One Minute Out Page 47

  * * *

  • • •

  It’s just after seven a.m. when we park next to an unused warehouse just outside the fenced-in grounds of Van Nuys Airport. We sit down at picnic tables along a chain-link fence, just twenty-five yards from where Carl’s bullet-pocked helicopter is parked on a pad at the end of the runway.

  We drink coffee and clean and rebandage Kareem’s arm wound, in that order. Carl and A.J. talk about Shep’s dog, agree to share custody and take care of her now that her master isn’t able to do so.

  And then we sit around, just hoping for a bolt out of the blue.

  We know we can’t count on Roxana, so our only fallback plan is to scan the news on a couple of the guys’ mobile phones, reading updates about the gun battle a few hours earlier a half hour’s drive to the north of our position. We’re hoping against hope that the media will be able to tie someone to the property or to one of the dead there, as much of a long shot as that seems.

  We also pull out binos and scan the airport grounds, on the off chance the Director is flying out of this airport. It’s a hundred-to-one shot, which demonstrates how desperate we are.

  My phone rings and I answer it in my earpiece. “Talyssa?”

  The Romanian Europol analyst’s voice conveys a sense of dread. “Harry . . . it’s him. He’s on the line. He says he will kill Roxana.”

  “Patch him through.”

  I hear some clicks, and then I say, “That you, Jaco?”

  His dark voice replies, “Nice work last night.”

  I laugh. It’s phony, but I want to appear relaxed and in control. “You like that shit, do you?”

  “Love it. I thought you’d sneak in, your standard operating procedure. Figured you’d kill a couple Mexicans with a stiletto before my guys came across you and did you in. But no, you went big, didn’t you? Made a lot of noise, broke a lot of things, killed some people who didn’t matter.”

  “We slayed a lot of your boys, didn’t we?”

  “Maybe. But what did you get out of all that?”

  “I recovered a house full of sex trafficking victims, all of whom can identify the people who—”

  “Nobody’s identifying a bladdy thing, mate. Those whores will be useless to you. We’re protected at the highest levels. You’re pissin’ into the fookin’ wind.”

  I don’t respond.

  He then says, “I was just telling your girlfriend on the phone that I’ve got her little sis here with me, in the next room. I’m thinking about walking over there and sticking my knife through her heart. What’s the Gray Man going to do about that?”

  “I don’t have to do anything about that, because you aren’t going to touch her.”

  He laughs. “Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

  “Because the only reason you took her away from the ranch last night was that you know she’s your fail-safe, your last chance to bargain to save yourself, save your boss.”

  He pauses for a long time, and then he says, “Gentry . . . I’m going to tell you something about me.”

  I sigh. “Knock yourself out.”

  “I was South African military, Fourth Special Forces Regiment. As a recce I saw action in the Congo and the Central African Republic, plus some other shit I’m not talking about.”

  “Good. Because I couldn’t care less.”

  Jaco sniffs out a short laugh. “My point is, when I left the military, I went into intelligence. For three years I chased down every Gray Man sighting or potential Gray Man sighting in Africa. A couple hunts in the Middle East, others on the Indian subcontinent. Hell, I even went to Bangladesh on a lead.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Never been to Bangladesh.”

  He acts like he doesn’t hear me. “But intel work was a fookin’ bore. No Gray Man, no action, no test of the mettle like I’d gotten in my twenties as a recce.”

  To this I say, “Any chance I could get you to tell me why you called?”

  Another laugh from the South African, but I can tell in his voice he’s stressed. He ignores me again and keeps up his story. “No other options for a bloke like me but to go into corporate security. I thought it would be tiresome and monotonous, but it was even so much worse than that. So when my company was contacted by a corporation in the Consortium, when I started gettin’ the full picture of what this is all about, when me and my boys started working tough, demanding jobs to keep this entire bladdy enterprise afloat . . . I was like, ‘Yeah. That’s more like it.’”

  “You’re a piece of shit. You know that, right?”

  He ignores the comment and continues. “I love my job, Gentry, is what I’m saying. But now . . . now I’m up against you, the one prize I’ve wanted for years and years. Can’t believe how lucky I am that you got drawn into this whole thing.”

  I shake my head at this. “I bet Kostopoulos and Babic wouldn’t consider themselves lucky. Does the Director know you see my arrival in California as a positive turn of events?”

  Now Jaco laughs maniacally into the phone. “I see the glass as half-full. The Director wouldn’t get it, he’s not like us, not a huntsman. He likes his food caught and cleaned and carved and served to him on a china plate. You and me, on the other hand, we don’t care about the dish. We only care about the art of the pursuit, the thrill of the kill.”

  “You’re right about that. So why don’t you let Roxana go, and then you and I can hunt each other into oblivion.”

  “Nice try, but if you got your girl back, I can’t be sure you wouldn’t just slip away, Gray Man style. No, mate. I need the lamb on the stake for the lion to come for it.”

  “You’ve told your boss she’s a bargaining chip, but that’s not it, is it? You are holding on to her so that I keep coming for you.”

  Jaco says, “Bingo.”

  A.J. hands me a cup of coffee from the McDonald’s on the corner, and I take a swig. Normally I would benefit from the caffeine almost immediately, but this asshole has me so amped I have plenty of energy. I say, “I’m going to be on top of you, soon. My face in your face, while your life is leaving you through a hole in your chest. And, as you’re bleeding out, I’m going to ask if you’re still so happy to have me chasing you.”

  “Keep tellin’ yourself that, Gentry. It will bring us closer.” Almost to himself he says, “I love my job.”

  I’m tired of this testosterone-infused back-and-forth, but I’m trying to get something out of him I can use. He seems to think I’m going to appear in front of him any minute, but the truth is I’ve only got his boss narrowed down to an area some hundred miles in diameter.

  But before I can try to pull intel out of him, he says, “Until that day, Court.” And then the line goes dead.

  Shit.

  * * *

  • • •

  As the bodyguard worked on pulling coffee mugs out of a cabinet and pouring milk into them, Roxana looked out the window at the back of the property and thought it looked like images she’d seen of Versailles. The pool, the marble deck, the foliage and setting: it was idyllic.

  9102 Jovenita Canyon Drive. What a strange place for the devil to live, she thought.

  She’d seen the address on the way in; all she had done as they drove was try to find street signs, notable buildings, and other things that would help her direct her sister to her, should the opportunity arise. But while pulling into the drive they stopped a moment for the gate to open, and right in front of her she saw the street address on the massive mailbox.

  If she had harbored any lingering doubts that she would be killed by her captors, they disappeared when she realized no one around her had any qualms about her knowing exactly where the Director lived.

  She knew she was a dead woman now, there was not a shred of doubt about it, but she still held out faint hope that she could reach out to her sister before she died.

  On the walls around her in t
he kitchen she saw pictures of the Director, a man she now knew was named Ken, and his family. A girl of about fifteen stood with her younger brother and sister in one; they all held oars and life preservers in front of a swiftly moving mountain stream as they smiled at the camera. In another, the same kids—younger—stood lined up back to front on skis with an impossibly gorgeous snowcapped mountain chain in the background.

  Her eyes drifted back out to the rear of the property, and she was surprised by a hint of movement through the sliding glass doors to her right. There, on the first story of a detached white two-story building covered in vines next to the pool, she saw a brown-haired girl pass in front of a window. Not once, not twice, but repeatedly. The girl seemed to be carrying items back and forth, appearing and then disappearing from view.

  She was the right age to be one of the girls Roxana had seen along the pipeline over the past two weeks, but this one didn’t look familiar to her.

  The foreign man watching over her poured coffee in cups and insulated tumblers, draining the pot. As he finished, one of the South Africans entered the kitchen.

  “We don’t have time for that, mate.”

  “Your boss isn’t my boss, and my boss says to get some coffee in his men. Watch the merch while I pass these around the house.”

  The man Roxana had heard referred to as Lion Two sighed. “Got any left for me?”

  “Be my guest.” The bodyguard grabbed four mugs and started out of the kitchen. On his way into the living room, he looked back to the South African. “She’s tied up. Just don’t let her go anywhere.”

  “Hurry it up, then.”

  The bodyguard left the room, and the White Lion operative grabbed himself a cup, then began to take a sip.

  Just then, Verdoorn came out of the library, hanging up his phone. He had a smile on his face. “Where’s the guard?”

  Loots rolled his eyes as he said, “Delivering coffee to Hall and Cage.”

  Verdoorn asked, “Is she tied?” referring to Maja across the room at the table, her hands behind her.

  “Yeah, boss,” Loots said.

  “Okay, come with me. We’ll start hauling shit to the cars.”

  “You gonna be a good girl and sit right there?” he asked Roxana as he walked.

  She nodded without speaking, and he left the kitchen.

  As soon as they disappeared, Roxana looked around frantically for a telephone, and she found one across the kitchen on a cradle. This gave her a moment of optimism, though she had no idea how the hell she could possibly dial her sister’s number, country code and all, with her hands tied behind her back.

  But then she turned her attention to the pool house, where she’d caught glimpses of what she took as a young trafficking victim through the window. That girl had clearly not been bound, and Roxana wondered if she could make it out the back screen door, across the pool deck, and inside the pool house without being detected.

  She knew she had to try.

  She looked quickly back over her shoulder to make sure no one was approaching from behind, then she rose, shot across the kitchen, spun around, and used her hands behind her back to unlock and slide open the glass door. She shut it behind her, then ran as fast as she could in her stocking feet to the pool house. Once there, she turned around again, felt blindly until she grasped the door latch, opened the unlocked door, and stepped inside.

  On her left she saw the open kitchen, so she stepped to a counter, found a paring knife on a cutting board, and carefully cut the ties lashing her wrists together.

  When this was done, she looked down at the knife in her hand. It was a weapon, but she knew she couldn’t fight her way out of here.

  She thought about using it to kill herself, but only for a moment.

  No, she wasn’t doing that. Roxana was on a mission, and the mission was to find a damn phone.

  A noise startled her, and she looked up to find the girl she’d seen through the window, now walking through the living room. She wore a purple wetsuit, unzipped at the waist with the arms hanging down by her legs. On her body she wore a black long-sleeved rash guard, and she had handmade bracelets on both wrists.

  Roxana had seen dozens of sex trafficking victims; none of them dressed like this.

  The girl saw her, stopped, and stared, obviously confused.

  “Do you speak English?” Roxana asked breathlessly.

  “Uhh . . . yeah. Who are you?” The girl spoke with an American accent, and this Roxana found bizarre. There had been no American slaves at the ranch, and certainly none in the pipeline.

  Roxana began to answer her, but the American asked, “Are you a friend of Sean’s?”

  Roxana just looked at her before saying, “He brought me here. My name is Roxana.”

  “Hi,” the girl said awkwardly.

  In the quiet that followed, Roxana suddenly realized she’d seen this girl before. Moments ago, in the photos in the kitchen of the Director’s house. She had been younger then, but she was the oldest of the three kids pictured on the ski slope.

  “What is your name?” Roxana asked in disbelief.

  “Charlotte Cage.”

  “You are Ken’s daughter?”

  The young girl nodded nervously, like she’d been caught doing something wrong. She said, “Sean and I were supposed to go surfing this morning. I guess he forgot. Look, I’m not supposed to be here. I mean, I’m supposed to meet Sean, but my mom told me not to come home. Will you do me a favor and—”

  “I won’t say anything, but your father is over there in the house right now.”

  Charlotte looked out the window. “Shit,” she said again.

  “Stay here; I’ll tell Sean where you are, and when they are finished with what they are doing, you guys can go surfing.”

  Charlotte looked relieved. “Thank you. Please don’t tell my mom and dad.”

  Roxana looked at her a moment more, then asked, “You wouldn’t happen to have a phone I can borrow, would you? I need to send a quick text.”

  Charlotte cocked her head. “Who doesn’t have a phone?” She reached into the waistband of her wetsuit and pulled out an iPhone.

  Sixty seconds later Roxana moved back up the pool area, rewrapping the loose cord around her wrists behind her back as she did so, and tucking the ends in so it looked like she was still bound. She’d just finished when the sliding door opened and the American guard who’d stepped away with the coffee lurched out, grabbed her by her throat, and yanked her back into the kitchen, leaning into her ear as he did so. Softly, so no one else in the house could hear, he said, “Where the fuck did you go, you bitch?”

  Roxana stared back at him, and she answered in a low tone herself. “I was looking for a bathroom.”

  “Outside?”

  “Yeah, outside. I thought there would be one in the pool house and I could get some privacy. But the front door was locked.”

  “You weren’t out here a second ago.”

  “I tried going around back but couldn’t get in. My hands are tied up, remember?”

  The bodyguard stared at the pool house a moment, then shoved her back down into her chair. He searched her thoroughly, but she had done a good job with the cord so he didn’t pick up on the fact she was no longer securely tied.

  He began pacing around the kitchen in a panic, but said nothing until the South African who’d been watching her passed by in the hall with a load of files in his hands.

  Quietly, but with unmistakable anger, the American said, “Hey! You were supposed to watch her. She went outside.”

  The White Lion operative looked at Roxana, then back at the bodyguard. “No, mate, you were supposed to watch her. I thought you had her lashed to the bladdy chair.”

  “But—”

  “Did you search her when you got her back?”

  “Yes. She’s clean.”

&n
bsp; “Then what’s your worry?” He started moving off, then looked back to her. “We’ll keep this to ourselves; we’d both get an ass kicking.”

  The American nodded. “Right. Okay.”

  The South African disappeared on his way to the SUVs parked out front.

  As he paced back and forth, the protection officer tasked with watching Roxana raised his hand to strike her twice, but both times he lowered it before hitting her. Finally, he just sat down in front of her, his hand fingering the butt of the pistol in his shoulder holster, and he stared at her with pure malevolence.

  But Roxana didn’t care. She felt better now. Yes, she would probably die today, but it didn’t matter now, because before she left Charlotte Cage hiding in the pool house, Roxana had used the teen’s phone to send a very short but very informative text to her sister.

  9102 Jovenita Canyon Drive. Director is Ken Cage. Ten men with guns here. Whatever happens—I love you. Do not reply.

  And then she’d returned to the main house.

  Roxana knew that if she escaped, Cage and the others would flee the property immediately. No, she had to wait, to buy time for Talyssa, even if waiting meant dying.

  FIFTY-THREE

  I disconnect the call with Talyssa, repeat the address she just gave me out loud, and then Rodney types it into Google Maps on his phone. Even before it comes up he says, “Jovenita Canyon? That’s up in the Hollywood Hills.”

  We look at the satellite map, zoom in on the place, and see a large Italianate mansion that looks like it must be worth fifty million bucks. The property is positioned on a steep hill, the grounds around it are meticulously sculptured, and a detached pool house looks like it’s twice the size of the home I grew up in.

  A.J. says, “We’re really gonna hit a mansion in Hollywood? Cops will be all over the place. If the bad guys don’t get us, then five-oh will.”

  Carl adds, “LAPD helicopters fill the skies down there. I can insert you boys, but it will be a one-way trip for all of us.”