Twisted Traffick Page 17

  What had her father not done, Nadia wondered? And what did this man with the freckles want?

  “Good idea, Sergei.” This from Kalinsky, who was trying to make himself comfortable in one of the armchairs. “What do you think Brother Peter?” The wounded man smirked at the redhead.

  “Sure, but first tell me, Sergei, does this mean you didn’t get the HEU?”

  Sergei was the square Russian friend of Kalinsky, Nadia surmised.

  “Yes, unfortunately for you it does. But the deal is still on. We’ll get the stuff soon,” Sergei answered, shoving Nadia into the armchair opposite Kalinsky. “You, you little slut, you sit right here.”

  “You guys are jerking me around.” The man called Brother Peter--was he really a priest, Nadia wondered--stood up from the barstool to face Sergei. “You get me to come out of hiding, promise me fifty pounds of the stuff, and then don’t deliver.”

  “Listen, Brother Peter.” Sergei moved right up against the big man, but had to look up to meet his eyes. “I am sure you know that getting fifty pounds of uranium is not as easy as buying chewing gum in a convenience store in New York. Don’t worry. We’ll get it for you as promised. It may just take a little more time. Days, maybe weeks, months even. In the meantime, you can’t complain.”

  “I am not.”

  “We look after you real well, don’t we?” the square Russian continued. “We put you up, you eat our delicious food, drink our expensive alcohol, fuck our beautiful girls. You see, we even got you and our buddies here a fresh lot.”

  “Yeah, thanks, Sergei.”

  “You guys can have anyone of those chicks over there.” Sergei nodded at the girls cowering in the corner, and then at the two other men who had been sitting silently at the end of the bar, listening to the conversation between Sergei and Brother Peter. “Just not this one. We need Nadia to help teach her father a lesson. That way, you might get your nuclear stuff sooner, Brother Peter. Plus, my friend Andreas has the hots for her, I know,” Sergei continued, chuckling to himself as he looked at Kalinsky. “Can’t you see, he is literally panting with lust, trying to look up her skirt there? Ahh, the poor guy has been injured so needs all the loving he can get.”

  Oh no! What did these men have in store for me? Nadia was trembling with fear, on the verge of tears.

  “Great!” the redhead said. “Thanks, Sergei.”

  “Sure thing. So pick one for yourself. You too, Andro and István, go ahead. You guys can use the rooms downstairs. And, Andreas, I know you can’t wait. So you can go and have some fun with Nadia first, while I finish up some business here with Brother Peter. Use the Master. Let’s save the VIP Guest Room for the holy man--he’ll be down in a few minutes. And with your wound, don’t do anything to strain yourself, old man. I’ll take over with little Nadia when I am done up here. Oleg here--” Sergei nodded in the direction of the barman. “--will take her down there for you and show our friends from the military and the police their rooms, just as soon as he pours us a drink. Champagne, Oleg, for my friend Brother Peter here and me. The Taittinger 2004 will do.”

  “Thanks again, Sergei,” Brother Peter said, as he strolled over to where the other five girls were sitting motionless on the sofa listening with fear to what would come next for them. He looked them over one by one, and to Nadia’s horror, pointed at her friend Sasha, “How about this little gem?” And pulling her up by the chin, he asked, “Yes, this is the one I want. What is your name honey?”

  “Good. She’s all yours.”

  “Her name is Sasha,” Kalinsky answered, since Sasha had dissolved in tears.

  “What about you, Andro? István?” The two men at the end of bar--who, Nadia surmised, were the military and police officials Sergei had referred to--got up from their stools to make their choice of partner, the first saying, “This one,” as he pointed to a cowering girl on the sofa, and the second, “For me, this gorgeous babe.”

  “Okay, Oleg,” Sergei said, addressing the bartender who had just poured two glasses of champagne. “Take those three down, along with this one for Andreas. Put Nadia in the master. That one there--Sasha--you keep an eye on in the VIP guest room until Brother Peter arrives. Our other two guests can have any of the rooms down there with their chosen sluts.” Then as an afterthought, he added, “The two leftovers, there--take them to the master as well, I know Andreas likes to play with more than one at a time. And don’t worry, Oleg, you and the rest of the crew can have them all later.”

  “No, please, no,” Nadia screamed, as the barman walked around the end of the bar.

  “Come on, honey,” the barman said and tried to pull her up from the sofa.

  “If she resists, just give her a good whack,” Sergei told the thug. “That goes for anyone of them. We won’t stand for insubordination. You know that.”

  Nadia got up as Oleg yelled at the girls to follow him, and the entire retinue descended the circular staircase on the port side of the bar, leaving Sergei and Brother Peter in the Skylounge to conduct their business.

  Chapter 29

  Within seconds after eliminating the guard at the back of the boat, Greg, Anne, and Labrecque were on either side of the sliding glass doors that led from the aft deck sitting area to the Main Salon. The French Interpol agent touched the sensors to open the doors and they entered to an empty but luxurious living room. Perhaps, Greg thought, Polyakov had let most of the crew have time off, so he and Hetzel and their guests could get up to their nefarious activities undisturbed.

  That would be good. There would be fewer thugs to contend with. Plus, he recalled, Labrecque had already eliminated one of them. They moved forward cautiously, pistols with silencers in hand, through the equally extravagant and empty dining room, toward the winding circular staircase, which led, on the one hand, up to the upper deck, from where they heard the low drone of voices, and, on the other, down to the lower deck where presumably some of the bedrooms were.

  Labrecque signaled downstairs, and Greg told himself that this made sense. From the conversation, they knew there were probably only two people up top, so best to clear the lower decks first, assuming the others were down there. Crew, or guests, or girls. They tiptoed down the steps, the Frenchman leading, Anne right behind him, and Greg bringing up the rear. Arriving in the lower deck foyer--also laid out elaborately with granite and marble--they saw that three of the four doors were closed. From behind two, they could hear muffled noises.

  Labrecque signaled that he would take one of these doors and Anne should take the other, while Greg was to stay in the foyer to cover the other two rooms and the staircase as well as the corridor that led up front to what presumably were the crew’s quarters. The two former Interpol colleagues burst through the doors at the same time: as he followed his wife to look through the open door and provide backup if necessary, Greg saw that Anne was greeted by the depraved sight of a very surprised man in the buff standing at the bottom of the bed holding a naked girl face down in front of him. It was not hard to guess what he was about to do.

  “Don’t move or I will shoot, you creep,” Anne shouted, keeping the gun on the man, as she approached the scene of depravity. “Get over there, asshole, against the wall, hands way above your head.” She helped the traumatized girl to her feet, saying, “Come on honey, you put this on,” as she threw her the dressing gown the man must have been wearing earlier and had shed to force the girl onto the bed to service him in this disgusting manner.

  In the room directly across, Greg saw through the open door that Labrecque was untying a naked girl who still had tape on her mouth to gag her screams, with his gun pointed at a man brandishing a whip.

  “Okay, buddy, put that down like my friend said,” Greg ordered, as he entered and went over to help the Frenchman free the girl.

  The two then quickly used the rope to tie the pervert up and wound the tape still on the night table beside the bed tightly around his mouth to gag him.

  “Thanks. Here, I am sure Anne can use some of this in the
other room,” Nicholas said, giving Greg the rest of the roll of tape. “You go see if she needs a hand. I’ll just check the other two rooms quickly.”

  Greg went in the room where he had left his wife, and seeing the scene, yelled at the man who had his hands above his head to sit down in the chair by the desk. When he hesitated, Greg shoved the man into the seat, and wrapped the tape round and round his blubbery flesh so tightly that the prisoner winced and had trouble breathing. When he was finished, he threw the bedcover on top of him to cover his ugly nakedness.

  Just then, through the open door, Greg heard a Russian accented voice in the third room, the door of which Labrecque had kicked open, yell, “Drop your gun, or I will kill her.”

  Greg saw Anne wave at him as she slowly moved in the direction of the door, Glock at the ready. The next thing he heard was Anne shouting, “You drop your gun you asshole and let the girl go. And don’t be stupid, there are three of us here from Interpol, and, if you pull that trigger, you are a dead man yourself. Best surrender.”

  The guard saw that he was outnumbered and outgunned, and it was not worth throwing his life away for his boss. He dropped the gun and released Sasha, who ran to Anne, as Labrecque went over and tied the man to a post.

  “Okay, I think these perverts will not give us any more trouble tonight. Let’s put the three girls in the other room. We’ll tell them to lock the door until we come back, and then let’s go check the rest of the boat.

  ***

  As quietly as they could, they climbed the staircase back up to the main floor and were pleased to hear that the voices coming from the upper deck were still chattering away. Nicholas motioned toward the staircase and, pointing to himself, indicated that he would go first. But all of a sudden, they heard some moaning, mingling with sobbing and laughing from behind the doors that led into the room adjacent to the dining room. So the French Interpol agent changed his mind and pointed at the double doors, indicating to Anne and Greg who were closer to go ahead and break in there, while he covered the two staircases leading up top where they knew at least two of the gangsters were deep in conversation.

  Greg kicked the door in as Anne rushed through, Glock moving side to side to find a target. He followed with his gun to the fore and was shocked by the unfolding debauchery in front of his eyes. A man--probably one of the guards, Greg surmised--was brandishing a whip at a girl just in her panties, tied to one of the marble pillars on one side of the king-size bed, with another girl already secured to the pillar on the other side. An undressed Hetzel was sitting on the bottom edge of the bed, with his hands in Nadia’s hair, leaning back and pushing her head down between his legs where she was kneeling.

  Anne, beside herself with rage, yelled at him, “Get up, you fucking pervert,” as Greg covered the thug with the whip.

  “You, drop that whip and put your hands up,” Greg shouted. He heard Nadia cough, saw her pull away and try to cover herself with her hands, as a whimpering Hetzel slowly got to his feet.

  He muttered something that sounded like, “Please, please.”

  But neither Greg nor Anne had any patience left with these debauched abusers of women.

  “Okay, you sicko, spread your legs and swing ’em. Those gonads of yours. And this time, rest assured, I am not going to miss,” Greg heard Anne say, and a moment later to his horror, he heard the muffled shot of her pistol, followed a second later by the unearthly scream of the man who had once called himself Adam’s friend. Coming out of his shock, Greg, with his pistol still pointing at the guard, rushed over to free the two girls tied to the pillars and then used the rope to secure the thug, as Anne, with an eye on Hetzel, who was lying unconscious on the floor in a rapidly growing pool of blood, kept her gun on the guard.

  “Greg, you go after Nicholas. I think I heard him rush up the stairs, when this asshole screamed, to get the guys up there. I will try to stop Hetzel’s bleeding and call an ambulance,” she said to Greg, who seemed all too shocked by what she had done.

  It took him no more than a second to survey the situation and see that, indeed, Anne seemed to have things under control, so he ran out of the room and up the stairs to the lounge on the top deck from where earlier they had heard the voices. There was no one there now, but the door to the cockpit was wide open, so he bolted through it. Then, seeing that it too was empty, he continued through the side door to the exterior walkway that led to the front. Here, Greg surmised that Labrecque and whomever he was chasing would have gone down the outside steps in the front to the lower deck and then out the back, so he followed this route. When he got to the aft deck, a dejected Labrecque was just coming across the walkway back onto the yacht.

  “They got away?” Greg asked.

  “Yeah, I am quite sure. I got no sight of them. I am just trying to call George to see whether the reinforcements ever showed up and where the hell they are.” Labrecque had taken his phone out and scrolled down, continuing somewhat angrily. “We would have gotten those buggers--whoever they were, talking upstairs--if the local reinforcements had shown up in time.”

  “Probably Polyakov, since he wasn’t here, and we saw him arrive,” Anne said.

  “Maybe they can still intercept them,” Greg said.

  “I have no idea of which way to send them.”

  “Have some of them check at the hotel.”

  “Good idea. But that’s a long shot. Hello, George? Where the hell are you?” A long exchange on the phone between the two Interpol agents followed. “That’s great. Good work. We have, I think, six girls here, all pretty traumatized and abused. We need to get them some care. And Hetzel was shot--he’s still alive, but for not much longer. Two others taken into custody, plus a couple of guards. One dead. Another two got away, including, we think, Polyakov. Can you or some of the locals with you check at the hotel? And send an ‘all points’ out for a red Porsche Boxster convertible. What was the license plate, Greg?”

  “SX69.”

  “Yeah, SX69. Easy enough to remember. Will you come soon with the local guys?” Labrecque hung up and looked at Greg. “Well, at least they managed to mop up the situation at that derelict building. Finally. Rescued twenty-three girls, arrested nineteen thugs and five clients. These flesh merchants seem to have another complex there, George said, in the basement, like the one in Hungary, except nowhere near as nice.”

  “Terrific! I think now though we had better go back inside and see how Anne is making out with Hetzel. She really did shoot him in the crotch this time, and he was bleeding like hell. And, yeah, we need to check on how those girls are. Maybe they can tell us something.”

  “Okay, let’s go see what fish we caught here. Besides that pervert Hetzel, may he rot in hell.

  ***

  By the time they got back to the master stateroom, Anne had managed to bandage the wounded Hetzel, but he was white as a sheet and had fainted from the loss of blood. “The ambulance is on its way, but they better get here fast, because this creep won’t live much longer without drastic medical care,” Anne said.

  Greg, seeing the three Russian teenagers--who had managed to find enough assorted clothing to get dressed--still cowering in the corner, said, “Let’s get all of you together where you can be comfortable. Maybe we can find some food in the kitchen, and then, if you don’t mind, we need to ask you some questions. Come. Let’s get out of this chamber of horrors.” Greg started to lead them through to the kitchen, but added, “Anne, why don’t you come, too. We can leave these guys here for now, I am sure.” He looked first at Hetzel, and then at the tied up guard to confirm what he had just said. “They can’t cause any trouble anymore. And you can look for some food while I get the three ladies from downstairs.”

  “I will come with you and see to those two perverts in the bedrooms,” Labrecque said.

  ***

  The ambulance arrived just as Greg came back up to the main deck with the other three girls. Anne directed the medics into the master stateroom, and pulled out some cheese and fruit from t
he refrigerator, while Greg managed to find some bread and nuts in one of the cupboards. They proceeded to put all this out in front of the girls, hoping they would eat something.

  Then Anne addressed them. “Girls, you are safe now, rest assured. My name is Anne and this is my husband Greg Martens. We are here on behalf of Interpol. The other man who went downstairs is an Interpol agent, too. I know Nadia, and I think you are Sasha.” Anne nodded in the direction of the girl sitting beside her friend and holding hands with her. “Can the rest of you tell me your names?”

  “Magda,” the girl next to Sasha volunteered hesitantly.

  “Elena.”

  “Martina.”

  “Svetlana.”

  They went around the table.

  “We will get you home to your parents in just a few days. As soon as we can. We promise,” Anne continued, “but now we need your help in bringing these sick men who did such terrible things to account for their crimes. They are all connected to a gang of human traffickers and arms merchants. Most urgently, we need to find out what we can about the two men who stayed behind upstairs in the lounge. Unfortunately, they got away.”

  “Yes, can you tell us anything about them?” Greg asked. “Names that others may have used to refer to them, where they were from, what business they were trying to do, accents, anything you might have overheard when they were near you.” This was met with silence. Were they afraid, too traumatized to speak up? he asked himself. “Listen, they cannot hurt you, if we put them away. And we will. We will not rest until those crooks are behind bars. Or dead.” He would not let it go.