Linda Fairstein - Hell Gate

“Where is the tattoo, Olena?”

“You want to see?” she said, standing up.

“No, no. Just tell me where.”

She pointed to the same spot on her inner thigh as the tattoos I had seen on Salma Zunega and our unidentified Jane Doe #1.

I couldn’t think fast enough about what it would mean if she had the same image as they did burned onto her body almost two years ago in a small town in western Macedonia.

“What is it, Olena?”

“It’s Zmey, Ms. Alex. A green monster with three heads and fire that came from his mouth,” she said. “I was property of the Dragon. No one would touch me if they knew that.”

It had been too much to hope that Olena could lead us to the snakehead whose tattooed rose had linked Salma Zunega to one of the victims of the Golden Voyager.

“I’m going to let you rest now, Olena. It’s almost time for you to have lunch,” I said, trying to disguise my disappointment, which was meaningless in light of the odyssey she had just recounted.

“You want to know why I come on this boat, Ms. Alex?”

“Yes, Olena, I’d like to know that.”

“There is an orphanage in Kotovs’k. The nuns who run it, they took me in, let me go to school. I read about America in their books,” she said, finally offering me a smile that showed off her best features.

“I’m glad they did.”

“You had a great war once,” she said to Simchuk, and even the translator seemed happier now. I heard Olena say the name Abraham Lincoln. “Abraham Lincoln freed all the slaves in America. You have black man even who is president.”

“Yes, we do.” I thought of the hundreds of slaves who sailed to New York centuries ago and the African burial ground, just a few blocks from where we sat.

“I was a slave, too, Ms. Alex. I came to America, even though very scared still, because that can’t happen to me here.”

The wreck of the Golden Voyager may have been the only break in Olena’s young life. This wasn’t the moment for me to tell her that the American traffic in sex slaves-local and international-still flourished and thrived, and that this disastrous accident may have been the thing that saved her from another round of forced prostitution.

“No, Olena,” I said, taking her hands in mine and squeezing them. “That can’t happen to you now.”

My SUV was parked on First Avenue, across the street from the medical examiner’s office. Nan and I had just taken the two young women, Olena and Lydia, to view the bodies of the victims at the morgue. One of the Simchuk sisters remained with us to translate, both at the ME’s office and as they settled in to the shelter.

“So far, everybody’s accounted for except Jane Doe Number One,” I said, herding the group across the avenue when the light changed.

“I’ve got an idea about that,” Nan said.

“Let’s hear it.”

“What became of the captain and crew of the ship?”

“They’re in federal lockup. Donny Baynes has them.”

“Are they American?”

“No. Eastern European. I’m not sure if Baynes said they’re Ukrainian, but the captain was pulling the no-speak-English bit on Wednesday. They’re in on trafficking charges and illegal entry, and they’ve all got lawyers by now. The captain had the proper papers to be in command of a ship, just not with the cargo he was carrying.”

“What if that woman-the one no one has positively ID’d yet-was part of the captain’s reward for his safe passage?” Nan asked. “Suppose she spent most of the trip in his cabin, forced to service him.”

“Interesting thought,” I said, as we opened the doors for our charges.

“It helps explain why nobody on board had any contact with her. It also figures she could have been caught up in the physical battle when the guys mutinied. Maybe she was injured accidentally.”

“That’s the most well-placed accidental stabbing I’ve seen in a while,” I said.

“But I’m thinking maybe the captain threw her in the way to protect himself, or maybe one of her countrymen thought she had betrayed the others by becoming the captain’s woman.”

“You need to call Donny so he can get one of his guys working on that,” I said. “It’s a really good idea.”

“I hardly know him. Why don’t you call?”

“ ’ Cause it’s your idea, and I’m driving.”

Olena and Lydia seemed overwhelmed by the sights and smells of New York. They were craning their necks from each side of the backseat as Ms. Simchuk described the buildings we passed on our long afternoon drive up to the northern end of Manhattan.

“I’ll go across Thirty-fourth Street so they can see the Empire State Building,” I told her, “and then through the theater district. Let’s get the business out of the way so they can enjoy the ride.”

“Very good,” Simchuk said.

“The shelter has very tight security. All of the women and children-about twenty-five families-are being protected because they are trying to get out of abusive relationships.”

Simchuk translated and the girls listened.

“That means their access is controlled. There is a nine o’clock curfew for all the other residents, and the police precinct is one block away, so it’s quite secure,” I said. “They will share a small apartment-”

“Excuse me, you mean a room, yes?”

“No, I mean a small apartment. There is one bedroom with twin beds, a separate bathroom, and their own kitchen.”

Olena and Lydia were talking between themselves, excited by the description.

“They each receive a welcome package with some clothing, kitchen utensils, and food.”

“But, Ms. Alex,” Simchuk said, “they are afraid to believe this.”

“It’s true.”

They didn’t need to know how I had fought every point out with Donny Baynes last night in the conference room. He had wanted them each to wear an ankle bracelet to monitor their whereabouts. While they had clearly risked flight before, I couldn’t imagine subjecting them to such humiliation after what they had endured to get here.

Nan took over. “They will not be able to leave the building without an escort, though. A federal marshal will come for them every morning at nine, and will return them here at the end of the day. Even on weekends. We’re trying to get translators to be assigned around the clock, but for tonight, you’ll stay as late as you can, and after that it will be sign language to communicate their needs.”

We were losing our witnesses to the great spectacle of the New York City streets. I took the slow, scenic route, circling Rockefeller Center so they could ogle the enormous Christmas tree and the ice skaters out in full force, despite the cold.

I went up Sixth Avenue and into Central Park, passing the horse-drawn carriages at the Fifty-ninth Street entrance and taking the drive north, behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the glass-enclosed Temple of Dendur, which didn’t interest the duo a fraction as much as the endless assortment of bikers and joggers, dog walkers and performance artists, and the carefree attitude so many of them seemed to radiate to the two tired hostages inside my SUV.

“You have to stop at the station house first?” Nan asked as we reached the Heights.

“That’s the way it’s done,” I said, pulling in front of the building on Broadway that housed the Thirty-fourth Precinct.

I double-parked and we all got out, although Olena and Lydia were not pleased about the stop. “Don’t worry,” I instructed Ms. Simchuk to reassure them, “it’s just to let them know where you’re going to be.”

The desk sergeant called up to the squad, and one of the detectives came down to meet us. I told him who the women were and that Safe Horizon agreed to put them up at Parrish House.