One Minute Out
“We like to think of the pipeline as something they have in the American military called boot camp. Just like in the military, new recruits go through a difficult but crucial indoctrination period.
“But unlike those in the military, you and the other girls will be making a lot of money, living in surroundings you could only have imagined in your wildest dreams.”
“People choose to join the military. We did not—”
“Conscripts don’t choose. Look. You were drafted into this; I won’t pretend you were not. But I promise you it’s the best thing that ever happened to you.
“Look at this beautiful superyacht, for example. Have you ever been on anything so magnificent in your life?”
“The girls down the hall are staying eight to a room.”
Claudia shrugged. “Boot camp never looked so good to any young soldier, I promise you that.”
Roxana shook her head in utter disgust. “But . . . you are a doctor? How can you live with yourself?”
She saw the American’s placid demeanor falter and the tone of her voice darken slightly. “I live very well, dear, thank you for asking.” Claudia stood, headed for the door, and opened it. Right outside an armed guard leaned against the wall, a young man with a dark crew cut and a thick monobrow low over his dark eyes.
The doctor said, “Enjoy as much champagne as you want, dear. This door will remain open as long as the glassware is in the room. We want to make sure you don’t accidentally break the flute or the bottle and injure yourself.” She added, “From experience we’ve learned that the first night on board is the most challenging for the girls.”
Roxana’s stomach twisted, because she took this to mean that someone sitting where she now sat had used shattered glass to end her life.
Dr. Claudia flashed her teeth again and lightened her tone. “I’ll pay you another visit this afternoon. Get some sleep, you’ll feel better then.” She turned and headed up the passageway towards the other rooms.
Maja drank down the Bollinger with a trembling hand.
* * *
• • •
I dream of the women in the red room again. Of imploring eyes, dread, and heartbreak. I try to open the door to the room to free them, but it won’t move, no matter how hard I pull.
And I can’t get out, either.
I’m helpless. As helpless as they are.
And it’s all my fault.
My head falls, then lurches back up. I’m holding on to a steering wheel on a highway, driving at one hundred kilometers per hour, and veering off the road. In front of me to the left is a concrete retaining wall, and I’m feet away.
I correct, steering to the right, jolting upright fully after being startled so completely from a dead sleep. The sky is filled with daylight, so I’m lucky the highway around me is all but empty.
Suddenly I remember where I am. The drive up the coast of Croatia, the hunt for the yacht somewhere out to sea.
I survived two gunfights and one fistfight in the past three days, but I almost got smoked driving into a retaining wall.
My passenger is next to me. “Be careful,” she admonishes, unaware that I just dozed behind the wheel because her face is still in her laptop screen.
I say nothing.
After a few moments she looks up at me. “If this yacht is part of something known as the pipeline, can we assume it goes the same direction every time?”
I rub my eyes. “Not really, no.”
“Why not? A pipeline doesn’t move. They are pipes. Fixed in place.”
“I think your analytical brain is looking at this too literally.”
She deflates a little, and she’s back to looking like a scared, helpless kid in an instant.
But not for long.
“What if it was all we had to go on? What if we just assumed that the yacht with these women on it has picked up other women and taken them to the same place?”
“What are you getting at?”
“I researched the vessel all the way back to when and where it was built, then followed the ownership until now. Three months ago it was sold from one corporation to another, the shell that owns it now. But I researched the previous shell, and see a similar pattern in behavior to the new one.”
“Meaning they both incorporated in the same way, bank in the same place, that kind of thing.”
“You are oversimplifying, but that’s essentially what I mean.”
“So whoever really operates the Primarosa also operated it before three months ago. How does that help us find it?”
“Both before and after the transfer it broadcast its transponder in some areas in the northern Adriatic.”
“I thought you said it didn’t use its transponder because rich assholes don’t have to.”
“Normally the Primarosa sails dark, but certain ports mandate that the transponder be turned on before allowing vessels to anchor offshore, for the safety of ship traffic coming and going. I was able to do research on the yacht’s history, and I found several ports where it has appeared multiple times.”
“Which ports?”
“Athens, Santorini, Naxos, and Mikonos, all in Greece. Istanbul, Turkey. Bari, Naples, and Venice, in Italy. Dubrovnik and Pula, in Croatia.”
“I don’t know where that last place is.”
“The Istrian peninsula. Three hours north of here. I think that’s where they are headed now.”
“Why not Venice? That’s north of here, too.”
She shrugs. “Looking over the dates, I see some stops in Pula before Venice. Maybe they will do that, maybe they’ll go somewhere different.” She added, “Pula is on the way to Italy, anyway, so we might as well try there.”
I prefer intelligence a hell of a lot more solid than this, but sometimes you have to take what you get.
I type the destination in my GPS and see that we can be there by a little after noon. I ask her to look up the cruising speed of the yacht, and from this we do the math. The Primarosa, if it is in fact going to this port in northern Croatia, will not arrive before nine thirty p.m. tonight.
That gives Talyssa and me an entire afternoon and evening to prepare to greet it. It’s a gamble to commit to one location without being certain, but the Europol analyst seems like she knows what she’s talking about. I haven’t slept in almost a day and I’m beat, but if Talyssa can do some of the logistical work while I drive, we can both catch a few hours’ sleep once we get to Pula.
“All right,” I say. “Let’s go there. We don’t know if they are coming ashore or not, so I’m going to have to be ready to board the yacht.”