The Missionary (9 page)

His cell phone rang, then, and he stopped Wren, answering his phone with a harsh syllable. He listened, spoke briefly, and then hung up. He grinned at Wren. “Good ting I didn’t let Miguel hurt you, huh? He woulda kill you, you know. He don’t like ‘no’. Dat was my buyer. He comin’ right now. He don’t like his girls wit’ marks on dem.”

“Buyer? You’re…you’re selling me?” Wren couldn’t stop the question.

“Yeah, yeah.” He scratched his cheek with his thumb. “Lotsa money. Lots and lots.”

“What…who are you selling me to? What are they going to make me—make me do?”
 

He just laughed. “What you tink? Lotsa men pay good money to fuck pretty American girl. Dat’s you. Pretty American girl. Best part is, you don’t even look American. He can charge more extra.”
 

“No…no. Please. Don’t.”

He leaned close and his breath stank as he spoke. “You tink I’m nice? Tink I like you? Tink again. I won’t kill you. I lose money, dat way. Know what I do? I’ll fuck you just to teach you a lesson. Right here, in dis room, on dis floor. So you best shut up. Huh? Shut up and you won’t see me again. Keep talking, and I’ll fuck you hard. Teach you a lesson you never gonna forget.”

Wren shrank back, sucking in a terrified breath that had her wincing in pain. “Please, I’m sorry. No. Don’t….I’m sorry.”

“Better. Now shut up.” He shoved Wren through another doorway, and this one led to a room with a small round table and four chairs, an old refrigerator that didn’t seem to be plugged in to anything, and a big red cooler with a white top, the same kind she used to help her parents pack full of Coke and salami and Gatorade and cheese and bread for a day on the lake. He shoved her toward the table and she sat down, pressing her palm to her screaming ribs, focusing on each breath in, each breath out, refusing to consider her fate, what was coming, what would happen.

She breathed, and she prayed.

He pulled on a length of metal bar fastened vertically to one of the walls, and it slid aside, the entire wall serving as a door. He only opened it a few inches, peering out into the street beyond. Wren peered hard at that gap, the sliver of freedom. What if she made a break for it? Knocked him aside and ran? He would kill her. But wouldn’t she rather be dead than forced into prostitution? Wren thought she probably would rather be dead. She tensed her legs, gathering them beneath her, focusing on the few inches of space between the door and the wall, planning her motions. If she tried to knee him in the groin, it might buy her some time.

She lifted up out of her seat, sucking in a deep, preparatory breath…

But something inside stopped her. It wasn’t an audible voice, not really. But she heard it within herself, nonetheless:
WAIT.
 
WAIT.

She settled back down, confused. Now was her chance. It might be the only one she’d get. And she’d missed it. He shut the door, pulled his phone from his pocket and checked the screen, cursing in Filipino.
 

“Where da fuck he is?”
 

Wren shifted in her seat, glancing at the refrigerator and cooler, wishing she had something to drink, or eat. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d fed her, or given her water. She was so hungry it was painful, so thirsty her mouth felt withered and drawn.

She had nothing to lose, she realized. “Could…could I have something to drink? Please?”

He glanced at her, amused. “You got balls, huh? Sure, look in dere, see what you see.”

Wren struggled to her feet and pulled open the fridge. It wasn’t plugged in, but there were bottles of booze, beer, and something else, some local brand of soda. It was better than nothing. She grabbed one and opened it, sipped from it, tasted citrus, something like Sprite. He was watching as if interested in the way she drank, so she grabbed one of the bottles of beer and extended it to him. He lifted an eyebrow, but took it, twisted the top off, and drank.
 

A few minutes passed in silence, Wren sipping her soda and feeling stronger with each swallow of liquid.
 

And then she heard gunfire, loud bursts from somewhere behind them. Her captor swore in Filipino, grabbed Wren’s arm and dragged her from the kitchen and out into the street. She was running, trotting behind him, dragged by his iron-hard fist around her bicep. The soda can slipped from her fingers and splashed onto the dirt road. An engine roared, and then a van swung around the corner, skidded to a stop in front of them. More gunfire blasted from the maze of shanties, and Wren knew in her heart that it was Stone, coming for her. The sliding door was wrenched open from within, and her captor shoved her into the van and leaped in after her.
 

She grabbed the chain of her cross and yanked it so the clasp broke. As she was being thrown into the van, Wren tossed the cross into the dirt, hoping and praying that Stone would find it and recognize it, and know she’d been there.

8

~
Now
~

Stone’s instincts and training kicked in automatically. It wasn’t reaction
that had him lunging to one side. He wasn’t even through the door yet, his eyes hadn’t adjusted and he couldn’t see a damn thing. It was a voice whispering in his brain, compelling him to move. Gunfire hacked, muzzle-burst flashing, blinding, illuminating. Stone squeezed the trigger of his pistol, felt it jerk in his hands, the double bounce of the recoil in his fist as familiar as his own heartbeat.
 

BANGBANG
.
 

A body dropped, and Stone kept moving, wishing he had a flashlight. He stooped and scooped up the AK-47, slung it by the strap over his back.
 

The gunfire had awakened the beast, he knew. Voices shouted, male and angry, female screams. He noted the closest doorway, but also saw that another wall had a doorway cut into the wood. This wasn’t one building, he realized, but a maze of connected shacks. He followed the female voices, the screams, and the shouts trying to corral them.
 

He caught words in Filipino: “
tahimik!
”
Shut up!
 

Another doorway, an empty room, right turn, through another doorway, a stained mattress. He heard footsteps, ducked backward into a corner, crouching, pistol held in a Weaver stance. Two men stomped through the doorway, assault rifles held at hip-level, sweeping the room haphazardly. They didn’t check the corners, though. A pair of slugs each, and two bodies dropped. Stone waited for others, crouched, legs tensed, pistol ready.
 

Another figure entered, and this one clearly had some kind of military training. He swept the corners first, unfazed by the sight of two dead bodies spreading pools of blood. He didn’t see Stone fast enough. A squeeze of the trigger, and Stone watched a small round hole begin to weep ruby in the darkness.
 

Three bodies. Stone moved on, shutting away the images in the dark mental place where he pushed all such images. He kept moving, passing through room after room. Most were empty of people, although he did pass through one room full of frightened girls in varying states of nudity, packed into a tiny barracks, bunk beds stacked three high. They shrank away from him when he entered. None of them spoke.

He fixed his gaze on one girl, Filipino by the looks of her. “New girl?” He asked it in English. None of them responded, or seemed to understand him. He tried in his limited Filipino: “
Bagong babae?
”

She pointed, and then shrank against the wall.
 

Stone indicated the other door, opposite the one she’d pointed to. “
Tumakas,
” he said.
Run away.

None of them moved. Stone wanted to yell at them, beg them to save themselves. He did none of these things, though. He couldn’t help them more than he already was. Shouts were echoing through the rooms: they’d found the bodies he’d left behind. He didn’t have much time.
 

He moved through the doorway, sweeping the room as he went, checking corners, seeing nothing. Another room, empty. And then a room that wasn’t empty. A man stood with his back to a corner, a long knife in his hand. He had a scar on his cheek, pulling his mouth down. The knife was held to the throat of a prostitute, her eyes wide and terrified, a trickle of blood snaking down her throat where the blade creased her skin.
 

“Drop gun.” His voice was a low hiss.

Stone considered his chances. It was a small room, barely six feet across. If he dropped his gun, it was over. Wren would be killed or disappear. He lifted his pistol slightly, and the girl’s eyes widened, shaking her head, sending fresh rivets of blood down her throat.
 

He held his breath as he centered the bead on the scarred thug’s face, squeezed the trigger. His pistol jerked, barked. Blood and brains painted the wall, and the man sagged, the knife going limp. The girl whimpered, then shoved the arm away, stumbling forward with her hand clapped to her throat, blood leaking between her fingers. Stone cursed, then caught the girl as she fell. He settled her on her back on the floor, then reached out and ripped a chunk free from the dead man’s shirt, pressed it to her throat, moving her hand to hold it down. The skin had been sliced deeply, but he didn’t think her windpipe had been severed. She stared at him, trying to swallow, tears sliding down her cheeks, chest heaving as she struggled for breath against the pain.

Stone was wrenched by guilt. He wasn’t sure she would live, but he couldn’t afford the time to stay with her until he was sure. He rose to his feet, and the girl reached for him with her free hand, making a whimpering noise. Guilt ate at him as he forced himself to turn away, thinking of Wren. Behind him, he heard feet scrabble at dirt, and he twisted to see the girl stumbling through the opposite doorway, toward the barracks room. If she could walk, she would likely be okay, he told himself.

Through another series of empty rooms. Footsteps echoed behind him, and then more shouts. He glanced over his shoulder and saw shadows and forms passing through doorways, following him, just a few rooms behind. He entered a small kitchen of sorts, an unplugged refrigerator, a small table, a big red cooler with a white top. A door was open, leading to the street.
 

Goddammit!
Stone whirled in place and slammed his fist into the wall, splitting his knuckles. His blow splintered the plywood of the wall, leaving a faint red smear.

A can of soda sat on its side in the middle of the street, glugging clear liquid into the dirt. He kicked the can viciously, sending it flying. He spun in place, seeing tire tracks in the ground, but with no way to know if the tracks meant Wren had even been here or not.
 

He was about to jog away, following the tracks northward, when his gaze caught a glimmer of sunlight on silver. He knelt, brushing dirt away to reveal a thin chain. He lifted it up, and his heart wrenched at the sight of the slim silver cross. It was Wren’s cross. She’d been here.
 

Gunfire blasted behind him, kicking dirt up around him, and Stone spun in place and lurched to one side, lifting his rifle and firing. His rounds caught the gunman in the chest, knocked him back several paces, red blossoming from the holes in his chest. He kept his muzzle pointed at the fallen thug as he approached and knelt beside him.
 

Stone grabbed a fistful of shirt. “Where’d he take her?”

“Never know…you never gonna know.” Blood bubbled from grinning lips.

“Tell me!” Stone shouted, fury pulsing through him. “Where is she?” The thug just laughed, coughing bloody froth. Stone drew his pistol and jammed the tip against the dying man’s crotch. “You’re already dying, you sick fuck, but I can make it a hell of lot more painful for you. I’ll ask one more time. Where…the
fuck
…
is
she?”

This got a reaction. “Don’t, please! I tell, okay, I tell you. Nice Hotel. Mandaluyong. He sell new girl dere. Different room all da time, same hotel.” He coughed again, spewing pink froth from his mouth, eyes blinking, body shaking and shivering.

Stone nodded once and stood up, striding away, following the tire tracks through the maze of shanties until they disappeared onto the main road leading east over the river. He boarded a bus heading east, and then transferred to another line heading south toward Mandaluyong City. As the bus trundled the long journey south and eastward from the Tondo district toward Mandaluyong, Stone considered his options and tried to formulate a plan.
 

The problem was, he discovered, there wasn’t much to plan for. He had the name of a hotel and nothing else. How would he find Wren?
 

Nearly half an hour later, he was standing outside the Nice Hotel. Train tracks ran behind the building, ending in the Shaw Boulevard MRT station, a huge white building connected to the even more mammoth Pavilion Mall. This was, Stone realized, a brilliant place to have a human-trafficking auction. It was close to several forms of transportation, the mall provided crowd cover as well as any number of hiding places, and the Nice Hotel, while not as seedy as some of the other no-tell motels a bit west of Mandaluyong, still offered a suite for six hours at an affordable rate—PHP675 for six hours, Stone discovered after inquiring at the front desk.
 

He booked a suite, simply for the chance to nose around, if nothing else. He found his room, and then wandered the corridors, listening and watching. This turned up nothing, so he made his way down to the lobby and loitered, watching people come and go, hoping for a glimmer of a clue, someone out of place, someone he recognized.

After forty-five minutes of fruitless waiting, his attention was drawn to two well-dressed younger men entering together. There wasn’t anything overtly suspicious about them, but for some reason, Stone’s gut was telling him to follow them. Maybe it was the constant roving of their eyes, the way they assessed the room upon entering. Their gazes settled on Stone, who busied himself with a brochure for the nearby mall.