Aperture on the East (27 page)

Ana’s eyes enlarged, and
she said, “But your Australian accent
—”

“I grew up in Australia,
so the accent was not hard to put on,” said McKenzie.
“
I was to go in disguise as an Australian
playboy, and get to know as many of these women as possible. The
women were forced into prostitution, and the Rocking Waves was
where they were to lure their customers.”

Ana found it hard to believe that she
and Zoe were inside the lair of a criminal organization. “So Boris
was the boss?” said Ana.

“
It would’ve been an easy
case if he were,” said McKenzie. “So, whenever I picked out a girl,
Boris would put me and her in a taxi and sent us to an apartment
building a few streets away. Turns out Boris’s gang also owned a
taxi company, as well as the apartment building. The building was
where the actual transactions normally took place.”

Ana shook her head, feeling
disgusted.

“
Of course, I would just
have the girl give me a massage when we got to the apartment,” said
McKenzie with a serious face. “We tried to track the bills I paid
to the women using the serial numbers, but the bills never made it
to a bank. We thought about raiding the taxi company and the
apartment building, but we decided to wait until we could find out
who was behind all of it.”

Ana gave McKenzie a nod.

“
Eventually Boris
mentioned the island where they kept the women, and told me about
how to ‘schedule’ a visit,” said McKenzie. “I wasn’t allowed to
bring a cell phone or anything electronic. I went once to see what
it was like, and faked a bellyache to get out. One of my shirt
buttons was a GPS tracker, but these criminals had jammed the
signals. In short, the investigation was going nowhere.”

“
So,” said Ana, “you
invented this whole story with the ex-girlfriend, and worked at the
dive center in your down time? Why did you come and talk to me at
the nightclub?”

“
The story with the
ex-girlfriend was true. I did get dumped just before I took on this
assignment,” said McKenzie. He grinned. “The dive job was a cover,
of course, but I really am a certified Divemaster. Regarding you,
well, I like you. I was dating while working in Russia, so what’s
wrong with dating while working in Vietnam? Life happens, even to a
police officer. Right, Tuan?” McKenzie looked toward the corner of
the room.

Tuan gave a sad smile, and cast his
eyes at Zoe.

Ana sensed that whatever went on
between Tuan and Zoe was probably more than friendship. “So how did
Zoe get involved in this?” said Ana.

McKenzie cleared his throat and said,
“Tuan, you want to take over?”

Tuan took a deep breath, and then he
said, “I was originally working in Hanoi, and was assigned here
also for the investigation of the same group that McKenzie just
talked about. Of course, the local police department was kept in
the dark. They thought that I was just a rookie. The police chief
here was taking bribes from Boris’s gang, we suspected. Well, we
proved it now, thanks to Zoe. At first she was just getting one of
the Russian women she met to feed her stories.” Tuan looked toward
Zoe, his voice was shaky still.

McKenzie sat down next to Tuan, and
patted him on the back.

Tuan continued to say, “I shouldn’t
have told her to do that to begin with, communicating with one of
the captives. I knew Yurik was beating her, so I asked her to
leave. She was so stubborn. She insisted on staying so she could
try to get more information. She didn’t even know that I was
investigating the case. I had already planted someone else in the
club. Billie, the drummer, she’s my colleague. She was
investigating the women smuggled here from Cambodia, Thailand, and
rural Vietnam for the Russian sex tourists. Billie could speak and
write many languages of Southeast Asia. I used Zoe to get her
in.”

Ana couldn’t believe what she just
heard. Her heart sped up.

“
In the end, we were able
to make headway in this case when Zoe bugged Boris’s phone and his
office. Plus, the thug she was with had a big mouth,” said Tuan.
“There were several links in between that we had to figure out, but
we got the big boss, and we got proof of the police corruption. We
cleaned house.”

Tuan paused for a second before he
went on. “On the night of the raid, I told Zoe to ask her band to
stay home. I was so busy afterward that I didn’t look for Zoe until
the next morning. I couldn’t get her on the phone, so I went to
Yurik’s apartment. And that’s when I found Zoe lying on the floor,
unconscious. I got her here immediately and the doctor said there
was a bleed in her head and she had to have surgery right away. I
went back to the police station to get Yurik to tell me what
happened. I swear I could’ve killed him. He wouldn’t say anything
until I showed him a picture of Zoe’s face. He laughed out loud
like the devil and finally told me what happened just to show off.
He got angry when Zoe was trying to slip out of the apartment and
he didn’t like her excuse. He grabbed her guitar and she fought him
to get it back. So he punched her hard in the face. She lost her
balance and hit her head on the doorframe.”

Ana was horrified. She covered her
open mouth with her hand, and her heart ached as she pictured Yurik
striking Zoe, tossing and thrashing her around. She felt
nauseated.

“
She passed out, and Yurik
just left her for dead,” said Tuan. “Oh, Zoe.” His voice
cracked.

The three of them sat silently for the
next few moments. Ana couldn’t wrap her head around the entire
sequence of events. She still couldn’t believe that her daughter
helped solve an international human trafficking scheme. How did the
anarchistic runaway become a hero in a blink of an eye?

“
Tuan, can I call you
Tuan?” said Ana.

Tuan nodded his head as he
sniffled.

“
Tuan,” said Ana, “it’s
not your fault. Zoe always has her own idea about doing things. You
couldn’t have talked her out of it. You may have used her, but it’s
for the greater good. I can’t say that I am not angry, but I know
that she would not regret any of it.”

“
I knew you would
understand,” said McKenzie. “I found out about Zoe when Tuan was
screaming at Yurik. So I dragged him here this morning. I figured
that we owe you an explanation.”

Ana told Tuan what the doctors had
said earlier in the morning, and Tuan broke into a big
smile.

“
So, what’s next?” said
Ana.

“
Next,” said McKenzie, “a
few other officers and I will escort these criminals back to
Moscow. We are taking the Russian women back, too. Tuan and his
team will help return the women from Thailand, Cambodia, and rural
Vietnam. And Tuan is looking at a big promotion. He will probably
become head of a police department somewhere, right? Maybe
re-assigned back to Hanoi?”

“
I much prefer to just be
a detective here,” said Tuan.

“
Anyway, Zoe’s found a
great catch if she will be smart enough to keep him around,” said
McKenzie.

Tuan gave a sheepish smile, and then
he said, “You are thinking too much. Zoe never said she liked
me.”

Ana smiled, too. She said, “But you
like her, don’t you? Anyway, she’s too young. She just turned
seventeen, but you will wait, won’t you?”

“
Ha, so the mother-in-law
approves,” said McKenzie. He clapped his hands.

“
I’m going back to work,”
said Tuan. He stood up and said to Ana, “Please keep me posted. I
will visit again tonight.” He exited the room.

McKenzie produced an envelope from his
suit pocket, and handed it over to Ana. “This is from Irisa, the
woman that Zoe was trying to help rescue. She wanted to visit Zoe,
but I didn’t want to risk Zoe’s involvement being made public. So,
to show gratitude, Irisa sent Zoe this card instead.”

“
I will make sure Zoe sees
this,” said Ana.

“
Well, I should say
goodbye, too,” said McKenzie. “I’ve got some more details to wrap
up for this case.”

“
I totally underestimated
you,” said Ana.

“
Too late, you had your
pick, and you went for the nerdy professor,” said
McKenzie.

Ana didn’t want to discuss what
happened between Vo and her, so she said, “Have a safe trip home.
And keep those thugs locked up forever.”

“
We’ll do our best,” said
McKenzie. He gave Ana a hug, and then a military salute before he
left. It was minutes after McKenzie had left when Ana realized that
she had forgotten to ask him for his real name; she would probably
never see him again.

Ana went to stand by Zoe’s bed to look
at her. She had such new respect for her daughter. What a
courageous young woman, Ana thought. As she gazed at Zoe, she felt
uneasy all of a sudden. What if Zoe never woke up? What if the
police didn’t catch all the criminals and some were planning to
retaliate?

Someone approached from behind and
startled Ana. She almost screamed when she thought a man was
holding out a knife in front of her.

“
Ms. Romanova, are you all
right?” said the phlebotomist. She was holding a needle and few
tubes to collect Zoe’s blood for testing.

“
Oh, you gave me a fright.
I’m fine. I’m just going to sit down and rest for a while,” said
Ana. She sat down in the chair in the corner, and within minutes,
she dozed off.

Ivan had to put on a warm,
water-repelling jacket while waiting for Sofia on the designated
bench on the beach promenade. The sky was pouring rain. Ivan held
tight to his umbrella so it wouldn’t be carried away by the gusty
wind. He had been waiting there all morning, and now the afternoon
was almost gone. There were only a few people out on the beach to
watch the waves that day. Ivan had spent the previous night with
Misha’s family, and heard something about a typhoon being reported
on the television.

Tran Phu Boulevard, running parallel
to the beach promenade, was not as busy as it normally was. Ivan
watched as each car or motorcycle zoomed in and out of his sight,
causing great splashes of muddy water; luckily, no pedestrian was
there to suffer such an unwelcome baptizing. The coconut trees
shook back and forth, the branches creaking as they knocked against
one another. Occasionally a frond of leaves would fall to the
ground next to Ivan’s feet. Ivan looked up and observed the coconut
fruits hanging above him, contemplated leaving his post, but
decided to stay put. He had his helmet on, just in case.

“
Ivan, Ivan.”

Ivan was so glad to hear his name
called out. His heart rate sped up as he turned toward the source
of the sound. He had imagined this moment a thousand times and
rehearsed over and over what he was going to say to Sofia until his
mind went blank from exhaustion.

“
Sofia,” said Ivan. He
looked at the figure, cloaked in a plastic, yellow rain suit,
running toward him.

“
Ivan,” said Misha,
panting.

“
What are you doing here?”
said Ivan.

Misha took a minute to catch his
breath, and then he pulled out a newspaper from inside his rain
coat and showed it to Ivan.

“
Read this,” said
Misha.

“
Okay. Crime boss arrested
in Russia. So?”

“
Look at the picture. It’s
Sofia’s pa.” Misha pointed to a mug shot below the
headline.

“
No way,” said Ivan. He
studied the man in the picture; he bore no resemblance to Sofia
whatsoever.

“
I’ve seen him pick up
Sofia from school once or twice. Sofia hugged him and called him
‘papa’ over and over. Nicolai Kutyakov. Same last name as
Sofia’s.”

“
Why would a mob boss pick
up his daughter from school?”

“
Who knows? For fun?
Anyway, I don’t think Sofia is coming back. You should come home
with me now.”

Ivan held on to the newspaper and read
the article quickly. Nicolai Kutyakov was charged with trafficking
Russian women to Vietnam, specifically Nha Trang, for the sex
trade. His men also imprisoned countless women from Southeast Asia,
either forcing them into prostitution in the major cities of
Vietnam, or smuggling them to Russia. Both the Russian and
Vietnamese authorities had been aware of his gang’s activities for
years, and started tracking his movement when he was operating out
of Hanoi. However, it was not until recent months that they were
able to penetrate into his organization and gather enough evidence
to arrest him.

“
This doesn’t say anything
about Sofia,” said Ivan. “This doesn’t prove that Sofia is his
daughter. Anyway, even if it’s true, Sofia’s life will still have
to go on. She still has to go to school. She is not going to prison
with her father.” He was somewhat breathless.

“
They caught him in
Russia,” said Misha. “Sofia went to Russia with him. I’m sure they
will put her up with a relative or a guardian
—
in Russia. She’s not coming
back.”

Ivan suddenly lost the strength to
hold up his umbrella, and it fell to the ground along with the
newspaper. Misha bent over to pick up both items. He held the
umbrella over Ivan’s head and put the newspaper back into the
pocket of his rain suit.