The Trade (A Hans Larsson Novel Book 2) (8 page)

A
s Jessica came around on the filthy stone
floor, she felt someone dabbing the back of her head with a wet cloth.

“Ouch!” She opened her
eyes, expecting to see her father.

“Hello, Maria.”

The awful reality hit home once again. Instinctively,
Jessica lashed out with the right hook her papa taught her. The man jerked
backwards, clutching a bleeding nose as his eyes watered. He raised his hand
and would have given anything to belt the little pissant around the room, only he
remembered his boss’s orders:
Do not mark this one, for she will fetch us a
high price in Europe or the East
.

The man grabbed Jessica’s hair and yanked her to her feet. Then,
smothering her mouth and nose, he began to suffocate her. Jessica panicked,
fighting for breath and flailing with her fists. The man held the little girl
at arm’s length, mocking her with a sadistic grin, staring into her tiny blue
eyes with his menacing bloodshot ones.

Jessica’s body convulsed and she peed herself. The man
released his hold and let her drop to the floor.

She scurried backwards until she came up against the solid-wooden
bedframe, where she sat, shocked, but managing to scowl.

“Maria.” The man’s voice deepened as he hovered over her. “We
can do this easy or hard.”

“Didn’t hurt.” She screwed up her lips and gave him a look
of utter hatred.

The man lurched across the cell and, taking a firm grip of
Jessica’s hair, went to pull her shorts down, his sick urge taking control. Again
he remembered his boss’s words –
Do
not
be tempted with this one. She
must be intact, for we cannot be sure who will buy her
– and went back to
wiping the blood from the gash in the back of her head.

Jessica tried to think of her beloved Bear and her father,
but her mind was too afraid and confused to focus. She prayed with her whole
being for this horrible experience to end.

As the man finished wrapping a crepe bandage around her
head, securing it in place with a safety pin, he heard Jessica mutter something.

“What did you say, Maria?”

“I said my papa’s gonna kill you, you
prick
!”

The man felt the almighty impulse to pick the impudent
little pissant up by the ankles and smash her head against the cell wall, and
not to stop smashing until her skull caved in and her brains spread across the
stonework in a satisfying spray of dark-green and yellow globules. But he had
been by his boss’s side for twenty-five years and would be lost without his
protection and guidance. He couldn’t go against his word.

There was a time in that war-torn place when he did as he
pleased with the innocents, where the only authority was that of the other man,
who was equally if not more sick than he was. But that time had passed, and now
the game had rules, and if he dared break them, the Trade would suffer, as
would he.

“Strip!” he ordered.

She looked at him, puzzled.

“I said strip!” he bellowed. “Take off your clothes!”

“No!”

Jessica was horrified. Her parents had always warned her
that this type of behavior was wrong and she must refuse at all costs, despite
the threats made.

The man thrust his hands out and began to suffocate her
again. Jessica’s legs gave way, and he let her go.

The man lifted his foot and placed it inches from her head. “I
give you one more chance.” He shook with anger. “Or I smash in your head, you
little pissant.”

Everything became a blur to Jessica. Without realizing, she
began to sob and, sitting up, pulled off her shorts and filthy T-shirt. Huddling
naked on the floor, she continued to cry and slipped deeper into shock from the
acute embarrassment.

The man picked up her clothes, grunted and left the room.

“H
ans!”
Penny cast her laptop aside and leapt off the sofa. “What happened?”

“Sorry, honey. I couldn’t really talk in the cab. Things
just got serious.” He held Penny’s shoulders and looked into her eyes. “She’s
alive – but she’s been kidnapped.”

“Wh-wh—?” Penny burst into tears, Hans holding her in
silence as droplets rolled down his own cheeks.

“Take a seat. There’s a lot to tell you. But first I need a
drink.”

Hans went into the kitchen area and pulled a bottle of rum
from the fridge. He poured the amber spirit into cut-crystal tumblers and took
a big gulp before continuing. “There was a woman at the seafront watching us,
an African, who I saw at the marina. I knew it couldn’t be coincidence, so I followed
her to her home. She told me Jessica was picked up floating in her scuba gear by
local fishermen and sold on to people traffickers.”

Penny listened without interruption, horrified as the truth was
unveiled. “But, Hans, you have to go to the police, surely.”

“It’s not that simple, honey. It’s not like they can arrest the
boat captain on hearsay. And if he’s not taken into custody, he’ll warn the
traffickers we’re onto them and . . .” Hans shook his head. The ramifications
didn’t bear thinking about. He downed his rum and refilled the glass.

“But we must do something.
What about speaking to
Karen? As the US ambassador—?”

“No, I need to speak to Muttley again,” Hans replied, having
given his controller an update on the search earlier in the day.

Hans checked his watch. It would be 10:00 p.m. in Boston. He
took out his cell phone and stabbed at the keypad.

“Orion, dear boy,” Innes Edridge answered in his stately
Scottish tone.

“Muttley, the game’s changed.”

“I figured that,” said Muttley, knowing the special operative
wouldn’t call at this late hour for nothing.

Hans filled him in on the details in the
short-and-to-the-point manner the organization favored.

“The way I see it is this, Orion: with no clear evidence,
the most the police will do is knock on our friend Alvarez’s door and ask for a
cozy chat. At which point he’ll slam it in their face and immediately warn his
paymasters.”

“But what about Arachne?” He referred to Karen by her call
sign. “Can’t she pull some strings?”

“Hans, even as US ambassador she has little sway over the
way the locals do things. This isn’t Baghdad, you understand?”

“Of course.”

“In addition, this, errhum,
‘trading’ business is
Cape Verde’s dirty little secret – hell, it’s half the world’s bloody secret.
You’ll be blocked every way you turn trying to get to the truth. We know from
our own intel this stuff goes all the way to undesirables in Washington.”

“That figures.”

“Besides our symp in immigration and one or two others, Carter
doesn’t have any influence in the territory.”

“Carter,” or the name of any former US president, was a code
word Concern operatives used for the organization during unprotected
communications. “Symps” were useful individuals sympathetic to the cause.

“While we’ve been speaking, I’ve run a sweep on this guy
Alvarez, and I can’t find any information linking him to a higher chain. He
doesn’t even have a bank account.”

Hans smiled. Muttley could carry out a casual phone
conversation while tapping on a computer keyboard and conducting a call on
another line without you even realizing.

“So unless you hear anything more from me by seven in the
morning your time, my advice is to liaise with Arachne to make a plan and pick
up the necessary toys and a get-out-of-jail-free card, then go around to this
guy’s house and beat the information out of him. Don’t hold back, Orion. You
have nothing to lose but a lot to gain. He’s a lowlife who can’t exactly go to
the police and report you roughing him up. Once you get what you need, I would
recommend buying him a lollipop to prevent him talking, you understand?”

Hans did understand. “Lollipop” meant a termination.

“Orion, be discreet, but if anything comes of it we’ll get
you and your good woman out of there.”

“Thanks, M.”

“And O.”

“Sir?”

“Give that bastard one from me.”

P
enny
awoke in bed alone feeling a pang of alarm. “Hans?”

“Here,” came a shout from the living room.

She pulled on a bathrobe, stepped into flip-flops and
entered the front room to find Hans, coffee in hand, staring at his notebook
computer.

“I was worried.”

“Sorry, Penny, I’ve been up a couple of hours getting some
work done.”

Penny looked at her watch – 6:00 a.m., meaning Hans had less
than two hours’ sleep.

“How’s the head?” he asked, kissing her on the cheek.

“Nothing a double espresso won’t fix. What are you doing?” Joining
him on the couch, she peered at the official-looking data on the notebook’s
compact screen.

“Checking the CIA database for anything on Alvarez.”

“What! You’ve hacked into it?”

“Not exactly hacked. The CIA uploads amended files every twenty-four
hours onto an external server to back up their database. By placing the
electronic equivalent of a filter in the upload process, we effectively take an
image stream of the data for our own use.”

“How do you bypass their security protocol?”

“We don’t. We’re not hacking into the system, just accessing
data from the inside, and bar a clever little box on a fiber-optic cable buried
under six feet of concrete in Langley, the tap’s impossible to uncover.”

“Aren’t you worried about using the hotel’s Wi-Fi? I mean,
can’t people trace your movements?”

“There’s ways to prevent it, like browser software and proxy
servers, but I’m not using the hotel’s Wi-Fi.” Hans held up his cell phone, connected
to the notebook by a cable. “I’m using my cell phone provider, Bluebird. It’s a
budget company that buys network downtime from Velafon and uses their coverage.”

“And let me guess. Bluebird is owned by the Concern.”

“Ha! You didn’t hear that from me, but yes. Bluebird provides
a regular phone service as a front and source of income – but as an operative,
your comms are automatically scrambled. It’s not fail-safe, though near enough,
hence why we still use codespeak.”

“And there was me thinking you just enjoy playing James
Bond.”

“Well, there is that.”

Penny got up to make coffee. Hans took a break from his
research, sliding open the door to the balcony and stepping out into the warm
morning air. As the island’s ever-present breeze fluttered the palm fronds
lining the Grande Verde’s immaculate boulevard, he found himself staring at the
shimmering ocean beyond.

The sea had always been a part of Hans, one of the few
stables in his turbulent upbringing. His late grandfather, a US Marine Corps veteran,
bought him an aging wooden daysailer for his twelfth birthday, and Hans spent
more time at sea in her exploring the coastal inlets around Misty Port than he
did at home or school. It came as no surprise to anyone when he joined the navy
at seventeen to serve as a radar operator on board USS
Nimitz
, nor when his
thirst for adventure saw him transfer to the elite Navy SEALs. Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan
– Hans had seen his fair share of desert, but it was the open ocean where he
felt most at home.

Only now, fixating on the wave crests glistening like
diamonds on their endless surge from the horizon, all he could see was Jessica’s
face, the yacht dragging her into the deep, her desperate eyes fixed on his, on
the man who said he would never let her down . . .

“Coffee, hon?” Penny shook him out of his muse, and then,
sensing his thoughts, added, “You will find her, Hans.”

“I know.” He feigned a smile.

Changing the subject, “Hans, can you tell me more about the
Concern?” she asked.

“There’s not a lot more to tell. After Vietnam a group of
pissed-off vets and flag-wavers got together to bring a few of the bad guys to
justice – the warmongers and profiteers. A couple of office chairs decided to
throw some cash behind the project, and it grew from there. We try to keep it
under wraps, not for any wrongdoing – although the rules do get bent occasionally
– but to keep us out of the media, hence the code names. The operatives are figures
from Greek mythology, and cartoon characters for the handlers.”

“So the US ambassador, Karen – ‘Arachne.’ Wasn’t she
transformed into a spider?”

“By Athena, for blasphemy. If you think ‘Black Widow’ –
Karen’s husband was killed in the embassy bombing in Nairobi. The handlers allocate
you a moniker that’s a little left field and easy for others to remember.”

“Right.”

“Tell me the time.”

“Sorry?” Penny glanced at Hans’ Rolex, thinking she’d
misunderstood something.

Hans grinned. “It’s our version of Cold War spyspeak. If
someone’s checking your authenticity, they’ll order you to give them the time
rather than ask politely. So you reply with ‘It’s four o’ four’ or ‘six o’ six’
or ‘two twenty-two’ – any alliteration with the right hour but the wrong
minutes. Then you apologize, as if you’ve made a mistake, and give the correct
time.”

“Hmm, neat. But who manages the organization?”

“The Alþingi – it’s an ancient Icelandic word meaning parliament
– made up of a hundred and ninety-three representatives, known as
goðar
,
who are
the senior handlers in each country. Technically each
country, as not all have a senior handler, and some have more than one. Every
year they meet at a secret location somewhere in the world for a gathering
known as the Þingvellir,
where the senior council, the Lögrétta,
made
up of seven individuals to represent the seven continents, presides over the
issues on the agenda. Heading up the Lögrétta
is the chief of the
Concern, the Lögsögumaður
– the law speaker, or Logso for short.”

“I see.” As Penny sipped her coffee, it was as if the
endless procession of waves symbolized the million questions flowing through her
mind. “And the Lögrétta – do you ever get to meet them?”

“In my lowly role I don’t get to know who they are. I don’t
think Muttley does either – if so, he keeps one helluva secret. Some say they’re
the Concern’s founding members. Others that they’re voted in by the
Alþingi
and rotated every so often to avoid the power going to their heads.”

“So in theory the Logso could be the president of the United
States.”

“Ha!” The irony made Hans chuckle. “It could be, but judging
by the amount of bombs he drops on behalf of the corporate brat pack, I doubt
it.”

“Do you know how many people work for the Concern?”

“Technically none – with the exception of the Lögrétta
and
a core of administrative staff, plus a few vital bods, like techies and
consultants, held on retainers. The rest of the network is made up of sleeper
agents – SOs, handlers, enablers, and symps.”

“Explain.”

“SOs, ‘special operatives,’ are people like me – folks with
specialist trades who get tasked with the risky stuff. Handlers, like Muttley,
who you’ve met, oversee us on operations. Enablers are the corporate types who
back us with funding or services – like the airline owner who provided the
Learjet we flew in on. Symps are people sympathetic to the cause who can’t
offer significant financial support but who have other services of value, like
Karen for example. There’s no hierarchy to speak of – in fact, we’re kinda
communist in that respect – and everyone plays a crucial part. We all undergo
the same initiation and provide our services for a token fee plus expenses, and
that stops division and hubris and corruption.”

“Wasn’t it Lord Acton who said power corrupts and absolute
power corrupts absolutely?” said Penny, recalling her student days.

“Exactly.”

“And the initiation? Trouser leg rolled up, stand on one
foot, drink the blood of a bat?” she joked.

“Ha, we’re not the Illuminati! It’s actually quite simple. You
meet with your sponsor and handler somewhere private – mine was in the pool
shed in our backyard. You hold a pebble, meant to represent the Lögberg – what
the Icelanders called the Law Rock, which was the speaker’s platform at their Þingvellirs
– and recite the ten pillars of the Concern’s constitution from the Jónsbók
,
or ‘law book.’”

“Like?”

“Like, I promise to always make myself available, as far as
reasonably possible, should anyone acting in the capacity of the Concern request
my services – blah, blah, blah.”

“No death before dishonor then?”

“No, just the pledges you’d expect from a weird bunch of
covert do-gooders, followed by the symbolic burning of a scroll listing an operative’s
seven requisite qualities.”

“Such as?”

“Courage, loyalty, selflessness, sense of humor in adversity
– that kinda thing.”

“Now who do I know that possesses them?”

“I don’t know – it’s not that guy from room service, is it?”