She sat up, as did many of the girls around her.

She couldn’t make out the faces of the men who appeared out of the stairwell. Some seemed to be more of the group who had taken over from the Serbians, and they all carried rifles over their shoulders. But there were also four or five silhouettes that didn’t match any of the men she’d remembered seeing since arriving here.

A tall and fit man with short hair and a clean-shaven face passed through a shaft of moonlight, looking over the women, but Maja didn’t get a good look at him before he moved on towards a back wall. Others followed behind him, and she could see white faces, serious eyes, and well-made but casual clothing. She saw no weapons, but the men moved across the big dark space with true authority.

These guys were in charge, not the guards.

Maja wondered if this meant they would be leaving again soon.

She knew she was being smuggled and trafficked for the purposes of sex, but she had no idea where she was going or who she would be made to serve when she got there.

Not that it mattered. Her life was over; she held no hope for rescue or escape.

Maja looked over the new arrivals and focused again on the tall bald man, now in a darkened corner.

The light was insufficient to reveal any of his facial features, but something about his gait, his posture, and perhaps even his dark aura reminded her of someone she had met before.

* * *

• • •

Jaco Verdoorn stood in the darkness of the open third story of the ruined building, inspecting the condition of the women here.

Normally he didn’t come personally to any of the safe houses in the pipeline. But this warehouse was the closest point to Old Town Dubrovnik where the Albanians could take their prisoner, so when he was told upon landing that a team had picked up the Europol woman and was bringing her back here, Jaco and his nine men came directly.

He would interrogate her to find out where she gained her intel on the Consortium and, more importantly to him, he’d find out where Court Gentry was, and what he was doing. Once he had this information, he would leave, the Albanians would take the prisoner and kill her, and then they would help guard the merchandise until five a.m., when the shipment would be moved to their transport to market.

Looking around, Verdoorn realized this wasn’t the right location for an interrogation, but he was not surprised the Albanians didn’t know any better. He wasn’t going to beat and torture the woman in front of the merchandise; that would be bad for morale. And even if he took her down to another floor of the building, or did it outside in the back of a car, the sound of her screams would carry in these cavernous spaces and along the wide-open shoreline.

He was still thinking of this, trying to figure out where he could relocate the woman for a proper grilling, when the leader of the Albanian cell took a call on the other side of the room. The South African couldn’t understand the words, but the tone made clear the Albanian was concerned, then confused, then angry.

Then scared.

Verdoorn just watched him, his hands on his hips, and he wondered how fucking bad this news could possibly be.

The cell leader ended his call and put his phone in his pocket, then walked over to Verdoorn. The two stepped farther away from the captives so they weren’t in earshot, and Jaco prepared himself to receive this obviously bad news.

“What’s happened?”

“There has been an attack. In the Old Town, then again on the road. Fifteen minutes east of here. My men are dead, and the woman escaped.”

Verdoorn leaned back against the wall. This was bad news for the pipeline and for the Consortium, but he couldn’t help but marvel at his target’s ability to eliminate anyone in the way of his objective. “Gentry,” he said, and the Albanian took it as a question.

“I do not know. No witnesses.”

Verdoorn was already pulling his phone to make a call, but he lowered it as he spoke to the leader of the gangsters watching over the women.

“Get these chots ready to go. I’m taking ’em right now.”

The Albanian didn’t know the South African slang word for “whore,” but he understood its use in context. He shook his head. “We have to make the transfer at five a.m. It’s when the police in the neighborhood switch shifts, and the new cops work for the pipeline. It’s only three a.m. now. The cops patrolling the neighborhood out there aren’t under our control.”

“Are you dof? You’ve lost . . . how many tonight?”

“Six.”

“Yeah. Obviously, mate, your men don’t have the skills to deal with this adversary, do they?”

The bearded man shook his head adamantly. “No. It’s not one man. Your intelligence is wrong. It can’t be one man.”

“It is one man doin’ the killin’, and he is the best there is. You . . . you lot?” Verdoorn looked around the room at the gaggle of armed men. “Not the best. We’re doing the fuckin’ transfer now. If the cops get in the way, kill ’em.” He tapped a button on his phone and broadcast into the earpieces of all nine of his men positioned around the property. “Lion Actual to all Lions. Our target is still out there, and still active. Last seen fifteen minutes east of this poz. I’m callin’ the boat to have the tender brought in now, will probably take ten to twenty minutes. I want two long rifles on the roof, scanning east and west; I want two men down at the dock, eyes open on the water. Four more men spread out on the east side of the property watching the hill. Loots and I will escort the women down, eight at a time, but only when the tender shows up ready to take them.

“I’ll have this local crew spread out farther on the property, but don’t leave security up to them. You know the operator we’re up against. We don’t know what his game is, but if he is aware of this location, you can bet he will be here. Be ready.”

Verdoorn tapped his phone and placed another call, then said, “It’s Lion. We’ve got to move up the delivery.” A pause. “Right bladdy now! I want that Zodiac in the water and that throttle opened up! Be at the dock in ten minutes.”

Dropping his phone in his pocket, the South African pulled his SIG Sauer P226 from its holster under his jacket, thumbed off the safety, and jammed it back into place on his hip. He stepped to an open window and looked out at the night. The water was off to his right, and in front of him was the glow of the Valamar Dubrovnik President Hotel, at the bottom of a hill near the coastline and brightly lit, even at three in the morning. But between the hotel grounds and his position, also near the bottom of the hill, was roughly fifty meters of broken building foundations mostly hidden in tall sea grasses, and well enshrouded in darkness. And higher on the hill, above the hotel, was another resort property, full of green spaces, a roof with a good vantage point on this ruined building, and a road in front of it lined with parked cars. Next to this was an apartment building still under construction, and farther up the hill were more apartments, well-lit but with a good line of sight on this poorly located safe house the Albanians chose.