One Minute Out

“Belgrade send me their best men. They say, ‘Only Gray Man can get you now, but Gray Man not real, so do not worry.’ I listen to them. I do not worry.”

I take another step forward; I’m almost in contact distance now. “No reason in worrying about things you can’t change.”

“They say . . . that you are a ghost.”

“I get that a lot.” Quickly I snap the suppressed pistol into the Kydex holster on my hip and draw the black, six-inch blade from the sheath on my chest.

The gun didn’t faze him. I guess he’s ready to die, but he clearly does not like the looks of the knife in my hand. His eyes fill with terror as he realizes I have plans for him, and this won’t be a quick and painless end to his long, horrible life, after all.

I slip a gloved hand around his thick throat and push him up against the wall. The tanto blade of the Spyderco knife is pointed at his midsection, an inch away from drawing blood.

Quickly he says, “What does Gray Man want?”

I hold the blade up in front of his face. “For this to hurt.”

I talk too much in times like this. I should’ve taken this guy out from a quarter mile away, forgotten about penetrating his compound, and there would have been no talking.

But I am done talking now, so I put the knife against his bare stomach. Before I even draw blood, though, he says something that makes me hold again.

“Girls! Girls here. You take. I give all to you. Perfect girls. The best in world.”

At first I think he’s talking about the young woman who just ran out of the room, but he definitely said “girls,” so I next assume he means the three female cooks who I saw bringing the food out to the security guys. I’m not really looking to open a restaurant, so I don’t answer. I recover again, then ready the knife to drag it across Babic’s midsection.

“Twenty-three. No! Twenty-five. Twenty-five beautiful ladies. High class. For you! Yes!”

Wait. What? I ease up on the blade, but just a little.

“Twenty-five ladies, here? You’re lying.”

“I show you. You take. Make you happy.”

Oh my God. Is this motherfucker a war criminal and a pimp?

“You were already going to die poorly, Ratko. If you give me reason to form an even lower opinion of your character, this might get even nastier.”

He doesn’t get what I’m saying. He responds, “Here. In cellar. Beautiful. All for you, friend.”

I close my eyes. Shit. There’s always something. Some fucking fly in the ointment.

The knife is poised; I am ready. I think about just killing him, ignoring the crazed rantings of a condemned man.

But no.

Because I am an expert in detecting deception, and I don’t think this asshole’s lying. There probably are some more women down here, and my educated guess is that they’d rather not be.

And, much as I’d like to, I just can’t walk away from that. It’s my fatal flaw: time after time my conscience gets me deeper into the shit.

“Show me.”

“Yes, I show you.”

I draw the Glock again, sheathe the knife, and push him back out into the hallway.

We move quickly to the door at the end of the corridor where the music is coming from, the tip of my suppressor six inches from the back of his neck. I don’t know where the woman with the black eye has gone, but I assume she took the staircase up and is making a run for it.

In seconds Ratko and I arrive at the door; he taps a code into a keypad and turns the latch. Quickly I shove him inside, rush in behind him, and pull the door shut, because in the hall I was exposed to anyone who came down the stairs at the opposite end.

The room is so dark I reach for my NOD to pull it down over my eyes, but Ratko flips a light switch.

A low-wattage red bulb hanging from a cord from the ceiling gives an eerie dim scarlet glow over the room.

Before I can even focus on what’s before me, my earpiece comes alive.

I don’t speak Serbian, but it’s clear: the security detail is performing a radio check.

But it barely registers. I am too fixated on what I see.

A room, about ten feet wide and twenty-five feet deep. Walls of bare earth and wooden beams. There are more dirty mattresses on the floor, more broken sofas around the perimeter. A row of three chemical toilets, essentially buckets with cracked plastic seats, sit exposed in the corner on my right.

And two dozen or so women, some may be girls, sitting, squatting, lying flat. Pressed close together and forming a single life-form in the red dim. Someone turns off the music and I hear coughing, crying.

I see chains, and realize they are all shackled by their ankles to eyebolts in the floor.

I smell bad food, cigarette smoke, sweat, shit, piss, and, above it all, absolute and utter despair.

No one speaks a word. They just stare at me with wide, fearful, imploring eyes.

What . . . the . . . fuck?

I’ve seen some things in my days. I’ve never seen this.

“I tell you,” Ratko says while standing next to me. “Best in world for best in world. All for you, Gray Man.”

I’m not the “best in world,” and though the ex-general keeps saying it, these people are probably not “best in world” at anything in this condition. But that isn’t for me to judge. They are all daughters or wives or sisters or mothers. And they are all human trafficking victims, it is plain to see.

I have no idea what they’re doing here, why an old Bosnian general would have so many slaves with him on his farm, but whatever the reason, I know one thing for certain.

All these women and girls, all of them are human beings, and right now they are circling the drain of a sick fucking world.

I was mad before. Now I’m wild with rage.

I raise my Glock at Ratko with my right hand while looking back to the ladies. “Those of you who speak English, close your eyes, and translate that to the others.”

That gets Ratko agitated, but some of the ladies do as instructed. Others just keep looking on, knowing exactly what is about to happen, but unafraid.

Babic speaks in a rush now. “There are more. Many more. In two weeks. You get them all. You come back. I give to you when they come.”

I can’t listen to another fucking word out of this piece of shit’s mouth, my fury is so overpowering. My right hand clenches, not from the seething anger, but because I want to hear my gun go bang.

My gun goes bang.

I don’t even look at the general as the hollow-point round slams into his fat bare belly. The suppressor, plus the fact that we’re down in the basement, makes me feel confident I am still covert. He thumps to the floor, writhing and moaning. I glance his way briefly, and shoot him twice more.