Crocker wanted to get away from the farm before the French authorities arrived. But there were things he had to take care of first.
Continue the search for intel, and question the four female captives.
He and Akil had literally given two of them-the ballsy one from Romania who said her name was Dorina, and a rail-thin brunette who hailed from a small town in the Ukraine-the shirts off their backs. The sweaty, soiled, bloodstained polos hung over the girls’ skeletal torsos to the tops of their thighs. The other two sat in the corner, wrapped in a dirty blanket, their eyes staring blankly at the cracked linoleum floor. One hailed from Georgia. The fourth, who had a mole above the corner of her mouth, couldn’t remember her name.
They’d been beautiful once. Young and happy, with boyfriends, friends, and dreams. Now they were a mess. Drugged, raped, and god knew what else.
As much as Crocker’s heart went out to them, there was little he could do besides tell them their ordeal was over.
The only one who seemed to understand was Dorina, who gulped water from a Styrofoam cup. Anger and terror churned in her gray-blue eyes. Her bottom lip was swollen, the size and color of a plum.
“You really killed them?” she asked bluntly.
“Yes.”
“Dead? You’re sure of that?”
“Yes.”
“All of them?”
“Five or six,” he answered. “We captured another. He’s taped to the front seat of the car.”
“Shoot him in the face. First in the mouth; then wait a few minutes and shoot him between the eyes.”
She translated for the girl from Ukraine, who listened, nodded, then started to sob.
Dorina said, “She wants to see their bodies. To spit on them herself.”
“Tell her they’ve been burned to a crisp. There’s nothing to see.”
The Ukrainian girl grabbed Crocker’s hand like a child. “Thank you. Thank you,” she repeated in broken English. “Thank you so much from my heart.”
“You’re welcome.”
She clung to him trembling, and wouldn’t let go. “You American? You take us to America now?” she pleaded through her tears.
Crocker tried to remain reasonable and calm. “The French authorities will arrive soon and take care of all of you. They’ll send you back to your families. Don’t be afraid.”
“French?” she asked. “Why not Americans?”
“Because we’re in France,” Crocker answered.
“But I trust the Americans more.”
“The French will take care of you. I’ll make sure of that.”
As they spoke, Dorina crossed to the desk and started tearing through the drawers.
“What are you looking for?” Akil asked as he kept watch at the door.
“They took everything, those bastards. Our papers, clothing, jewelry, money!”
Dorina removed several DVDs from the top drawer. The rest were empty, except for a wooden ruler and a pair of pliers. She heaved the pliers against the wall and screamed. “Go to hell! Go to hell!”
“We’ve already been to hell,” the girl from the Ukraine remarked. “What could be worse?”
Dorina: “She’s right.”
Crocker wrapped his arms around the tall Romanian girl and sat her on the edge of the desk. He said, “You’re alive, Dorina. That’s the most important. Passports, jewelry, everything else can be replaced.”
Her mouth trembled with rage. “I need to search the house.”
“There’s nothing left. It burned to the ground.”
“They took my rings. One that belonged to my Polish grandmother.”
They’d taken their vanity, too. Dorina scratched at a sore between her breasts. He saw the Ukrainian girl past her shoulder squat over a blue bucket and piss.
“Have you seen other girls come and go from here?” he asked.
Staring ahead, she got to her feet and started to leave, even though she was barefoot and half naked.
Crocker stopped her. “Dorina, listen. This is important. Have you seen other girls here who then left?”
“There were others,” she answered in heavily accented English. “Yes.”
“How many?”
She paused like she was remembering, then held up ten fingers.
“Ten.”
“Around ten, yes.”
“Was one of them named Malie?”
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Maybe. I don’t remember all their names.”
“She would have come from Norway. Oslo. Eighteen years old.”
“Same as me.” Dorina looked at least ten years older than that. Crocker tried not to appear shocked.
“She was blond. She would have arrived about two weeks ago.”
The skeletally thin Ukrainian girl spoke up. “Malie, yes.”
“You saw her? Malie from Oslo, Norway?”
“Yes. She was here when I arrived.”
“Malie Tingvoll. You’re sure of that?”
She pointed a bony finger to the first cage along the opposite wall. “The first day I arrived, I watched them take pictures of her, first in a pretty white dress, then stripped her naked with her legs spread open.”
He glanced at the cage, which contained another stained mattress; there were scratches on the wall. “When was that?”
“When I arrived? Eighteen days and approximately seven hours ago.” Even though she’d been drugged and abused, she’d been keeping track of time in her head.
“Do you know what happened to Malie?” Crocker asked.
“She left two days ago with a man named Cyrus.”
The name meant nothing to Crocker.
“Who is Cyrus? Can you describe him?”
“Arabic-looking but dresses European. Around thirty years old. He acted like the nicest one. But he was sick, too. Ask her,” the Ukrainian said, pointing to the girl with the mole, who was wrapped in a blanket and still staring at the floor.
Crocker knelt beside her and asked gently, “What’s your name?”
She didn’t shift her gaze and didn’t answer.
Dorina answered for her. “Justine.”
“Justine looks so young.”
“She’s fourteen. Cyrus raped her, then bathed her. Raped her, then bathed her. Over and over and over.”
“I’m sorry.”
The girl finally looked up and asked, “Why?”
“Because I feel for you and what you’ve been forced to endure.”
She said something in a language Crocker didn’t understand. Dorina translated. “She asks, Why did he degrade me, then bathe me so gently?”
“I don’t know.”
Dorina said, “We were forced to watch everything.”
Crocker looked at Akil, who shook his head in disgust, then asked, “Do you have any idea where Cyrus took Malie?”
“They treated us like animals. Worse than animals.”
“I’m sorry. But that’s over now.”
“What did we do to them?”
“Nothing, Dorina.”
“Nothing.” She twisted up her mouth like she was trying to comprehend the injustice of what had happened.
“Dorina, please. I need you to focus.”
“What do you want?”
“Did Cyrus say where he was taking her? Taking Malie?”
She shrugged. “I think somewhere east.”
They were interrupted by the sound of sirens approaching. EE-OO…EE-OO…Akil hurried outside to look.
The thin Ukrainian girl mumbled something in Russian and pointed to her breasts.
“What’d she say?”
“She said that Cyrus bragged to her,” Dorina answered. “He told her that he’d sold the Norwegian girl for a million dollars, to a sheik, because she had a big chest.”
“A sheik?”
The Ukrainian girl nodded.
“Did this sheik have a name?”
Not that either one of them remembered hearing.
Akil gestured from the doorway and said, “They’re here, boss. Two fire trucks. Half a dozen men.”
Crocker tried to sound gentle and reassuring as he addressed the young women. “The French authorities are here. They’ll look after you. They’ll send you back to your families. Don’t be afraid.”
Dorina smiled ironically, as if to say: What could be worse than what we’ve been through?