Olen Steinhauer - The Nearest Exit

When had he been taken? Bed by eleven, and then-how long did Polish television play porn? Until three or four, he guessed. He’d been taken at the latest by four. Sunrise was around six thirty, so they’d been traveling for at least two and a half hours, probably more. They were in Germany or the Czech Republic by now.

He could be wrong-they might have driven east-but the man with the bruised eye and the mustache had admitted to being German, and so he supposed they were taking him to Germany. If he was wrong, it didn’t matter. All he wanted was to control the panic.

Yet even though he’d given himself a place in time and space, his blood-sapped, frigid hands still twitched, because he couldn’t shake the thought from his head: This is how she felt. This is how she felt when I kidnapped her.

Later, when the trunk opened, gray light and cold air spilled in. It was an overcast day, the sky visible only straight up; to the left and right were the sides of big rigs the car had parked between. He was in his coat-someone had dressed him-and around the coat was a white sheet. He blinked up at the mustached man looking down at him, chewing gum, and felt an urge for some Nicorette. Or Dexedrine.

“I’m an American citizen,” he said in his most American voice. “You can’t just push me around.”

“Of course not,” said the German. He peered over the top of the car and behind himself, then settled on the bumper. Milo, folded into the trunk, considered ways he might kick the man, but none would work. “You want water?”

“I want some answers.”

“And water?”

He was cool, this German, so Milo nodded. “I’m parched. Some aspirin, too, if you’ve got it.”

He did. One of his partners, a huge man, appeared and held Milo’s head at an angle so he could swallow some bottled water; then the mustached one slipped two paracetamol between his lips. More water. When it was done, Milo’s chin was drenched and cold.

It was a roadside stop, and they were hidden between trucks to avoid easy detection. The one who’d lifted his head lit a cigarette, and in the distance Milo saw the third one-a small, wiry guy-standing at the end of the trucks watching the road. They were waiting for something.

“Food?” asked the mustached one.

“I’ll just throw it up.”

“Probably right.”

“You want to tell me why I’m here?”

“I don’t think so,” he said, then stood but didn’t walk away.

“I’ve got to pee.”

“You are a big boy. You can hold it.”

“Any Nicorette?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ve been using nicotine gum, but I’m out. Any chance you have any?”

The man frowned, thinking this over, then shook his head. “We’ll get you some cigarettes.”

“I’d prefer not to start again.”

“You think that matters at a moment like this?” he asked, his expression suggesting he was truly curious about it.

“Forget it,” said Milo. “Why don’t you shut the door and let me get some sleep?”

The man smiled at that, then closed the trunk. Milo regretted his joke.

Less than five minutes later it opened again, and behind the mustached man, between the trucks, a small van had pulled in backward, its rear doors open to reveal a wheeled hospital cot locked into place. The EU license was German-he’d been right about their direction. “Time to get up, Mr. Weaver.”

“Mr. What?”

The man stared at him, and Milo grinned.

“Now I get it-you’ve got the wrong guy! My name is Hall. Sebastian Hall. Listen,” he said, not really believing this would work, “I don’t know who you are. Just cut me loose. I won’t say a thing, and you can go find this Weaver character. I mean, you don’t want the wrong person, do you?”

The man’s morose expression didn’t change. “Milo Weaver, Sebastian Hall-it’s all the same to me.”

His two friends helped Milo sit up, then lifted and moved him to the cot. There was nothing smooth about the transfer-this wasn’t their regular occupation-and Milo’s head bumped against the door frame as they tried to climb inside with him. He said, “Slowly now, fellas.” Neither answered.

Now that they were taking them off, he could see that his ankles had been bound by PlastiCuffs, which they cut with Swiss Army knives as they strapped his legs into the cot. Then they pushed him into a sitting position and undid his hands, the blood rushing coldly back into them. They tingled and hurt. The men pushed him flat again and stretched more straps tightly across his chest and around his wrists.

The whole process took about three minutes, and the mustached man joined him in the back of the van as the others closed and locked the windowless doors from the outside. There wasn’t much space, so the man settled on the floor beside Milo as the van started up and began to roll. Soon they were back on the highway.

“You going to tell me anything?” asked Milo.

“No. And I’ve got another syringe in my pocket in case you insist on talking the whole way.”

When, at three that afternoon, she heard the knock on her door, Erika was reading up on the international sex trade. Once she’d decided on what to do with Milo Weaver, she made sure to cease her in-office investigation of him, because every site and document she looked at was logged in the central database. However, instead of returning to what she was supposed to be working on-namely, the backgrounds of two Iranian nationals applying for asylum-she found herself drawn to the industry that had set Adriana Stanescu’s life moving along its particularly atrocious path.

It was bleak. Part of the reason sexual slavery continues unabated is that imagining it is so abhorrent to most people that they choose instead to ignore it. Imagining the travails of someone like Adriana led to upset stomachs. Law-abiding citizens preferred the knowable crimes of murder and robbery to the unknowable of slavery. This silence on the issue only encouraged the industry to thrive.

So it was almost a relief when Tomas Haas interrupted her. The young analyst from the basement-level surveillance center had been at Pullach nearly a year and was one of the few with whom she chose to exchange words. “Good afternoon, Tomas.”

He wasn’t smiling. “Fraulein Schwartz, we’ve spotted a van at your house.”

“A van?” She let herself appear concerned. “Markings?”

“Toledo Electrik GmbH.”

“Oh!” She smiled and touched her breast. “You had me scared. No, that’s nothing. There’s a problem with the circuit breaker-it keeps switching off in the middle of my shows. I gave Toledo a set of keys.”

“Would you like someone to check on it? To be sure.”

“No, I’ll call the electrician,” she said, picking up her office phone. “Thanks.”

Once he was gone, she called the number of a throwaway cell phone she’d bought the previous night and left inside her house. Oskar answered on the third ring. “Toledo Electrik.”

“Yes, this is Erika Schwartz. Do you have someone at my house right now?”

“Schwartz… here it is,” he said and rattled off her address.

“That’s it.”

“Should take an hour or so. We’re mailing the bill, right?”

“Exactly. It looks like it won’t be a problem?”

“No problems yet, ma’am. We’ll let you know if anything comes up.”

“Thank you.”

Image

The rear doors opened to reveal a woody bilevel, and when he was brought out he saw that they were surrounded by gangly birches and broad elms, stripped of leaves, creating a black web through which he could just make out other houses that made him think of American planned communities. Large homes set far back behind tended lawns, clean automobiles in the driveways. He could only see these things when he looked hard, though, which meant that anyone looking in would simply see four men getting out of a van with-he now saw-the markings of an electrical repair company. From their perspective, the man in the center of the group would be walking with his hands clasped behind his back; the new set of PlastiCuffs would not be visible at all.