Authors: Douglas Corleone
“You’re speaking about the Podrova brothers,” I said. “Dmitry and Viktor.”
“Yes,” Rudnyk said without any discernible reaction. “Yuri Bobrovnyk, as he may have told you, considers himself a legitimate businessman. And in our current political and economic climate here in post-Soviet Ukraine, an argument can be made that he is not being entirely inaccurate.”
“The Podrova brothers, on the other hand,” Kidman said, “are purveyors of materials that depict unspeakable crimes against children.”
“Therein lies the conflict,” Rudnyk added. “Yuri Bobrovnyk knows that despite the undeniable disparity in their offenses, he and the Podrova brothers are inextricably linked under the designation ‘organized crime’ in general, and ‘sex trade’ in particular. It is an inescapable fact that, if not the Ukrainian government, the world community will ultimately step in to put an end to these atrocities against children.”
“Bobrovnyk fears that the Podrova brothers are bringing far too much attention to Ukraine,” Kidman said, “and that at some point, the outrage over crimes against children will expand into outrage over crimes against women.”
“Unlikely,” Ana noted.
Kidman bowed her head in acknowledgment. “Agreed.”
“But there are other reasons behind Yuri Bobrovnyk’s fury with the Podrova brothers,” Rudnyk said. “Under the delusion that he is a legitimate businessman, Yuri is indignant over the fact that many of the teenage girls who come to him are already ‘worn out,’ as he puts it. There are fewer and fewer virgins, which, for Yuri, demand the highest price. And the girls are often so strung out on drugs that they either steal from him or accept an assignment abroad only never to return. Some overdose and die. Those who survive have inevitably added years to their faces, so they are difficult to sell, or at least demand a much lower price.”
“Why doesn’t Yuri take the Podrova brothers out?” I said.
Rudnyk displayed his first hint of a smile. “Because I have never been so lucky. But also because, believe it or disbelieve it, Yuri Bobrovnyk and his associates are not violent men, or at least do not consider themselves to be so. However, even if they have considered violence as an option to deal with the Podrova brothers, surely they came to their senses. Yuri would never win a war against the Podrovas. The brothers are ruthless, and—as much as I hate to admit it—smart. It is why we have not yet been able to take them down despite the abominable nature of their crimes.”
“So now that we have all this background information,” I said, “where does that leave us in terms of rescuing Lindsay from the Podrova brothers?”
Kidman spoke up. “First, let me say that we have no confirmation whatsoever that Lindsay Sorkin is in the possession of the Podrova brothers. As Martyn pointed out, the Podrovas are very clever and they successfully evade most attempts at surveillance. Gathering intelligence has proven both extremely dangerous and sadly unrewarding. But from what Marek Staszak told us—particularly that the girl was being taken to Ukraine—we think that there is a more than fair chance she is with the Podrovas. And that a cautious look into it would be worthwhile.”
“Cautious?” I said. “What exactly do you mean by cautious?”
“What Agent Kidman means,” Rudnyk said, “is that this operation to retrieve the missing American girl must be like a surgery. A surgery requires a tool of precision, like a scalpel as opposed to a butcher knife. We want you to succeed, but not to make a mess of things.”
“We understand,” I said.
Rudnyk nodded, finally wore a genuine smile. “Good. No offense, Mr. Fisk, but your coming from America, we thought that particular concept might require a bit more explanation.”
Chapter 43
Ana and I stood in the blistering cold, surveying Kiev’s eclectic cityscape, which was far more beautiful than I’d ever imagined. It was a few minutes before we were finally able to hail a cab. Travel sites advised foreigners against taking taxis in the former USSR, but right now getting ripped off was the least of our worries. We needed to get somewhere fast, and we didn’t want to put any more lives at risk by hopping on a bus or a tram. One incredibly close call with a bomb was enough to convince us that we needed to be more vigilant, and avoiding public transportation for the remainder of our time in Ukraine was probably a wise precaution.
I hoped we wouldn’t be here all that long. We were desperate to recover Lindsay Sorkin and return her to her parents in Paris. I was terribly concerned about Lori. I’d spoken to Lieutenant Davignon again immediately after leaving Rudnyk and Kidman, and though Lori hadn’t suffered a miscarriage, doctors were concerned about the effects the excessive stress might have on her pregnancy.
Even if Lori hadn’t been pregnant, I knew from experience that there was more than one ticking clock in any missing-child case. A parent can endure only so much. I’d witnessed Tasha’s breaking point, and I’d have been remiss not to consider Lori’s.
I stepped into the taxi after Ana and provided the driver with our destination: the Ukrainian Darlings Modeling Agency.
It was Ana who’d come up with the plan. Rudnyk and Kidman had run into several dead ends in their investigation of the Podrova brothers’ so-called modeling agency. They had tapped phones, run stationary surveillance, even broken in, rummaged through their files, and installed hidden cameras. All to no avail. Nothing damning was kept on-site, nothing of any import discussed over the phones. As far as things looked to the naked eye, nothing nefarious was being conducted on the premises at all. The front was exceptional as far as fronts go.
No one who worked for the Podrova brothers would talk to the authorities. Everyone was too scared. Unlike Yuri Bobrovnyk, the Podrovas were cold, calculating killers who pulled the trigger immediately upon discovery of the slightest transgression. But then, Ana and I already knew that firsthand from last night’s nearly tragic train ride.
“The
children,
” Ana had said back at the ministry’s headquarters. She turned to me. “You said it yourself, Simon. Back in Pruszkow when we were searching for Kazmer Chudzik. They are the one group of people in every city that you can count on to be afraid of nothing.”
Kidman had held up her hand. “I don’t think you understand. These children have been severely traumatized. They are living in nightmares.”
“We have approached many of the children we suspect are being victimized,” Rudnyk said. “They are terrified and they are convinced no one in the world can help them.”
The thing was, Rudnyk had gone on to explain, these children weren’t snatched off the streets, nor were they volunteers in the true sense of the word because they were far too young to provide their consent. Thus, it wasn’t the Podrova brothers whom they had to fear—it was their parents. Their guardians or loved ones. Uncles, aunts, stepparents. In some cases, their older siblings. There was an absurd amount of money to be made exploiting children, and some monsters were intent on cashing in. With so much at stake, it had proven impossible to penetrate what Kidman called the “Child Wall of Silence.” None of the children would speak of their abuse.
“I am not suggesting we inquire about their abuse,” Ana had said. “Only that we show them a picture of Lindsay Sorkin. With the proper background story, I think it could work. These children do not care about their own lives—they have had those stolen from them. But it is far more difficult for criminals to steal empathy. Children have a natural inclination to protect other children. I have witnessed this consistently during my decade as a criminal lawyer.”
Rudnyk and Kidman disagreed that this was the precision instrument that was called for. For the record, they refused to sanction our operation and insisted that it would be entirely unethical for them to provide us with a list of names, ages, and addresses for some of the Podrova brothers’ suspected victims.
Ana and I didn’t waste much time arguing. After all, Rudnyk and Kidman had obtained the list of alleged victims from the modeling agency itself. There was no reason we couldn’t do the same.
The agency was located on the second floor of a small, inconspicuous building near the edge of the city. When we arrived in front of the building, Ana and I stepped out of the taxi and surveyed the hand-drawn layout that Rudnyk and Kidman had been kind enough to provide us—off the record. Although they couldn’t aid us in any official capacity, Rudnyk and Kidman knew what was at stake and they weren’t going to attempt to stop us. In fact, even if they didn’t agree with our plan, they assured us they wanted it to succeed.
“Do what needs doing,” Rudnyk had quietly said to me after our meeting. “The Podrova brothers, they are not human beings. They are monsters who have done to children things of which most of us cannot even speak. There is no such thing as justice for their crimes. The best anyone can do is rid the world of these creatures, if not all at once then one at a time.”
I folded the diagram and stuffed it back into my pocket as Ana and I crossed the quiet street. Inside the agency itself, there would be a reception area with a single desk. Behind that desk were several unlocked filing cabinets that contained information for each client.
Rudnyk and Kidman had insisted that Ukrainian Darlings acted like a legitimate business—at least on its own premises—so there wouldn’t be any added security. On-site, the agency’s so-called clients posed for clothed photos in a large room set up with hot lights, several backdrops, and multiple cameras. These same so-called clients were then allegedly taken off the premises for their more lurid work.
We entered the building and I followed Ana up the creaky stairs. The halls had been freshly painted white with murals of unicorns and rainbows. Head shots of beautiful children were posted everywhere. To the average eye, this would have looked very much like a happy place straight out of a children’s picture book. But Ana and I knew better, and as we traipsed up the stairs, the atmosphere chilled me to the bone.
I stopped just short of the second landing and nodded to Ana. She reached into her handbag, plucked out her phone, and pulled up my number.
“Soon as the receptionist moves to the back,” I said, “hit Send.”
Ana rapped on the door, then stepped inside.
I held my phone in my hand, waiting for the signal. Ana was posing as a destitute parent hoping to make some fast money off her beautiful daughter. Before she’d bring in her child or fill out any forms, however, she wanted to see the studio for herself, to make certain everything was on the up-and-up.
According to Rudnyk and Kidman, unless there was a photo shoot scheduled, the receptionist sat in the agency alone, waiting for intakes. Therefore, if she was going to give Ana the tour, she’d have to leave her post. Which would allow me to drop in to grab some files.
After only a few minutes I began to get antsy, started second-guessing our strategy. Maybe Ana and I were being too clever for our own good. If there truly was only one woman standing between us and the files, trickery wasn’t particularly necessary. Of course, I’d never hit or pull a gun on a woman unless she was a deadly threat. But I wasn’t above demanding that she stand in the corner for ninety seconds.
As I debated whether to make a move, my BlackBerry buzzed in my hand. I slipped the phone back into my pocket and rushed to the door. I saw the green filing cabinets as soon as I stepped inside. This was going to prove easier than I’d thought. I heard Ana engaged in cordial conversation with the receptionist in the rear.
The cabinets were indeed unlocked. The files were organized by year. I grabbed a few of the most recent, along with a handful from last year. I turned to make my exit as planned.
As I opened the door, I thought of something Marek had told me over the phone. The Ukranian Darlings Modeling Agency had been in operation for roughly seven years. Seven years ago, Hailey would’ve been only nine. And what if the agency had really been operating for ten? What if it had simply been operating under a different name?
I turned and walked back to the cabinets. I set my stolen folders on top of the first cabinet and began flipping through the files, one at a time. These older files weren’t as organized as the newer ones, but they did contain photos. There was a single photo—a head shot—stapled to the inside front cover of each file folder.
Of course, it would be a waste of time to search for Hailey’s name. If she was in one of these cabinets, it would surely be under an alias. So instead I started looking at each photo. Each child. Each victim. I flew past the boys but each time I reached a girl’s photo I stopped and studied it. I had to be absolutely sure it wasn’t Hailey before I moved on. So many had Hailey’s dark hair, her tiny nose. So many had Hailey’s eyes.
Over the past decade I’d been all over the world. I’d followed every lead in some form or fashion, no matter how outlandish. I’d made thousands of calls, knocked on thousands of doors. With the help of volunteers from communities large and small, I’d posted and handed out tens of thousands of flyers, combed hundreds of miles of forests. I’d watched dozens of landfills being searched, dozens of lakes being dredged. I’d been in every police station, hospital, and morgue in North America. I’d searched graveyards, dug up private land and public property with abandon. Hailey had to be
somewhere,
why not here?
Halfway through the first cabinet, I was all but certain I would find her.
“
Excuse
me?”
The woman’s voice startled me. I glanced up and saw the receptionist, with Ana standing directly behind her. I snatched the files I’d taken originally off the top of the cabinet and made for the door.
“Hey,”
the woman shouted as my feet hit the stairs.
I bounded down the creaky steps and bolted once I was through the front door. I rounded the corner and ran up the block to the rendezvous spot I’d arranged with Ana.
When she finally reached me, I tried to explain.
But I didn’t have to.
Somehow she already knew. Somehow she understood.
Chapter 44