Authors: Douglas Corleone
Within sixty seconds, the black ZAZ was entirely out of sight.
Chapter 38
We crawled the streets of Odessa for a solid hour, the taxi’s meter running up like the National Debt Clock on Manhattan’s Sixth Avenue. I despised myself for having made such an egregious error with so much at stake. I’d never thought of myself as reckless, but that’s exactly what I was. In attempting to locate Lindsay, I’d gotten Ostermann arrested and Ana kidnapped, now possibly killed.
I glanced at my watch. I saw no choice but to start from the beginning, to enter a club and spark up some conversations, to find someone who knew Pavlo, to learn where he might have taken Ana.
Just as I was about to instruct the driver to return me to Palladium, my mobile finally chirped in my lap. It was a text message from Ana:
CHILLAX HOSTEL NEAR BLACK SEA.
I immediately leaned forward and gave the location to the driver.
“No good,” he said in battered English. “That place, it close down two years in the past.”
“But you know where it is,” I said.
“Yes. I am taxi driver eighteen years.”
“Good,” I said, passing forward a couple five-hundred-hryvnia banknotes to keep him interested. “Then take me to it.”
At the next intersection, the driver made a precarious U-turn and headed toward the Black Sea at an acceptable rate of speed. Learning that the hostel had closed was unsettling, made me even more uneasy. Ana was alone in an abandoned building with Pavlo and Marko and whoever the hell else might be there. I continued to loathe myself for moving forward with this plan when I’d had so many reservations. I was more than willing to trade my life for the chance of finding Lindsay alive, but I had no business at all risking Ana’s. She was a lawyer. This wasn’t her fight; it was mine.
We arrived only minutes later. I’d instructed the driver to announce when we were near, and when he did, I asked him to extinguish the headlights. A block away, I ordered him to pull over and let me out. I paid the remainder of the enormous fare and exited the taxi, softly shutting the door behind me.
I’d considered asking the driver to stay in case we needed to get out of the area quickly, but I didn’t want to risk someone’s hearing an idling engine or seeing a taxi driver sitting alone in the dark. Nothing that might tip these guys off, send them on the run.
Chillax was a two-story structure shaped like a box, surrounded by buildings most likely condemned. The entire block was as silent as the dead, the hostel sitting like a sentinel on the corner. No lights were visible from where I stood.
Hostels are the poor man’s motels, places where backpackers can grab an empty cot on the cheap. They are most frequented by the young, including spoiled American kids traveling on their parents’ dime but choosing to spend their spending money not on four-star hotels but on liquor and drugs. For some, backpacking through Europe is an initiation into adulthood; for others, it’s one last hurrah before settling into serious study at an Ivy League college.
At seventeen, I begged my father for the opportunity to backpack through Europe. He promptly and vehemently said he’d have none of it. From the day we arrived in Providence, my father had done everything he could to keep from flying across the Atlantic. That, I had always thought, was the real reason I had requested a transfer to international investigations when I was with the U.S. Marshals. Not to run away from my wife and child, as Alden Fisk had.
The closer I got to the abandoned hostel, the darker it seemed to get. The Eli Roth film I’d caught on pay-per-view in a Stockholm hotel room a few years earlier crept into my mind. I was pretty sure
Hostel
had been set in Slovakia but right now that provided little comfort. Who knew what hell was waiting for me inside this building. But then, who knew what hell Ana would suffer if I hesitated even another minute.
At the back of the building I climbed a six-foot fence, the metal pulling at the delicate threads of my jacket and pants as I leaped over the top. I hoped Davignon wasn’t expecting the suits back once I finally returned to Paris.
The rear entrance appeared to be locked up tight, a padlock and chains crisscrossing the doorway like a birthday present with an unpleasant bow. I didn’t carry a set of bolt cutters on my person, so entering through this door without making a racket would make for one hell of a trick. I was sure it wasn’t possible.
Which left me only the windows and an imagination operating on little sleep.
There were no windows on the bottom floor so I looked up. The windows on the second floor were boarded up. If there was no glass behind them, that would work wholly to my advantage as far as noise went. Unfortunately, it also meant that I wouldn’t be able to see in. So, while I was prying off the boards, someone on the other side could be waiting for me with a machete.
All right,
I thought.
Definitely time to remove all horror-movie memories from my mind.
Scaling the wall didn’t look like it would present too much of a problem. The building was made of brick and there were unintentional handholds and footholds just about everywhere I looked. I chose the path of least resistance, drew a breath, and started up.
Of course, everything is much more difficult to do in a suit and dress shoes. And climbing the brick wall of a hostel proved no exception. The soles of my shoes slipped on nearly every brick and my fingers were almost immediately covered in nasty cuts. My lungs burned like hell and my left forearm ached, but I continued up, trying futilely to extinguish the height-induced panic gripping my gut.
Once I reached the second floor, I balanced myself on a ledge and surveyed the boards. Plywood, I guessed. Attached to the window frames with thick nine-inch nails. The wood looked weather-beaten and would probably collapse under the strength of a good, solid kick. Gaining leverage to make such a kick, however, was an entirely different story. My best shot would be to rip the plywood from the frame in a single move, then hurl myself through the window, land with a shoulder tumble, and come up raising my Glock.
Only this wasn’t an action movie, either. And I sure as hell wasn’t Jason Statham. But I’d seen enough of his films to give it a go.
Chapter 39
It wasn’t the most graceful entrance ever made, but it certainly served its purpose: I was inside. I’d hit a bit of luck as well. Not only was there no one in the room I’d hurled myself into, but the door was closed, and it seemed unlikely that anyone had heard me enter. The room was empty except for two sets of bunk beds with bare, badly stained mattresses. Briefly I thought of Ana, bound and gagged on that filthy mattress in Chudzik’s basement, and I began to seethe. Finally, I made for the door, opened it slightly, and peered out into the dark hall. I didn’t see anyone, but I did hear some mumbled conversation, which seemed to be coming from the first floor.
Quietly, I hurried to a stairwell at the end of the hall. I pushed open the door, winced at the slight squeak, and squeezed through as small an opening as I could. I had switched off the ringer on my BlackBerry, clicked off the safety on my Glock. I was as ready as I’d ever be to head down the steps.
The closer I came to the first floor, the better I heard the conversation. By the time I reached the bottom, it was as if they were speaking right to me. A sliver of light peeked through. I looked down and noticed that the door was wedged open a crack with an old aluminum beer can.
I risked a quick peek. The door opened onto a large sitting room, possibly the hostel’s main lobby. Two large sofas—the kind you’d find in the common room of a college dormitory—faced each other in the center of the space and were surrounded by several beat-up chairs. From my vantage point I could see Ana and Pavlo seated next to each other, she leaning into him, he with his arm around her shoulders, his lips dangerously close to her left ear.
Holding my Glock at the ready, I pressed up against the door and listened intently. I heard Pavlo’s voice first.
“Come on, Ana. Listen to Marko. He has been in this business a long time. He knows what he is talking about.”
Ana said, “But Marko cannot even assure me which country I will be sent to. What if I end up somewhere I do not wish to be?”
“Ana, Ana,” said the man I assumed was Marko, “what did I tell you before? The most beautiful girls are taken to the most beautiful cities. And you are one of the most beautiful girls to walk through these doors. I have a customer driving in later tonight to pick up two girls for three months in Antalya; it is a wonderful city on the Mediterranean coast of southwestern Turkey. You will love it there. Three hundred days of each year are sunny.
Three hundred.
I guarantee, if we get you down to the pickup spot in time tonight, you will be one of the two selected.”
“Antalya,” Pavlo said with the same obnoxious laugh I’d heard at the club, “it even goes well with your name.”
“And what about the police?” Ana said. “I do not want to get into any trouble.”
Marko and Pavlo laughed simultaneously.
Marko said, “The Ukrainian police? Are you kidding me? You will see a police cruiser drive up to the beach tonight. The police will be there for one reason and one reason only. To collect their money.”
“It is feeding time for the police,” Pavlo added. “Like pigs at the trough.”
More dirty cops. No surprise there, or anywhere else in the former Soviet Union for that matter. Organized crime and law enforcement enjoyed a parasitic relationship in the former communist states, with organized crime constantly growing into a bigger, tastier host.
“And once you arrive at your destination,” Marko said, “you will have no worries at all. You will work in the lobbies and at the poolsides of some of the world’s most luxurious resorts. And these resorts, not only will they not shoo you away like flies, but they will lure you with honey like bees. These resorts, they
need
you there.
You
are why businessmen make reservations and continue to return year after year after year.”
“So you are saying, I will not be walking the streets like some common call girl?”
“Who knows what the future holds?” Marko said. “Who cares? After three months in Antalya, you may become homesick or feel like you have enough money to live off of for the next ten years, and decide to return to Bialystok covered in priceless jewels. Or you may get deported and then return here, ask to be shipped out again. You may find yourself on the streets of Paris or Madrid or Dublin. Is that so bad? Wherever you go, I promise your presence will be more than welcome, and you will make more money than you ever dreamed of.”
“Marko speaks the truth,” Pavlo said.
“Now come, Ana,” Marko said. “We have to get to the beach before my customer arrives. There will be at least two dozen girls there for the competition. But don’t be intimidated; you will be the prettiest girl there.”
“All right,” Ana said. “Let me just use the restroom before—”
“There is no time right now,” Marko said. “Let’s go. You can pee when we arrive at the beach.” He paused. “Pavlo, thank you for the recruit. I have called Yuri and he is sending two girls here as your commission. Spend as much time as you would like with them. Just return them in the same condition in which you received them, or you will have Yuri to answer to.”
“I can use one of the rooms downstairs?” Pavlo said.
“No,” Marko replied. “Use only the rooms upstairs. The rooms on this floor are where Yuri likes to break in new girls, and if he discovers that you put your dirty ass on his sheets, you will end up in hell with his cousin Osip.”
I heard two sets of feet walking away—no doubt Marko’s and Ana’s—and one set of feet coming toward me. I had a decision to make. Pull the gun on Marko now, before he could leave, or wait and follow him and Ana to the beach. To the other girls. To the customer. And quite possibly to Yuri.
I heard the front door open and close, then I felt pressure against the door I was leaning up against. I let the door give a bit, let Pavlo take a step or two in, then used my shoulder to crush him between the door and the doorframe.
Pavlo let out a scream and I promptly covered his mouth, hoping that Marko hadn’t heard the commotion. My worries were quelled when I heard an engine start up and a vehicle quickly peel away.
I slapped Pavlo’s face so that he wouldn’t pass out from the pain. From the way he was breathing, I guessed he had a few broken ribs. I hoped none had punctured his lungs.
Not because I gave a damn what happened to him, really.
But because I needed to know precisely where Marko was taking Ana.
This time, I had no intention of waiting on a text.
Chapter 40
Pavlo was kind enough to lend me the keys to his vehicle. He was fading into unconsciousness at the time, but I was sure I detected a bob of the head when I queried. Fortunately, Pavlo’s ZAZ was equipped with a GPS. Unfortunately, the female voice spoke to me in Ukrainian. I didn’t have time to tinker with the device to determine whether I could switch the setting to English, so instead, I ripped the GPS off the dash and tossed it onto the backseat so that it wouldn’t distract me. From studying maps of Odessa back at the Mozart Hotel, I had a general idea of where I was heading: to a port off an unnamed beach on the Black Sea.
The spot was less than a ten-minute drive from the hostel, and when I saw it I realized Pavlo had been right in that the scene was unmistakable. Thirty or so stick-thin women, none older than her midtwenties, stood in a crowd on a pier next to a sizable boat. Despite the frigid air, none of the girls wore more than a thin dress. All their midriffs and legs were exposed. Each of the girls rocked gently in absurdly high heels and carried a smoke. I searched the crowd for Ana but couldn’t find her at first. Finally, after a few minutes, I spotted her off to the side, speaking with two other women, both of whom appeared to be teenagers.
I didn’t see any men at all and assumed Marko was on the boat. From the looks of things, it became pretty clear that was where I needed to be. These girls would be able to tell Ana only so much. I needed to speak to Marko. And, I hoped, to Yuri himself.