The Stolen Ones Read online

  ALSO BY OWEN LAUKKANEN

  The Professionals

  Criminal Enterprise

  Kill Fee

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

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  New York, New York 10014

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  A Penguin Random House Company

  Copyright © 2015 by Owen Laukkanen

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Laukkanen, Owen.

  The stolen ones / Owen Laukkanen.

  p. cm. — (A stevens and windermere novel ; 4)

  ISBN 978-1-101-62478-4

  I. Title.

  PR9199.4.L384S76 2013 2014023351

  813'.6—dc23

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  CONTENTS

  Also by Owen Laukkanen

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Chapter 120

  Chapter 121

  Chapter 122

  Chapter 123

  Chapter 124

  Chapter 125

  Chapter 126

  Chapter 127

  Chapter 128

  Chapter 129

  Chapter 130

  Chapter 131

  Chapter 132

  Chapter 133

  Chapter 134

  Chapter 135

  Chapter 136

  Chapter 137

  Chapter 138

  Chapter 139

  Chapter 140

  Chapter 141

  Chapter 142

  Chapter 143

  Chapter 144

  Chapter 145

  Chapter 146

  Chapter 147

  Chapter 148

  Chapter 149

  Chapter 150

  Chapter 151

  Chapter 152

  Chapter 153

  Chapter 154

  Chapter 155

  Chapter 156

  Chapter 157

  Chapter 158

  Acknowledgments

  This one’s for Stacia

  1

  ONLY HER SISTER KEPT HER ALIVE.

  The box was dark and stank of shit. Sweat. Urine. Misery. Irina Milosovici had lost track of how long she’d been inside. How long since Mike, the charming American, had disappeared with her passport in Bucharest. Since the two stone-faced thugs had shoved her into the box with the rest of the women, maybe forty of them. And Catalina.

  Irina had lost count of how many days they’d spent in the pitch-black and silence, sharing stale air and meager rations behind the shipping container’s false wall. How many times they’d clawed at the steel that surrounded them, screamed themselves hoarse, as the box lurched and jostled on its terrible, claustrophobic, suffocating journey.

  Only Catalina kept her alive. Only her younger sister’s warmth pressed against her in the darkness staved off the fear and, above all, the empty, sickening guilt.

  > > >

  THEY WERE IN AMERICA NOW. For days the box had swayed with the lazy rhythm of the ocean, had shuddered with the ever-present vibrations of a big engine somewhere far below. Some of the women had been seasick, and the smell of vomit filled the box, mixing with the foul stench from the overflowing waste bucket
in the corner.

  Irina had passed the time telling Catalina stories. “This is the only way into the country for us,” she told her. “When we arrive in America, they’ll give us showers and new clothes and find us all jobs.”

  Catalina pressed tight to her in the darkness, said nothing, and Irina wondered if her lies were any comfort at all.

  Then the waves calmed. The pitch of the engine slowed. The box seemed less dark, the air slightly fresher. The women screamed again, all of them, pleading for help as the box was lifted from the ship, the lurching of the crane sending them tumbling into one another, momentarily weightless.

  The box touched down again. Irina could hear a truck’s engine, and the box rumbled and shook along an uneven road for a short while, maybe fifteen minutes. Then the movement stopped and the engine cut off. A door opened in the container’s false wall.

  The light was blinding. The women blinked and drew back, shielding their faces. Irina pulled Catalina to the rear of the box, far away from the light and whatever waited beyond.

  Two men appeared in the open doorway, big men, their heads shaved nearly to the skin. One had a long, jagged scar across his forehead. The other held a powerful-looking hose. “Get these bitches out of here,” he told his partner in English.

  “What did he say?” Catalina whispered, and for a moment Irina was angry. Her sister’s English was no good. What on earth had possessed Catalina to follow her here?

  But then Catalina had always been running to keep up with her older sister, and Irina had baited the hook. She was as guilty as the traffickers, she knew.

  The men dragged the women out in pairs, past the stacks of cardboard boxes holding DVD players and cheap electric razors, until the container was empty and the women stood disheveled and weak in the harsh sunlight.

  They were in a shipping yard. Irina could smell the ocean nearby, but the stacks of rusted shipping containers prevented her from seeing anything but the box and the two thugs.

  The men sprayed out the inside of the false compartment. They dumped the waste bucket out onto the gravel and sprayed it clean also. Then they turned the hose on the women.

  The water was cold, even in the warm summer air. Catalina’s fingers dug into Irina’s skin when the water hit her, spurring her on, tempting her to run. She didn’t run, though. She withstood the spray, coughing and sputtering, and then the hose was turned off, and they stood shivering in the yard again.

  The thugs began to maneuver the women back into the box. They took one girl aside, a pretty young blonde about Catalina’s age. Then the scar-faced man saw Catalina, and beckoned to his partner. “Her, too,” he said.

  Irina felt suddenly desperate. “No,” she said. “Get away from her.”

  The scar-faced man reached around her, grabbed at Catalina. Irina blocked his way, ready to fight. To claw at him, to hurt him. She would die before she let her sister go.

  But the thug didn’t try to kill her. He studied her for a moment. “Whatever,” he said finally, and moved on down the row of women. “The bitch is too old anyway.”

  He picked out another girl instead, a black-haired girl even younger than Catalina. Dragged her away from the container, the young blond girl, too, and then the scar-faced man’s partner was herding Irina and Catalina back into the box with the rest of the women, confining them in the darkness again.

  > > >

  THE DOORS HAD OPENED TWICE since the day of the hose. Days passed in between. The box rumbled and lurched, and the girls heard traffic outside, cars and trucks. The box rarely stopped moving. Irina screamed for help, but no help ever came.

  The doors opened. The thugs peered in, spoke to each other quickly, unintelligibly, scanning the huddle of women. The man with the scar on his face climbed into the box and chose two girls at random. Another blonde, perhaps twenty, and a very young brunette. He dragged them out of the box by their hair, ignoring their screams, and came back for two more women, and then again, until he’d taken a total of ten. Then the doors closed and were locked, and the box resumed its journey.

  The next time the door opened, the scar-faced man took only two women. Irina clutched Catalina and fought with her sister to the rear of the box, desperate to avoid being chosen. She screwed her eyes tight, heard the screams from the unlucky ones, and only breathed again when the men sealed the compartment.

  The box rumbled onward. There was more space in the darkness now. The men had taken almost half of the women away. Sooner or later, they would come for the rest. They would come for Catalina.

  The men had been careless when they’d sealed the box. The lock on the compartment door had failed to engage properly; it rattled and shook with a promise that hadn’t existed before. Irina crossed the compartment and pushed at the door. Clawed at it. Punched it until it swung open to the mountains of cardboard and the rest of the container.

  Already the air seemed fresher. Here was opportunity. Let the men do what they wanted to her, but they would not get Catalina. She would get her sister home.

  “Come on,” she said, pulling Catalina to the doorway. “The next time they come for us, we’ll be ready.”

  2

  CASS COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPUTY Dale Friesen finished his coffee and stepped out through the front door of the Paul Bunyan Diner and into the waning light as another summer day met its end. He stood on the steps for a minute, savoring the still air, the mad rush of campers and city folk all but gone from the 200 highway just across the way, everyone now hunkered down in their tents and cabins, swatting mosquitoes and telling ghost stories and hoping the thunderheads in the distance veered south before nightfall.

  Friesen circled around the side of the diner to his Suburban, figuring he’d be happy if the road stayed dry just long enough for him to get back up to Walker, just long enough that he didn’t look like a drowned rat showing up at Suzi’s door with a bottle of wine after blowing off their big date day to go bass fishing. Shit but he was in trouble.

  As Friesen reached his Suburban, a big semitruck pulled into the lot, a nice Peterbilt towing a rusty red container. The guy pulled in and parked behind Friesen, the ass end of his truck hanging out into the driveway, and as the guy climbed out of the cab, Friesen called over to him.

  “You’re a little long for that spot,” he said, thinking, That’s what she said. “Gimme a sec and I’ll pull ahead.”

  The driver, a big guy with a shaved head and a face like he’d never smiled in his life, looked back down the length of his rig, then back at Friesen. “Yeah,” he said. “All right.”

  “Don’t get too many long haulers up here in lake country,” Friesen said. “Where you headed?”

  The driver glanced into the truck, and Friesen followed his gaze and saw the guy had a partner, another big, bald fella. This guy had a scar on his forehead like he’d lost a fight with a band saw.

  “Out of state.” The driver had an accent, some kind of European. “Going to I-94.”

  “I see you boys got the standard cab,” Friesen said. “No bunk in the trunk, so to speak. You want a decent motel recommendation? Town of Walker’s just up the road, about five miles or so. There’s a—”

  “We make Fargo tonight.” The driver shifted his weight. “Got a schedule.”

  Friesen grinned. “That’s a hundred twenty miles away,” he said. “Gonna storm, too. Chamber of commerce would hate me if I let you get away.”

  “Thanks.” The man’s voice was flat. “We’re making Fargo.”

  “All right.” Friesen gave it up. Something wasn’t meshing about these two jokers, but hell, the county didn’t pay him enough to play every hunch. Besides, it was his day off. He was turning back to the Suburban, the driver and his buddy more or less forgotten already, when he heard something out the back of the rig. Sounded like banging. “You hear that?” Friesen asked the driver.

  The driver shook his head. “I did
n’t hear nothing.”

  Friesen studied the truck again. New tractor. No logos. No markings of any kind, except the USDOT registration number and an operator decal. Standard cab, like he’d noted. Meant no beds, no creature comforts. Had to be an original badass to be driving a truck like that in northern Minnesota, hundreds of miles from anywhere.

  “Where you guys coming from, anyway?” Friesen asked.

  The driver shifted his weight again, glanced back into the cab at his partner. “Duluth,” he said finally. “Look, buddy, I don’t have time for this—”

  “Deputy, actually.” Friesen showed the guy his identification. Kept his smile pasted on as he started toward the rear of the truck. “Look, humor me, would you? Maybe you got a stowaway back there. Couple of rats or something. What’s your cargo, anyway?”

  The driver hesitated a split second, then followed Friesen to the back of the rig. No markings on the container, just more old USDOT numbers. Ditto the chassis. New Jersey plates, though. “You guys sure are a long way from home,” Friesen said. “What’d you say you were carrying?”

  The driver just looked at him. “Electronics,” he said.

  Friesen felt his Spidey sense tingling. Slid his hand to his side, slow as he could, and snapped open the holster on his hip. Kept his eyes on the driver, kept his voice calm. “You wanna open her up for me?”

  The driver didn’t blink. “I think you need a warrant to open up my container.”

  “Heard something moving around in there,” Friesen said. “That’s probable cause. Now, you gonna make me phone this thing in, or can we just clear this up before the storm sets in?”

  As if for emphasis, thunder rumbled in the distance. The driver pursed his lips. Pulled a key ring from his pocket and fiddled with the back-door lock. That’s when things got crazy.

  As soon as the lock disengaged, the rear door swung open, knocking the driver backward. Friesen caught a glimpse of a wall of cardboard boxes, DVD players or something, and then a woman came flying out, grungy and wild-eyed, barely more than a girl, yelling something in some crazy foreign language as she launched herself through the open door.

  Friesen scrambled back, drawing his sidearm, hollering at the girl to slow down. The girl didn’t listen. Probably couldn’t even hear him. She knocked the driver to the ground as another girl appeared in the container doorway. Even younger. Just as dirty. What the hell was going on?