Nightfire (11 page)

“Ditto, man.” Mike let out a huge breath, realizing what had just happened.

Chloe had set him free.

Sam and Harry clapped both Mike and Kelly on the back and the tension in the room disappeared.

Mike held out his hand to Kelly. Kelly was a good guy. He’d only been doing his duty. “Good luck with finding the bastard who put that woman in the hospital.”

“Yeah.” Kelly’s clasp was warm and hard and brief. “We have word there was a boyfriend who liked pounding on her. We’ll look at him. You stay out of trouble, you hear?”

Oh yeah. Mike had learned a really big lesson tonight. Even though he was terrified it was too late for Chloe.

Sam clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s get going. We still have to celebrate. Our women are waiting.”

Our women
. For Sam and Harry that was literally true. They had great wives and two lovely daughters waiting for them. In another world, the world where Mike hadn’t fucked his way through a battalion of women, that other world where he hadn’t met sweet, utterly enticing Chloe Mason after screwing a cokehead who couldn’t get him to beat her up, so she called in someone else to finish the job, he’d go back to his woman, too.

In this other world, he and Chloe would have a clean slate, able to start this new fresh thing they had.

Whereas in
this
world, they’d hardly begun and she’d already learned the very worst about him.

He’d come on to her hard. He rarely came on to women like he had with Chloe. Maybe because he looked for women in low places, they came on to him.

But with Chloe, he’d been instantly drawn in, instantly attracted. And he’d—he’d courted her. Focused on her, happy just to be in the same room with her. Knowing something important was happening.

For just a second there, he thought he was living Sam and Harry’s dream. They’d both been instantly smitten by their women and look how that had turned out. They were both insanely happy, both settled, both wildly in love with their wives and daughters.

And Mike—idiot that he was—thought he’d found what he hadn’t been looking for. Found something real and true and lasting. Clean and bright. And he’d crushed it with his own hands the moment he’d found it.

He’d never know. Right now a part of him wanted Chloe close to him like he wanted air and water. And another part of him wanted to keep her at a distance. She’d had a rough life and she deserved better than him.

Because who was he kidding? If they got together, she’d find a woman he’d fucked around every corner. His past was like a tar pit. He would never be free, he could only taint her with it.

Harry was quiet as they rode down in the elevator. Sam didn’t even notice. He was exhilarated, happy Mike was out of trouble, looking forward to picking up the celebrations where they’d left off.

And, knowing Sam, very happy to be getting back to Nicole and Merry.

As the elevator doors opened, Harry stuck out an arm, blocking Mike. Harry was strong. Mike was stronger. He could wipe the floor with Harry. But Harry had something to say to him and he couldn’t pound his brother. He loved him too much.

Harry spoke to Sam quietly. “Sam, Mike and I have something to discuss. Get the van started and we’ll be there in five.”

Harry’s face was naturally grave and right now he looked as if his best friend had died and then his dog. Sam looked at him, at Mike, and nodded.

Harry waited until Sam was out of earshot, then turned to Mike, placing a big hand on Mike’s shoulder.

“Congratulations. I’m glad this got cleared up.” His face was absolutely expressionless. The words were good but his face was closed to Mike.

Wary, Mike answered. “Yeah, me, too. I have Chloe to thank for it. I never would have thought of canvassing the security cameras along my run.” It was true. And he had no real memory of what route he’d taken. If Chloe’s friend hadn’t had the right software, he’d still be in PD headquarters, maybe in jail.

“Yes, you do. She’s a good woman. She was the best little girl you could imagine. Loving and sweet and gentle.” He fixed Mike with a hard glare. “Chloe’s been through hell and back, Mike. I saw the way you were looking at her and I know what you’re like with women. I’m sorry to say this but I have to. Go fuck someone else, somewhere else. I don’t want you near my little sister. She deserves better than you. I want you to give me your word you won’t touch her. Because if you do, I’ll beat the crap out of you. Or try. You might even win, but she’d be even more disgusted with you than she already is.”

Yeah. Mike would possibly win because he fought dirty, always. He’d win the battle and lose the war.

He didn’t want to fight Harry. He understood exactly where Harry was coming from. If their roles were reversed, Mike would do the exact same thing. He’d want to protect his little sister from someone like Mike, who’d spent more than half his life fucking anything that would hold still long enough.

There wasn’t anything Mike could do except take it. Because, fuck it, Harry was right.

He was bad news for Chloe. The worst.

Harry’s hand dug into his shoulder. Harry had big strong hands, but Mike’s shoulder muscles were like steel. Still, he welcomed the tiny bite of pain Harry was causing.

Harry’s jaw muscles jumped. “I love you, Mike. You know that. But there’s—there’s just something broken in you, something off, and I don’t want that touching Chloe.” Harry shook him. “Do I make myself clear? Chloe is off limits to you. I can’t ask you to stay away from her because we all see too much of one another, but I can ask you not to come on to her. You’re bad news for women, Mike, and you’re bad news for Chloe. Do her a favor and leave her alone.”

Every muscle Mike had was clenched. Harry shook him harder. “Did you hear me? Talk, damn you.”

“Yes.” Mike said the one-syllable word as if coughing up a stone lodged in his throat and stopped. He couldn’t say another word.

“Yes, what?”

Mike forced himself to relax a little, to allow some air into his lungs. Everything in him burned and hurt. “Yes, I won’t touch Chloe.”

Harry’s hand bit deeper. “Do I have your word?”

Harry knew what he was asking. Mike might fuck around but he never broke his word.

Mike drew in a deep breath and it felt like knives were carving his chest open from the inside. “I promise. You have my word. I won’t touch Chloe. Ever again.”

Chapter 9

Six months later

On board the
Svetlana

Twenty kilometers south of Petropavlovsk

Kamchatka Peninsula

Russian Federation

T
hey came from all over the country, mainly from small towns. Two girls had been culled from an orphanage just outside the ring road of Moscow and one came from Ekaterinburg, but the rest came from small orphanages in small towns, cash-strapped, isolated. The kind of place where for a ridiculously small sum of cash, the recruiters could take their time, choose carefully, get the best.

It was important that the girls be utterly and completely alone in the world. There could be no vodka-soaked father, or poor aunt or jobless cousin out there somewhere who’d had to park the girl in the orphanage until times improved. The father might dry up, the aunt land on better times, the cousin find a job, and then they’d come back to the orphanage only to find the girl gone.

And start asking questions.

That wouldn’t do. Everything had to run smoothly and seamlessly without any hanging threads.

These girls were completely alone. No one would come looking for them. Ever.

The whole world was in recession, but Russia, throughout her incarnations as a czardom, the Soviet Union and now the Russian Federation, had always been poor. The Motherland had always been a place where poor young girls fell through the cracks in the floor. Unwanted, unloved, alone.

Only now, through the magic of modern industrial organization and logistics, the girls had a use, became a commodity, could earn money.

So the recruiters made the rounds of the small, out-of-the-way orphanages, checking to make sure no stray relatives were around, and had their pick of the prettiest in each school.

It had been hard to tell what the girls really looked like. They all shared a look—emaciated, lank, greasy hair, dead eyes. But the recruiters had a good eye for bone structure and checked to see that the underlying health was good. A little food, soap and shampoo and tiny dollops of affection carefully doled out did wonders. The recruiters were good at their job and any mistakes . . . well, no one was going to miss any of the girls.

The girls now filing onto the ship, escorted by professional nurses, already looked infinitely better than they had only a few weeks ago, a testament to the eye of the recruiters who had seen the potential beneath the grime and misery. They’d been kept in a warehouse a few miles south of the city, fifty girls waiting for the last arrivals, waiting for this moment, for shipment.

Their time together in the warehouse had been the best time of their young lives.

The warehouse had been heated because even in June, the Kamchatka Peninsula was cold. They’d been fed and allowed to bathe. They’d had access to a TV with DVDs—mainly cheap pirated versions of ancient U.S. films, but the girls had been so starved of entertainment they were riveted to the screen for hours—and books. Some girls hadn’t been taught to read, some could read only laboriously. Some of the girls dove into the books and barely came up for air.

The warehouse had been abandoned decades ago, but workmen had come in the week before to install a generator, fix up crude lights hanging from the ceiling, set up portable toilets and an efficient space heating system.

The minor investment was worth it, because this was a trial run. If all worked according to plan, there would be regular shipments, using the warehouse as a staging area.

So the girls were rested and clean and well-fed when the buses came to pick them up in the warehouse way station for the first stage of a journey. If this transaction went well, as it surely must, the warehouse way station would be used many many more times.

This was the start of what everyone expected to be a lucrative supply line of fresh blonde meat.

There were eight million orphans in Russia alone, without even counting Belarus, Ukraine and all the other former Soviet republics.

When the first consignment was complete, a bus came to pick the girls up and drive them to the ship moored at a small pier that had been built the week before in a natural harbor ten miles away. No one noticed, or cared. It was a deserted land, a peninsula attached to the largest desert in the world, Siberia.

The business consortium running the logistical side of the operation had bought supplies in the city to the north, but Petropavlovsk was one of those cities where people minded their own business. The only people on the streets were the drunks and the desperate. Still, the heads of the conglomerate felt it was best to be discreet, so the transshipment point had been located outside the city.

It was also why boarding and landing were done by night. The satellites overhead did not have IR capability. That much their financiers, who had access to Russian secret services and who basically
owned
the Russian government, had told them. Spy satellites were intensely focused on latitudes much further south. This latitude covered the Scandinavian countries, Canada, Siberia. Not much terrorism going on there, which was all the
Amerikanski
cared about these days.

There was minimal risk that the eyes in the sky would watch, take note, investigate. Still, it was best to minimize that risk by loading at night, even though nobody really cared too much. After all, they weren’t carrying fissionable material or drugs or arms.

Just girls.

The girls were obedient, biddable. They walked themselves aboard, they didn’t even need herding like cattle. There were only two nurses on board to accompany the fifty girls. The rest were crew members who knew very well the punishment if they touched a hair on the girls’ heads. Death would be infinitely preferable to what would happen to them.

The girls were guaranteed a safe passage. They were valuable commodities and were expected to be ferried across the ocean and landed in excellent condition.

There was a spreadsheet available to the top members of the organization, which was an excellent cost-benefit analysis. Allowing for wastage, and allowing for a work life of fifteen years—after which the average girl found a creative way to kill herself—each girl represented, in exchange for a negligible investment, an overall profit of thirty million dollars. Thirty-five to forty million if used hard, though then the length of useful life became quite short.

The girls filed obediently on board, four bunk beds to each cell. Space was tight but no one complained. There were clean sheets on the bed, they knew by now that they would have plenty of hot food. The nurses were dispassionate but not cruel. This was the best situation they’d ever known.

They would be ferried safely and comfortably to the other side of the ocean, to their final destination.

To market.

San Diego

Meteor Club

“M
ore champagne, sir?” A beautiful young woman held a tray of crystal flutes in front of him. Franklin Sands accepted one, hefting the flute, admiring the way it gleamed like a beacon in the light. It sparkled, just like his life.

He loved this, loved everything about it. The large rooms full of designer furniture, the superb catering, the luxurious armchairs, the smell of expensive leather, the prosperity the rich men in the room exuded, the young beauties ready and willing to fulfill their every desire.

The young woman bending down to offer him champagne was almost beyond beautiful—a stunning brunette in a Valentino gown that showed off just enough of her glorious breasts. No one needed to sneak a peek. Every man in the room knew he could see them naked anytime he wanted. For the right price.

The tray was solid silver and polished once a week, the flutes were Baccarat crystal and the champagne itself was an ’88 Veuve Clicquot. His supplier had purchased eight cases the week before.

He was sitting on an extremely comfortable Poltrona Frau sofa with a Philippe Starck coffee table in front of him. The room was enormous but broken up into elegant, intimate spaces by the furniture, all by top designers. Soft music played in the background. Sands chose his tracks depending on the age of the customers. The average age tonight was around sixty so the music was a mix of classical music and unobtrusive covers of hits from the seventies, when these men had been in their vital prime.

Now many of them needed stimuli Sands was only too happy to provide, for a fee.

“Sir?” The beautiful young woman who went by the
nom de lit
of Skye turned to his brand-new partner, Anatoly Nikitin. Nikitin waved her away irritably. Few men turned down anything Skye had to offer, but the Russian did.

She was one of his better investments, beautiful, willing and talented at her job. His accountant told him she grossed him a million and a half dollars per annum. Her deflowering alone had brought him a hundred thousand dollars. Tax-free of course.

How could the Russian be so immune to her charms? His new partner refused more or less everything in the Meteor Club, which had been designed to offer a man every possible pleasure, save drugs. No drugs in the Meteor, except for the legal ones. He had every variety of prescription upper and downer and a whole range of Viagra-like pills. All legal. Not to mention the finest wines and an infinite selection of choice spirits.

You could indulge every pleasure your mind could conceive of legally here at the Meteor, and no police officer could touch you.

There were plenty of street rats plying illegal drugs. It was a dangerous, violent, filthy business that the state punished severely, and quite rightly so. Only fools entered it, and they died young and badly.

The business of women, the business of elegant pleasures—ah, that was another thing entirely. Immensely lucrative, nonviolent. Or at least it was at the high end of the business where he had situated himself.

Everything in the Meteor Club was guaranteed to stimulate a man’s pleasure centers. Thanks to an infusion of Russian capital from the investors Nikitin represented, the Meteor Club had undergone a radical restructuring and upgrading. Now it was a perfect place to relax, have an exquisite meal prepared by one of France’s best chefs accompanied by wine from the club’s superb cellar. There was even a smokers’ room with humidors filled with the finest Cuban cigars.

In the back were rooms where the men could find their pleasure with the finest blossoms Sands could pluck, up until now mainly from Mexico. But soon there would be a new influx of beauties from Russia. To cater to all tastes. Dark and light.

Soon they would cater to those who liked their pleasures . . . fresher. This would be a brand-new business. If you liked them young and were willing to pay the price, why the Meteor Club would guarantee excellence and discretion.

This, in contrast to the main business, was of course illegal. And so of course a hefty premium would be charged.

The Russians had started setting up a new system, a more dangerous, yet much more lucrative system. It required more careful organization, of course, which cost money. But the rich men who wanted certain things—they were willing to pay.

In the back were soundproofed rooms for men who liked their pleasures darker. For a suitable fee, Sands and his investors in the new Meteor Club would provide anything, anything at all.

Membership at the Meteor Club, for standard fare, started at $250,000 a year. Extras cost more. The new, younger line would cost considerably more.

Even in an economic recession, it was a seller’s market. No one offered the kind of goods the Meteor Club did, in such an elegant setting, disease-free, discretion guaranteed.

His new partner seemed immune to the many delights of the club, though. It seemed odd to Sands, to turn pleasure down. Sands understood indulgence down to the bone. He had no understanding of abstinence at all.

He and Nikitin had been working together for almost a year ever since Nikitin, who Sands suspected had a military background, had contacted him. Nikitin represented certain Russian interests looking to invest in America and they had money to burn. Money on a scale Sands had never seen before. Indeed, the influx of capital had taken the Meteor Club to an entirely different level, to the point where it was in all likelihood the finest men’s club in the country, offering absolutely anything a man could want as long as he could pay for it.

Though they’d often gone over business plans until well into the night, Sands had never seen Nikitin partake of the club’s wares. He never ate or drank here and he never took a woman to the back rooms, though Sands had invited him to do so often. If for nothing else so he could gauge the quality of the merchandise for himself.

Nikitin never gave any indication of playing for the other team, either. No, when he arrived, he just sat, a still figure in a corner where the light never reached, and simply observed. Within a week, he had a complete handle on the business and had estimated the club’s yearly earnings to within ten thousand dollars. And offered to increase those earnings tenfold.

He had a plan, too. With huge infusions of cash and a new supply chain. Fresher, cheaper goods. A river of it.