Vanish (32 page)

mere smile and a cup of coffee. She did not take even a sip, but set the cup down in a silent

rebuff to this woman’s attempts at a truce.

“Do we get to ask questions?” Jane asked. “Or will this be a one-way interrogation?”

“I wish we
could
answer all your questions. But we have an active investigation to protect,”

said Glasser. “It’s no reflection on you. We’ve done background checks on you and Agent

Dean. You’ve both distinguished yourselves as fine law enforcement officers.”

“Yet you don’t trust us.”

Glasser shot her a look as steely as the color of her hair. “We can’t afford to trust anyone. Not

on a matter this sensitive. Agent Barsanti and I have tried our best to keep our work quiet, but

every move we make has been tracked. Our computers have been quietly accessed, my office

was broken into, and I’m not sure my phone is secure. Someone is tunneling into our

investigation.” She set down her coffee cup. “Now I need to know what
you’re
doing here, and

why you went to that house.”

“Probably for the same reason you had it under surveillance.”

“You know what happened there.”

“We’ve seen Detective Wardlaw’s files.”

“You’re a long way from home. What’s your interest in the Ashburn case?”

“Why don’t you answer a question for us first,” said Jane. “Why is the Justice Department so

interested in the deaths of five prostitutes?”

Glasser was silent, her expression unreadable. Calmly she took a sip from her coffee cup, as

though the question had not even been asked of her. Jane could not help but feel a stab of

admiration for this woman, who had yet to show even a glimpse of vulnerability. Clearly

Glasser was the one in command here.

“You’re aware that the victims’ identities have never been established,” said Glasser.

“Yes.”

“We believe they were undocumented aliens. We’re trying to find out how they got into the

country. Who brought them in, and which routes they took to penetrate our borders.”

“Are you going to tell us this is all about national security?” Jane could not keep the skepticism

out of her voice.

“That’s only part of it. Ever since September eleventh, Americans just assume that we’ve

tightened our borders, that we’ve clamped down on illegal immigration. That’s hardly the case.

The illicit traffic moving between Mexico and the US is still as busy as a major highway. We

have miles and miles of unmonitored coastline. A Canadian border that’s scarcely patrolled.

And human smugglers know all the routes, all the tricks. Shipping in girls is easy. And once

they’ve brought them here, it’s not hard to put them to work.” Glasser set her cup on the coffee

table. She leaned forward, her eyes like polished ebony. “Do you know how many involuntary

sex workers we have in this country? Our so-called civilized country? At least fifty thousand.

I’m not talking about prostitutes. These are slaves, serving against their will. Thousands of

girls brought into the US where they simply vanish. They become invisible women. Yet

they’re all around us, in big cities, small towns. Hidden in brothels, locked into apartments.

And few people know they even exist.”

Jane remembered the bars on the windows, and thought of the isolation of that house. No

wonder it had made her think of a prison;
that’s exactly what it was.

“These girls are terrified of cooperating with authorities. The consequences, if they’re caught

by their pimps, is too horrible. And even if the girls do escape, and they do make it back to

their home countries, they can still be tracked down there. They’re better off dead.” She paused.

“You saw the autopsy report on victim number five. The older one.”

Jane swallowed. “Yes.”

“What happened to her was a very clear message.
Fuck with us, and you end up like this.
We

don’t know what she did to make them angry, what line she stepped over. Maybe she pocketed

money that wasn’t hers. Maybe she was doing business on the side. Clearly, she was the

matron of that house, in a position of authority, but it didn’t save her. Whatever she did wrong,

she paid for it. And the girls paid with her.”

“So your investigation isn’t about terrorism at all,” said Gabriel.

“What would terrorism have to do with this?” Barsanti asked.

“Undocumented aliens coming in from eastern Europe. The possibility of a Chechen

connection.”

“These women were brought into the country purely for commerce, and not for any other

reason.”

Glasser frowned at Gabriel. “Who mentioned terrorism to you?”

“Senator Conway did. As well as the deputy director of National Intelligence.”

“David Silver?”

“He flew up to Boston in response to the hostage crisis. That’s what they believed they were

dealing with at the time. A Chechen terrorist threat.”

Glasser snorted. “David Silver is fixated on terrorists, Agent Dean. He sees them under every

bridge and overpass.”

“He said the concern went all the way to the top. That’s why Director Wynne sent him.”

“That’s what the DNI is paid to think about. It’s how he justifies his existence. For these

people, it’s
all terrorism, all the time.
”

“Senator Conway seemed concerned about it as well.”

“You trust the senator?”

“Shouldn’t I?”

Barsanti said, “You’ve had dealings with Conway, haven’t you?”

“Senator Conway’s on the intelligence committee. We met a number of times, about my work

in Bosnia. The war crimes investigations.”

“But how well do you actually
know
him, Agent Dean?”

“You’re implying that I don’t.”

“He’s been a senator for three terms,” said Glasser. “To last that long, you have to make a lot

of deals, a lot of compromises along the way. Be careful whom you trust. That’s all we’re

saying. We learned that lesson a long time ago.”

“So terrorism isn’t what concerns you here,” said Jane.

“My concern is fifty thousand vanished women. It’s about slavery within our borders. It’s

about human beings abused and exploited by clients who only care about getting a good fuck.”

She paused and took a deep breath. “That’s what this is all about,” she finished quietly.

“This sounds like a personal crusade for you.”

Glasser nodded. “It has been for almost four years.”

“Then why didn’t you save those women in Ashburn? You must have known what was going

on in that house.”

Glasser said nothing; she didn’t have to. Her stricken look confirmed what Jane had already

guessed.

Jane looked at Barsanti. “That’s why you showed up at the crime scene so quickly. Practically

at the same time the police did. You already knew what was going on there. You must have.”

“We’d gotten the tip only a few days before,” said Barsanti.

“And you didn’t immediately step in? You didn’t rescue those women?”

“We had no listening devices in place yet. No way to monitor what was really happening

inside.”

“Yet you knew it was a brothel. You knew they were trapped in there.”

“There was more at stake than you realize,” said Glasser. “Far more than just those five

women. We had a larger investigation to protect, and if we stepped in too early, we would have

blown our chances of secrecy.”

“And now five women are dead.”

“You think I don’t
know
that?” Glasser’s anguished response startled them all. Abruptly, she

rose to her feet and paced over to the window, where she stood gazing out at the city lights.

“Do you know what the worst export our country ever sent to Russia was? The one thing we

gave them that I wish to God had never been made? That movie,
Pretty Woman.
You know,

the one with Julia Roberts. The prostitute as Cinderella. In Russia, they love that movie. The

girls see it and think: If I go to America, I’ll meet Richard Gere. He’ll marry me, I’ll be rich,

and I’ll live happily ever after. So even if the girl’s suspicious, even if she’s not sure a

legitimate job’s really waiting for her in the US, she figures she’ll only have to turn a few

tricks, and then Richard Gere will show up to rescue her. So the girl gets put on a flight, say, to

Mexico City. From there, she travels by boat to San Diego. Or the traffickers drive her through

a busy border crossing, and if she’s blond and speaks English, she’ll get waved right through.

Or sometimes, they’ll just walk her across. She thinks she’s coming to live the life of
Pretty

Woman.
Instead, she’s bought and sold like a side of beef.” Glasser turned and looked at Jane.

“Do you know what a nice-looking girl can earn for a pimp?”

Jane shook her head.

“Thirty thousand dollars a week. A
week.
” Glasser’s gaze turned back to the window. “There

aren’t any mansions with Richard Gere waiting to marry you. You end up locked in a house or

apartment, supervised by the real monsters in the business. The people who train you, enforce

discipline, crush your spirit. Other women.”

“Jane Doe number five,” said Gabriel.

Glasser nodded. “The house mother. So to speak.”

“Killed by the same people she worked for?” said Jane.

“When you swim with sharks, you’re bound to get bitten.”

Or, in this case, have your hands crushed, the bones pulverized, thought Jane. Punishment for

some trespass, some betrayal.

“Five women died in that house,” said Glasser. “But there are fifty thousand other lost souls

out there, trapped in the land of the free. Abused by men who just want sex and don’t give a

damn if the whore is sobbing. Men who never spare a thought for the human being they just

used. Maybe the man goes home to the wife and kids, plays the good husband. But days or

weeks later, he’s back at the brothel, to fuck some girl who may be his daughter’s age. And it

never occurs to him, every morning when he looks in the mirror, that he’s staring at a

monster.” Glasser’s voice had dropped to a tight whisper. She took a deep breath, and rubbed

the back of her neck, as though massaging away the rage.

“Who was Olena?” Jane asked.

“Her full name? We’ll probably never know it.”

Jane looked at Barsanti. “You followed her all the way to Boston, and you never even knew

her name?”

“But we knew something else about her,” said Barsanti. “We knew she was a witness. She was

in that house, in Ashburn.”

This is it, thought Jane. The link between Ashburn and Boston. “How do you know?” she

asked.

“Fingerprints. The crime scene unit collected literally dozens of unidentified prints in that

house. Prints that didn’t match any of the victims. Some of them may have been left by male

clients. But one set of unidentifieds matched Olena’s.”

“Wait a minute,” said Gabriel. “Boston PD immediately requested an AFIS search on Olena’s

prints. They got back absolutely no matches. Yet you’re telling me her prints were found at a

crime scene in January? Why didn’t AFIS gives us that information?”

Glasser and Barsanti glanced at each other. An uneasy look that only too clearly answered

Gabriel’s question.

“You kept her prints out of AFIS,” said Gabriel. “That was information Boston PD could have

used.”

“Other parties could have used it as well,” said Barsanti.

“Who the hell are these
others
you talk about?” cut in Jane. “I was the one trapped in the

hospital with that woman. I was the one with a gun to my head. Did you ever give a damn

about the hostages?”

“Of course we did,” said Glasser. “But we wanted
everyone
out of there alive. Including

Olena.”

“Especially Olena,” said Jane. “Since she was your witness.”

Glasser nodded. “She saw what happened in Ashburn. That’s why those two men showed up

in her hospital room.”

“Who sent them?”

“We don’t know.”

“You have the fingerprints on the man she shot. Who was he?”

“We don’t know that, either. If he was ex-military, the Pentagon isn’t telling us.”

“You’re with Justice. And
you
can’t get access to that information?”

Glasser crossed toward Jane and sat down in a chair, looking at her. “Now you understand the

hurdles we’re facing. Agent Barsanti and I have had to handle this quietly and discreetly.

We’ve stayed under the radar, because
they
were looking for her, too. We were hoping to find

her first. And we came so close. From Baltimore to Connecticut to Boston, Agent Barsanti has

been just one step behind her.”

“How were you able to track her?” asked Gabriel.

“For a while it was easy. We just followed the trail left by Joseph Roke’s credit card. His ATM

withdrawals.”

Barsanti said, “I kept reaching out to him. Voice mails on his cell phone. I even left a message

with an old aunt of his in Pennsylvania. Finally Roke called me back, and I tried to talk him

into coming in. But he wouldn’t trust me. Then he shot that policeman in New Haven, and we

lost track of them entirely. That’s when I think they split up.”

“How did you know they were traveling together?”

“The night of the Ashburn slayings,” said Glasser, “Joseph Roke bought gas at a nearby

service station. He used his credit card, then asked the clerk if the station had a tow truck,

because he’d picked up two women on the road who needed help with their car.”

There was a silence. Gabriel and Jane looked at each other.

“
Two
women?” said Jane.