Limit of Exploitation

Loyalty:

A faithfulness or devotion to a person, a cause, an obligation or duty.

The warehouse they dragged the unconscious Paula Logan to was cold, dank and rattled with a biting wind. Sat cathedral like on the banks of an iron-grey river Thames deep in east London, the location had been chosen well. Isolated and awaiting conversion into overpriced luxury apartments; there was no one around, no one to hear, no one to see.

By the time she had regained consciousness after her ride in the boot of Miroslav’s Mercedes, Paula had been stripped to her Primark underwear and gaffer taped to an old office chair in the cavernous warehouse. Her skin was pure white and covered in goose bumps from the penetrating cold. Always best to wear down the resistance levels in someone when about to ask them some rather pointed questions.

Serbian crime boss Miroslav Nikolic steps from the warmth of his silver S-Class Merc and negotiates the lake-like puddles as he makes his way to the shivering Paula. She sobs as he approaches; her wet, bottle blonde hair sticks to her face. A young, plain, skinny white girl in her early twenty’s, she is pure council estate.

The sharply suited Miroslav feels nothing; his face is impassive. He’s been at scenes like this many times before, both in London and back in Kosovo during his days in Arkans Tigers. Pity and remorse are words not found in the dictionary of Miroslav Nikolic.

As he stands studying her he briefly wondered how his wife and daughters must have looked in front of the Albanian UCK death squads before they finally executed them. The most violent and bloody of wars are always civil wars and Yugoslavia’s bloodletting rivalled any that Africa or the Middle East had to offer.

To make ends meet between benefit days Paula had started skimming some of the drugs she pushed on the streets for Miroslav, bad idea. An even worse idea when the criminal hierarchy involved belonged to the Belgrade based Zemun Organised Crime ring.

Miroslav checks his DiBianco Brogues aren’t too dirty as he runs a hand through his slick jet black hair and adjusts his overcoat and tie. Cool and calculating, and into mid-fifty’s, Miroslav is a Hannibal Lecter parcelled up in Saville Row. As the Zemun Clans man in London he needed a chat, and the conversation was going to be strictly one way.

“Paula, do you know why you are here?”

She flinches at his heavy east European accent, almost like a comedy Count Dracula. Miroslav nods gravely. His shark like eyes are dead, the angular Slavic features set hard.

“You have caused me a great deal of trouble young lady, not to mention a great deal of product and money. I thought we had a deal? Now what am I to do with you?”

Silent tears run down Paula’s face streaking her Superdrug mascara. Already wet and shivering from the rain, she knows she is in deep shit. Terrified she barely dares to breathe.

Next to the Mercedes a handful of granite-faced, black leather clad Serb gangsters stand around flexing their muscles. They wear military style crew cuts and silently smirk to themselves, enjoying their boss’s performance.

The Dracula accent pours on the fear, “Should I make an example of you? Kill you? Perhaps just take one of your kneecaps? You take something from me, I take something from you?”

Miroslav had first hauled in the distributors, but when he knew that was not where the problem lay, he resorted to more extreme measures. He pitted his young dealers and pushers against each other, and numerous teenage gang members wound up dead on the street; shot or stabbed to death, until one day it all pointed to a silly little girl who had her fingers in the till and thought that it wouldn’t be noticed.

“I know you’re coke broke, so I’ll make you a deal. Of course there are those that would still just prefer to put you in good old River Thames out there after stealing from me, but hey, I’m a businessman and I can always use a business partner, yes?”

He glares down at her. “But this time we are going to do it properly, we are going to stick to the arrange­ments we had before. You do remember our previous arrangement?”

She nods as her bottom lip trembles, yeah that arrangement.

In a sudden change of mood Miroslav slaps his thigh in mock celebration. “Good! I knew you would see it my way!”

He turns to the watching Zemun goons, “You see? All it takes is a little application of man management, that’s all. No need for hammers and pliers”

He pauses, his focus back on Paula. “You know, we really shouldn’t leave things like this. After all, you don’t really know the full implications of what I’m talking about, and if I were in your position I would be nodding my head too.”

Her eyes flash, this doesn’t sound good.

“Given your record of theft from me, I would be a fool not to have some guarantees in place, no?”

Paula’s tiny mind is now racing. “Guaran… Guarantees?”

“Yes, yes, you know, sometimes in business one must have guarantees in place to ensure that the deal is, how do you say, cemented?”

“I suppose. But I don’t…”

“Don’t know what I mean? Let me explain, better still, let me show you.”

Miroslav nods to the watching Serbs with the crew cuts. A rear door of the Merc is opened and a small girl with mousey brown hair is wrenched out the back. The girl is no more than ten years old and is still dressed in her bedclothes. A strip of black masking tape covers her mouth and her hands are secured behind her back. Her eyes tell her story, she is petrified.

Paula’s heart skips a beat, as she see’s her daughter Emma being manhandled by the grinning Serb. She goes ballistic.

“NO! NOOOOOOO. Please, please don’t hurt her!” The chair bucks and rocks as she breaks down in heavy sobs.

Emma tries to reach her mother, silent tears pouring down her cheeks, but the crew cut has a firm grip, she’s going nowhere.

Miroslav waves away the Serb; screaming and crying he can do without, too much like the old days.

“Please, please, it’s me that fucked up, not her, it’s my fault, and she’s just…just a small girl.”

Miroslav raises a gloved finger to his lips. “Hush now, keep quiet Paula, all that noise will serve no purpose, it’s a pointless emotion. You need to think, start using what little brain you have.” He taps her head with his forefinger. “Calm down and focus. Let us discuss this like, like the business partners that we are.”

He sits opposite her on an equally battered chair and lights up a Drina cigarette, its acrid purple smoke taints the air. He’s in full control, and everybody knows it.

“You know, when the UCK came to my town back in Kosovo, they took my wife, my children and held them in front of me. They told me if I begged, and I mean really begged, that I could have them back. But you know what? I did not beg. I did not show any emotion. Do you know why Paula?”

Paula is too petrified to even breathe let alone process the Miroslav family history lesson.

“Do you know why I would not waste my emotions and beg for their lives?”

“No, no I don’t, I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologise, after all you weren’t there were you?”

Paula slowly shakes her head, she’s never even heard of the UCK.

He pulls deeply on the rancid Drina. “I didn’t beg because they were already dead, you see I knew they were going to die. Some things in life you are unable to change.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Miroslav erupts in an explosion of rage that takes everyone by surprise. He springs up sending his chair flying backwards and screams.

“I JUST SAID DO NOT APOLOGISE, DO NOT A…POL…LOG…GISE TO MEEEE!”

Only the echo of the rain gently hitting the warehouse roof high above breaks the silence. Everybody, including the watching crew cuts, quickly find something else to look at.

Regaining his composure, Miroslav adjusts his cuffs and tie. He bears down on Paula and speaks in his perfectly modulated Dracula accent.

“They took my family away and the next time I saw them was the following day, nailed to the trees lining the road to our town, their throats and stomachs slashed open.”

Miroslav smiles the maniac’s smile. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to do that to your child, such things are consigned to the past. Besides, that sort of behaviour would be intolerable in England’s green and pleasant land no?”

He pauses, and talks to his cigarette. “But, what I will do…what I will do is keep Emma with me for a while, just while we re-establish our working relationship. Remember those guarantees we discussed?”

“How…how long? How long will you keep her? What will you do with her?”

Miroslav shrugs, his eyes follow the swirling smoke.

“That would be down to you, purely down to you. The ball is…in your court, no? We conduct our business together and then your daughter is returned to you. If not? Well, there are plenty of trees in London.”

Footsteps splash behind her as Miroslav flicks his butt away. “Our business here is concluded. But before I go I want to leave you safe in the knowledge that your daughter is being well cared for, we Serbs are not animals you know.”

Strong hands grab at Paula; she doesn’t see or feel the hypodermic sliding into her arm. The heavy dose of Ketamine shooting into her vein engulfs her in a deep, smothering blanket of well-being. Her breathing becomes shallow, she slackens and her head rolls back. She’s out, and probably glad to be.