“No argument from me,” Hale said. “But what we’re after, Nikki, is arresting Sergei’s father, Braco Alekseeva, and putting him in prison for good. We want to close down his organization. Understand?”
She gave no indication she had even heard him.
“We believe he’s involved in human trafficking. Transporting girls over here, forcing them to be prostitutes. Raping them, getting them hooked on drugs, ruining their lives, maybe even killing them. But we need more proof before we can arrest him.”
“You can’t stop him,” she said quietly, almost offhandedly, like it was a given, akin to darkness falling every night.
“We can’t stop him without help, and that’s where you come in. Look around you, you’re not in jail. I haven’t asked you what you were doing before we found you walking along the street. Right now, I don’t really care. I just need your help in bringing down Braco Alekseeva. That’s all I care about. I don’t care what you’ve done. I don’t care if you don’t have a visa or you don’t have a passport. Stopping Braco is the only thing I care about. And, when I’m finished with Braco, we’re going to shut down Kumarin and his gang down in Chicago. Now, I think we can help each another here, but it’s up to you.”
Nikki gave a slight scoff, shook her head ever so slightly, unconvinced.
I moved the can of Coke to the side of my throbbing head where I’d been kicked. The welts and scrapes from Nikki’s scratch still felt raw and burned down the side of my face. Both my eyes were already purple and getting worse from the broken nose she gave me.
Hale looked at her for a long moment, then called across the room, “Gary, bring some of those transcripts over here will you? Maybe that stuff concerning Miss Mathias and how Braco planned to deal with her.”
It took a few minutes before Gary placed a pile of transcripts on the couch. Hale pushed the pile toward Nikki until it spilled toward her.
“Go ahead, look at these, it makes for some interesting reading. You might even be aware of some of these conversations. One of our problems is, by the time we get these damn things translated, it’s after the fact, whatever was discussed has already happened. So they’re worthless as far as stopping Braco. But they do present a fairly complete picture of what’s going on. Maybe they’ll make some interesting reading for you. So go ahead, take your time, and read through them. And, while you’re reading, remember that as long as you stay silent the only person you’re helping is Braco, no one else. And, if you’re worried about family back home they would be a lot safer if Braco and Kumarin were locked up for the rest of their lives.”
With that Hale grunted and groaned to his feet, hobbled over to the computers, and looked over Gary’s shoulder.
I studied Nikki for a moment, she was biting her bottom lip, thinking, maybe. Then she focused on me and glared, her face an unreadable mask. I decided it might be safer standing over with Hale.
Chapter 67
At least it wasn’t pizza again for dinner. It was Chinese takeout, some sort of stir-fry with an awful lot of fried rice, which I love. One of the Mikes delivered a bowl to Nikki, along with a cup of tea and three or four small Butterfinger candy bars. The perfect balanced dinner.
Nikki was still in the same corner of the couch but she had curled her feet up beneath her and was reading as she ate. She was maybe three-quarters of the way through the stack of transcripts when Hale pulled another pile of equal size and had one of the Mikes deliver it to her. She didn’t protest, just laid her unread portion on top of the new pile, pulled the whole thing a little closer to her and continued to read.
At some point Hale talked to Aaron on the phone. It was a short conversation and I guessed he never quite got around to mentioning that we had Nikki. From what I could tell the conversation wasn’t heated. Hale had just checked in to eliminate one more thing from the laundry list Aaron was probably working on.
A little after nine Nikki raised her arms over her head, stretched, and headed for the bathroom.
“Is okay if I go to bathroom?”
“Be my guest,” Hale said, “would you like a mug of tea? I’m putting some on.”
“Please,” she nodded, then headed for the bathroom just behind the kitchen area.
In lighter moods I might have offered to accompany her, but I was still smarting from the beating she gave me earlier in the day and wasn’t about to attempt surviving another.
She was in the bathroom for about ten minutes. One of the Mikes had just asked if he should check when the door latch clicked open and Nikki came out.
“Tea will be ready in a minute. Let’s sit on the couch and have a little chat,” Hale said. “I don’t get off this damn ankle soon I’m going to scream.”
Nikki nodded and maybe smiled ever so slightly. I couldn’t be sure.
Chapter 68
We were all seated around the couches, Nikki in the same corner with her feet tucked comfortably beneath her. Hale at the other end, leg resting on the stack of pizza boxes. Gary and I sat on the opposite couch. The two Mikes wheeled their desk chairs over and nibbled on remnants of cold dim sum. Nikki and Hale were drinking tea, I held a mug but hated the stuff. Gary sipped a Coke.
“So,” Hale slurped tea, “you see some of what we’re dealing with, what do you think?”
Nikki looked very smug, smiled at Hale, and said, “I am a very big pain in the ass of Braco.”
“Yes, you have been. And if you learned that much you must have also read that they want to put a stop to that.”
Nikki smiled almost to herself. Sipped some tea, looked off somewhere, then said, “They plan to kill me, they will rape me for a few days maybe a week if I last. And when there is nothing left to rape, ‘The Butcher’ will be there and cut me into so many little pieces. No one will ever find me. And then the last lesson I will be the example to the others that you cannot win against Braco.”
“You’re right, that is their plan,” said Hale. “Now what’s your plan?”
“My plan?”
“Yeah, do you want to end up in little pieces? Or would it be better to see Braco and Kumarin go to jail, for the rest of their lives.”
“But I don’t know what…”
“Look at it this way,” Hale interrupted. “On your own you have been a very big pain in the ass of Braco, as you said. If we work together, all of us, and some others, we’ll beat Braco. Beat Kerri Vucavitch. And, beat ‘The Butcher.’”
“Humpf, Crvek, ‘The Butcher,’” she said absently staring at the floor, holding her mug tightly.
Hale shot me a quick glance, then refocused on Nikki.
“We can lock them all away, forever if you help us. Will you, help us?”
Nikki seemed to stare at the floor for quite some time, then looked at Hale and nodded.
“I will help you to put them all away or kill them. It makes no difference to me. Just so long that my family will be safe, finally.”
“And you, you will be safe too, Nikki.”
“We will see,” she answered.
Chapter 69
Nikki began in earnest the following morning over breakfast. Saying to Hale, “If you want to get to Braco it is important to cut him off from his money. Not only the girls who have to whore for him, but the drugs as well. Without those two, he will quickly go desperate.”
She then proceeded to give a list of the girls she knew who were working for Braco, where they lived. The outcall services they worked through. She listed his lieutenants, the ones she knew, and where they could be found. Then she told what she knew of his drug operations, which didn’t seem to be all that much except for one important aspect.
Braco had aligned himself with a small bank out in Valdem, Minnesota, almost on the South Dakota border. Nikki thought he might own part of the bank or even all it, she wasn’t sure. The important fact was the bank operated a number of Casas de Combio’s, in the banking industry known as CDC’s. These were currency-exchange houses where people could send funds to Mexico. With two large regional packing plants within twenty-five miles of Valdem there were plenty of individuals sending money back to their families in Mexico. It became the perfect money-laundering scheme.