Part 5 (1/2)

'Except that this isn't a K and R job, is it, Nicholas? When have you ever been involved in the commercial world?'

I'd known it wouldn't be long before she rumbled that one. Recovering kidnap victims is quite a business. If the victim is recovered alive, you can cop a percentage of the premium that would have been paid out by the underwriters in the event of a death, or on any ransom demand. It wasn't entirely risk free, but Anna was right - it was a long way from being on the receiving end of an RPG.

'I'm doing it for Jules.' I s.h.i.+fted my chair closer to hers. 'I couldn't tell you over the phone.'

She lifted a hand and stroked my face. 'You look really pale, Nicholas. You sure you're feeling OK?'

'Sure. Too many planes, that's all.'

She got to her feet. 'Why don't you fix the car? I'll phone and check the hotel reservation, then call Lena. I'll wait for you outside.'

'Lena?'

'There's nothing Lena doesn't know about trafficking.'

I walked away with a bit of a spring in my step. The only negative so far was that there weren't any hotels at the airport. If we did find Lilian, we might have to hole up somewhere with her until Tresillian sorted out the safe-house. The beauty of an airport hotel is that all you have to do is scan the departures board, see which plane's leaving next, and leg it to the sales desk.

3

It was only fifteen Ks into Chisinau. There were a surprising number of s.h.i.+ny new BMWs and Mercedes weaving their way between the clapped-out trucks and tractors, but the road still wasn't exactly choked with traffic.

The fields on each side of us looked absolutely knackered. As with most of the old Eastern bloc the heavy use of agricultural chemicals, including banned pesticides like DDT, had ripped the heart out of the land. And severe soil erosion from diabolical farming methods had f.u.c.ked whatever chance these places had of being self-sufficient.

Anna grimaced as we pa.s.sed a police car. 'I've been to more than fifty different countries and I've never seen cops as corrupt as the ones here.'

'They certainly don't hang around. I had to cough up a fistful of dollars to get through Customs.'

'I was stopped here twice in two hours once, both for completely invented offences. They target locals the same. They don't even wait for people to do something wrong. The moment they've finished fleecing one victim, they flag down the next.'

Anna was on a roll.

'And it's not just about driving. Their favourite trick on a slow night is to stop foreigners at random for ”looking suspicious”. Two hundred lei is the standard fine. If we get stopped on the street you'll be asked for your pa.s.sport. The law says that foreigners have to carry them at all times. Photocopies aren't good enough. If you're alone, keep saying you don't speak Romanian or Russian. There are no guarantees, but if you're lucky they'll be too lazy to pursue it.'

We hit the city proper. Many of the people on the streets looked pretty well turned-out, particularly the young guys.

I nodded at a fancy-looking restaurant. 'I thought we were supposed to be in Europe's poorest country. Who can afford to eat in a place like that?'

'You don't want to know. Moldova's the same as everywhere in the old Soviet Union. There's a handful of haves and a whole nation of have-nots.' She stared out of the window at the wide concrete esplanades. 'Most people in Moldova don't live like this. They sc.r.a.pe by on less than three dollars a day. Away from the towns, work is scarce. I wrote a piece about a small village a few kilometres from Chisinau where every male had sold a kidney to the West. In lots of villages, only children and grand-parents remain. Over a million have left the country to find work. That doesn't include the numbers who've been trafficked.'

'I take it Tarasov is one of the haves?'

'For sure.'

'And how do we explain all the Mercs and Hummers?'

'The Moldovans like to claim Transnistria can't function independently. They say it doesn't have the industry or infrastructure - but they do, and not just through weapons manufacture. There's a 480-kilometre border with Ukraine and it's not controlled. As well as the sale of old Soviet military machinery, extortion of businessmen and money laundering, there is huge trafficking in arms, drugs and, of course, human beings. About two billion dollars are being laundered every year in Transnistria and no one wants to give that up without a fight.

'But what should really have the rest of the world sitting up and paying attention are the dozen or so companies that produce arms around the clock. They've turned up in Chechnya, Africa, all over - even in Iraq in Saddam's day and now Afghanistan. International organizations don't accept that Transnistria even exists, so they can't visit and investigate. There, Nicholas - next right.'

Anna directed me off the main. A couple of turns later, we pulled up outside another drab Soviet-era monolith a dozen storeys high. 'Forget the arms business. Everyone should just have shares in ready-mixed concrete.'

The Cosmos was pretty much in the centre of town. I could see a bank with an ATM, a shopping centre, restaurants, and a Western-style supermarket with a multi-storey attached.

I parked in a guest s.p.a.ce and walked towards the entrance, my day sack over my shoulder. She trundled her wheelie a step or two ahead of me.

'To be fair to Stalin, the city had to be totally rebuilt after the Second World War. The little the Germans left standing was flattened by an earthquake.'

As we approached the reception desk she stopped for a moment. 'I stay here a lot. They know me. That's why we're in separate rooms.' Her eyes suddenly sparkled. 'Besides, we're working. See you back in the lobby in fifteen minutes. Lena isn't that far away.'

4

Lena Kamenka's office was in the bas.e.m.e.nt of a run-down apartment building south-east of the city centre. An old woman scrubbing her doorstep with a brush and bucket pointed us to a staircase. There was a look of disapproval on her wizened face. Some things, it said, are best swept under the carpet and left there.

I followed Anna down the metal steps and stood behind her as she pressed the buzzer.

The girl who answered the door was in her early twenties. She had the kind of jet-black hair you can only get from a bottle.

'Welcome. Please come in.'

She led us along a corridor, past a battered sofa and coffee-table. The walls of Lena's office were lined with archive boxes. She sat behind a small desk strewn with files, waffling away at warp speed on the phone. She greeted Anna with a smile and a nod.

'You would like coffee?' The girl smiled shyly.

'Thank you.'

She left the room and Lena gestured to us to sit down. She carried on her conversation for another ten minutes in about three different languages. When she finally hung up, she threw her arms round Anna and greeted her like a long-lost sister.

I guessed Lena was about thirty. In a stylish blouse, grey cardigan and sharply tailored trousers, she looked more like a lawyer or businesswoman than a social worker - or she would have done if it hadn't been for her short, spiky blue hair and long, silver-painted fingernails.

She joined us at a small table covered with yet more files and loose-leaf binders. Photocopied head shots of young women stared up at us from their covers. Most were teenagers. One looked no older than twelve. None of them looked like Lilian.

Lena was a repatriation specialist. Her main task was bringing trafficked Moldovan girls home. Nearly all of them had been sold into prost.i.tution abroad.

'You are lucky to catch me in.' Lena sighed. She spoke English like it was her first language. 'I have to go to Odessa today to collect a girl off the ferry from Istanbul. There's usually somebody on it for us. As for the airport, sometimes I think I should just take my bed up there and move in.'

Brothel raids in countries like the UK, Germany and Holland produced many of her clients. Her number was on the walls of police stations all over the world.

Lena tapped her cell phone. She'd positioned it carefully in front of her and kept checking the signal every minute or so. 'I never switch it off. Sometimes they're just metres from the pimps. I might have only seconds to get their details. Often they don't even know what country they're in.'