Page 109 of Pas de Trois
I smile and nod, too terrified to get my hopes up that it might be Anya living in that warehouse, too terrified to let Lidia down and remind her not to hold her breath.
I wave goodbye to my son and close the laptop, pushing to stand, buttoning my navy jacket, and brushing the wrinkles down from my lapels. I step out from my seat and straighten my tie as I move toward the back of the plane where the group of almost twenty men gather around a table with maps and plans.
“We’ve got five SUVs waiting for us at the airport in Oslo,” the leader of the crew says. “The moment we land, we’re piling in and heading out.” He holds up a picture of my blue-eyed girl—she was younger in the photo, before she was stolen by Nikolai, but it looks like her all the same. “This is Anya Mikhailov. She is our lead mission today. She is a victim who needs to be recovered. Prioritize finding her. Take out any man who is armed. We don’t really know what to expect at this factory. Others we’ve raided have been used as a prison for the women they kidnap. They keep these victims here while they break them, preparing them to sell off, sometimes by the hundreds. Any victims found, we will recover and transport via plane to Stockholm for treatment. Local authorities in Oslo cannot be trusted. The four families pay them for their silence.”
“How do we transport them by the hundreds?” one of the men asks.
The leader clears his throat. “We’ve never actually recovered any of their human assets in the factories we’ve raided. Somehow, they always seem to get a tip and have them cleared out before we arrive. But our intel has shown us the deplorable conditions inside.” He lays out a few photos on the table showing women packed in a row of prison-like cells. I shouldn’t say women, because some of them are teenagers, children.
“What happens to these girls when the families clear out a factory on a tip?”
“They decommission them—their word, not ours. Normal people would call it murder. But that’s why this mission is crucial. The four families are anything but normal.” He holds up the picture of my girl again. “Anya Mikhailov is essential to our cause to end the four families once and for all. She has information that we need, and she needs to be recovered and protected. I want everyone clear-headed and focused on the mission. We land in fifteen, and I want silence on this flight until then. Take that time to focus, do what you need to do to switch from human to soldier, because that’s all you are once we land. Understood?”
There’s a murmur of agreement and the men disperse. I head back to my seat, drop my head, and press my eyes shut, wringing my sweaty palms together in front of me with my elbows on my knees. Behind my eyelids, there’s a flash of sapphire blue and Anya’s face comes brilliantly to the forefront of my mind.
I focus intently on her as my pulse kicks up and a steady rhythm of hope punches through my veins with each beat of my heart.
Hope. Hope. Hope.
If there is a God and he has any mercy at all, we’ll find her, alive and well, and I’ll have her safely in my arms before the sun sets on this day.
