The Trade (A Hans Larsson Novel Book 2) (7 page)

P
ostponing
their meal, Hans and Penny began making their way along the beachfront
restaurants, stopping to speak with diners and handing leaflets to passersby.
Most were only too happy to listen, Hans explaining the situation to the English
speakers, Penny the Portuguese, but an overweight German man with a puffy sunburnt
face, busy tucking into plates piled with shellfish and guzzling wine,
dismissed them with a patronizing wave – “No, we don’t buy anything!” – before turning
to his friends and roaring with laughter.

The American’s blood boiled, and he clenched his fist. Penny
slapped a leaflet down on the red-and-white-checked tablecloth and steered him
sharply away.

Later they chatted with an amicable Swiss couple enjoying
swordfish steak in the last eatery on the front, only Hans stopped midsentence,
staring through the darkness to the nearby main road.

“Honey, are you—?” Penny began.

Hans held up his hand, for standing under a streetlamp on
the far side of the road was the Fulani woman he had seen earlier in the day.

“Penny, wait here, or I’ll see you back at the hotel.”

Hans was off on his toes, much to Penny and the Swiss couple’s
surprise, but by the time he’d crossed the street the woman had disappeared. He
stood looking all around, knowing it couldn’t be coincidence and had something
to do with Jessica. He was about to walk back to the restaurant when a taxicab
glided by and he happened to glance through its rear-side window to see the
woman was inside. She turned her face away, attempting to hide in her colorful
shawl.

Hans watched as the car drove into the distance, then turned
and flagged the next cab down.

“Hotel, sir?” the young islander asked.

“No. Just follow that car.” Hans realized how absurd this
must have sounded.

“Okay, boss.” The driver screeched away as if he had been
waiting for those words all his life.

“But keep your distance, hey?” Hans took out his cell phone to
send Penny a brief text explaining his departure.

“Distance is my middle name, boss!” The driver grinned in
the rearview mirror.

They drove out of the center and were soon in a maze of backstreets,
the area shabbier, the buildings increasingly run-down.

“Where are we?” Hans asked.

“Lombo – the old town. You want girls, drugs?”

“I want you to follow that cab, but keep back, okay?”

“Okay, boss.” The young Cape Verdean kept a discreet distance,
letting the other cab drift almost out of sight, before speeding up and jumping
red lights to keep on its tail.

“Cab’s stopping, sir.”

“Okay, I’m getting out.” Hans shoved a bunch of notes into
the guy’s hand, then ran along the sidewalk, keeping in the shadows, closing on
the spot where the woman got out. He stood scanning the adjacent building up
and down and saw a light come on in a second-floor room.

The front door was locked. Hans made up his mind to smash it
down if necessary, but increasing pressure from his shoulder forced it open.

In the darkness Hans smelled the odor of garlic and chicken
stock mingling with soiled diapers and cigarette smoke. He edged his way up a
flight of creaking wooden stairs toward the spot where light shone beneath an
apartment door.

There was no door handle, only a small brass padlock hanging
open on a latch. Hans threw caution to the wind and pushed the door with his
fingertips.

The Fulani stood in the center of the small room, as if
expecting him. A mattress lay on the floor, the only other furnishings an open
wardrobe, stuffed with brightly colored garments, a chest of drawers and a table
and two chairs. Stacked neatly next to a camping cooker and a box of food were
pots, pans, crockery and cutlery.

“Mr. Larsson,” the woman stated impassively, her dark eyes unblinking.

“Yes,” Hans replied, thinking, bizarrely, what a pride this woman
took in her appearance considering the humble abode she lived in. “You were
expecting me?”

The Fulani nodded at a chair and walked serenely to the still-ajar
door, peeking into the corridor before wedging it shut with a length of wood. “I
saw the news report saying you had returned to the island and Mr. Silvestre
would be taking you out to your boat.”

“Is that why you were at the marina?”

“The marina, and I followed you from your hotel tonight. I
wanted to speak to you earlier, but . . .” The Fulani looked away.

Hans noticed her hand trembling as it rested on the tabletop.
For the briefest moment he admired the intricate henna artwork coiled in an
ensemble of bangles and sprawling along her slender wrists to greet her immaculate,
black-polished fingernails.

“Your daughter, she is alive,” the Fulani announced without
ceremony.

Hans’ existence blurred.

He slumped onto the chair, stunned and unable to absorb the
information. For a man known for his composure in adverse circumstances, he fought
to regain it, managing to stammer, “H-h-how?”

“Wait.” The woman retrieved a small black bottle and two
mismatched glasses from her kitchen goods, then joined him at the table.

Hans could tell she was stalling but let her, despite his
frantic mind demanding that he cut to the chase.

“You must understand, if they find out they will kill me.”
She poured a generous shot of dark-treacle-like spirit into a chipped glass and
pushed it across the tabletop.

“Who?” Hans made an effort not to sound forceful.

“
Os traficantes
,”
she muttered, and filled her own glass.

Even with his limited knowledge of Portuguese, Hans
recognized the name of the people she alluded to, “the traffickers,” their vile
commercial operation known to law enforcement agencies around the globe as “the
Trade.”

Hans downed the drink, its foul herbal taste hardly
registering in his adrenaline-fueled mind. “You must tell me.”

“I work shifts in a factory processing fish near to the
port. Many of the women marry to the fishermen. There is much gossip. One night
I hear a conversation – a worker telling a friend that her husband’s boat picked
up a young girl floating far out to sea. She is wearing – how you say,
mergulho
?”

“Scuba gear?”

“Yes, this is the one.”

“Do you know the fisherman or the name of his boat?”

“The man will not help you. Like his wife, he is a greedy, ignorant
fool who could never be trusted with the information you seek. But the boat is
called
Rosa Negra
. The captain, Alvarez, is a very bad man.”

“Where have they taken her?”

“I don’t know.” The Fulani broke eye contact.

“Please.” Hans was about to place his hand on the woman’s
arm but, remembering the cultural divide, thought better of it. “Can you find
out?”

“I have a friend, an old Fulani. She has been on the island
many years and knows such things. I will visit her tomorrow.”

“Listen, here’s my card. Do you have a phone?”

The Fulani shook her head.

“In that case, if you learn anything please use a pay phone
or someone’s cell and make a reverse-charge call or try and get me at my hotel,
the Grande Verde. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll meet you here tomorrow night.
Is that okay?”

“I think to meet me is better. After 8:00 p.m., when I
finish my shift.”

“Sure, and I can pay you for your trouble.” Hans reached
into the pocket of his sport coat.

The Fulani stood up, walked across the dimly lit room, took a
photograph from the dressing table and handed it to him. Hans stared at the
picture of a little girl, recognizing the eyes of her mother.

“Her name is Binda. No money can replace her, Mr. Larsson.
Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Hans nodded as the pieces of the puzzle fell into the place.

“But you must be careful. These are people with powerful connections.”
She set the photograph back on the dresser, her fingers lingering on the fading
image.

“What’s your name?” Hans got up to leave.

“Djenabou,” she replied as a tear rolled down her cheek.

“I
ncoming!”

Private First Class Duffy of the 405th Parachute Infantry
Regiment, US 82nd Airborne Division, threw a grenade into the enemy bunker
situated in a bombed-out post office on the outskirts of 1944 Berlin.

He didn’t know why he was shouting, since his entire platoon
was dead.

Climbing out from behind a mound of rubble, Duffy ran toward
the German position in stilted moves, firing his Thompson submachine gun from
the hip, spraying lead in the general direction of the screams emanating from
the fire and stinking smoke billowing from the sandbagged shopfront.

From experience he knew there would be at least one SS trooper
to finish off with a burst of the tommy gun before completing the mission.

The screams reduced to agonized moans and whimpers as Duffy
edged his way around the building seeking a firing point. His grenade had blown
away a good few sandbags, and he crept into the gap, ready to bid good night to
the remaining swine.

The convulsing body of an enemy combatant entered his field
of vision.

Duffy leveled his submachine gun and –
click
.

Damn! Out of ammo!

He scanned his dead comrades’ webbing pouches, looking for
more bullets, spotting a flashing orange box with an
A
on it hovering a
foot above his late lieutenant’s lifeless form.

Move to the
A
! Resupply your ammo!

With three fresh clips, Duffy crawled back into position. He
set his sights on a dying German, squeezed the trigger and—

Jonah’s cell phone rang. He interrupted his Xbox game of
Operation
Berlin
to see Sylvester Stallone’s image on the screen.

“Orion!” He used Hans’ code name. “I thought you were like
dead
,
dude, in some yacht accident and shit?”

“Odysseus, my dear nerd, I can assure you I’m very much
alive.”

“Oh,
cooool
! I tried to call your cell before, but
nada.”

“Yeah, that one took a little dive. You still playin’ those
crummy war games?”

“I’m still playin’ ’em, Orion, and I’m still smoking the
weeeeeeeed
!”

Jonah took a long toke of his doobie, blowing out a
yellowy-brown plume in defiance of his fellow agent’s fatherly lectures.

Jonah, code name “Odysseus,” lived in a converted Greyhound
bus in a trailer park in LA. His Aspergic savant made him one of life’s
interesting characters, a computer genius who’d hacked into NASA’s database at
thirteen and retrieved highly classified information from the Apollo program.
His subsequent arrest made mainstream news and, despite his learning
disability, resulted in a stint in a juvenile correctional facility. Nonplussed,
he’d used his skills upon release to expose a huge pensions and shares fraud committed
by Weltertech Corps, his evidence in court putting several fat-cat criminals behind
bars.

Jonah knew his way around computers blindfolded. Under the screen
name “Glaxo,” he ran one of the biggest torrent operations on the planet,
providing free movie, music and software downloads to over a billion people
worldwide. Having learned from the mistakes of his youth, he could also hack
into any computer network in existence
and
cover his tracks – a talent of
particular interest to the Concern, hence his recruitment and subsequent code name
Odysseus, the genius behind the Trojan horse.

“Odysseus, I need an address.”

“Shoot, dude.” Jonah reached for a two-liter bottle of Cherry
Coca-Cola sitting among the smoking paraphernalia cluttering his custom-built desk.
He took several noisy slugs, oblivious to accepted social graces.

“It’s the captain of a boat, the
Rosa Negra
,
registered in Cape Verde. Name’s Alvarez.”

“Dude, go to the Fisheries Commission. That shit will be
registered there.”

“It’s three o’clock in the morning here, fartface. I need
the info now.”

“I’m on it.”

Eight minutes later Hans’ cell phone rang.

“Orion, I got your address. It’s public knowledge, you know?
I also scanned the CIA database and police records. There’s nothing on this guy.”

“That figures. Gimme the address.”

“Forty-eight Rua de Avis, Porto Alto, Mindelo. Anything
else?”

“Yeah, I love you, you nerd.”

“I love
you too, Orion.”

Hans resisted the urge to tear around to Alvarez’s address
and find out where his daughter was – using any means necessary. It was two
months since Jessica’s kidnapping, and the odds of her still being in the
fisherman’s possession were slim. Besides, an impromptu visit would warn the
traffickers further up the chain and could result in dire consequences. Hans
needed advice from Muttley, so he took a cab back to the hotel, calling Penny
en route to let her know he was okay.