“How long?” Mike asked.
“Two weeks ago,” the senator replied, slipping the pic back into the file and sliding the whole folder across.
“By now she’s in Albania or Serbia being broken in,” Mike said, flipping the folder open. There were more pics of the girl and of Smegnoff as well as a list of his common hangouts.
“We just want to know where she is,” Traskel said.
“That’s not going to be easy, even if this pimp is a good contact,” Mike replied.
“You very much want to do this mission, Mr. Jenkins,” the senator replied tightly. “I need the favor. And you don’t want me remembering that you didn’t help when I needed it.”
“Was that a threat, Senator?” Mike said, smiling but not looking up. “Please. You’ve got access to some of my files, at least. Any threat from you is hardly going to sway me.”
“You’re playing with the big boys now, Mr. Jenkins,” the senator almost snarled. “This isn’t killing a few terrorists on an island in the Bahamas. This is the kindness and consideration, or not, of the United States Senate. You really don’t want to piss me off.”
“I’ve been playing with the big boys for a long time, Senator,” Mike said bluntly. “Again, water, duck.”
“All my constituent wants is his little girl back,” the senator said tightly. “Please?”
“Big contributor?” Mike asked, flipping through the file.
“Yes,” the senator admitted. “Very large.”
“Good,” Mike said, closing the file and looking at the senator again. “Because this isn’t going to be a freebie. I won’t be able to lone-wolf this one. I’ll need an intel team and shooters most likely. This is likely to get bloody.”
“I believe that you already got a fairly substantial IMF grant…” the senator said, frowning.
“Hah!” Mike said, chuckling. “That’s barely earnest money. You have any idea how much an op like this is going to cost me?”
“I suppose I should,” the senator said, nodding. “A million?”
“More like five,” Mike said, frowning. “It’s going to be expensive on my end. I’ll submit a cost sheet at the end. He’d better pay up.”
“That won’t be an issue,” the senator said.
“You want her extracted?” Mike asked.
“Just found,” the senator replied. “When we know where she is, we can use other channels to get her out. Legal channels. I trust that I don’t have to suggest that my name not come up if anything… untoward occurs.”
“I’m very discreet,” Mike replied, standing up. “But when I send you the bill, your friend had better pay it. Because if he doesn’t, you will.”
Mike perused the file as the Gulfstream crossed the Atlantic. Finding the girl wasn’t going to be easy but that wasn’t what was bothering him. The girl in the photos was certainly pretty enough, but she didn’t look like a girl having a great time at the beach. And he was sure the picture wasn’t taken in the U.S. The rocks along the beach were limestone or something similar. There simply weren’t any major beaches in the U.S. that had limestone around them. Not like the stuff in the pic, anyway. He’d put money on the pic being taken on the Adriatic or Black Sea coast. And the bathing suit she was wearing in the one pic and the dress in the other were European, not American.
On the other hand, the unnamed “constituent” was an immigrant. The pics might have been taken in the Old Country. But the girl’s eyes… she was not enjoying having her picture taken. It wasn’t teenage surliness. She was resigned and unhappy.
Mike frowned and looked close at the bathing suit pic. He wished he had a magnifying glass with him because it looked very much as if the girl had a large bruise on her abdomen. Like from a punch.
The whole op had a bad feel to it. The minor State Department official contacting him, the senator, the pictures. It just didn’t add up.
Well, he’d know he’d found out what was really going on when it started to stink.
“Well, it would certainly be nice to have some support from the other side of the aisle,” Nielson mused as he looked at the pictures. “And the lady is certainly charming enough in a naifish sort of way.”
“Tracking her’s going to be a stone bitch, though,” Adams pointed out. “Most of the gangs running this racket in that region are Albanians. They’re right bastards and mostly come from Albanian clans. They all know each other, so we won’t be able to insert anyone.”
“Not on the runner’s side,” Mike said, rubbing his chin.
“What are you thinking?” Nielson asked, looking up.
“I’m thinking that we need Vanner and Cottontail in here,” Mike replied.
“That’s the op,” Mike said looking at Vanner and the Russian hooker. Cottontail was sitting up and apparently paying rapt attention but that could mean anything. Mike had picked her up from the local brothel, very much against his will. The girl was pure poison. Either as a result of her experiences as a sex-slave or from nature she was a vicious sociopath and delighted in making life for everyone around her miserable. Since she’d been living at the caravanserai, Mike had kept her from being too much trouble by keeping her busy, first in studies and then later working with Vanner in the intelligence section. The girl was smart as hell, which was part of the problem; as a whore she’d been underutilized.
But she had the makings of a first class agent. She simply had no soul and was a great actress.
“How are you planning on tracking her?” Vanner asked curiously.
“Well, the first line is that we’re going to pay a trip to the pimp and ask him nicely what happened to the girl,” Mike said, then looked over at Cottontail. “The other string rests with you.”
“You want me to go into that,” the girl said, waving at the papers.
“It’s not like you don’t know the moves,” Mike replied flatly.
“What’s in it for me?” Cottontail asked, just as flatly.
“Money,” Mike said. “Twenty thousand euros for the entire op, assuming you do your job. And you’ll get to fuck over the sort of guys that made you a whore. We’re going to be having a lot of polite and charming conversation with them.”
“Do I get to watch?” Cottontail asked seriously.
“If it fits the mission,” Mike said. “And I’ll guarantee you that we’ll be following. I won’t say bad things won’t happen to you, but we’re going to be on your ass the whole way. I guarantee you won’t be stuck back in the system and we’ll try damned hard to keep you alive. But mostly it will be up to you. You in?”
Cottontail looked at him coldly for a moment then nodded.
“At the very least, take pictures,” she said, suddenly grinning in a way that was truly scary.
“Will do,” Adams replied. Of all the men who knew her, Adams was perhaps the only one who liked her. At least in part because he liked right bastards.
“We’re going to need to fill out the team,” Mike said. “We’ll need an intel and operational section and a group of shooters and security. We’re going to have to insert across multiple borders, through multiple police jurisdictions and, worse, into multiple gang territories. And after a bit the fact that we’re closing on something might become obvious. The intel section…”
“Tracking devices,” Vanner said, looking at the ceiling. “Bugs. Cameras. Shotgun mikes. Body mikes…”
“You’re on it,” Mike said, looking at Adams. “The shooters…”
“Team Sawn is dialed in on entry techniques,” Adams said. “Break it down four ways. One team for entry, one for security, attached to each main group. We’ll need vehicles…”