Джеймс Паттерсон - The 18th Abduction

“They’re at Metro Hospital. Banged up and I’m going to say traumatized, but we have them. Susan and Anna are alive.”

Chapter 109

The lighting in the glass stalls lining the ICU was purposely dim, and the patients in their adjustable beds were completely still.

The on-duty nurse told us, “She just had surgery a few hours ago. She’s doing as well as can be expected, after the internal bleeding, but she’s heavily medicated and may not know that you’re there. Only one of you can be in her room at a time.”

Joe said, “If she speaks, we both have to be there. It’s police business.”

The nurse shook her head disapprovingly, then, “You’ve got five minutes. Do not stress her out.”

She led us to one of the stalls and slid open the glass door. I said, “Joe, she knows you. You go. I’ll wait here.”

“Okay,” he said.

I stood just outside the narrow room and looked in at Anna Sotovina. Her eyes were closed. Her head had been shaved. Innumerable tubes were going into her arms and under the blanket, and electrodes and wires transmitted to monitors that recorded her vital signs.

The scar on Anna’s face highlighted what a courageous and indomitable person she was. A fighter. A survivor.

I’d been so worried that seeing her alive filled me with a wave of relief and something like love.

She’d been kicked in the gut, suffered a concussion and internal bleeding, with six broken ribs, but she was going to make it. And all of my fear and worry had been worth it.

I reached out with both hands and touched the glass.

We did it, Anna. We got you out.

Tears came up and I clapped my hands over my eyes. When the feeling subsided, I looked at Anna, her arms stuck with needles, and I thought how good it was that she was not in pain.

Joe sat down next to Anna’s bed. He was speaking, but I couldn’t hear his words, and it looked to me as though Anna couldn’t hear him, either. He put his hand around her wrist. I thought he was preparing to say good-bye. And then her eyes opened. She turned to Joe and reached for him with one arm.

He leaned to her and hugged her very gently.

I was surprised to see this affection between them, and I have to admit to feeling a twinge of possessiveness. But I understood. She’d been through hell. He cared about her. He straightened up, all the while keeping his hand around her wrist.

Anna was speaking to Joe. She’d been speaking for more than a few minutes, slowly, deliberately, checking with her eyes to see if she’d been understood. I read her lips when she said, “I’m sorry. Thank you, Joe.”

He said something to her, then turned to where I was clinging to the glass wall and pointed to me. Anna’s face brightened with recognition.

She said, “Thank you, Lindsay,” or at least that’s how it seemed to me. Tears jumped out of my eyes then and I couldn’t hold them back. This was Anna Sotovina’s lucky day, and it was pretty great for me, too.

I thought I might go in and speak to her, when the nurse stepped past me and knocked on the glass door.

She said to Joe, “I’m sorry. Our patient needs to rest.”

Joe stood up and said, “I’ll be back tomorrow, Anna. Get some sleep.”

I waved good-bye, and then I could barely wait for us to get into the elevator.

“How did she seem to you?” I asked my husband.

He took my hand, squeezed it.

“She was barely conscious, under the influence of pain meds, and probably confused. She remembers what she went through inside the house on Pine, but those memories have been fused with older memories. She mentioned the hotel in Djoba. She doesn’t want to talk about any of it. Especially not Petrović.”

But we need her to tell us about Petrović. We need her testimony.

Joe knew quite well what I was thinking.

“I’m not going to push her,” he said. “Anna said she’ll only talk to the International Criminal Court.”

“But that’s the court that freed Petrović. They made a deal with him.”

Joe said, “Let’s meet Susan. Okay?”

Chapter 110

It was the same hospital, on a different floor, and the mood in the room couldn’t have been more different.

Susan was in her bed wearing a pretty pink robe, and her devoted sister, Ronnie, was beside her. Balloons floated above the footboard, a great number of flower-filled vases were lined up on the windowsill, and Conklin and Jacobi were seated at the side of her bed.

A cheer went up for me and Joe when we came through the doorway. If I’d been connected to a mood monitor, the green line would have spiked. It felt that good.

Conklin introduced us to Susan.

“This is my partner, Lindsay Boxer, and FBI special agent Joe Molinari.”

Susan was lovely, with strawberry-blond hair and pale skin and a smile that showed how glad she was to be alive.

She said, “I’ve heard so much about you, Lindsay. I think I would recognize you anywhere,” and stretched out her arms. “Thank you so much for everything.”

I hugged her, and so did Joe. We told her we had just left Anna, who was speaking and recovering.

There was relief and some laughter, and for a moment I felt giddy, as if I’d been drinking champagne. Anna and Susan were alive! I was still having aftershocks from the takedown at the house on Pine, but this was a welcome bright moment.

And finally we had to get into the hard part.

Jacobi said, “Ronnie. Would you mind if we spent about five minutes alone with Susan?”

Ronnie murmured, “Not at all,” and exited gracefully.

Jacobi asked Susan to tell us how she’d come to be in that house on Pine, and to explain her connection to Petrović.

We were all gathered in chairs around her as Susan told of meeting a man at the Bridge, Tony Branko. She talked about how he’d bought her drinks, took her out to dinner twice, sold her drugs, and then offered her a loan. Later he told her how she could pay it back. She said it was debasing, that the amount she owed escalated due to interest, but she thought she was nearly paid up. But no.

And she skipped from dancing at Skin to the night she and her friends Adele and Carly were abducted. She described the endless days and nights in the house, and she spared no detail: the darkness, the rules, the faceless men, what they demanded, and the punishments.

Susan skimmed over the deaths of Carly and Adele, but I felt her unspeakable pain. She was saying so much without saying it all.

When she reached the most recent part of her story, the second abduction, she said, “Anna fought Marko, but he’s a soldier. He kicked her, picked up a chair and slammed it against her head. I didn’t fight. I was sure he would kill us. He tied us both up and shoved us under the stage. I tried to kick through the boards, but it was hopeless. A lot of time went by. I told Anna we were going to get out, and Anna didn’t answer me anymore. Her breathing was so faint, and then I heard men’s voices. ‘Is anyone here?’ I screamed and screamed.”

Finished with her story, Susan stopped talking.

There was a silence that no one knew how to break.

So Susan did it.

She said to all of the cops grouped around her bed, “How can I help with your case against these bastards? What else do you want to know?”

I said, “The man you know as Tony Branko has a get-out-of-jail pass from government agencies here and overseas. We need evidence that he committed a crime. We need your help with that.”

Susan let out a long breath, thought about it for a second, and said, “Tony is out of jail now?”

“Yes. He’s free and enjoying his wonderful life.”

She said, “Well, I don’t know if I have evidence. I don’t have photos or recordings or anything like that. But I can tell you that he raped all of us repeatedly. Him and Marko Vladic.”