Authors: Douglas Corleone
Ana and I gazed at the weakened figure on the dirty, bare mattress. His wrists and feet were bound, same as Ana’s had been. The same gag stretched across his mouth.
I wondered if I’d ever get that damn image of Ana tied up on a dirty mattress in this basement out of my head, whether I’d ever forgive myself for allowing her to get taken.
I looked into her eyes, allowed myself to imagine what things might have been like if I’d met Ana in a different time and place.
“Right, then,” I said finally. “Let’s head back to Warsaw, shall we?”
*
Gasowski insisted Dabrowski meet him at the Kyriad Prestige in Warsaw. No doubt it was a place where Gasowski thought he’d have the upper hand; the hotel was not within the city center, and a quick glance at a map showed us that the location left Gasowski plenty of escape routes. Marek informed us that politicians often used the three-star hotel because of its soundproofed rooms. Such walls could come in handy if Gasowski had decided to use a gun on Dabrowski.
“Let me go alone,” I said once we’d reached the hotel. “We need information, and Gasowski’s the only source left in all of Poland. Things could get ugly.”
“Not a chance,” Marek replied. “This bastard betrayed me and delivered my sister into the hands of a monster. I want to see his face as he attempts to justify what he’s done.”
I turned to Ana. “We’ll need you as a lookout.” She started to protest but I cut her off. “For all we know, Gasowski’s men may be waiting not far off. Trust me, I’d rather have you with us if Marek insists on coming. I don’t want to risk having you snatched again. But we need someone to watch our backs. I don’t want to step into an ambush. Lindsay Sorkin’s life hangs on our survival.”
“Very well,” she said. “Tell me where you would like me positioned.”
With Ana in place in the lobby, Marek and I headed up to the third floor.
“Stand casually three feet away with your back to the door,” I said to Marek. “From behind, you can pass for Dabrowski.”
Marek positioned himself and I gave the door a light rap. I leaned up against the wall, listening to Gasowski’s heavy footfalls as he approached the door. Listened to him twist the lock. I watched the door handle turn. Saw the door inch open, glimpsed the chain at around eye level.
“Dabrowski?” Gasowski said.
I stepped in front of the door, and before Gasowski had time enough to slam it shut, I kicked it in, snapping the chain and knocking the overweight cop to the floor.
I shoved the door open fully and Marek and I stepped inside, Marek closing the door behind us, locking it. I held out my Glock but there was no one else in the room.
“Watch him,” I told Marek. “I need to check the toilet.”
All clear. There was a small pistol on the table in the far corner of the room near the window, but unless Gasowski was a hell of a lot faster than he looked, the gun wouldn’t come into play. The curtains were already closed.
I helped Gasowski to his feet and sat him on one of the two double beds. I smelled vodka on his breath. A near-empty bottle of Chopin stood next to the pistol and a single bullet, along with some hotel stationery and what looked to be an expensive pen.
Gasowski’s face was turning green before my eyes. I handed him the small brown plastic wastebasket, thinking he might vomit. He thanked me and set it between his feet.
Marek and I remained standing.
“I’ll save you some breath, Chief Inspector,” I said, “and tell you what we already know. Your friend Kazmer Chudzik contacted a Turk named Talik Yilmaz through his lawyer, Mikolaj Dabrowski, with whom you are already well acquainted. Chudzik wanted a little girl named Lindsay Sorkin stolen from her parents while they were on holiday in Paris. Talik traveled to Berlin and stayed with his nephew Alim Sari, a heroin dealer in his hometown of Kreuzberg. Alim introduced Talik to two men—Dietrich Braun and Karl Finster—who agreed to travel to Paris to kidnap the girl. Braun and Finster were to take the girl to Hauptbahnhof Station in Berlin and leave her in the third stall of a men’s room that was closed for repair. They did. Then someone else retrieved Lindsay Sorkin from that stall and brought her here to Warsaw. Let’s start there. Who took her from Berlin and where are they now?”
Gasowski refused to look at either of us, but rather stared intently into the wastebasket.
“If you are standing here,” he said slowly, “you probably already killed them.”
Marek and I exchanged glances.
“What does that mean?” I said.
“The girl was picked up in Berlin by two of Chudzik’s men. They were to go with Chudzik to the meeting today, presumably to kill Dabrowski and the two Turks.”
“You’re sure of this?”
“Certain,” he said. “It was a matter of contention between the parties. Chudzik wanted only Germans to take the girl and escort her from Paris to Berlin, from Berlin to Warsaw. He thought dark men like the Turks would draw too much suspicion and jeopardize the operation, so ultimately Chudzik sent his own men to Berlin. But he wasn’t happy about it. He felt the Turks didn’t fully deliver so he refused to pay them. Dabrowski, of course, got caught in the middle of it.”
“Where did Chudzik’s men take the girl?” I said. “Is she still in Poland?”
Gasowski slowly shook his head. “They brought her to the Polish military museum in Warsaw. From there, two of my best officers took her.”
“Took her where?”
He shrugged. It was a slight movement but enough to make his entire body sway.
“I do not know precisely where,” he said. “They were given their orders directly from Chudzik. We all thought it better I not know where they were going.”
“Which country?”
“Ukraine,” he said.
Marek spoke up. “Why? To be sold into prostitution?”
Gasowski shrugged again, still refusing to look at us. “I do not think so, Marek. The amount of money that is changing hands, it is far too much to have anything to do with prostitution. Someone who is very wealthy wants this little girl, and whoever it is, wants her very badly.”
“Why?” Marek said again. “Why do you think someone wants this particular child?”
“I can only speculate from what I have seen on the television, Marek. Given the price that is being paid for this girl, I would say that it has to do with her father’s business. His remote-controlled automatons that could replace soldiers in war. From Ukraine, they can take the girl through southern Russia to Iran, Iraq, Syria. Think what such a design could do for any one of their armies. Hell, with those drones, the Palestinians could retake Gaza.”
I thought about it. I was still bothered by the fact that Vince Sorkin hadn’t been contacted. But then, it could be that whoever was behind this was waiting until Lindsay was safely at her final destination. The true kidnappers would need complete control over her themselves. Vince would want to talk to his daughter before giving in to anything. He’d demand proof of life.
I glanced at the curtains and realized day was breaking. I’d have to get on the road. I’d have to get to Ukraine as soon as possible. It was a large country, a lot of ground to search.
Marek reached forward and gripped Gasowski’s face in one hand. Squeezing his cheeks with enough pressure to break bones, he lifted Gasowski’s head until the cop’s eyes met his own.
“Why, Aleksander?” Marek said. “Why betray my family?”
Gasowski pulled his face away, the flesh of his cheeks a terrible crimson.
“Money,” he said, holding Marek’s gaze. “Being from the far left, you may never fully understand this, Marek. But Poland is now a capitalist society.”
Marek shook his head, narrowed his tired eyes, and frowned deeply.
“What
you
will never understand, Aleksander, is that people like me, we are fierce supporters of capitalism. It is only greed we despise. Because it is greed that produces monsters the likes of you.”
I rested my hand gently on Marek’s shoulder and led him away, out of the room. As we stepped into the hallway, I closed the door to Gasowski’s room.
“We’re just going to leave him here?” Marek protested.
“You saw the table over by the window?” I said.
Heads down, Marek and I slowly made our way back to the elevator bank at the end of the corridor. When we reached the bank, I punched a button and silently we waited.
Some thirty seconds later, a set of elevator doors opened and we stepped inside. I turned and pressed the button for the main lobby. As the elevator doors closed, we heard a report so loud that it felt as though it had emanated from right there in the elevator.
It hadn’t, of course.
It had sounded from Aleksander Gasowski’s room.
Part Three
THE KILLERS OF KIEV
Chapter 35
Our Air Baltic flight landed at Odessa International Airport just over five hours after taking off from Warsaw. We’d had to leave the motorcycle behind. It would have been a nine-hour drive; over a day by train. We needed to save as much time as we could. And we desperately needed the sleep.
Ana, of course, had insisted on coming with me. Her brother Marek hadn’t been able to talk her out of it. I hadn’t even tried. By now I was well aware that there was no saying no to the lawyer Anastazja Staszak. I imagined the police and prosecutors of Warsaw trembling on the courthouse steps when in her presence. Were I in their shoes, I knew I certainly would have. She was undoubtedly a formidable opponent in the courtroom, a zealous advocate too familiar with swaying judges and juries in her favor. If I were ever charged with a crime in Poland—a better than-average possibility in my line of work—I wouldn’t think twice about from whom to seek counsel. I’d trust my freedom in Ana’s capable hands any day of the week. Indeed, I’d trust her with my very life.
Together, Ana and I rushed through the gate as though we were late for a connecting flight. In all of Ukraine, Odessa was the logical place to start. Situated in the south, on the northwest shore of the Black Sea, the city had long been considered a hedonists’ playground, a haven for sex tourists and wife hunters, a sanctuary where con artists, drug dealers, and prostitutes could safely ply their respective trades. Moreover, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Odessa had become a hub for the international sex industry.
The city was a major seaport, a bustling gateway linking the most poverty-stricken parts of Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania to the wealthiest sections of western Europe and the Middle East. Thanks largely to the corruptibility of Odessa’s destitute police force, organized crime continued to thrive, particularly among those gangsters engaged in the ever-growing business of sex trafficking. A generation of girls born behind the Iron Curtain—and thus, impoverished and ignorant of the outside world—had become easy prey for entrepreneurial mobsters.
In general, victims no longer had to be abducted or even manipulated, but merely recruited. Indigent teenage girls dreaming of riches were now more than happy to be given free passage to Abu Dhabi or Dubai in order to turn tricks. There was no longer a need for lies or false promises of jobs as waitresses or dancers or fashion models in Paris, London, or Milan; it was enough to say, “Have sex with men for money for a few years and you will return here affluent, covered in gold, diamonds, and furs.”
Of course, I was under no illusion: this wasn’t what had happened to Lindsay Sorkin. The amount of money involved, the specificity with which she’d been chosen—none of it fit with the usual goings-on in Odessa. But if Lindsay had indeed been taken to Ukraine, as Gasowski had assured us, chances were she was moving through the network that was already in place here.
Outside the airport, we hopped into a taxi, which took us straight to the Mozart Hotel. After what had transpired at the guesthouse in Krakow, Ana had generously permitted me to select the accommodations. The Mozart was a luxury establishment with forty rooms, all individually decorated with elegant European furnishings. As our taxi pulled up to the hotel, I watched Ana gaze longingly at the Opera and Ballet Theatre just across the street.
I checked us in. This time, one room with two beds. Given everything that had occurred in Poland, we weren’t taking any more chances with respect to security. In Ukraine we’d be sticking together whenever we could.
“So, what is the plan, Simon?” Ana said when we were finally alone in the room.
“Once night falls we’ll head to the city center and explore some of the clubs. I suppose I’ll pose as a john, see if I can find someone willing to introduce me to some girls. Maybe I can get one of the girls to talk.”
Ana folded her arms and frowned. “Really?” she said. “You are going to start at the very bottom? Talking to a teenage girl who has no doubt been heavily dosed with heroin and who is unquestionably afraid for her life?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“Of course,” she said. “And I am sure you have already considered it but your chivalry will not permit you to share it.”
I sat on one of the beds and folded my hands in my lap. I indeed knew what she was going to suggest, and I agreed that it was the smartest course of action. Still, it would be terribly dangerous. I couldn’t allow Ana to put herself in harm’s way like that; not again. This was my job. Any way you looked at it, I’d chosen this life following Hailey’s disappearance. If not for my recovering the boy in Bordeaux, neither of us would have been sitting here in a hotel room in Odessa, contemplating how best to infiltrate an organization devoted to human trafficking. Ana was a volunteer, helping me purely out of her generosity. If anyone had to take the serious risks, it was I.
“Well?” she prodded.
“Impossible,” I said. “For the very reasons you yourself just pointed out. They drug the girls, or at the very least expect them to drug themselves. And the girls are scared for their lives for good reason, Ana. These are ruthless men we’re going to be dealing with.”
She glared at me. “And Chudzik’s men were not?”
I rose off the bed. “
You
insisted on coming with me to Pruszkow. I never meant to put you in danger of being kidnapped.”