The Trade (A Hans Larsson Novel Book 2) (29 page)

A
s
Fernando approached the cell door, having returned the Jack Russell to its
owner, the mayor, a conversation saw him freeze in the gloomy corridor.

“. . . and he talks like José.”

Sobering immediately, he tiptoed forward.

“It’s dark and cold, like the time we went to Trasco Castle
with Mommy.”

Hearing this confused Fernando. No one could have got into
the cell in his absence. The little pissant appeared to be talking to herself.

“I saw a doggy like Lucky in Plymouth.”

Then he realized – she was using his mobile phone!

Fernando threw open the door, ran across the cell, snatched the
handset from Jessica and put it to his ear.

“Jessie, can you hear me?” asked a man – an
American
.

Fernando terminated the call and put the phone back in the
pocket of his jacket hanging on the chair. He turned to Jessica, face red and
looking about to burst.

Once again terror had her in its ugly grip.

Fernando began openly shaking, and spittle built in the
corners of his lips. Jessica tried to back away, but once again chilling fear
paralyzed her body.

The butler felt an overwhelming urge to grab the little
bitch by the throat and strangle her until her face went blue, her eyes bulged
and life drained from her body. Everything told him to smash her pretty little
face into the wall and listen to the satisfying crack of her skull splitting
apart, and to keep ramming his fist into her brain cavity, relishing the
experience as hideous green matter splattered his face and torso.

As the butler stepped forward, Jessica wet herself again without
even realizing. His face contorted beyond the extreme, the tendons in his neck,
arms and legs as taut as bowstrings. Jessica’s innate sense told her something terrible
was about to take place, something primeval. Her legs gave way, and she
collapsed with a jolt on the bare stone floor.

Then a strange thing occurred. Despite his intense rage, the
Spaniard experienced an external locus of control telling him if he put a
single mark on the kid, the fixer would see to it that the mayor, Gonzales, wasn’t
paid. The rings in Europe liked their children unblemished and unadulterated,
for torturing and abusing the innocents was a large part of their sick, twisted
game.

If Fernando’s actions jeopardized his boss’s massive
paycheck, his life would not be worth living. For, an old man now and past
fighting prime and the cunning of his youth, he relied on his boss’s charity,
knowing many younger, more able men would gratefully take his place with the profits
on offer.

There was a time, over the water in the fog of war, when he
could do what he liked to the innocents. His boss not only laughed and egged
him on but also praised him for it. They would see who could frighten the
children the most, who could abuse them the most, followed up by the most sadistic
death. He’d liked that time: no rules . . . no anxieties . . . just reaping the
rewards of the slaughter . . . the
glorious
slaughter . . . But all that
had changed.

No, he couldn’t harm the girl.

Fernando began to shake. A tear built in the corner of his
eye and rolled rapidly down his cheek to drip onto the cobbled floor. Then
another tear and another, and before long he was blubbing like a baby,
shoulders shrugging up and down as he lost control.

He turned and left the room.

H
ans
drove flat out toward the villa, but as they came around a bend on the coast
road, a tractor held up a line of ten cars. “Damn!”
he muttered,
instinctively checking his wing mirror.

“Hold on, Penny.”

He floored the jeep’s accelerator and took the oncoming lane,
passing the sleepy island drivers one by one.

A heavy goods truck approached head-on.

“Hans, look out!” Penny curled up in the fetal position.

Hans didn’t flinch, timing his maneuver perfectly and sliding
through the narrowing gap to leave the traffic in his wake.

Back at Karen’s, he connected his cell phone to the notebook
and opened a secure Internet browser used by the Concern. He typed a code into
the address bar and accessed a nondescript portal hidden from search engines.
Putting in a username and eighteen-digit alphanumeric password brought up a
dialogue box requesting insertion of a security token – a memory stick generating
a synchronous dynamic password from a cryptographic algorithm. This brought him
to a futuristic-looking interface with links to all areas of the Concern’s
operation and a constantly updated newsfeed scrolling down one side.

“Wow!” said Penny, blowing her sun-bleached fringe away from
her face. “It looks like something from that Tom Cruise film.”

“
Minority Report
,” said Hans. “It’s actually designed
for touchscreen operating systems. I just haven’t upgraded my notebook, so I struggle
through it with the mouse.”

Through this front page, Hans could access a secure email platform,
as well as several databases – each requiring differing levels of clearance –
and a search engine to look up fellow operatives’ profiles. Should Hans require
a Russian-speaking electrician in Tanzania, he had only to toggle with the drop-down
menus, click the relevant radio buttons and type the appropriate key words to find
the closest match.

While Penny set to work cleaning and oiling the M9, emptying
the rounds from the magazines, polishing and refilling them and replacing the
batteries in the walkie-talkies, Hans navigated to the database storing the siphoned
CIA records and began searching for information on Videl Gonzales.

G
onzales
surprised Umchima. For a man past his prime, he sure kept up a performance in
bed, subjecting her – how she’d describe it – to sex during the night more
times than she cared to remember, along with his rancid breath, flaccid
lily-white skin and maniacal eyes.

After each ravage, Gonzales lay back on the purple satin bedsheet
and smoked a cheroot in silence, its coarse aroma mingling with that of the sex
in the room to create a sickening miasma. Then he’d drift off to sleep without so
much as a visit to the bathroom to wipe a washcloth over his increasingly stinking
self.

Umchima put up with it. Business was at stake, and she was
on a mission she had sworn to see through to the end.

The mayor was in his element, not having slept with an adult
for some time, especially one as beautiful as this “crossbreed,” as he thought
of her, his preference being young boys and street sex workers – the more
impoverished and sluttier, the better. Knowing he still had what it took to
attract a good-looking woman, Gonzales experienced immense narcissism.

They slept until late in the morning, when the mayor called
Fernando to request breakfast.

“May I use the shower?” Umchima asked.

“You may use the
bath
, Brenda,” he reprimanded her. “This
castle has never had a shower, and so long as I am living here it never will!”

Gonzales’ eyes glinted with cognitive detachment, a sign the
sociopath possessed zero ability for the self-reflection required to form
meaningful relationships.

When Umchima entered the dining room after her bath, she
found the mayor at the head of the long polished table, on which Fernando placed
an ornate porcelain coffee jug and large, white, oval serving plates neatly
stacked with smoked sardines, eggs scrambled with red pepper and chorizo, sauté
potatoes, grilled tomatoes, mushrooms, think-crusted white bread and
croissants.

Still unwashed, the mayor had wrapped a dressing gown around
his skinny body, and combined with the aroma of smoked sardines, the pong was
enough to make Umchima want to run from the castle and never return. She
reminded herself how well she had done – not only to liaise with the Trade but also
to contact
and
seduce a high-ranking trafficker, one who’d taken her
into his confidence.

Now she needed a result, to sell a child, and all her
efforts would be worth it. Umchima considered her next move.
What would a professional
child trafficker do in this situation?

Money
!
They must discuss money. A trafficker
would want to know the rewards for putting their freedom on the line.

“Gonzales,” she began, smiling disarmingly. “As much as I don’t
want to ruin the mood, after a perfect night” – she paused to cast a subtle seductive
look – “I’m a businesswoman, and I need to know the economics of our proposed
union.”

“
Mi amor
, I didn’t want to discuss such a crude
matter during our most intimate evening, but of course you are right: no one ever
got rich in business by letting other people make all the decisions.”

“Especially taking into account the considerable risk,” said
Umchima, leaving the food in front of her untouched and only taking a sip of
coffee – all part of her performance.

Gonzales was impressed, for the women he’d breakfasted with
over the years – mostly desperate prostitutes – would usually gorge on such a
feast, particularly after the all-night-long bondage session he subjected them
to. Puncturing someone’s back and buttocks with a thousand tiny holes using an
electric drill, smearing their eyes and other sensitive membranes with piri piri
sauce, whipping them until the welts became an indistinguishable mass of bloody
purple and blue – or doing all three – generally tended to work up appetites .
. . for the ones who made it through the night.

Putting business first was a true display of professionalism
by this gorgeous creature, and it was reassuring to see she was equally as
greedy, wanting to drop the preliminaries and start trading little brats.

“The first thing you must understand is that neither I nor
you set the price – the market sets the price,” Gonzales went on. “Naturally, I
will strike the best deals I can with the traffickers in the North. You can
expect to be paid ten thousand euros for children traded into the illegal
adoption market in Europe, and five thousand for those going to the sex gangs.
Of course, for the adopted brats it’s a sliding scale depending on skin color.”

“So how much for an orphan with my color skin?” Umchima held
up her bronze wrist.

“Still negroid,” said the mayor, not bothering to look as he
chased a mushroom around his plate. “So about seven thousand.”

“What if you can’t strike a deal?” said Umchima. “Am I not
putting myself through all this risk for potentially no reward?”

“Rarely will there be nothing, except when a child is terminated
for security reasons, such as those thrown overboard from the speedboats when
the coastguard interferes. Even the unwanted bastards fetch up to three
thousand from local begging syndicates and the sex-tourist trade.”

“And how often will you take children from me?”

“I think every six months or so, to keep the market from
flooding. We have existing commitments to fulfill and limited space to hold
them here at the castle—”

“You hold them
here
?”

“The valuable ones, yes. Does this surprise you?”

“I-I-I figured you’d keep a degree of separation. You know, as
the middleman.”

“Brenda, I am mayor of this city. I’m also a member of – how
we can say? – a
special
club. No one is above me in these islands.
Entiendes
?
Besides, the people know me for my kindness and charity – and do they not say
the best way to hide such business is to conduct it in plain sight?”

Umchima felt an ice-cold pang of reality, having inadvertently
opened yet another window through to the dark side. Gonzales was a serious
player, on a par with illicit arms traders and drug lords. She knew now her
time on this planet had considerably shortened. Gonzales didn’t get to his position
of wealth and influence by letting other people dictate his moves. He would use
her while she was of worth to the Trade and then snuff her out like a discarded
cigarette butt when the relationship was no longer profitable. In fact no, the
wily old fox that Gonzales was, he would wipe the orphanage manager out before
that, at a time she least expected it, to silence her and bury all evidence of
their transactions.

It was tempting to formulate an exit strategy, but she
needed to focus on the here and now and maintain her game face.

“Fifteen
thousand euros for children traded into the
adoption market and ten
thousand for those going to the sex gangs.
That
is my minimum,” she proffered, setting her coffee cup down on its saucer with a
succinct chink. “You can take it – or you can leave it and we call this whole
thing off. I’m not prepared to lower my price.”

Gonzales was impressed. Umchima passed every test he set for
her with consummate professionalism. Had this beautiful creature acquiesced and
accepted his initial offer, she would shortly be on a boat traveling out to sea
with her throat slashed from ear to ear – after he’d had fun with her corpse.
But she’d held her ground, a true player refusing to kowtow under pressure and
risk losing face. There would be one final part to her initiation, however, and
with the little English girl requiring a bullet to the brain, he had an idea.

“Then I think we have a deal.” Gonzales raised his coffee
cup.

As Umchima lifted hers, the door flew open.

Fernando burst into the room, a frantic look on his moronic
face. “
Commandante
,
tenemos
un problema
!
”
he blurted, then explained
in rapid-fire Spanish how Jessica got
hold of his cell phone and called her father.

“
Calma
,
calma
.”

Needing time to think, Gonzales motioned his former sergeant
to sit down. This was serious. He’d known Hans Larsson would be trouble the
moment he set eyes on him and had to predict his next move. It wouldn’t be to
go to the police – the American made it clear during their dinner party he
thought little of their bungling efforts. Besides, even if Larsson did get the law
involved, Gonzales was grand master of the Lodge, and most of the officers belonged
to it. Those not in the fraternity were either in his pocket or smart enough
not to cross him. No, the former Navy SEAL turned detective would take matters
into his own hands and see his investigation through to the end – his downfall.

After thinking awhile, the mayor had a plan.

“Okay, call the Boy,” he ordered the butler in Spanish. “Tell
him we need to set up an ambush.”

“Like Jinotega, Commandante.” Fernando sniggered.

Gonzales nodded, remembering the trap his rebel troops laid on
the outskirts of the Nicaraguan city, the success of which had been a turning
point in the Contra’s resistance.

“And what about the girls?” the butler grunted, praying he would
put his huge hands to gratifying use.

“First we see what Senhor Larsson brings to our table. In
the unlikely event he outsmarts us, we don’t want two dead children on our
hands. Even with my connections, that is a little too much to explain.”

“I can take them out in the boat and—”

“No!”
Gonzales scowled. “The American may arrive at
any time, and I need you here with a gun. We will deal with him and then get
his daughter off the island to avoid any problems until the fixer is ready to
do the exchange.”

“And the little English bitch?”

“When this is over, we will sink her in the channel as
agreed.”

“Commandante!”
The butler clicked his heels together,
going seamlessly into military mode.

“Brenda, you were surprised to hear we keep children here,
no?”

“A little,” Umchima replied, projecting an aura of calm yet
digging her fingernails into her thigh under the table.

“Then I think it is time you met our VIP. I would like the
two of you to take a trip together until things calm down, if this is okay with
you.”

“If we are to do business together, then it is the least I
can do.”

“Very good,” said the mayor, his beady eyes glinting more
than usual. “Fernando, after you have called the Boy, take Senhorita Umchima
down to the dungeon and introduce her to our guest.”

“Commandante!”
The butler snapped to attention,
about-turned and disappeared.