airspace of Las Vegas. That wasn’t a problem, though; their unusual flight plan had secured approval through McCarran.

  From his pilot’s seat, Captain “Corky” Corcoran called out, “Five minutes to DZ.”

  DZ was drop zone. The plan was for Michael to leave the plane from five thousand feet, an altitude much lower than he usually jumped from. Still, in hot zones it was often necessary to come in low. Both he and Corky were used to nighttime missions. In the darkness you weren’t as much of a target. Michael suspected the Cessna felt more like a toy to Corky than a real plane. He was used to flying much bigger birds, mostly military transport planes like the HC-130 Hercules. Still, the old Cessna jump plane suited their purposes.

  Corky yelled to be heard. “Mid-level winds are light. Under ten miles per hour.”

  The wind gods were always fickle, especially in deserts. Michael had been monitoring the wind levels all day. Desert winds are notorious for being blustery and wild. Tonight, there was only a gentle zephyr. Had it been too windy, their mission would have had to be scrubbed.

  There was no jumpmaster for this flight. They had taken off with the cabin door open. For Corky, it would be a short flight: fifteen minutes to altitude to destination, and about the same amount of time to land. Corky had departed with one passenger, and would return with none.

  Michael checked his rig for the umpteenth time. His harness was snug and secure. He would deploy an MC-6 steerable parachute, a canopy used for accuracy jumps. Its hollow steering toggles would allow for better maneuverability and easier braking. For this mission, that would be absolutely necessary.

  It was a cloudless night. The full moon would provide more than ample illumination. As he had been doing for much of the day, Michael visualized his jump. To prepare for the mission, he had pored over the DZ map, familiarizing himself with all the cardinal headings of north, south, east, and west, and the landmarks associated with them. He had prepared as if his life depended on knowing that information cold. It wasn’t an overstatement to say that it did.

  Worldwide skydiving accuracy competitions—landing at a dead center target—were often determined by as little as a centimeter. The best skydivers were able to land on a dime. Michael wouldn’t have to be quite that precise, but close to it.

  PJs constantly worked on accuracy in their landings, but setting down atop a building’s roof wasn’t something he had ever trained for. Michael wasn’t even sure if that was something you could train for. The jump, and especially the landing, posed significant dangers.

  Looking out the open cabin door, he could see the skyline of Las Vegas and its kaleidoscope of colors below him. Among all the flashing, in the midst of the city’s sparkler show, he identified his target. It wouldn’t be as easy to do so while spinning around in the air.

  “One minute,” Corky said.

  Those who skydived were wont to use the expression “Blue skies.” It was a phrase often heard before jumping, or after landing. Michael said those words now: “Blue skies.”

  Then he stood up and made his way toward the opening. The wind grabbed at him with its unseen fingers. In his head, Michael recited Psalm 56, verse 3. It was short and to the point: When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.

  No question about it, he thought. I am afraid. But that didn’t stop him from positioning first one foot atop the small ledge above the right wheel, then the other. It was time for his leap of faith.

  He jumped.

  * * *

  Freefall. PJs liked to call low-altitude jumps “hop and pop,” as there is little time to do anything but deploy your canopy.

  Still, there was time enough to spread his wings to the wind around him and take in the earth below. All of Michael’s senses were instantly engaged, supercharged with the hyperawareness that comes with free-falling from the heavens.

  He could hear Tom Petty singing the chorus to “Free Fallin’” in his head. Michael felt as if he was part of the song.

  The bliss that came with his fall was its own drug. Beneath him was the biggest amusement park in the world, with all of its vying light shows. The wind was singing in his ears, and another song came with it, “Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix. The universe opened up to him; Michael was kissing the sky.

  Two selves on the same skydive. Altimeter check, mental countdown to terminal velocity of 120 miles per hour. Ten seconds of freefall to one mind, eternity to the other. His rapture told him to follow the wind, his mission mind noted the speed and direction of that same wind.

  Too soon, time for the big brake. Too soon the release and the canopy above him.

  Michael took in the window in the sky. He descended on the experience of more than a thousand prior jumps, but asked for the wings of angels on this one. His eyes took in the Yin-Yang, a visual more reliable than GPS, and he traveled along the glide path he had been studying and visualizing for. Like a pilot preparing to land, Michael worked his own controls, using brakes, wind-checks, and crabbing to slow his descent, but not stall his canopy. He employed S-turns to get the best approach to the roof, aiming for dead center.

  The Yin-Yang’s low-slope rooftop drew closer. Michael knew it through aerial photographs; now he would see it up close. He needed to avoid the ductwork and piping. The building rose up at him.

  Stick the landing, he thought.

  There was no alternative, or none he wanted to imagine.

  * * *

  Lily’s heart was pounding as she awoke from her drugged sleep. She had heard loud knocking and feared Max was coming for her. Lily looked around, alert to the sounds of more banging. She turned her head from side to side, trying to identify where the noise was coming from, but then it stopped.

  Max, she thought. Bile rose up in her throat. Max had to be behind the sounds, even though he was nowhere to be seen.

  Seconds passed. She was on the alert for anything. But what she didn’t expect was someone calling her name.

  “Lily!”

  Or at least she hadn’t expected a voice calling from outside her bedroom window.

  “Are you there, Lily?”

  The voice was faint, not much more than a whisper. But the best thing about it was that it didn’t sound like Max. Another man was calling her name. But that was impossible. She looked toward the window. Even though it was dark, Lily could just make out a figure.

  No. It couldn’t be. Max had to be playing a final trick on her. He was getting back at her, pretending the moon was talking to her.

  “Nataliya? Lily?”

  The voice sounded more desperate now. Lily wondered if she was going mad. Perhaps, on this night of the full moon, it would be a mercy to not be in her right mind. />
  She rose from the bed, driven to go see. Once at the window, she put her face up against the darkened glass. Something was out there. That wasn’t possible. The figure was awash in the moonlight. He looked to be hovering in the air.

  She stepped back, afraid. That was madness, she thought, unless . . .

  “Are you an angel?” she said, shouting the words so that they might be heard.

  “No,” the voice said. “My name is Michael Carey. I’m your lawyer.”

  LV

  “Are there any other captives in there?” Michael shouted.

  “Only me,” Lily said.

  That would make the rescue mission easier, Michael thought, but he was disappointed Nataliya wasn’t there as well.

  Michael tried to speak with a calmness he didn’t feel, and with an assuredness he didn’t have. From atop the roof he’d anchored a line to the dampening system, and for added insurance had hammered pitons into the building. That had made it a little easier for him to step off the roof. He was now suspended from above, his harness secured with ropes and carabiners. The platform he was standing on was a rigid hammock, the kind used by rock climbers.

  “The setup out here is very safe,” he shouted.

  That’s what rock climbers liked to say; to Michael’s thinking the platform felt shaky.

  “I hate heights. I’m scared shitless.”

  “If you do what I tell you, everything will turn out just fine. Before you squeeze your way outside, I’ll make sure you’re secured into a harness. Even if you weighed ten times what you do, the arrest line would still hold you safe and sound.”

  As loudly as Michael was speaking, he knew Lily was still having trouble hearing what he was saying. Projecting confidence was the important thing. She needed to believe in him. Besides, this wasn’t a time to say too much, especially with her fear of heights. He needed her to take one step at a time.

  “I can’t do it,” she said. “I just can’t.”

  “We’ll get through this together. Before becoming a lawyer, I served in the military where my job was to rescue people from very difficult situations. You will need to trust me.”

  “But how in the hell can I even get outside? The glass is . . .”

  Michael spoke for her. “Unbreakable. I know.”

  * * *

  For most of the day, Max had felt as if he were a stranger inside of his own skin. It was the full moon, of course. And the anticipation.

  Unfortunately, business had delayed his pleasure. Heavy was the head that wore the crown; there had been no avoiding today’s meetings. But now the day’s duties were finally behind him. It was time for Max to unwind. He had been looking forward to this evening from the moment his latest enchantress had come into his life.

  Usually Max enjoyed spending time monitoring his special guest, but today he’d had little time to pursue that pleasure. An hour earlier he’d spent a few minutes on his phone looking at the live surveillance cameras monitoring her. Max had been somewhat surprised to see the woman up and about. With all the drugs he’d given her the night before, Max had thought she would surely be asleep. Instead, she’d been standing at the window, doing a lot of talking.

  And a lot of pretending. Max had learned his lesson. Now he knew the voices she heard were not there. He knew this because the voices she heard were not the voices he heard.

  Those voices that were telling him it was time for her to die.

  As Max opened the security door to her special area of the penthouse, he came to an abrupt stop. In the distance he heard what sounded like a woman’s scream. The cry was not repeated, though, and Max wondered at the source of the sound.

  He moved silently through the penthouse, wanting to come upon the woman unawares. For the second straight night he wore his xicolli, the kind of garments worn by Toltec and Aztec priests. In his hand, held at the ready, was his special tecpatl. The priceless ixquauac showed a glyph of the moon that had been chiseled into its obsidian blade long ago. Max could feel the knife’s hunger. By his hand, it had been fed on three occasions before, and it was hungry again.

  It was time to perform the sacred duty.

  He took one stealthy step after another. The anticipation was delightful. It coursed through his veins. Like the priests before him, Max would cut out the woman’s still-beating heart, place it in a vessel, and make a sacred offering of it to the light of the moon.

  Max turned the corner, expecting to see the woman in all her terror. Her frightened green eyes would speak volumes. But his expected gratification didn’t materialize. The woman was nowhere to be seen.

  He whirled around, anticipating some sneak attack, but she wasn’t there.

  So be it, he thought. She wanted a last game. “Are we playing hide and go seek?” he called. “Am I ‘it’?”

  Max began moving through the penthouse. “How about a hint? Am I getting warm?”

  He lifted up his death mask so as to better see around him. Before paying a fortune for the mask, Max had verified its authenticity. It was believed to be eight hundred years old and had been made before Cortes arrived in Mexico. The mask was meant to adorn the face of the dead, which was why its eye sockets were sealed closed. To see out from it, Max had cut pinhole openings. Now, even with the mask removed, the woman was not immediately visible.

  “Are you in the tub?” he said. “Should you be calling out, ‘Marco’?”

  He moved toward the bathroom, but the woman was not there. Strange, thought Max. His special penthouse guest quarters had been designed to be open, with very few potential hiding places. It didn’t take him long to check those spots, but the woman was still not to be found. It was almost as if she had disappeared.

  Max went back to the bedroom. There was no platform for the bed, and no baseboard or headboard. There was no place for someone to hide underneath or behind it. But what if his guest had managed to hollow out a space between the box spring and the mattress? What if she was hiding there right now?

  When he’d been a boy, hide-and-go-seek had been a favorite game of Max’s. What was the cry used to end the game? Max remembered the words.

  “Olly, olly, oxen free!” he yelled.

  He put the death mask back on his face, grabbed the mattress, and pushed it to the side.

  She wasn’t there. He stared at the intact box spring. Then, just to be sure, he turned that over as well.

  Nothing.

  “Impossible,” he said.

  Or was it? Max had seen the woman talking to the Moon and been sure it was another one of her ploys. What if it hadn’t been?

  He would review the surveillance tapes, of course. Maybe they would explain her disappearance. But at the moment, Max did not know quite how to react. There was nothing to suggest that the girl had found a way to escape, and there was no visible handiwork of her having done so. In prison escape films, tunneling was always revealed, or some broken-down door. None of that could be seen here. The penthouse prison had been designed to be impregnable. There was nothing that suggested otherwise.

  Nothing except the missing girl.

  Max wasn’t sure whether to feel deflated or exultant. He had been denied the transcendent evening that he had been so looking forward to, but the possibility that something else had happened, something greater, excited him.

  The light from the Moon shone into the room. What was its illumination telling him? His xicolli, he noticed, was alit. All the old spilled blood was showing itself.

  “I’m all dressed up, and nowhere to go.”

  He had worn his bloodstained xicolli for the ultimate party, but the festivities had been put on hold. There would be no last dance.

  And yet . . . the Moon called to him.

  It did seem like a marvelous night for a moon dance. Why not?

  Max ran at the window and threw himself at it.

  He was falling for a full second before his voice caught up with the realization that he was plummeting toward the ground. It was then that he started screaming.


  And screaming.

  And screaming.

  All the way down.

  In the time it took for him to fall, Max remembered a little-known fact. When he’d taken over ownership of the Yin-Yang, Max had been told the penthouse was actually located on the forty-fourth floor. It was something that had never been advertised. From its inception, the property had banished the number four. It was as if it didn’t exist. Max had always thought it silly that so many of his Asian clientele suffered from tetraphobia.

  Until now.

  The window hit the ground just before he did. It survived the fall. It was unbreakable.

  The same could not be said of Max.

  LVI

  The scream was something that could never be unheard. It was like a shard of ice being repeatedly hammered into the ear canal. The terrified cry went on and on, until it didn’t. In the shocked stillness that followed, Jake said, “What the hell just happened?”

  Michael and Lily’s heart-stopping jump had landed them several blocks from the Yin-Yang. They were too far away to see Max Miller’s fall, but not too far to hear his end.

  “Someone danced with the devil,” Michael said.

  Lily turned toward Michael. She was wrapped up in a sweatshirt that Jake had provided her, but it hadn’t stopped her violent shivering. Now, it looked like she had found her peace. All of her trembling had stopped.

  “Thank you,” she said to Michael.

  Freeing Lily from her prison had been the easy part for Michael. You could thank Max Miller’s remodel. He’d insisted upon a decorative Yin-Yang pane that was about the size of a doggie door, located beneath the huge high-rise glass window. Miller had said in an interview that the window was his “portal to the universe.”

  Removing the pane hadn’t been easy. Though it was small, it was still exceptionally heavy. Once it was out, Michael had secured Lily into a safety harness, and she had squeezed through the tiny space. It was a good thing she was so slight. That’s when Michael had secured the window and continued with his work.