People Trafficker (16 page)

“I’ll do the same if I get out, but I don’t think I’ll get much chance of escape from a brothel. Anyway I met Karen Marshall at the airport? She was really, really attractive and very nice. But she had something about her. Stood at her side, although she seemed really feminine, she gave you the feeling that inside she was a real tough, hard girl. God I wish I was like her, you have to admire someone who has gone up against this lot.”

“Yes,” Dawn answered. “I read some of the things that are supposed to have happened to her. You’re right she must have been really strong to get out like she did. I hope we get the chance, that’s all?”

At that moment they stopped talking, when Sammy was brought back and Dawn was taken.

“I think I understand, I won’t take offence,” she replied after some thought.

“Good girl, there is one other thing, Angela’s mother is there. She won’t be in the meeting, but I think she would like to talk to you. She of course like everyone else has no idea that you want to go back in. I think she just wants some reassurance that a girl can survive this sort of ordeal. Again keep your responses low key, give her a little confidence that even though her daughter is under severe pressures, if she plays ball like you did, she will get through it.”

The car drove directly onto a private airstrip and they transferred to a waiting helicopter.

An hour later, after again being met by a car, they entered a military camp, stopping at the main building before being shown into a large room. Already around a meeting table there were ten other people. Sir Peter acknowledged them all and walked round to the head of the table, Karen taking a seat at his side.

“Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for being so prompt, I’d like you all to meet Karen Marshall, many will know her by sight as she’s been hounded by the press, with pictures of her not being out of the papers for well over a week. I’d also like to thank Karen, for agreeing to come and speak to us so quickly. So to business; I believe, Jim, you have some very important news?”

Jim Squires from Interpol stood. “I do, Sir Peter. We now know the girls were picked up and transported by a ship run by people who claim to be modern day pirates; I’d rather call them gangsters. They were taken to the Lebanon and onto a remote farm, prepared for sale and after the sale three went directly with their purchaser, one was an overseas buyer and that girl would be shipped to the purchaser’s home. We know this because, more by luck than good management, a container originating from a port in the Lebanon arriving in Italy was routinely checked, following a tip-off that it contained arms. In actual fact they had the wrong container, but inside the one they searched was a girl. She was on a stretcher, strapped down and heavily drugged. We understand she was placed inside before the container was lifted from the ship and left on the quay awaiting collection. It was a close thing as a lorry had already arrived at the port entrance with documents to take the container. Anyway we had just enough time, while the port authorities messed about with paperwork for collection of the container, to change the girl for an Italian policewoman of similar size and looks before we let it go. It was delivered to a warehouse last night. Two men were waiting for the container’s delivery and they took the girl. Fortunately they had never seen her before and the policewoman was driven to a large private estate outside Milan. Five minutes after they arrived the estate was raided. Apparently there were thirty police cars, special SWAT teams, the lot. The Italian police were taking no chances apart from being irate that one of their countryman could have done this, particularly as he was also a prominent and very wealthy businessman. This man was arrested and is now in custody. It now all rests on the girl’s evidence. If she identifies him as one at the sale the Italian government intends to send him down for life. It is a very clear statement to others who decide to purchase a girl by this means.”

“Is this girl you rescued one of the five?” a man asked.

“She is, but we are not telling the public that. In fact she is being kept under wraps, even her family doesn’t know she’s been found. The Italian’s are in on it and only saying the man they have arrested is suspected of having sex with underage children. It gives us a breathing space of about a month to find the others. The girl is unharmed, but she’s been able to give us plenty of information and understands her rescue must be kept quiet for the sake of the others.”

He fell silent when coffee was brought in, then continued when they were alone once more. “The girl’s name is Dawn Perrick. She told us that four girls were sold to private buyers and the fifth girl was unsold. Her name was Angela and she was originally to go to a brothel. However, she was very ill and Dawn overheard the old woman, probably in her seventies and running the operation, saying she was going to take her to her home and bring a doctor. She heard that they thought it was pneumonia but she still had a private sale for her if they could get her better.”

“Wasn’t there a sixth girl?” Karen asked.

“There was, one of the driver’s daughters. She’s fourteen and has been sold to a buyer who also took one of the five original girls.”

Karen frowned. “The old woman, was she small, constantly bent forward and spoke broken French when she tried to talk to them in English?”

“Yes she did.”

“Can you tell me if they used oils on this girl and shaved her body hair?”

“Yes, is that important?”

“It is, apparently Saeed’s well known for doing this to his special girls. He has this thing about how the girl should look tanned and smell nice. So if that’s happened to the girl then the old woman is more than likely Saeed’s mother. She’s probably running the operation until her son is better.”

“You seem to know a great deal about this family, Karen,” one of the men in the room said.

“I should, after all I spent a very unpleasant week in both her and her son’s company.”

The room fell silent for a moment, many taking the opportunity to sip their coffee.

“Right gentlemen, Karen was originally going to just give us help by briefing the team who will be going in. However, Karen’s circumstances have changed and she wants to go with them. There are conditions from her, so I propose we listen to them and then Karen will leave us while we discuss her proposals.”

Karen looked around the faces looking at her. “My proposal is simple. I carry weapons, for protection, of my choice. I must be allowed to talk to and interrogate Saeed, and his mother myself, and in my own way. Those two are the scum of the earth and there is no such thing as the Geneva Convention when it comes to dealing with them. If any of the girls have been sold to buyers living in the same country, we move on and bring them out.”

Sir Peter looked round the room, no one had commented, it seemed it was down to him. “If you were to go, Karen, it would be with the full protection of the soldiers selected to go in with you. So some of your conditions may be agreed, but you let the professionals carry weapons and they interrogate. You acting as observer, would you still be happy to go in?”

Karen looked him directly in the eyes. “If you think I’m going in there relying on others to protect me, you’re one off. I’ve had to shoot myself out of that country once so I’ll do it again if necessary. Then you seem to be suggesting I couldn’t get information from Saeed, or his hag of a mother? Believe me if she’s there and she sees me, she’ll be terrified, not only for her own life but that of her son. The woman reads palms and stupid as it sounds she told me my future. She believes I only bring death and destruction. She wasn’t wrong in that. Since the prediction nearly twenty people have died as a direct result of me being there and that was without counting how many British soldiers died. So you can be sure she will be more scared of me, than any of your people.”

“I see, but what about going for the other girls in the same country? Once we have addresses our teams can move on to them without your help.”

“I suppose they can. But this is a big decision for me to go back. If I do, I want to be fully involved. I don’t go in for one girl. For me it’s all of them or none at all. I couldn’t live with myself just bringing Angela, or some other girl out and leaving the rest to endure what I had to. So I’ll not be coming back from that country till I find them all. If I have to go on alone, I will.”

“Has anyone at this stage any more questions for Karen?”

He waited. “No, then perhaps, Karen, you can leave us to discuss just what we are going to do from here and if we are agreeing for you to go in on your terms?”

Karen was sitting in the dining room on her own. She was really glad they had found one girl at least. She could also understand that if it got out the other buyers may panic and kill the girls rather than be found with any of them.

A woman approached her. “Excuse me, are you Karen Marshall?”

Karen sighed. “Yes I am, but I need some time alone.”

“I’m really sorry, Karen, but I desperately want to talk to you, it’s about my daughter Angela, may I sit down. I’ll only take a few minutes of your time?”

Karen looked at this woman, the desperation in her face, her eyes. “Of course, if you think talking to me will help,” she answered, resigned to having to listen to this woman.

She sat down opposite. “My daughter met you; she was so excited on the phone and couldn’t stop talking about you. Saying how kind you were to her, taking the time to help pick her things up.”

Karen shrugged indifferently. “I did what any other person would have done. Besides, I’m nothing to look up to, no hero or role model. I went through hell, but I was only a seven-day wonder and people couldn’t really care less, most men probably only interested in hearing about the sex bits while the women were more interested in the human cost? The only good thing in it all, was being able to sell my story, it gave much needed money to the charities trying to help the ones caught up in trafficking.”

The woman looked away; tears were running down her cheeks. “I know what you’ve done, Karen, and you’re wrong, you are someone to look up to. It was a very courageous thing to offer your story, which must have hurt you deeply inside to talk about and admit to the world what had been done to you. But unlike you, who’s strong willed, with the skills to take them on, our Angela won’t be able to cope, it will kill her. She’s our only daughter and that man has taken her away from us.”

Karen sipped her coffee looking at the woman. “You’re wrong, you do cope. It helps in some way that you never stop believing that somehow you’ll be rescued and go home. You even become detached from the abuse, try to think of other things, because the men don’t treat you as a lover, just something to use, so the abuse is over in minutes,” she looked down, “but it always leaves you feeling dirty and cheap, perhaps a little more despondent as the day’s turn to weeks and still you’re at their mercy.”

“But you survived and Sir Peter has told me you’re prepared to go back to help find Angela and the others?”

Karen sighed. “I am going back, but I’m afraid my reason is to kill Saeed, and probably his mother. But you must keep in mind no one is even certain Saeed is involved; it’s just what everyone’s presuming. Then even if it was him, the odds of finding Angela are miniscule. The girl might already have been spirited away into some private house anywhere in the world, not local to Saeed’s; anywhere.”