LITMIR.BIZ

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of the truck and then looking back inside.

      “What?” Grimaldi asked.

      “Cover me,” Bolan said, hopping up into the rear compartment and taking out his knife. He moved down the narrow center aisle again, going slowly and measuring his steps. When he got to the end, he looked back at Grimaldi, who was holding his MP-5 at combat ready. Bolan turned and drew his arm back, pressing the blade into one of the boxes at the end of the aisle. It went in only a few inches and stopped. He withdrew the knife and began feeling the other boxes, stopping about halfway down and pressing the blade into the cardboard again. This time when the blade hit something solid, the Executioner rotated the knife, cutting away the surface material. A lever-like handle became visible.

      Bolan cut vertically on the boxes on both sides of the aisle and then slashed the top and the bottom. He pulled the false wall of cardboard away and tossed it to the rear. Grimaldi reached in with his left hand, grabbed it and jerked it out of the truck. He immediately brought the submachine gun up to the ready again as Bolan withdrew his Beretta 93-R and switched on the flashlight attachment. With his left hand, Bolan grabbed the lever and twisted it, pushing the door to the right. It slid behind the façade of stacked cardboard boxes, revealing a hidden compartment.

      As Bolan shone the light inside, his nostrils were assailed with a combination of body odor and human waste. The beam swept over twelve frightened women. They shielded their eyes from the brightness and Bolan saw that they were all relatively young and clothed in filthy garments. One muttered something in what Bolan felt certain was Russian.

      “Don’t be afraid,” he said in Russian. “We won’t hurt you.” He motioned for them to exit the confined space.

      Once the women had filed out, Bolan swept the light over the inside of the cramped enclosure. From the smell of it, they’d been confined in there for some time. Two buckets full of what appeared to be human waste had been pushed to the side, contributing to the rank odor. Plastic water bottles were scattered on the floor along with torn noodle packages. Apparently the women had been subsisting on hard, uncooked noodles. Bolan shook his head as he moved back to the opening at the rear of the truck.

      The women had encircled Grimaldi and he was busy trying to calm them.

      One of the women saw the dead bodies lying around and screamed. A buzz of conversation shot through the group, accompanied by looks of sheer terror on many of their faces. Three of them bolted.

      Grimaldi took a few steps after them then stopped. “Aww, hell,” he said, turning back to the others. “They got no place to go anyway.”

      Bolan’s phone rang. It was Kurtzman calling back. The Executioner answered immediately.

      “Okay,” the cyber expert said. “I traced that sat phone number, but it comes back as a burner originating out of Russia.”

      “I figured as much,” Bolan said. “Could you trace the originating location of that text?”

      “Yeah. In fact, while I was hacking into it, they used it to make another call. It originated on a ship in the Bering Strait. They called someone in Wales, Alaska. Looks to be in Yup’ik territory on the coast.”

      “How long ago did they make the call?”

      “Couldn’t have been more than ten minutes ago now.”

      “Were you able to translate that text?” Bolan asked.

      “It’s Russian. ‘Has everything been completed? I’m waiting on your update.’”

      “What about those Canadian license plates?”

      “Both came back to Universal Exports in Vancouver,” Kurtzman said. “I’m digging into it, but it appears to be a shell company of some kind. Probably created just to take advantage of Homeland’s FAST program.”

      “Fast?”

      “Yeah. It’s an acronym for the Free And Secure Trade program. It’s designed to expedite commercial vehicles crossing the border. What were they carrying?”

      “Dried noodles and a dozen Russian girls.”

      Kurtzman whistled. “I guess all that tightening they’re trying to do down south on the border hasn’t been applied to the 48th parallel yet.”

      Bolan watched as Grimaldi read something on his smartphone and smiled. The women had quieted down and had pressed around him, listening intently. Apparently he’d found the app he needed to translate English into Russian, although Bolan wondered if his attempt at pronunciation would be understandable.

      “Okay,” Bolan said. “Go through our special channels and advise the local authorities in Alaska that we’ve got some info on a possible human trafficking case. That ship coming into Wales might be involved. Ask them to try to intercede and hold the crew and all aboard until we can make our way up there. Use our standard Department of Justice cover. And Seattle PD should be called in to this location.”

      “Got it. Anything else?”

      “We need transportation,” Bolan said. “See if Hal can pull some strings at the nearest airport around here to charter us a plane. We’ll need some cold-weather gear, too.”

      “Roger that, Striker,” Kurtzman said. “I’ll get right on it.”

      Bolan thanked him and terminated the call, studying the group of women. The three who had run off after seeing the bodies had reappeared on the far side of the warehouse, crouching behind the row of Harleys and peeking at the others. The thoughts of what had probably been in store for these women brought back unpleasant memories for the Executioner. His sister had been exploited many years ago, and that had instilled a fervent determination to relieve this type of human suffering and bring those responsible for causing such misery to justice...his own brand of justice.

       Chapter Two

      Over Canada en route to Alaska

      They’d been in the air less than forty minutes, zooming through the velvet darkness, when Grimaldi suddenly began singing “North to Alaska.”

      Bolan, who was in the copilot’s seat, rolled his eyes and said, “Do I have to put my earplugs in?”

      “What? You got something against that song? It was the last big hit for Johnny Horton back in the day.” Grimaldi clucked his tongue. “It came out right before he got killed in a plane crash.”

      “Not exactly a great song choice, then.”

      “You know, I take that back. I think it was a car accident.”

      Grimaldi quit singing and sat in silence for several minutes before clucking his tongue once again as he checked the instrument panel of the Learjet 85.

      “Man, those cops who arrived sure didn’t look too happy about the mess we left them,” the Stony Man pilot said.

      Kurtzman had called Seattle PD and explained that two federal agents had come upon a shootout between a biker gang and some Russian gangsters, and that there were also some human trafficking refugees on scene. After identifying himself as DOJ Special Agent Matt Cooper, Bolan had handed over the processing of the scene to the first responders, saying that he and his partner had to leave to investigate another aspect of this case.

      “I wonder what’ll happen to those gals?” Grimaldi said.

      “They’ll no doubt be offered some kind of temporary asylum.”

      “Regardless, it has to be better than what they were running from.”

      Bolan could only agree. He couldn’t get the image of that small, stinking compartment out of his mind; it brought home the desperation of the women seeking to escape the bleakness of their existence in their homeland. A desperation that was so great they’d succumbed to the false promises of a new life. Little had they known that they were most likely exchanging one

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