Cargo: A Leine Basso Thriller

CARGO

A Leine Basso Thriller

DV Berkom

Cargo

A Leine Basso Thriller

Copyright © 2015 by D.V. Berkom

Published by

First eBook edition August 2015

All rights reserved.

Cover by Deranged Doctor Design

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, event or occurrence, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created from the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously.

Money—the universal merchant. Anyone can be bought, anyone can be sold.

Anyone
.

Haunted by memories of an op gone bad, former assassin Leine Basso travels to Bangkok in search of a missing backpacker. With help from an old contact, she discovers the man responsible for the girl’s disappearance is connected to a violent Hong Kong triad and is the linchpin of an extensive trafficking network—both animal and human.

Making enemies isn’t new for Leine, but making one in the triad is—she soon finds herself a prisoner on board a cargo ship headed for sub-Saharan Africa. To ensure her survival and to continue her hunt for the missing girl, she must join forces with Derek, an ivory poacher who promises to help her.

For a price.

As her involvement intensifies, Leine delves deeper into a disturbing and treacherous criminal underworld where everything has a price.

This wasn’t right.

Kylie leaned over the side of the
tuk tuk
and gasped for air but only succeeded in choking on the thick exhaust of heavy evening traffic. The neon signs of Bangkok’s Soi Cowboy District streaked past at dizzying speed, shifting her unsettled stomach into epic nausea.

I didn’t have that much to drink
.

She’d been at the bar for less than an hour, waiting with her friends from the hostel for the legendary lady boys to appear. The thought that the bartender had spiked her beer skated across her mind, but she rejected the idea. Why drug a customer who was obviously part of the backpacking crowd and wouldn’t have much money?

The motorized rickshaw turned down an unfamiliar street, heading in the opposite direction from the hostel.

“Wait—where are we going?” she asked, her breathing shallow. The words echoed in her brain, like she was standing in a hole.  Slowly, she swiveled her head. Alak, the guy she’d been talking to who worked at the hostel, sat across the seat studying her closely, as though she were an insect pinned to a bug board. Frowning, she glanced in the rearview mirror. The driver was watching her, too. Dread crawled deep in her stomach, clawing at the thought that the two men knew each other, knew what was wrong with her, expected it, in fact.

I have to get out…get back to the hostel.
She curled her fingers around the metal rail that surrounded the backseat and leaned toward the open doorway.
I need to call Mom and Dad, tell them I’m ready to come home…

Alak grasped her arm and pulled her back. Unable to keep her grip, her fingers slid from the railing.

A dream-like fog descended over her. Why did she come to Thailand? There was a reason.
What was it again
? A picture of her little brother, Brandon, flashed through her mind—of him lying in the middle of the street in downtown Phoenix, a pool of blood surrounding his head like a dark red halo.

Such a sweet angel.

She tried to move her arms, but nothing worked. The first flush of alarm faded into the background, and she floated in a viscous sea, no longer afraid of where Alak and the driver were taking her. Her brain screamed at her to be more concerned but she couldn’t drum up the energy to care.

A montage of images obliterated Brandon: Angie and Beatrice, the twins she’d met from New Zealand, laughing and throwing back shots in the open-air bar with their tour guide, Charlie; Alak buying her beer and asking her questions about home; the little boy, Jaidee, sitting next to her at the bar until Alak shooed him away.

The
tuk tuk
lurched to a stop, and Kylie slipped off the backseat and onto the floor, mute, numb, and so weak she couldn’t move. As though belonging to someone else, her arm flopped to the side and her hand touched air, now free from the vehicle’s confines. Someone seized her under the arms and dragged her from the
tuk tuk
and onto the street, her shirt bunching beneath their hands. Jagged gravel scraped her exposed back. She opened her mouth. To what? Cry out? An instant later the pain floated off, and she fought to remember what she was going to say.

Poor Brandon. He’s with the angels now
. She struggled to keep her eyes open, but then gave up.
What’s the point?
Her eyelids fluttered, sensations dissipating like mist in the desert, leaving only a pinpoint of herself.

A moment later, even that was gone.

Leine Basso sat inside her car across from the café where the two women were meeting. The former assassin adjusted the volume on the receiver so she could hear everything her daughter and the Modeling Magic rep said. The women had just set their drinks on the table and taken a seat under the café’s awning. 

It was another cloudless, Southern California day: blue skies, low-seventies, comfortable. Leine was getting damned sick of comfortable. She could use a little stormy weather. Maybe some rain, or a blizzard. Hell, even the dusty Santa Ana winds would have been better than this seventy-degrees-and-sunny-every-day monotony. Normal people didn’t live like this.

At this point she’d welcome an earthquake.

Leine focused on the two women’s conversation, half-enjoying her daughter’s debut as an operative for SHEN, the anti-trafficking organization Leine worked with. The mother half of her was not happy April slid into the role without talking to her first.

Not that she was overprotective.

Leine could have kicked herself for using photographs of April when she contacted the cover agency, but it sounded like a good idea at the time. She’d been trying to obtain a physical address for Modeling Magic so she could slip inside their offices and rifle through their paperwork and computers for information regarding a recent case. Presumably, four women had been offered modeling contracts and given an assignment overseas, an offer to which all four had eagerly agreed. Their last known location in the States was the greater Los Angeles area purportedly at a property owned by Modeling Magic, Inc.

So, she’d called her daughter and asked if she could use her photos to lure the woman into giving up the address for a meeting.

“What? Why would you do that?” April had asked. She wasn’t the kind of person who would want to make her living as a model. Not because she couldn’t. It was more because she hated the idea of the impossible-to-replicate airbrushed perfection most of the models projected. And because she’d rather write. At the moment she was deep into the first draft of a literary novel. She insisted she was going to be the next Margaret Atwood, although Leine was happy to see her continue to work a day job.

“Down, girl. I’m only going to use them to arrange for a meeting with a company we suspect is a front for trafficking.”

“Oh. Well, then, of course you can. Do you need me to go undercover?” April had tried repeatedly to get Leine to include her in assignments from SHEN, but Leine refused. Leine did, however, encourage ongoing self-defense training and was teaching her how to handle various weapons.

“We’ll see. It depends on what happens after I send the pictures.”

“You know, Mom, I’m getting pretty good with a gun, and it would be fun to work with you. Lou even mentioned he might be able to use me sometime in the future. Just think what that kind of experience would do for my writing.”

“You write literary fiction. There’s not much call for gunplay and Krav Maga,” Leine said. “If you end up writing thrillers or murder mysteries, let me know. I’ll hook you up with Santa, and he can send you on a ride-along with somebody from the LAPD.” Santiago Jensen, or Santa, as he was more affectionately known, was a detective for RHD, the Robbery Homicide Division of the LAPD, and Leine’s new roommate. She still wasn’t sure how to refer to him. Boyfriend seemed too tame and a bit juvenile, and partner sounded like a business arrangement. She avoided the political correctness of “significant other,” which she hated more than monotonous, sunny weather.

Leine figured a ride-along with a member of the LAPD would have a fifty-fifty chance of coming back to bite her in the ass. It would either scare the hell out of her daughter or add fuel to the fire. She wasn’t entirely sure which way April would go, and didn’t want to find out.

April sighed. “You need to let me grow up sometime.”

“Yeah. I know. Let me live in my fantasy world a little longer, okay?”

Her daughter had laughed. “Okay. Go ahead and use the photos. You’ve got them on your phone, right?”

But it hadn’t worked. The rep suggested meeting at a popular coffee house in Beverly Hills.

April was ecstatic when Lou gave her the green light to work undercover at the initial meet. Leine would have put the kibosh on the whole affair, except Lou and April did an end run behind her back and planned everything. The idea of being left out of her daughter’s undercover activities gave her a bad case of heartburn, and she volunteered to monitor the meeting.

Leine returned her attention to the conversation. There wasn’t much ambient noise other than a bit of traffic, so the sound quality was excellent. The mic April wore as a button on her blouse had a wide range, so would easily pick up the rep’s words. The tiny receiver in her ear allowed Leine to coach her if the need arose.

“Thank you for meeting with me,” April said. “I’m really excited about this amazing opportunity.”

“My pleasure, April,” Melissa, the rep, said. “I always like to schedule a preliminary meeting with potential applicants in order to get a better feel for whether our agency will be a good fit. So far, I like what I’m seeing.” Somewhere in her early thirties, Melissa was dressed for the part in a designer jacket and skirt with expensive shoes, topped off by a trendy hair style and a shitload of jewelry.

“So what are my next steps? My girlfriends are all, like, over the moon that I’m finally going to pursue modeling.”

Melissa chuckled. “Well, first of all, do you have a passport? It’s possible we may be able to get you in on a shoot overseas. One of our models has the flu and we’ve already scheduled the venue and all the equipment and personnel, so postponing isn’t an option.”

“I have a passport, but don’t you have other girls who are trained? I’ve never modeled before. The idea makes me kind of nervous.”

“Oh, don’t worry. Our photographers are the best at making our models look good. I like the idea of having a fresh face with little experience. Vulnerability translates well in the photos.” Melissa paused. “Besides, our client is quite particular about body type and coloring. You’d be perfect.”

“Awesome. Where would I be going? Paris? Milan?”

Leine smiled. April could definitely play the part.

“This assignment is actually in Dubai.”

“Wow. That would be amazing.”

“It’s a pretty cool job, I’ll say that.” Melissa opened her briefcase and pulled out an envelope. “Here’s the contract. Go ahead and look it over, and if you see anything that you don’t understand, let me know. I’ll be happy to explain it to you.”

April took the papers from her and paged through them.

“I’m going to run to the ladies’ room, so take your time. Do you want anything else?” Melissa gestured toward April’s drink.

April shook her head. “No, thanks. I’m fine.”

Melissa picked up her purse and disappeared into the café. April watched her go and then slid the empty manila envelope closer.

“How am I doing?” she asked, her voice low.

“You’re a natural, honey.” Leine hated to admit it, but April had a knack for subterfuge.

“I’m still nervous that she’ll see the wires.”

“She doesn’t seem suspicious, does she?”

“No.”

“Then I wouldn’t worry.” Leine knew how she felt. She’d hated wearing a transmitter, always worrying she’d be compromised.

“Did you put the tracking thing on her car?” April asked.

“Yep,” Leine replied. The signal from the GPS device she’d slapped on the rep’s Lexus was strong.

“You sure I don’t seem nervous?”

“Not at all. It’s natural to think the target knows something. Don’t worry.”

“The paperwork is asking for my birthdate and my social.”

“Just put down the driver’s license number and birthdate Lou gave you this morning. If she asks, tell her you forgot your social, and you’ll call her with it this afternoon.”

April fell silent while she filled out the forms. Melissa returned a few minutes later.

“Well? What do you think?” the rep asked.

“Do I sign here?” April turned the contract toward her.

“Yes. And initial there, and there.”

When April was finished, Melissa tucked the contract back into the envelope and put it into her briefcase. She held out her hand.

“Congratulations. You’ve just signed with Modeling Magic. May this be the beginning of a long and happy relationship.”

April smiled and shook her hand. “Thank you. When do I leave?”

Melissa glanced at her watch. “I’ll have to clear it with the home office, but remember I told you we’re in a bind? If everything checks out, your flight leaves at eleven tomorrow night.”

“Wow. That is soon. What should I bring?”

Melissa slipped her sunglasses back on and smiled. “Just yourself and your passport. Everything else will be taken care of.”

I’ll bet,
Leine thought.

***

Leine followed Melissa out of the parking lot, staying several car lengths behind her. Twenty minutes later, she drove into the lot next to a high-rise and parked. Leine continued past her and pulled to the curb a few cars down. The rep exited her car and walked into the building. Noting the absence of security cameras outside the door, Leine settled in to wait.

At five o’clock, several people emerged from the building and headed for their vehicles, including Melissa and a younger woman. After a brief conversation next to Melissa’s Lexus, both got into their cars and left.

Leine waited until each of the cars in the parking area had gone before she exited her vehicle and moved to the doorway. She paused a beat to gauge her surroundings and then slipped inside.

The cool, elegant interior matched the modern architecture of the building. Spotlights transformed lush plants and contemporary artwork, giving the lobby a sophisticated ambience.

There were no obvious security cameras in the lobby, either. She checked the building registry next to the elevators for Modelling Magic, Inc. They weren’t listed. Two suites had no designation, one on the first floor and one on the fifth. The office on the first floor turned out to be vacant. She located the stairwell and climbed to the fifth floor.

Leine eased the door open to make sure no one was visible before she stepped into the hallway. The carpeting muffled her footsteps as she made her way past various offices. At the end of the hall was a door with the logo for
Modeling Magic, Inc.
written in gold and black lettering along with the suite number and hours of operation.

She observed the empty reception area and scanned the office hallway through the side window, searching for light indicating someone working late. The office appeared deserted. She listened for several minutes to make sure her assessment was correct before she took out a small envelope the size of a credit card. Inside was a set of picks and several turning tools. She selected what she needed and raked the lock. Easing the door open, she slipped inside.

Skirting the reception desk, she proceeded down the hall toward the back. She passed a conference room and two offices before coming to one that had Melissa’s name plate on the wall next to the door. Leine peered through the glass. A large desk with a computer flanked by filing cabinets, two chairs, and a loveseat filled most of the space. Leine picked the lock on the office door and went inside.

Glamorous photographs of male and female models covered one wall. Bookshelves lined another, with a third taken up by floor-to-ceiling windows.

Leine started with the files. She didn’t expect to find a paper trail, but she wanted to be thorough. Once she was satisfied that Melissa hadn’t left sensitive information in the filing cabinets, Leine moved to the computer. In her experience, most people mistakenly thought a password-protected computer was enough to keep prying eyes from the files stored there. She took out a small black device, which she connected via the USB port, and turned it on. The compact piece of hardware was compliments of her days working as an assassin. Before she left her former employer, she had a friend reverse-engineer it for her. She’d found it useful on several occasions.

The lights on the device blinked amber while it tried first one and then another password combination, accepting and rejecting them at high speed. She brought out a magnifying glass and checked the keyboard, noting the keys that appeared the most worn. She entered them into the device and initialized another program that ran simultaneously to the main one, searching those specific strings of letters, numbers, and symbols at the same rate.

Several minutes passed before she got a hit on the secondary program. The device entered the string of characters and the screen changed from a password prompt to a screensaver depicting a white, sandy beach with a palm tree and turquoise ocean beyond. Icons populated the desktop. Leine clicked on an email program at the bottom of the screen, which opened to reveal Melissa’s correspondence. She skimmed the dates and subject headings, pausing at a recent notice from a commercial airline.

She opened the message and scanned the details. It was for the flight to Dubai leaving the next evening—the one Melissa told April to be on. Her daughter’s name had already been added to a list of other young women and men taking the same flight, all of them unaware of their true destination. Relieved her daughter was only being used as bait and wouldn’t be on the flight, Leine closed the message and checked for flight statuses closer to the time of the disappearance of the four women from Iowa.