Hunting Zero (An Agent Zero Spy Thriller—Book #3)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

It was pitch-black inside the cargo container. Even with her fingers only inches from her face, Maya could not see anything. She sat with her back to a steel wall, knees drawn up on either side of her sister, who sat leaning against her. Maya’s other arm was curled protectively over Sara’s chest.

For her to even think that this was a bad situation was a profound understatement. The container rocked slightly with the ebb of the boat on the ocean; they were out of the country, still in Rais’s hands but now in potentially worse company. She had failed at her attempt to get Sara away safely.

Despite all of that, they were still alive and able-bodied. She refused to give up on the notion that there was a way out of this.

Sara had stopped sobbing some time ago and had settled into a rhythmic pattern of a sniffled inhalation and a jagged breath out, over and over. Maya squeezed her gently but her little sister did not respond.

Maya was aware that there were other girls in the container with them; she had caught just a single, quick glimpse of them when the doors were opened and the two of them had been shoved inside. They were like ghosts haunting the small space. In the utter darkness and the hours that followed, Maya was cognizant of their presence in strange ways—the hissing sounds of breath, the occasional slight shift in movement, the hairs on Maya’s arms prickling at the sensation of another body being close to hers. But the others in the container said nothing and hardly budged.

Then, at some point during their voyage—Maya had completely lost track of time in the darkness—someone stirred, and though she didn’t feel anything herself, one of the ghosts in the dark must have brushed against Sara. Her younger sister recoiled suddenly, gasping and drawing herself tighter against Maya.

“It’s okay,” she whispered in Sara’s ear. She scolded herself again for saying that. It was the only thing that came to mind in the moment, like a reflex, to continue making the obviously false promise that anything about this was okay. “I’ve got you.” She hugged her sister closer. “We have to be strong right now, all right? We can’t give up. We won’t.”

“Please.” A soft voice to Maya’s right spoke quietly, in nearly a whisper. “Please don’t talk. They don’t like it when we talk.”

The voice was feminine and young, with a slight drawl that suggested a Midwestern background. Maya’s instinctual reaction to the voice was a flash of anger; now was not the time for complacency. It was the time for planning. Yet the girl sounded like she had already given up and given in.

Instead Maya swallowed her anger and said, “They can’t hear us.” She was certain that the sound of the boat’s engines, the water lapping over the bow, and the steel walls of the container would make it impossible to hear their hushed voices, as long as they kept them low.

“But if they did…” The frightened Midwestern voice did not finish her thought—and Maya was glad for it. She didn’t want to know what this poor girl might have seen, what might have been done to her, and she definitely didn’t want Sara to have to hear it.

“They won’t,” she insisted. Then she asked, “How… how did you get here?”

Deafening silence reigned in the darkness for several long moments. It didn’t seem like anyone was breathing, let alone speaking.

Then the tremulous Midwestern voice said, “A job. I was promised a job.”

Maya didn’t reply. She bit her lip, waiting for the girl to choose whether or not she would continue. Just when it seemed like she would remain silent, she said, “I’m from Oklahoma. That’s where my… my family is.” Her voice broke at the mention of her family.

“How long ago? When did you last see them?” Maya asked.

The girl sniffled. “I-I’m not sure. Maybe… about nine months, I think.”

A surge of empathetic despair caught in Maya’s throat. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know where the girl had been kept for nine months, or what sort of things she had to do. She certainly wasn’t going to ask; she could hear the girl quietly crying only a couple of feet to her right.

“They choose you.” A new voice spoke, definitely young and female but clearer than the Midwestern girl, and deeper. New Jersey, Maya thought. The new girl’s voice was level; not calm, but firm. She did not sound as upset as she did angry. “I don’t know how… social media, I think. They pick girls who don’t have great home lives. Young women who want to get away, or want something better. They get your contact information—for me it was an email, promising a modeling job. They offer good money, life in a big city. At first it seems too good to be true. If you’re smart, you look deeper. But they’re smart too. They ask for headshots and applications and references. They set up fake websites that look legit. They have phone numbers, and when you call, friendly people answer. Americans.”

She paused for a long moment. “By then you’re hooked. Everything that seemed too good to be true starts to make you feel special. You were chosen. Sometimes it’s modeling, or acting… For me it was being an in-home nanny for some rich family. They hide all the red flags. You feel like you can’t pass it up. But then, once you arrive and they have you… by the time you realize what’s actually happening…” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “They already have you. There’s nothing you can do.”

“No,” Maya said suddenly. The word slipped from her mouth as reflexively as scratching an itch, louder than she intended. “I don’t believe that.” Everything the girl was saying was truly terrible, and Maya was no stranger to the notion—she had seen such things on the news, had read articles about it online. Most people tended to think that it couldn’t happen to them, to their children, not in the United States. Yet it did, and with harrowing frequency.

But that’s not what she didn’t believe. She refused to believe that there wasn’t anything they could do about it.

“There are at least six of us,” she said. “Maybe seven? And only three of them.” The two foreign men and Rais.

“They have guns,” the girl from Oklahoma whispered.

“I know. And they’re careful. But if it’s a choice between letting them do what they want with us and fighting back—I would rather fight, even if it means I might die.”

She was hoping to inspire something in the other girls, to gather their courage and form a plan. If they all worked together and struck at the most opportune time, using some sort of signal or secret tell, then maybe, just maybe they could…

“There aren’t seven of us.” It was the Jersey girl again.

“I saw you,” Maya said. “When they opened the container, for just a second, I saw at least four faces, maybe five—”

“You saw faces,” the girl said, “and they’re here, physically, but there’s a reason only two of us are talking at all. They’ve been drugged. They’re alive, maybe awake, but they have no idea what’s going on. What’s happening to them.”

Panic ran up and down Maya’s spine like a tingle of electricity. “Drugged?” she said in a whisper. “Why?”

The girl sighed. “To make them complacent. Ones that cry too loud, scream or shout, make trouble for them… they shoot them up with a needle and it all feels like a bad dream. Other times they’ll get them hooked on something. It’s a way to keep us in line.”

Maya hugged Sara closer to her. She had already made some trouble for them; if they recognized her as a potential threat, they might try to drug her. She needed to be able to fight back, to keep a clear head. And Sara… if that happened to Sara, how would she ever get away?

“Okay,” Maya said, thinking aloud. “Okay, even if there are only four of us that can do anything, we could still do something. We could cause a distraction and make a run for it—all of us in different directions. There are only three of them; they can’t chase us all, and only one of us has to get away and alert the authorities.”

Once again silence overtook the container. Maya felt herself grow angry again at their hesitation. For her there shouldn’t have been any; it was a simple and clear-cut matter. They needed to get away however possible, or at least try.

“We’ve seen what happens,” the Jersey girl said, “when you try to escape.”

The girl from Oklahoma sniffled and whispered one word. “Anita.”

Maya wasn’t sure she wanted to know—and was even less sure she wanted Sara to hear it—but she couldn’t help herself. “Who is Anita?”

“Who was Anita,” said Jersey solemnly. “She was a girl, a young woman, where they were holding us. It was some kind of warehouse. I don’t know where; they brought us in blind, bags over our heads.” The girl swallowed and then said, “Anita was strong, stronger than us. She had ideas, like you. Everyone else was too afraid to try. Not her. She waited until there was only one man guarding us, and when she had a chance, Anita took it. She punched him. Broke his nose. Then she ran. But… they caught up.”

“What did they do?” Maya’s voice was barely a whisper. She wrapped one arm gently around Sara’s head in an attempt to cover her ears.

“They… they took things from her.”

“What do you mean?” Maya couldn’t keep the tremble from her voice, because she was already pretty sure she knew what they meant before they said it. “What did they take?”

Oklahoma was crying softly again. “Everything. They took everything.”

“And afterwards,” the Jersey girl said, “they showed us pictures. They had taken photos of it. They took her kidneys. Her liver. Her heart. Anything that might be worth something to someone else. They showed us photos and they said, ‘This is what will happen to you if you run.’”

The girl from Oklahoma was sobbing now. Maya wanted to reach out, to console her, but she held herself back and clung to Sara.

“They want us alive,” said Jersey. “But dead is still more valuable than nothing at all.”

Maya’s own breath came shallow and slow. She stared at nothing in particular—not that she could see anything anyhow, but her gaze blurred as her mind worked. All this while she had been thinking that Rais was the threat; he had proven that he was willing to kill to get what he wanted, and even that he was willing to hurt them. She was entirely certain that he would have cut off Sara’s finger back at the dock had the foreigner not intervened. But he needed them if he wanted to get to their father. If they were left in the hands of these monstrous men, these traffickers, they would no longer be important. She and Sara would just become another face, another body, and anyone who gave them trouble was drugged or worse.

It seemed to her like an impossible situation, especially since anything she might do or try could be reflected back upon Sara.

Hard as she tried to consider a way out, only one thought stuck in her mind. It was the only thing that came to her, the only possible positive outcome.

Dad will come for us.

“I thought that too, for a while,” said Jersey. Maya hadn’t even realized she’d spoken the words aloud. “I thought someone would come. They had to. They would find me, find us. But… no one came. No one knows. And the farther we get, the farther they’ll ever be from finding us again.”

“He’s different,” said Maya quietly. She knew how that must sound to them, like some sort of false hope, but she couldn’t accurately explain why her father was different or how he would find them. “He can do things. Find people. He’s good at it. He’ll come.”

“Believe that for as long as you can,” Jersey said in a whisper. “It’s the only thing that ever helped me sleep.”

Maya sighed and leaned back against the wall of the container. The steel was cold; it had been growing colder for some time now, though it was still warm and humid inside their small box. Sara sat still and silent in her arms. She hadn’t said a word since they’d been put in there, and Maya was growing worried that she’d gone catatonic.

Suddenly Maya sat up straight, frowning in the darkness. It was quiet; too quiet. “Do you hear that?” she asked in a whisper.

“I don’t hear anything,” Jersey said.

“Exactly.” The engines had ceased. The boat was still rocking slightly, but there was no sensation of forward momentum. “We’ve stopped.” She listened as intently as she could. Outside the container she could hear the muffled shouts of men, but had no idea what they were saying or if they were even speaking English.

It should have taken us days to reach Dubrovnik by boat, she thought. Though she was uncertain of how long they had been in the container, it couldn’t have been more than a matter of hours. Where are we?

Suddenly a chain rattled heavily on the steel ceiling. Maya jumped slightly, startled by the sound, but Sara didn’t move at all. Then there was a groan of creaking metal, and the large steel crate bucked and swayed. They were in the air, being lifted, likely hoisted by a crane, she realized. They were being unloaded from the boat. Putting us on a different boat? she wondered, thinking about the way Rais had switched vehicles to elude the authorities.

Then they were coming down, being lowered again, and set upon the ground with a heavy, jarring jolt. Maya waited, staying stock-still in the silent darkness. It didn’t feel like another boat; there was no swaying. It felt like solid ground.

More clinking of metal as someone on the other side removed the padlock. Over the time in the container, Maya had become disoriented; she didn’t realize that she and Sara were sitting mere inches from the door until one entire side of the container swung outward, pulled open by someone outside.

The sudden flood of daylight blinded her temporarily. She put up a hand, shielding her eyes and squinting until the spots dissolved from her vision. When she lowered her hand again, she sucked in a breath.

The first thing she saw was the chubby man from the dock standing there, scowling down at her. The second thing she noticed was the barrel of the black submachine gun that he carried in one hand, a strap securing the weapon over his shoulder.

“Plane,” he said gruffly in accented English. “No talking. Walk. Do not run. Make trouble for me, I make more trouble for you.” He stepped to the side. Behind him, at a distance of no more than fifty feet, was an airplane, its rear hatch opened with a ramp lowered.

Maya slowly got to her feet, pulling Sara up with her. She peered into her younger sister’s eyes. Sara looked back at her, but her gaze was empty and glassy. It was all too much for her. She appeared to have shut down mentally.

Maya prodded her to walk as they stepped out of the container. They were immediately met by a blast of cold air as a frigid breeze blew over them. She looked left and right; they were at another cargo terminal, it seemed, but this one was a ghost town in some flat, frozen place. The sky overhead was gray and there was an inch of snow on the ground. She hugged one arm around her sister and the other around herself as they walked, in sandals and thin pajamas, from the container to the waiting plane.

There were other men, more of them now. Whether they too were on the boat or came from the plane she wasn’t sure, but there were at least five of them that she could see, all dark-featured and dangerous looking. They were spanned every ten to fifteen feet between the container and airplane. There was no way to run. Nowhere to go. To the right was the ocean, the dock, and the boat they had come in on; to the left was practically nothing, a mostly bare cargo terminal with a single concrete building and open, empty space.

Maya thought about the man at Port Jersey, the one with the white hard hat who had accepted money and looked the other way when they were put on the boat. There were likely people here too that would take bribes to ignore what was happening right in front of them. The thought brought tears to her eyes, but she refused to let them fall in front of these men.

They reached the airplane and walked up the ramp, into the cargo hold. The plane looked old, barely more than a thick cylinder with a tail and a propeller under each wing. The rear was hollow, with thick canvas harnesses hung from the ceiling and walls, but no cargo.

There was someone waiting for them, however; a despicably familiar face. Rais sat at the far end of the cargo hold, on the floor, leaning back casually against the curved interior wall. He regarded them with a slight nod as they entered and gestured for them to sit across from him.

Maya directed Sara into place and then sat beside her. Sara stared at the floor, her mouth open slightly and her breaths shallow. Maya stared at Rais with an undisguised scowl. He stared back passively.

The other girls were loaded quickly. Those who could walk did so; those who could not, the girls who had been drugged, were half-carried and half-dragged to the waiting plane. Maya couldn’t bring herself to look at them. Instead she kept her gaze forward.

Someone sat beside her, on the opposite side from Sara, and Maya hazarded a quick glance. The girl was dark-haired, Latina, and at least a few years older than her—she assumed it was the girl she had been referring to in her mind as Jersey. She noticed the girl’s swollen, black-and-blue eye and cheek. Opposite Jersey was a girl with straight blonde hair, her sharp, angular cheeks puffy and red from sobbing. Oklahoma.

More important than just their physical appearance was their demeanor—their heads hung low, avoiding eye contact with any of the rough-looking traffickers among them, who stood over the cowering girls while holding onto the canvas straps hanging from the ceiling. The young women had seen and experienced awful things, that much was clear. Things beyond Maya’s comprehension despite what she herself had experienced in the last twenty-four hours.

In that moment, she made two realizations. The first was that they had traveled north by boat, likely beyond the US border; the cold weather told her that much. It was hot inside the cargo plane and stank of fuel, but at least she wouldn’t freeze to death in her tank top and pajama bottoms.

The second thing she came to realize, hesitant as she was to admit it even to herself, was that she was helpless in this situation. Any attempt to flee or get Sara to safety would result in atrocities the likes of which she hadn’t even imagined only hours earlier. They had only one hope now, the hope that Jersey had told her to cling to for as long as she could.

Her father had to come for them. Or else they were already dead.