Chapter 23

They pulled up right beside the two Hungarian officers in the hospital’s parking lot.

“Let’s get this fucking asshole behind bars,” Kormendi said, more to himself than the others, after greeting them.

“We want to find out everything he knows first though,” Anne said, following him through the glass doors. “At least, about where the other girls and his gangster buddies from the compound are.”

“Yeah, I’d love to rough him up a bit to get at all that is in his pea-brain, the jerk. Besides just plain smut, that is.” Kormendi was clearly on a warpath as he strutted up to the front desk, Szekely following, to ask for the patient Kallay.

The others went over to sit in the waiting area. Greg immediately started to look for a flight for Julia on his phone while Labrecque went off to search for his two Vienna-based Interpol colleagues. When Julia came back from the ladies’ room, Greg looked up and said, “I can get you on a plane tonight at five past midnight. It is now just before four p.m., so that should be sufficient for Nicholas’s guys to take you back home, pick up your things and get you back to the airport. Gets into Chelyabinsk at eleven-fifty-five a.m. tomorrow, so, Julia, that should give you enough time to talk to Nadia’s father and to line up some extra security to help carry out the operation.”

“Good. I think I remember his email address--mglinkov@polymail.ru. I will ask him to meet me after work tomorrow. If I am right, he will have the early shift the whole week, not just Tuesday.”

“Look! What’s going on over there?” Anne interrupted Julia and her husband, her attention suddenly drawn by an explosion of anger and frustration from the Hungarian officers as they conversed with the two duty nurses: Kormendi banged the desk, and both policemen gesticulated with their voices raised. The conversation dragged on, and it was obvious they were not happy. Finally, a grim Szekely came over to them, as his exasperated colleague got on his cell phone.

“Un-fucking-believable!” he said. “Excuse the language, ladies, but that’s the only way to describe what has happened. A real fucking mess.”

“What do you mean?” This was not going to be good, Anne was sure.

“Hetzel’s not here. Do you believe it? Gone. Vanished into thin air!”

“So, he’s down at the station, no doubt, then?” Labrecque asked.

“I bloody well hope so. But it doesn’t look good, from what those incompetent nurses told us.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, four men, dressed in police uniforms, came just a little more than half an hour ago, saying they were here from the regional office in Szombathely to relieve the two officers Peter had left to guard the jerk. They persisted until they were able to make off with the prisoner, but we don’t have a clue where they went. Peter is now calling all over to try to find out who the fuck these men really were, and where they might have taken the asshole.”

“Relax, George. Surely our friend will be in Szombathely just as I said. In custody there.” This from Labrecque, who had returned with his two Viennese colleagues in tow.

“Bloody well hope so.”

“And Nadia?” Anne asked.

“Well, that’s what makes us suspect the worst. They took the little Russian girl too, saying she was under arrest for prostitution. For sexual solicitation and lewd behavior, of all things! The leader of the pack waved a warrant under the noses of the doctors and nurses. They, of course, wanted to keep her here. But in the end, they had no choice.”

“What, Nadia? For prostitution? You’ve got to be joking!” Greg exploded.

“Yes, prostitution!”

“The nerve of those bastards. How--how the hell would they even think that she had anything to do willingly with the world’s oldest trade?” Labrecque asked. Then, after reflecting a moment, he continued. “They must have known that she was forced into sexual slavery, the sickos. They just painted it as prostitution so they could take her away.”

“And how did they even know Nadia was here, I wonder?” Anne gave voice to the disturbing thought that came into her mind.

“Good question,” Labrecque complimented her. “It must have come from someone in the hospital. Maybe the medics who brought her here.”

“But how would they connect her to Hetzel? And the sex bit?”

“Hmm. I rather think they must have found out from Hetzel himself, or perhaps from whoever locked her up in that room,” Greg disagreed. “Hetzel must have surmised that if we found her in that cage, all traumatized and abused, we would bring her here, I am sure.”

“Christ! So he must have gotten someone to check to be sure and then arrange for the arrest warrant. One of our corrupt Hungarian police buddies, no doubt.” Szekely was livid.

“In any case, Julia, you still need to go to Ozersk.” Anne turned to her friend, focusing on what she considered the most urgent. “They have Nadia again unless we can get her back by then, but you have got to convince her father not to let these guys leave the Mayak facility with any nuclear material. Under any circumstances. And you need to line up security to capture them if they attempt to do so.”

“Yes, you are right,” Labrecque agreed with her. “I have already talked to my two colleagues and they are standing by to drive you whenever you’re ready.”

“Then I best get going.”

Just then, Kormendi came over, phone still in hand. “This is not good. Not good at all. I first called my two trusted men from Vasvàr--the ones I left to guard Hetzel--and they said they did not recognize any of the four policemen. Those guys claimed they were there from Szombathely, and were following the orders of the ‘boss’ for the entire region, although they never gave his name. I then reached Colonel Bartha on his mobile--I report to him, as it happens--and of course, as I guessed, he knows nothing of all this. He never gave any such orders. He was incensed, and will try to find out who is behind it all. But in the meantime, my friends, the golden goose has been stolen right from under our eyes. We are fucked, to put it mildly.”

“These sex traffickers are very well organized is all I can say.” Labrecque was at a loss. “Better than we are, it seems.”

“And the icing on the cake, is that they took that poor Russian girl you guys found locked in some cage, claiming they had a warrant to arrest her for prostitution!” Kormendi continued. “Absolutely ridiculous.”

“Of course! We now know that she was one of the keys to their plans,” Greg observed, and then turned to Julia. “The other being you, Julia. But, it would seem that you are more easily replaceable in their vile venture.”

“Well, if it was them, as it is more than likely, then they are speeding away somewhere this very moment,” Szekely said. “The only problem is we don’t know where. And we have no way to track them.”

“I fear for Nadia,” Julia said. “I hope they don’t do anything nasty to her.”

“Yes, poor Nadia,” Anne agreed, but her mind was suddenly racing elsewhere. “Greg, do you have the receiver? You know, for that tracker?”

Greg did not see the relevance. “Why? The transmitter is in--on you still, no?”

“Well, that’s just it!” Anne said with a little self-satisfied smile. “It was so...so uncomfortable, and it did not serve a purpose any more where it was, so I took it out when we were upstairs in Hetzel’s room earlier. I stuck it in the pocket of that jacket the guard had loaned him to come over here. It was hanging right there in the bathroom. So, unless the crooks discarded it, or left it there, we should be able to track where they are going.”

Julia was elated. “Wouldn’t that be great?”

“Or at least wherever Hetzel’s jacket happens to be,” Anne added, deflating her own enthusiasm, suddenly thinking that most probably, they would have just left it behind in their great haste.

“I knew Interpol was just not the same without you,” Labrecque observed. “I am going to go upstairs to see if that jacket is still there. Or whether they took it with them. I’ll also ask a few nurses whether they have seen it.”

“I’ll run out and get the receiver.” Greg, too, was excited. “And turn it on. Let’s hope they have the jacket. And that the battery still works on the sucker!”

“What’s this?” Szekely was stunned, just off his iPhone. “You had a tracker on you, Anne, is that what I am hearing, that you managed to stick into Hetzel’s gear? That’s terrific!”

“Let’s hope it’s still there and it works,” Anne responded, all in all quite pleased with herself.

***

A few minutes ticked by, and Greg rushed back through the glass doors. “It’s still bleeping!” he said with glee, “And it shows them heading south.”

“Is that where the airstrip is?” Labrecque asked. “The one they have been using?”

“No. No, that’s actually west of here. And a little north, I think,” Kormendi answered, consulting an app on his mobile to make sure.

“We still have no idea where they are going,” Szekely observed. “But at least we now know the direction they are heading in. So we will just have to follow them.”

“And the sooner the better. We don’t want them to get too far ahead,” Labrecque added.

“They already have a good head start.” Anne remarked, checking the time on her phone. “A good forty minutes. And the others several hours ahead of them.”

“Yeah, and it’s already almost four-thirty,” Greg added. “So why don’t we just have some of your colleagues, pick them up, Peter? And get Nadia back and arrest Hetzel.”

“Yeah, easier if those corrupt or fake cops have handed them over to the gang,” Kormendi said. “But not so easy if my colleagues are following orders from one of our top commanders. Hmm. One who has been bought by these criminals. They would claim they have jurisdiction. And, of course, the warrant, if it is real.”

“I thought of that too, Greg,” Anne retorted. “The other problem is that we absolutely need them to lead us to the others.

“Who must be way ahead of them, as you said. We don’t know where,” Greg added. “And you’re right. That is the only chance we have of rescuing all the girls and catching these criminals. But I do fear for Nadia.”

“Okay. Greg and Anne, you come with me, if you would like. I have the bigger car,” Szekely said. “Peter can take Nicholas and follow us, since we will have the tracker. And Julia, goodbye and good luck.”

“Thanks,” Julia said, and gave kisses all around. “You too, good luck, you guys. Just let me know where you end up so I can join you when I am done in Mayak.” And she went out through the glass doors to get in the black BMW waiting outside.

“Hold on a second.” Kormendi looked up from his phone. “Let’s just think a moment. I think there is something rather fishy going on here. With these strange policemen springing Hetzel and kidnapping that Russian girl from the hospital, I mean. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that your creepy friend must have had access to someone very high up in the police force here, to be able to get such quick action.”

“Hmm. That is certainly what it seems like,” Labrecque agreed. “It would also help explain how they got to little Nadia. Unless, of course, they weren’t cops, but just crooks dressed up as policemen.”

“I thought of that, too, Nicholas, but from just the way those guys apparently acted, and, knowing Hungarian policemen, I think they were real cops. And when I think about it, it must have been someone above Bartha who gave the order, and just used my boss’s name to make it all sound legitimate. So the rotten egg could be one or several of four or five officers right at the top of the police hierarchy.”

“Well, well,” Szekely joined in. “That would be a bombshell!”

“In which case, the corrupt guy or guys in the police force,” Kormendi continued, “whoever they are, are clearly in the pay of those gangsters, and they may well have put out an alert for all of you. As a precaution, to make sure you cannot give their friends any more trouble. And to try and prevent you following them.”

“Good thinking, Peter,” Szekely agreed. “That is certainly possible.”

“Fortunately, Hetzel does not know me,” Kormendi continued. “Plus, as a high ranking officer of the Hungarian National Police force, there is very little they can do to prevent me from going about my business. If I am right, and it is these rotten colleagues of mine we are talking about.”

“You may be right, Peter,” Szekely acquiesced. “But as a Hungarian officer of Interpol, they should leave me alone too.”

“Yes, but they could slow you down, you know. Hungarian policemen are good at obfuscating, you should know that by now.”

“Hmm.”

“In any case, what I suggest is that Greg and Anne come with me--that way, if it comes to that, I can use whatever means, including subterfuge, to keep them out of the hands of these rogue elements on our police force. Greg will keep the tracker, and you, George and Nicholas, can follow in your car.”

“I see what you’re getting at,” Labrecque said. “Yes, it does make more sense.”

“Okay, let’s get going. We’ll follow you.” Szekely was itching to get on the road.