“No,” Dmitri replied. “He’s a sweetmeat vendor of all things. When Georgi died he bought all of his stock. He’s trying to unload it now, but is willing to buy some more.”
Katya didn’t bother to ask where a sweetmeat vendor got the money to buy a string of whores. Obviously he was more than a sweetmeat vendor.
Yaroslav, when he finally made it to the café, turned out to be a pig. The man was grossly obese. If she had to service him it was going to have to be from on top; the man would crush her otherwise. Short and at least two hundred kilos, maybe more. He wheezed his way across the café and collapsed in the chair, which creaked ominously, then leaned back, interlacing his fingers across the top of his huge belly.
“She is pretty,” Yaroslav wheezed. “But I already have too many girls. I cannot afford to pay more than a thousand euros… ”
Katya had gotten used to it a long time ago and now that it wasn’t, at some level, real it was easier. But it was never fun to be bartered over. Fucking men treated women like a piece of meat to be dickered over.
Finally a price of five thousand euros was settled on and Yaroslav hoisted himself to his feet.
“I will return with the money,” he wheezed, stopping to breathe deeply at the effort to get to his feet. “I of course don’t carry that much on me. I will return. Soon.”
“Well, if you decide to run you won’t have much trouble,” Dmitri said, bursting into laughter as soon as the door to the café shut.
It was much the same thing Katya had been thinking but she just shook her head.
“I won’t run,” she said with a shrug. “What do I have to run to?”
Besides, she had a mission to complete. There were men to screw over and, with luck, a few to kill. Why should she run?
“This is… where you… will be sleeping,” Yaroslav wheezed, gesturing at the room.
It wasn’t… yes it was. This was definitely the worst place she’d ever been bedded down in her long career as a whore. The stone building was one large room, about the size and general shape of the Keldara homes, but open and filled with beds lining the walls. The beds were springs, no mattresses, and the room was unheated. Cracks in the walls let in drafts that were virtually gales in themselves. The floor was packed dirt, so stained with unnamed fluids and garbage that it brought a new meaning to “dirt.”
Arguing or complaining had never gotten her anywhere, though.
“Is there a blanket?” she asked, meekly.
“I will try to find you one,” Yaroslav said. “I am doing this practically out of the goodness of my heart. When my good friend… Georgi died his ladies were left with no protector.” He paused to breathe deeply and wiped at his eyes as if there were tears. There weren’t. The pause indicated that he’d had to dredge the name of his “good friend” from unsure memory. If he wasn’t such a slob, Katya would have suspected him of offing a competitor just to buy up his stock at a discount. “It was from the goodness of my heart that I took you girls in. I will have no complaints as to the quality of the lodgings.”
“I’m not complaining,” Katya said, hastily. The man might be a pudge-monster, as the Kildar would put it, but he could still probably smack the hell out of her. And in her current cover, all she could do was try to move so it didn’t hurt too much. She’d have to take the punch with barely a flinch.
“All the other girls left yesterday,” Yaroslav said, puffing. “I had hoped to return to my simple life of a sweetmeat vendor. Then you were dropped on me. So you must make the best of it until I can find someone to take you on to Azerbaijan.” Pause. Wheeze. “There may be some blankets the girls left behind.” Pause. Wheeze. “Check the cupboard. I must return to my money-making ventures. I do not have time for this.”
“Yes, sir,” Katya replied. “Should I work?”
“Of course you should work!” Yaroslav thundered. “There is little enough money to be made in this town, I cannot afford idle hands, or pussies in your case. Get out there and make my money!”
“Yes, sir,” Katya said, smiling nervously. She so wanted to give this prick a heart attack.
“I may have another job for you, besides on your back,” Yaroslav admitted, more gently. “Not that it pays anything but nothing in this town does. The Chechens have a woman they are keeping. They, of course, cannot defile themselves with dealing with her. They had hired one of the girls to tend to her needs. Perhaps you can do that.”
Katya kept her face puzzled but let nothing else showed. But what went through her mind was: It can’t be that easy. There was only one girl that could possibly match that description. Surely she wasn’t being handed the fucking target on a platter.
It was that easy. Fuck.
It was Marina Arensky. From what Katya could see past the blindfold anyway. And the small scar on the chin was a dead give away.
The girl was tied to a chair, a padded one Katya noticed, blindfolded but not gagged. Nonetheless she was silent as if she had been gagged.
The men holding her weren’t Chechens, either. They were Russians and if she hadn’t been on this mission for a specific reason she would have wondered what Russians were doing in a Chechen held town. There were quite a few of them, too. The building was much larger than the barn for the girls with several rooms off a corridor. The doors of most of the rooms had been open as she and Yaroslav past and there were men, heavily armed, in all of them.
Marina was held in a room at the very back of the building. It backed on a rock wall; there was no entrance at the rear and no windows. Conceivably the assault team could come through the wall if they used enough explosives. That wasn’t for her to figure out, though. All she had to do was look around as they walked through and make sure the video was going to the, unfortunately small, memory chip installed in her skull.
“This is the new girl,” Yaroslav wheezed. “All my other girls I had to sell. I will sell this one as soon as I can. Then we are done.”
“We don’t need her for long,” the man said. He was a cold one, Katya could tell. About 175 centimeters, cold gray eyes, slim face. She ran through the dossiers she’d been shown and tried not to blanch. Kurt Schwenke, the former Stasi agent and terrorist. She was going to have to be very careful around this man. He was a trained agent which meant that anything she did out of character was going to give her away. She instantly decided she was going to switch roles as soon as Yaroslav was gone. Just enough that Schwenke would catch it. It was a fine line to run. She had to show her hard side without in any way making him think she was an agent.
“I go now,” Yaroslav said. “She will work for you. She is very biddable.”
After Yaroslav had waddled out of the room Schwenke walked around her, looking her up and down.
“Biddable?” the German finally scoffed. “Is he blind?”
“Most men are,” Katya said, coldly.
“I am not, bitch,” Schwenke stated, stopping in front of her and then slapping her, hard.
With the change in demeanor Katya could have, would have, avoided the slap as much as possible. She couldn’t have used a trained block, that would give too much away. But she could have lifted her arms, turned away, flinched, something.