The Stolen Ones (29 page)

THE T-MOBILE GUY
called back exactly one hour later. “Manhattan,” he told Windermere. “Upper East Side. I can narrow it to an eight-block radius, but that’s the best I can do.”

“Do better,” Windermere told the guy. Then she turned to Stevens. “The Big Apple, partner. We have an eight-block radius to work with.”

LePlavy looked up from his computer. “You guys go,” he said. “I’ll call the Manhattan field office, get some feet on the ground over there.”

Windermere held up the phone. “Keep bugging T-Mobile while you’re at it,” she told LePlavy. “See if they can’t narrow down the phone’s location any better.”

“And make sure the NYPD has a picture of Catalina,” Stevens said. “Every cop in Manhattan, get them looking for her.”

LePlavy straightened. “On it.”

Windermere was already at the door. “Find the car, partner. We’re moving.”

IT WASN’T WORKING.
Whatever the Dragon was trying to do, it wasn’t working.

He’d stopped trying to force the cocaine on her after the phone calls. For a moment, Catalina dared to believe he’d forgotten about her. He’d stared at her with vacant eyes, barely saw her, put down his phone and dug out a bag from his closet. Inside the bag were guns, lots of them. He pulled out a mean-looking machine pistol and showed it to her.

“I hope you’re ready for a party,” he said. “I suspect we might have an uninvited guest tonight.”

Who
? Catalina thought. The Dragon’s phone calls had been in English. She hadn’t understood them. Staring at the machine pistol, though, she felt a little stirring of hope. Whoever was coming was an enemy of the Dragon. And that made him a friend of hers.

She’d hoped that this new development would make the Dragon forget about her, about the awful things he was planning to do to her. How could he want to hurt her when someone was coming for him?

But apparently the maniac was unconcerned. He put the machine pistol on a dresser, far away from the bed, a million miles from her reach. Then he crossed the room to her. He moved fast, his jaw set. He wasn’t smiling anymore. Whatever he wanted to do now, he wasn’t happy about it.

She watched as he dove into the cocaine on the nightstand. Watched him come up again, swearing, blinking, his wiry beard coated in the white powder. He looked around the room, licked his lips. Shoved her down onto the bed and was on top of her before she knew what he was doing.

He was heavy above her. He crushed her into the bedsheets, pawed at her body. She could feel the handle of the knife digging into her hip and she squirmed beneath him, wriggled away from his hot breath, his tongue.

“Come on, little one,” he told her, raspy. “We might as well play together while we still have time.”

She reached for the knife as he began to kiss her neck. Closed her fingers over the handle and tugged. The knife didn’t move. It was stuck in its scabbard. The Dragon sat up and slapped her.

“Hands off,” he said. “Don’t get frisky, do you hear me? This is my show.”

The slap hurt. Her face stung. Her ears rang and her thoughts swam. Catalina watched the Dragon remove the knife. He held it up so she could see it, the glint of the light on the blade. It was long and curved and awful, and she struggled and shied away. The Dragon sneered at her.

“Behave yourself,” he said. “Behave yourself and this will all be easy.”

He put the knife on the nightstand, beside the cocaine. Inhaled another mountain of the drug and came back to the bed, fumbling with his belt, the zipper on his pants. He was growing frustrated. He wasn’t looking at her.

“Come on,” he said. “Fucking bitch, come on.”

Catalina eyed the knife on the nightstand. It was close. It wasn’t close enough. She wouldn’t reach the nightstand unless she stretched, and even then, her fingers would barely graze the cocaine. She would have to lunge for the knife, and the man was faster, and stronger. She reached anyway, scrabbled with her fingers, squirmed on the bed.

The Dragon swore again. He slapped her again. Curled his lip as she screamed. He was touching himself now, she saw. It wasn’t working.

“Too much cocaine,” he said. “Fucking bitch. Fucking Volovoi.
Fuck
.”

Catalina felt her head swimming again. Couldn’t focus. The wine probably, and the man above her. The knife lay inches from her grasp. She shifted on the bed as the man struggled and swore. Strained with her fingers and tried to will the weapon closer.

VOLOVOI PULLED THE BMW
to a stop outside the Dragon’s apartment building. Around him, traffic swarmed Park Avenue. Cars and taxis and buses. Police cars. Lots of them, but no sirens, not yet.

Volovoi pulled the BMW to the curb. Stared up at the building, the DuPont, some fancy tower. A hell of a lot nicer than his apartment in Newark, anyway, not that he would ever see the place again. Volovoi figured he would be lucky to see New York again, hell, America. His face was on every news program in the tristate area.

The smart play would be to get out right now. Stay in the BMW and keep driving, get away from Manhattan and just go. Find somewhere quiet to hide until the attention died down, then get out of the country. Nobody would connect him to the BMW, not for a little while. He could put some serious distance between himself and the FBI insects.

He could save himself easily. He just had to keep driving.

Volovoi shut the car off. Pulled out his cell phone and called a contact at the docks. “I need an out,” he said. “Tonight.”

“Give me a moment,” the contact replied. A moment passed, and the contact came back. “The APL
Brazil
,” he told Volovoi. “Sails midnight for Rotterdam. Good?”

Volovoi checked his watch. A quarter to ten. He would have to hurry, but he could make it.

“I’ll be there,” he said, and ended the call. Then he climbed out of the car.

There were police everywhere. NYPD cruisers, unmarked sedans, FBI Yukons, even a helicopter. They were searching, Volovoi realized. Somehow they’d traced the Dragon here.

Only a fool would stick around.

Volovoi checked his pistol again. Shoved it into his waistband, hidden, and crossed the sidewalk to the DuPont’s front doors, every sense in his head screaming at him to turn around. He didn’t. He couldn’t.

Volovoi knew the Dragon would not rest while he was still alive. He would not forgive his partner’s debts, nor his betrayal. Lloyd was dead. The Manhattan project was ruined. The Dragon would carry the grudge to his grave, and if he couldn’t find Volovoi, he would take out his anger on Volovoi’s family.

Well, so be it. Volovoi would send the Dragon to his grave a little early.

He walked into the DuPont. Slipped past the doorman, who barely looked up from his paperback novel. Entered an open elevator and pressed the button for the Dragon’s floor, checked his pistol again as the doors slid closed, and waited as the elevator slowly climbed skyward.

IRINA MILOSOVICI
sat in the FBI conference room, watching a TV screen play the news in a corner. Beside her sat the translator, and across the table, the American family—Nancy Stevens, a teenage daughter about Catalina’s age, and a young boy. Sometimes Agent Mathers came in, offered everyone coffee or sandwiches or a fast-food hamburger. Then he was out again, and Irina caught glimpses of him through the doorway, walking this way and that with an urgency she couldn’t help but find attractive.

He’d hooked her with that little bit of tortured Romanian, she knew, though he’d later confessed (through Maria, the translator) that he’d spent a couple hours memorizing the phrase as he worked to find her.

“Figured you’d feel a little lost,” he said. “Maybe it’d make you feel better to hear something in your own language.”

She’d laughed again. Told Maria to tell him his accent needed work, and watched his face break into a wide smile as Maria relayed the joke. He’d brought her back to the office, brought her Maria, brought her food and water and a bandage for the scrape on her knee, brought her everything he could think of to make her feel comfortable.

But he couldn’t bring her Catalina. She was still out there. She still belonged to the Dragon.

>   >   >

NANCY STEVENS’S DAUGHTER
was watching Irina from across the conference room. She was a pretty blond girl, so American. The kind of girl who appears on a magazine cover. She studied Irina with unabashed curiosity.

The girl said something to Maria, who nodded. Then the girl looked at Irina again. “You’re the girl who escaped,” she said. Maria translated. “The girl who was kidnapped. What’s your name?”

Irina hesitated. “Irina,” she said. “Irina Milosovici.”

“I’m Andrea Stevens,” she said. “Nice to meet you.”

Irina met her eyes. “And you,” she tried in English.

“Is it true you and your sister came here in a box?” Andrea asked.

Nancy Stevens, beside her, shushed her. Apologized to Irina, to Maria.

“It’s okay,” Irina said. “Yes. I was taken from my home in Bucharest.”

“How did they kidnap you?”

Irina closed her eyes. “I always wanted to go to America,” she said. “They promised me a job, as a model. There was an American man who promised to handle everything.”

“And then he put you in the box.”

She exhaled. “Yes.”

“Why?”

Before Irina could answer, Nancy Stevens said something to her, sharp. Andrea spun, replied in kind, a teenager’s quick temper. Catalina had the same; watching Andrea made Irina’s heart ache for her sister.

Andrea and her mother argued for a minute. Then Nancy said something that made Andrea blush and look away, look down at the table. “Sorry,” she told Irina. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“It’s okay,” Irina said.

Andrea was silent a beat. “My dad is going to solve this case,” she said finally. “He’s in New Jersey right now, catching the bad guys. He’s really good.”

Irina studied the girl’s face, her earnest expression. Could see more of her mother’s features, but the little boy, he had his dad’s face, his kind eyes. Nancy Stevens had a beautiful family.

“My dad rescued me once,” Andrea said. “From a bad guy. He’s a really good cop. He’ll get your sister back.”

Irina forced a smile at the girl. She had no doubt Agent Stevens was good. Probably he was a wonderful father. But he’d sent his family to hide here all the same. He, too, was afraid of the man called the Dragon.

Irina shivered and cast her eyes to the table. The Dragon was a monster. Even the police were afraid of him. Poor sweet Catalina didn’t stand a chance.

SHE COULDN’T REACH THE KNIFE.

The Dragon was on top of her again. His hands were all over her body, pawing at her, squeezing. He slapped at her. Swore at her. He hadn’t tried to have sex with her, yet. From what Catalina could tell, he couldn’t.

“Fucking Volovoi,” he muttered. “Fucking little bitch.”

He would kill her, she knew. He was getting frustrated, and he would take it out on her. He would take the knife and stab her, and that would be the end. It would be the end of her life, and the end of Dorina’s, and the others. Everybody would die.

She had to get away.

The Dragon was struggling with the clasp of her bra. Catalina lifted her head from the pillows. Beside her, she could see the nightstand, the mountain of drugs. The Dragon sniffed, fumbled, swore again. He was clumsy and awkward.

She could see the knife where it lay on the table, beside the cocaine, unguarded and tantalizingly close. It wasn’t close enough, though. She would never reach it.

Catalina reached anyway. She didn’t touch the knife. Couldn’t. But she came back with cocaine, a fistful of white powder. She flung it into the Dragon’s eyes. The Dragon reared back, coughing, grabbing at his face, and Catalina scrabbled from underneath him. Reached again for the knife.

This time, she grabbed it.

The Dragon was swearing above her, sneezing, his eyes filled with tears. Catalina spun, and lunged with the knife. Plunged it deep into his stomach. The Dragon screamed, doubled over. Struck out with his fists.

Catalina dodged him. Wrenched the knife out and came at him again, thrusting the knife in his stomach, wanting to puke at how easily it slid in. The Dragon screamed as she stabbed him. Swung his arms, wild and blind.

Catalina stabbed him until she couldn’t do it anymore. Let him slump against the bed, let him fall, clumsily, to the floor.

She fumbled in the closet. Found a T-shirt and pulled it over herself. Then she ran, gripping the bloody knife in her hand.

“NYPD FOUND THE PHONE
in a parking garage on Lexington,” LePlavy told Stevens as Windermere sped the Charger out of the Lincoln Tunnel. “Backseat of a town car with phony registration. No sign of Catalina Milosovici or anyone else.”

So where the hell is he?
Stevens thought. “Can we canvass the area?”

“Already doing it,” LePlavy said. “It’s a full-scale manhunt. It’s the middle of Manhattan, though, Agent Stevens. Even in an eight-block radius, there’s more people than Wichita, Kansas.”

Stevens watched the city fly by outside the Charger’s windows. “Tell them to keep looking,” he told LePlavy. “This is our best goddamn shot.”

THE ELEVATOR DOORS SLID OPEN.
Volovoi stepped out of the car and into the hallway. The hallway was quiet.

He gripped the pistol in his right hand as he walked down the hall. Thought again of his nieces. Of the police cars outside.

He would kill the Dragon quickly. He would kill the little girl, too; he would have to. Then he would escape. Nobody would catch on.

Volovoi reached the Dragon’s door. Raised his pistol and aimed at the lock. Before he could pull the trigger, the door flew open.

The girl. Catalina Milosovici. She wore nothing but an oversized T-shirt, and in her hand she carried the Dragon’s bloody knife. She ran headlong into Volovoi, collided and bounced off him. Fell to the floor. The knife skittered away.

Volovoi stared at her. At the knife. Wondered if she’d done his work for him. No matter; he’d find out soon enough. The girl stared back from the floor. He watched her eyes go wide as he leveled the pistol at her.

“It’s nothing personal,” he told her. “It’s not prudent to leave witnesses.”

He could see her jaw working. He could see the frustration in her eyes. No doubt, she’d been brave. She’d been courageous. She’d disarmed the Dragon and managed to escape, and now—now this. Now she would die, because she was unlucky.

Volovoi thought about his nieces. Forced himself to shake the girl’s gaze. Tightened his finger on the trigger.

Before he could shoot, though, someone else pulled a trigger. Gunfire exploded, loud, a hammer pounding. Bullets tore through the wall around Volovoi, courtesy of the Dragon, who’d emerged at the end of a long hallway, holding a machine pistol. The Dragon was bloody. His shirt was unbuttoned, his belt undone. Volovoi ducked away, amazed at his good luck. The Dragon’s bullets had missed him somehow. He had survived.

He had to kill the Dragon.

The girl was scrambling backward, back into the apartment. Volovoi ignored her. Dove for cover as the Dragon let off another round of bullets. Volovoi raised his pistol and fired back, heard the Dragon laughing.

“You’ve betrayed me, Andrei,” the Dragon said. “You’ve taken my goodwill and my money and you kicked me in the balls.”

Volovoi ducked behind a leather couch. Knew it would provide no protection if the Dragon advanced. He fired another couple of shots. “Your goodwill?” he said. “You strangled my operation. You forced me into this course of action.”

The floorboards creaked. Shadows moved on the wall. The Dragon was advancing. And he was still laughing.

“Why did you kill Lloyd?” the Dragon said. “He could have made us both rich, Andrei. What were you thinking?”

“He could have, but he didn’t,” Volovoi replied. “He found out about the failure of my New Jersey operation, and he decided to opt out of our arrangement. I killed him before he could tell his friends.”

“And then you came to kill me,” the Dragon said.

Volovoi peered over the couch, his pistol hot in his hand. Heard the Dragon shuffling down the hall, heard his breathing. The little girl had stabbed him. From the sounds of it, he was hurt bad.

Good,
Volovoi thought.
The police will be here soon. I have to go.

“This doesn’t have to end this way, Andrei,” the Dragon called out. “Our partnership was a good one. Surely we can come to an agreement.”

Volovoi said nothing. If he didn’t kill the Dragon quickly, the police would arrive. There would be no escape. There would only be prison, or death.

“I only want the girl,” the Dragon said. “Leave me the girl, and you can go in peace. You have my word, I will forgive your betrayal.”

Volovoi looked to the doorway. The girl was gone. “The girl is gone,” he said. He tried to stand. Couldn’t. Stared down at his clothing and saw bloody holes, ragged, three of them. The Dragon’s bullets hadn’t missed after all.

He felt weak suddenly. Forgot about standing. Slumped back down to the floor and studied his bloody fingers as the Dragon came out of the hallway. The Dragon looked from Volovoi to the empty doorway. Raised his machine pistol and aimed at Volovoi’s face.

“So long, Andrei,” he said. Then he grinned and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

Outside, in the hallway, an elevator door dinged.

“Your lucky day,” the Dragon said, dropping his spent clip to the floor and hurrying after the girl instead. Volovoi raised his pistol from the floor. Tried to aim at the Dragon, was too slow. Too weak. He could hear police sirens now. He lay his head down and closed his eyes.