The Stolen Ones (28 page)

LLOYD CAME BACK
quicker than Volovoi had expected. He’d left the girls behind.

Volovoi stubbed out his cigarette. “Well, Mr. Lloyd?” he said. “Which girl would you like? Or perhaps you want both. We could work out a package deal. Three hundred thousand for the pair.”

Lloyd didn’t answer, avoided Volovoi’s eyes. Brushed past him, walked across the selling floor toward the back of the warehouse, the exit. Volovoi followed him. “Where are you going?” he said. “Is something wrong?”

Lloyd stopped and turned back, held out his smartphone. “Are you aware,” he said slowly, “that your face is on every major news network in the country?”

Volovoi forced a smile, a calm voice. “Mr. Lloyd,” he said, “I assure you—”

“Go ahead.” Lloyd thrust the phone at him. “See for yourself.”

Reluctantly, Volovoi took the phone and scanned the screen: CNN, a lead story. His picture. His name.
RUTHLESS HUMAN TRAFF
ICKER.

Volovoi handed the phone back to Lloyd. Kept his voice calm. “These people know nothing about my current affairs,” he said. “They have discovered my New Jersey operations, which I have long ago closed down. I assure you, Mr. Lloyd, you are perfectly safe here.”

Lloyd shook his head. “You promised discretion,” he said. “Secrecy. How am I supposed to feel safe when Wolf Blitzer is showing my broker’s face to everyone in the country?”

“Please, Mr. Lloyd,” Volovoi said. “I assure you, you are very safe.”

“Be that as it may,” Lloyd said. “My friends and I can’t do business with you. It’s too risky.” He punched a number into his phone. “Best of luck, Mr. Volovoi,” he said. “I wish I could have spent more time with your girls. They were lovely.”

He held the phone to his ear as he walked to the door. Volovoi followed him, felt his frustration mounting, his anger. “Who are you calling?”

“Your partner, of course.” Lloyd didn’t even bother to turn around. “I imagine he’ll want an explanation as to why I’m severing our relationship. I hope he understands it’s nothing personal.”

The Dragon. Nothing personal.
Volovoi watched Lloyd reach the door. Heard the tinny buzz of the speaker as Lloyd placed the call. The Dragon would be furious. He would kill Volovoi, and he would slaughter his family. His nieces, to be sure.

Volovoi took his pistol from his waistband. Walked quickly behind Lloyd, aimed the gun, fired. Lloyd pitched forward, hit the door and toppled over, left a bloody trail in his wake. Volovoi put another round into the mess in the back of his head. Then he picked up Lloyd’s phone and killed the connection.

THE DRAGON LED CATALINA
to his bedroom. Pushed open the door and stepped aside for her, his eyes watery and unfocused as they watched her. Catalina walked into the room, swaying slightly on her heels.

The room hadn’t changed since she’d first seen it that afternoon. It seemed different now, though, dangerous. She felt a cold emptiness in her stomach as she stood on the threshold.

Maybe it was the storm raging outside. More likely, it was the man standing close behind her, his hunger for her palpable. There was a platter on the bedside table, a pile of white powder. “Cocaine, little one,” the Dragon said. “Have you ever tried it?”

She shook her head no, and he chuckled. “You will, tonight,” he said.

She felt his hands on her back, caressing her shoulders. Fought the urge to throw up when his fingers trailed down to the zipper on the back of her dress, when he slipped the zipper downward. She stared straight ahead, numbed herself to his touch, caught her reflection in the dark windows and looked away as he slipped the dress from her shoulders.

He circled her, admiring her. She stood before him now in only her underwear, felt a sudden hot flush of shame as his eyes tracked across her body. She could feel his gaze like it was his hands on her, though she knew she would feel his actual hands soon enough, and that they would be worse.

She tried to think about her family. Her sister. Her dog. Instead, she thought only about Dorina and the others, sold to similar psychopaths, to suffer and die the way she would. She felt suddenly responsible, suddenly helpless, and she wanted to cry. She would never leave this room, she realized, not alive.

The Dragon rubbed the front of his slacks lewdly as he pulled her to the bed, to the nightstand and the pile of cocaine. “Go ahead,” he told her. “You’ll love it. I promise.”

She looked at him, then the pile of white powder. Wondered what she was supposed to do with it. The Dragon gestured to the pile, waiting, his hand insinuating circles at the small of her back.

She approached the cocaine cautiously. A few lines had been drawn, and a straw lay beside them. She gathered she was supposed to ingest them through her nose.

She didn’t get the chance, though. The man stiffened beside her. Searched his pockets and came out with a vibrating phone. He looked at the number. “Shit,” he said. “My apologies, little one.” He smiled again. “We’ll continue our fun in a minute.”

LLOYD’S PHONE BEGAN TO RING.
Volovoi stared at it. The number was blocked, but he knew who was calling. Knew it was the Dragon.

He turned to the thug who stood guarding the girls. “Get them back downstairs,” he said. “Hide them.”

The thug obeyed. Corralled the girls and marched them out of sight, downstairs to a storage area where they’d be secure. Meanwhile, the phone was still ringing. Volovoi dropped it to the floor and stepped on it, ground it beneath his feet until the ringing stopped and the phone was nothing but shards of plastic and glass.

It wouldn’t matter, he knew. It was a temporary fix. The Dragon would figure out what had happened soon enough.

Volovoi glanced down at Lloyd’s body. The client was still dead. He put his pistol away and pulled out his own cell phone, dialed a number as he walked to the front of the warehouse.

“It’s Andrei,” he said when his sister picked up. “Take the girls and get out of the city. Leave now, and tell no one that you’re going. I’ll contact you when it’s safe to return.”

His sister made to argue. Volovoi cut her off. “
Leave
, Ileana, for the sake of the children. Leave tonight.”

Ileana didn’t answer for a beat. Volovoi opened his mouth again, ready to plead with her. His sister cut him off. “We’ll go,” she said, her voice flat. “Whatever problems you have caused for yourself, Andrei, solve them.”

“I
am
solving them,” he told her, and ended the call. Looked around the empty warehouse, the buyer’s body by the door. Before he could do anything else, his phone began to buzz again. It was not Ileana. It was the Dragon.

Volovoi answered the call as calmly as he could. “This is Andrei.”

“What are you doing?” The Dragon’s voice was slurred, like his thoughts were too fast for his tongue. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything is okay,” Volovoi told him. “Everything is fine.”

“I just had a phone call from Lloyd,” the Dragon said. “He hung up before I could answer. And he’s not answering his phone anymore. What is happening over there, Andrei? Is everything okay? What are you doing?”

He’s high,
Volovoi realized.
He’s drunk or he’s high and he’s playing with that little girl of his
.

“Everything is fine,” Volovoi said again. “Mr. Lloyd is just testing out a couple of our products. No doubt he simply called you by mistake.”

The Dragon said nothing. Volovoi could hear him breathing.

“The sale is proceeding smoothly,” Volovoi continued, after a beat. “I am quite sure Mr. Lloyd appreciates the quality of our product. He is ready and willing to buy.”

Another long silence. “Good,” the Dragon said finally. “Very good, Andrei. I told you, these men will make us rich.”

Volovoi looked again at Lloyd’s body. “You told me,” he said. “You did.”

“Call me when you are finished,” the Dragon said. “We’ll celebrate together, Andrei. Maybe I’ll save you a piece of my little toy.”

Volovoi felt his stomach turn. “I will call you as soon as I’m finished,” he said.

He killed the connection. Looked around the empty warehouse again, at Lloyd’s body in a pool of blood by the door. He thought about his sister and his nieces. About how angry the Dragon would be when he found out the buyer was dead.

You must act quickly,
Volovoi told himself.
For your nieces’ safety, you must strike first, before the Dragon realizes what has happened
.

Volovoi pocketed his cell phone. Pulled out his pistol and loaded a fresh magazine. Then he walked to the door, stepped over Lloyd’s body, and hurried out into the driving rain and the darkness.

NOBODY AT T-MOBILE
was willing to play ball at first. But they hadn’t met Carla Windermere.

“Takes a couple of days, usually,” the guy told Windermere. She’d mowed through a succession of customer service reps to get to him, and she was about ready to call up the company president himself. “Best we could do is, I dunno, say tomorrow by noonish?”

“You have an hour,” she told him. “Then I call my friends at Homeland Security and put your name on a no-fly list, understand? Get to work.”

“Jesus,” the guy said. “I think I’m supposed to ask for a warrant for this.”

“Go ahead,” she told him. “You want to ride Amtrak for the rest of your days? Get it done.”

She ended the call. Met Stevens’s eyes, gave him the hint of a smile. “Let’s see if that works.”

PAVEL DEMETRIOU
put down his cell phone. Stared across the bedroom at the little girl who stood, hugging herself and shivering, by the bed. She was a delectable specimen, a perfect little plaything, but right now, the Dragon hardly noticed her. He was thinking about Andrei Volovoi. About Lloyd.

Volovoi had sounded different on the phone. He had not sounded confident, or composed. He sounded stressed, worried, urgent. He’d sounded like he was lying.

Lloyd had called. Lloyd had hung up the phone before Demetriou could answer. Demetriou had tried to call back. The phone had rung at first. Nobody had answered. Demetriou had tried again. This time, the line went straight to voicemail.

And Volovoi had sounded shaken. Maybe it was paranoia, the Dragon thought. Maybe it was the cocaine and the girl, making him crazy. Or maybe his instincts were right, and Volovoi was hiding something. Maybe the sale wasn’t going as smooth as Volovoi had claimed.

The girl was watching him. The Dragon smiled at her. Gestured to the cocaine. “Help yourself, little one,” he told her. “I’ll be with you shortly.”

Then he made another phone call. Tomas, this time, Volovoi’s thug. He’d driven the girls to Manhattan. He was in the warehouse with Volovoi. He wouldn’t dare lie to the Dragon.

Tomas answered on the second ring. “Hello?” he said. He sounded wary.

“What is going on?” the Dragon asked him. “Are you at the warehouse with Andrei Volovoi?”

“I am at the warehouse,” he said. “Volovoi just left. Did you try his cell phone?”

“Never mind,” the Dragon said. “Where did he go? Is the buyer with him?”

“He didn’t say where he was going,” Tomas said. “And the buyer . . .” He cleared his throat. “The buyer is, uh, dead. Volovoi shot him.”

The Dragon exhaled, long and slow. “Why did Volovoi shoot the buyer, Tomas?”

“There was an argument,” Tomas said. “I believe the sale fell apart. The buyer started to leave, and Volovoi shot him.”

The Dragon ended the call. Stood in the middle of the bedroom and tried to focus his thoughts. Volovoi had killed the buyer. He’d disappeared somewhere. Everything was going to shit. And the little tramp still hadn’t touched the cocaine.

The Dragon put down the phone and crossed the bedroom to his closet, dragged out a duffel bag and unzipped it. Inside was a pile of guns. He pulled out a machine pistol, a semiautomatic TEC-9.

“Nothing to worry about, little one,” he told the girl, relishing the way her eyes widened. “I won’t let a minor inconvenience get in the way of our fun.”

STEVENS CALLED NANCY
while he and Windermere waited to hear back from T-Mobile. He’d talked to his wife earlier, asked her to take the kids to the FBI building in Brooklyn Center, and now he wanted to check in again, make sure they’d made it to safety. Couldn’t explain why, really; maybe it was that he’d already been shot once on this case, or maybe he just wanted to make sure his own family was all right, one more time. This case had been a dangerous game. High stress. And Stevens was pretty sure the toughest part was yet to come.

“It’s me,” he said when Nancy picked up her phone.

“It’s you,” she said. “Where are you?”

“New Jersey. FBI office in Newark.” He stared out the window at the night beyond. “Just had a big storm here.”

“Oh yeah?” Nancy paused. “It’s been sunny here. Hot. You know.”

“Yeah,” Stevens said.

Another pause. “What’s up, Kirk? You calling to chat about the weather, or what?”

“Just wanted to say hi,” he said. “See how you guys are doing. Check in, that kind of thing.”

“Bull,” Nancy said. “Why are you really calling?”

Stevens caught his reflection in the glass, had to smile. It was a foolish man who tried to put one over on his wife. “Yeah,” he said. “Okay, you got me. This case is coming down to the wire, Nancy.”

“You’re getting close?”

“I think tonight’s the night,” he said. “I just wanted to hear your voice before it all goes down, in case—”

“Shut up,” she said. “Don’t even, Kirk. Go take these guys down and come home tomorrow. This FBI imprisonment thing is getting old.”

“It’s for your own good, though,” he said.

“Yeah, well, it sucks,” Nancy said. “You want to say hi to the kids?”

He talked to his son, asked about baseball, asked about Triceratops (“He ate nine and a half muffins from the FBI kitchen, Dad”), and then JJ put Andrea on the phone.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Hey, kiddo,” he said. “How’re you doing?”

A beat. A sigh. “I’m good.”

“How’s your day?”

“It’s okay,” she said. “Boring. How long do we have to stay here?”

“Just until I finish this case,” he said. “Another day or two, maybe. I just want to make sure the guys we’re chasing don’t try anything crazy, you know?”

She sighed again. “I guess.”

He stared out the window and felt like he was trying to hog-tie an eel, the way the conversation was going. “How’s your day?”

“I said already. Boring. Mom won’t even let me—” She stopped herself. “Not like it’s much different from real life, anyway. Now that you guys chased Calvin away.”

Stevens let his breath out. “We’ll talk about Calvin when I get home, Andrea.”

“Whatever,” she said. “Here’s Mom.”

“Wait,” he said. “Andrea—”

But she was already gone. A beat of silence, muffled voices, and then Nancy came back. “Sorry about that,” she said. “She’s been a terror lately.”

“I’ll be home soon,” he told her. “I’ll set her straight.”

“You’d better,” Nancy said. “I’m about out of ideas. Solve this thing and get your ass back here, mister. I’m lonely.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Stevens laughed. “I’ll talk to you later.”

He ended the call. Saw Windermere pacing the hallway. She stopped when she noticed him. “Everything cool?”

“Mostly,” he said. “They’re safe, anyway. Andrea’s still mad about the whole boyfriend thing. I think she hates me.”

Windermere cast a wry smile at him. “Maybe,” she said. “Probably she has a beef with a life sentence of parental-enforced celibacy.”

“Don’t you start,” he said. “She’s too young to date. She’s sure as hell too young to be fooling around in the living room.”

“Better than the backseat.”

“Carla.”
He looked at her. She nodded an apology, and he sank back in his seat. “Anyway. Sorry. You talk to Mathers lately?”

Windermere’s eyes were impassive. “Nah,” she said, and started pacing again. “It’s not like I need to screw that situation up any more than it already is.”