Excerpt from
MADE IN THE IMAGE
by Mickie Turk
PROLOGUE
Andy O’Keefe knew
he was being watched, but not by the blue-grey uniforms assigned to the lines.
He had felt
Sasha’s limpid stare tracking him since early morning. It started when he
finished retrieving data from a frozen hard drive. While putting his tools
away, Andy dropped a screwdriver behind him. When he turned around, the
gangling Russian slave was holding it in his hands standing like a bird of
prey, blinking hard. Andy had felt naked, like bait. During lunch, Sasha
watched him eat his whole sandwich before going outside to smoke. Was he on to
him? Was this really how it would all end? After six months of dogged
surveillance, wiretaps, and countless man-hours and resources poured into
undercover police work, to be outmaneuvered and trounced by a twelve-year-old?
Or was the boy just curious about the outsider. A non-Russian, looking anything
like but what you might expect in a techie. Andy refused to wear a uniform,
just stuck to jeans and a tee. His hair was always in his eyes, too long, and
subject to cowlicks. A real live American.
Maybe the kid was
lonely and wanted a friend. But he didn’t speak English. And they both knew
that the illegal factory made for a lousy neighborhood meet-and-greet. A
cavernous space laid out in twelve rows, eight boys to each. Serious looking
goons walking back and forth making sure no one dropped a stitch. A place where
young supple hands and small dexterous fingers—ideal tools for quick and
efficient assembly—attached small parts to circuit boards. The new startup
company, MotionAmerica, specialized in motors and drives used in semiconductor
technology. Andy had it on authority that ever since sales had started to soar,
more and more of the company’s profits had to be laundered. Not much of a surprise
when the biggest overhead, salaries and benefits, had been eliminated. When you
only employed itinerant workers and human slaves, anything was possible. Hear!
Hear! America was about to become great again.
No, Andy didn’t
think it was safe to chummy up with one of the kids, not yet. Not with so much
at stake. But at the end of the day that is exactly what the undercover cop
would do.
Andy closed the
cover on the main server. The motherboard inside the installation computer was
as good as new. He looked at his watch. Just enough time to check in with the
captain and make it to the World Series game. Not just any World Series, but
the first of the season played at Marlin Park, where, if there were any justice
in the world, the Marlins would soon be thrashing the Minnesota Twins. But just
then, flailing hands and pointing fingers beckoned him to the back of the room.
Now he would be late. Shit, those tickets cost $250.00 each.
He walked over to
the Sasha’s computer expecting the worst. The page was open to Google
Translate. Andy glanced at the computer screen, back at Sasha who for once was
not looking at him, then back at the screen. With a simple keystroke Russian
morphed into English and, for the first time, Andy felt the crust of everyday
routine lift. The air crackled with promise.
I KNOW THINGS. I
CAN HELP.
It was time to
call in their secret weapon.
Lydia.
CHAPTER ONE
Ten
months later
Special Agent
Lydia Angelova wished she could take off her jacket. The air conditioning in
the truck was no match for Miami summer heat and humidity. But that would give
her away. She looked in the rear view mirror and liked what she saw. A ball cap
pulled down low over her forehead and oversized sunglasses camouflaged her
delicate feminine features. She looked just like another UPS driver. She looked
like a guy. Satisfied, she pulled high-powered binoculars to her head and
scanned the horseshoe-shaped warehouse across the interstate. Two-story square
buildings attached by a series of steel garage doors, lined up like concrete
cutouts. A half-dozen unwashed white vans lounged at a deserted loading dock.
The small parking lot was full but quiet. On the western side, men and boys
stood around eating sandwiches. When they finished, they smoked. As soon as two
boys came out of a door at the opposite end and sat down on the stoop to eat
their lunch, Lydia slid into drive.
She parked at an
angle, positioning the UPS truck to keep her and the informant concealed from
the rest of the warehouse and most of the parking lot. She studied the two
boys. Where Sasha was tall and fair, golden-eyed like a cat, Tadzio was dark
haired, short and stocky, with round mournful brown eyes. While he ate his
sandwich, the younger boy kept his eyes on the ground, trained on a sketchpad
and broken pencil. When Lydia stepped out of the truck, Sasha smiled at his
friend and then gently elbowed him in the ribs. Without a word, the younger boy
swallowed the rest of his sandwich, gathered up his drawing materials, and
clambered up the stairs.
Only then did
Lydia speak. She loved the guttural resonance of Russian but had few
opportunities to use it.
"Где же вы были? Я ехал сюда пять раз в две
недели фиктивные поставки. Я не смел спросить о вас. Даже не—"
“Where on earth
have you been? I drove here five times in two weeks on bogus deliveries. I
didn’t dare ask about you. Not even—”
They watched the
departing Tadzio shut the door behind him.
“I imagined the
worst. You had me so scared,” she said.
“They sent me to
another facility to learn a new computer program. Right now I’m their star
pupil. That’s good, don’t you think? I can be more help to you.”
Lydia didn’t want
more help from Sasha. She wanted it to be over. To be able to break the case
and free all the boys. The case to break all cases. If everything went right,
this bust would lay the foundation for identifying future crimes before they
even happened. Not only would mid-and high-level Russian traffickers go to
prison, their slaves would be freed and given a new chance at life. And best of
all, everyone would find out about it. Word would leap across continents that
the Russian crime syndicate was invadable. When news broke out that mere
children fought back and snitched on their captors, world traffickers would
lose credibility. In the future, it wouldn’t be so easy to rely on complete
submission from their victims. Lest one betray them, like Sasha had.
Sasha wrinkled his
brow when he saw Lydia’s eyes dart back and forth. He knew that’s what she did
when she was deep in thought, but he never liked it. It took her away from him.
Then he saw her reach inside her pocket and he beamed.
“New iPod. For me?
What do I tell the others?”
“Tell them I’m a
perv trying to get next to you.”
Sasha laughed.
“Good plan. Thanks, everyone will be jealous.”
Lydia said,
“Anything new I should know about?”
“No, the delivery
is still going down like I said before. Same place, same time. In a week. It’s
big, the biggest, I think.”
Sasha tore his
gaze away from his present to scrutinize Lydia. He raised a slender finger.
Before she could
stop him, her ball cap slid off. As it did, long dark chestnut tresses fell
past her shoulders. She took off her sunglasses and smiled.
“You remind me of
my mother. But not so tired. What’s going to happen to me? I can’t go back.
There’s nothing there for me anymore,” the boy said.
Lydia knew Sasha
was right. He had no one. And now he was working as a slave for the same people
that had annihilated his family only two years earlier. Back in Russia, his
father had been murdered for turning state’s evidence against the mob. At first
his mother tried to keep it together, but they soon ran out of money, then
food, and finally she had to sell their apartment to settle debts. Out on the
streets, Sasha’s mother gave up and began disassociating from reality. Right
before pneumonia killed her, she had stopped talking to her son, because she no
longer recognized him.
Lydia quickly
wrapped up her hair, popped the ball cap back on, and adjusted her sunglasses.
“Don’t worry. I
gave you my word. I will find you a good home. I promise, you’re going to love
it.”
“But I want to
live with you, Lydia.”
Sasha’s gaze
strayed upward. Lydia followed it and detected a slight movement in a small
round window on the second story stairwell. The noonday sun appeared to melt
the glass, but they could still make out the chubby round cheeks mashed against
windowpane. As quickly, they slid their eyes past the truck when they heard
footsteps on the tarmac. Lydia grabbed a package from the passenger side and
mumbled, “I better get going.”
Sasha got up to
follow when a strong hand gripped his neck.
The man was a
human block and he matched the building. Grey, nondescript, and square. The
block snatched Sasha’s iPod and scowled.
"Из драйвера ИБП. Я думаю, что он любит
меня."
“Where did you get
this?”
“From the UPS driver. I think he likes me.”
“Don’t you know
anything about pedophiles? First they give you gifts, and then they want
blowjobs. Maybe you want that too?”
Sasha said, “You’re
sick. Give it back. He tugged at the electronic device. The
block spat at the ground. A sickly yellow mass pooled next to Sasha’s foot. He
let go of the player but not before jabbing the boy in the back. “Just
be sure you’re not, or Markiza will feed you to the wolves.”
____________________
Tadzio couldn’t
wait any longer for Sasha in the stairwell. The bell rang for the second time
and he had to go back to work. They would be expecting him to restart the
all-day task of shredding paper. The boy trod up the last set of stairs and was
almost through the doorway when someone blocked his way. He had to point his
chin way up to the ceiling to see the top of the man’s head and then froze.
Markiza. He wasn’t scowling for once; instead he smiled before bending down to
pat his head. When he saw the behemoth reach for his sketchpad, Tadzio quickly
drew his hand back. The boy slid between the man’s legs and was almost free
when another man sandwiched him. He looked back to see Markiza waggle his
fingers.
“Дай мне это мальчик.”
“Give it to me boy.”
This time, while
the back of his throat began to close and small tears formed in the corners of
his eyes, Tadzio let go and as he did, something smooth and cool pressed
against his palm. A clear plastic bag with an unmarked drawing pad and a box of
brand new colored pencils. Tadzio immediately forgot about his sketchbook.
____________________
Markiza carried
Tadzio’s sketchbook to his office, sat down, and began flipping through the
drawings. The first pages detailed the factory space—young boys at work, their
handlers standing over them. On a separate sheet, the same room, same
perspective, but Markiza was in it this time and shown shouting at a
subordinate. He was the biggest thing in the room. Markiza liked that. The boy
had talent. His friend Sasha dominated many of the next pages—standing,
sitting, or working at a computer. All normal observations until he got to the
drawings of the UPS truck. There were dozens of renderings detailing a variety
of angles and perspectives of the vehicle. Much like what a photographer might
do if he were obsessed with a delivery truck. In the last sketches, Tadzio
inserted a driver. In one, the UPS driver had just stepped out of the vehicle
carrying a small package under his arm. He wore a ball cap and sunglasses. It
could have been a mock-up for the company’s ad campaign. In another, the driver
had climbed back into the truck with Sasha waving behind him. The next one
showed the same driver leaning against the truck grinning, smoking. Sasha stood
next to him, also smoking. In the last one, the driver’s half-closed eyelids
exposed long curled eyelashes like a doll’s. Here, Tadzio’s cartoon-like motion
of Sasha flipping back the ball cap, revealed a shock of thick luxuriant hair
flowing past the narrow shoulders of a female.
CHAPTER TWO
Darryl King sank
his body deeper into the earth and was barely conscious of Andy next to him
until the other man chirped.
“Darryl, sting and
stakeout are two different animals. A sting is art. You create diversions,
misdirections, traps; then you storm the citadel like a Roman. That’s art. But
stakeout is only a distant relative of surveillance; it comes from the practice
of surveyors, who mainly measure stuff before a project commences. This here,
what we’re doing, is a stakeout. But this here, should be a sting.”
“Don’t let Lydia
hear you say that,” Darryl said.
“I’m just saying,
if it’s coming, it better come soon. Besides, she doesn’t scare me,” Andy said.
“Really? Because
she does most people.” Darryl said.
They continued to
lay at the top of an earthen berm above the interstate in companionable
silence. Thanks to a night sky that was both moonless and cloudless, neither
man could see the other’s expression nor read his thoughts for once. But they
were thinking the same thing. The Russians weren’t coming.
They had been
watching the frontage road that led into the industrial park for almost three
hours. At the bottom of the steep embankment, Lydia and Captain Carlos Sans sat
cramped together inside a mobile unit monitoring video images of the deserted
loading dock. Further back in an empty field, a convoy of squad cars and
armored trucks filled with police in riot gear, sat at the ready. When Sans
gave them the order, they would drive their vehicles over the berm and across
the freeway to do their own version of rushing the fortress.
Lydia called on
the radiophone, “Darryl, what’s Andy doing?”
“Same thing he was
when you asked two minutes ago. Looking through night vision goggles at
concrete and seeing nothing. Right Andy? He says, right.”
“Fuck you two
reptiles. You’re missing something.”
Darryl said, “You
can’t fool me. I know you love us.”
Sans took the
radiophone away from Lydia. “Just let us know when you do see something.”
For the third
time, Darryl wondered how much longer Sans was going to let this charade go on.
His gut told him nothing was going to happen tonight, and it must be obvious to
everyone else that something had spooked the Russians. Otherwise they’d be here
already. He knew how disappointed Lydia would be.
Sans trusted Lydia
like she trusted Sasha. She had promised to deliver Markiza, arguably the
world’s biggest and shrewdest trafficker, so Sans threw unprecedented dollars
into the investigation. On top of everything else, he had called in his last
markers to get a judge to run a wire on the warehouse. They had taps on the
factory, the enjoining dormitory, and two of Markiza’s lieutenants’ cell
phones.
Lydia was known
among police investigators as the Miami architect of confidence games. If she
had enough manpower and dollars to work with, no criminal was safe from her.
Responsible for everything from design to delivery, she had exposed government
fraud, brought down a major international banking system, put away a psychopathic
killer, and got a high-level drug lord to rat on another. But that was before
she got emotionally involved with an informant.
Darryl mused that
at one time he been the recipient of that much care and love. Once, months
after they had broken up, Lydia had asked him what had been the happiest time
of his life. He answered truthfully. The six months they spent together.
Without saying another word she patted his forearm with forgiving strokes and
then kissed him on the cheek. She knew what it had cost him to tell her that.
She wasn’t greedy or vindictive; it was just that occasionally she needed to
know that her own love hadn’t happened in a vacuum.
Not in all the
years he’d been married to Karen had he been that happy, or felt that
comfortable around another human being. So it was with something like amazement
that he’d discovered himself determined to quit the relationship. He always
knew the pervasive reason for his decision, but on occasion, such as now, he
questioned why his heart had allowed his brain to surrender so easily. When it
knew the brain was telling brazen lies.
That morning
seemed like yesterday. His hands had been full of Lydia—her luscious taught
body, that riot of unruly first-thing-in-the-morning thick hair—as she dragged
him into the brightly lit bathroom to show him their reflection. From the side,
they looked like a single braided human in two color strands. She leaned into
him lolling her head across his broad chest; one of her legs was pulled up
seductively balancing the heel and ball of her foot against his calf. While she
encircled his neck with arms pulled back and stretched like a gymnast’s, he had
his hands wrapped around her waist, his chin dipped into her shoulder. Their
chiaroscuro portrayal glistened from the night’s lovemaking, and Lydia said she
recognized a magazine cover when she saw one. The last thing Darryl expected
was for that same likeness inside the looking glass to jump out and mock him.
Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bones. Not on
your life, baby. Where the hell had that come from?
His face was all
dark angles across features that since childhood family and friends had told
him were striking, and so far his forty-year-old body had not betrayed him. It
was still lean and muscular like a long-distance runner’s. He eased out of the
embrace and saw Lydia as if for the first time. Yet he knew it was a trick, and
that some part of him was deliberately sabotaging the best thing that had
happened to him. And he allowed it.
Shape and
proportion gave way to color. Or the lack of color. Before this he had thought
of her as olive-skinned with plenty of pigment because after all, Lydia had
been the only progeny of a Mexican artist and a Bulgarian banker. But here
standing next to him, her skin resembled fine alabaster. He was too shocked to
feel any shame for what he was thinking about.
How could he move
past the color contrast between them when he finally glimpsed what others must
have always seen? His mother and sister—the looks, the hushed tones whenever he
first brought Lydia around. He remembered how he tried to ignore their
occasional white-people jokes, their not-so-subtle suggestions to sign up with
a black dating service. And then his mind traced dinners at fashionable
restaurants that he and Lydia shared, the walks on the boardwalk afterwards,
and so many Sunday afternoons on the beach. People always stared at them and he
thought it was because they were so damned good looking together. Could he have
been that naïve? Even at that juncture, he could have easily shut off the
thoughts that lead to hell. Later...it really would be too late.
He could see now
that wasn’t what mattered. Truth, it didn’t bother him what others thought. And
his own family couldn’t help themselves; they fell in love with Lydia about the
same time he did. His sister said later that she had been expecting wedding
bells to chime.
The elephant in
the bathroom had never been about their color differences—even though he did
think about that sometimes. It was a self-created obstacle. It was his fear of
failing again and becoming like his father. If fear were energy, the anxiety
and dread that coursed through him when he stared at the reflection of their
intertwined bodies, could have fueled a small planet. To get away from the fire
that was about to consume him, he excused himself from love by drawing a bogus
race card and then for good measure, told himself that he could never fully
trust Lydia.
When Darryl
stepped back from the mirror, peeling apart their photo op, Lydia knew what he
was thinking and had screamed a defiant No. He’d left that morning without an
explanation but sent her a letter a few days later. She answered it with two
sentences.
I think I’m going to die. Nothing has ever
hurt this much.
Darryl was pulled
back from the past when his partner poked him in the shoulder. Andy held a
finger to his tightly closed lips and pointed with another to his headset. He
pulled off one ear bud and handed it to Darryl. Together they listened to an
argument that should have remained private. It seemed either Sans or Lydia
forgot to shut off their transmitter.
“Look Lydia, we
can stay a little longer, but these riot squads guys, they’re getting paid in gold bullion. I can’t justify much
more overtime for them.”
Lydia’s voice
began calmly enough, “Something’s holding them up. You know for a fact that
Sasha has never been wrong before. Thanks to him we’ve identified mob
lieutenants, Miami business partners, banks, holding companies—all linked to
Markiza. He’s got this too. We have to be patient.”
Sans said, “I think
he was right.”
With a start,
Darryl pictured Lydia’s stomach clenching.
“You think they’re
onto him? But how? He’s discreet. Never talks or sees anyone. No computer
searches could lead back to him. He’s too good.”
Sans said, “They
might have spotted something between you two. Held the shipment back to see
what would happen.”
“But Andy...he
would have known before anyone. God, Captain. Schedules change. Besides, we
know that the boys are in the country. And they’re coming here.”
Sans shrugged.
“Maybe, maybe not. Distribution might have been relocated. If that happened,
we’re back to square one.”
“No. They’ll be
here.”
“Lydia, it’s not
your fault. I’m not holding you responsible. Listen, if—”
Andy pulled up his
binoculars and adjusted his microphone, “Captain, Lydia, two vans rounding the
corner. Watch where they go.”
After a beat,
Lydia said, “I see movement, I told you.” It sounded like she smacked something
hard because the ear buds popped like firecrackers in their ears.
Darryl and Andy
continued watching as two ordinary looking, white-paneled vans drove slowly
into the parking lot. They parked side by side. A man got out of each van and
shook hands with the other. They pulled out cigarettes and lit up. The
detectives watched in disbelief as one of them found a flask, took a swallow,
and handed it off to the other man. Ten minutes went by. The men talked,
smoked, and laughed.
“’Captain, what
are they saying?” Andy asked
“Lydia says
they’re swapping gardening tips.”
This time Darryl
and Andy looked at each other and clearly saw what the other was thinking.
Darryl grabbed the mic. “Shit. They’re throwing it in our face. Giving us the
finger. And you know what’s next, don’t you?”
They all knew. A
stink bomb. They heard Lydia shout, “So what! We have them.”
Darryl’s voice
snapped over the radio. “What the hell’s going on?”
Sans said, “You
two can belly on down now. We’re leaving.”
Lydia said, “NO!!
You can’t. I’m primary on this. I say when. Besides, two minutes ago I had more
time. Now just because the thugs are taking a cigarette break, you call it
quits?”
“You might be
primary but I’m your superior officer. So pull yourself together. You know what
happens next. It won’t be worth it.”
Lydia cried,
“Look!”
The men flicked
their cigarette butts into the air and strode to the back of the vans. Out of
each vehicle they pulled out six sleepy boys and lined them up in a row. Next
they marched them across the parking lot to the eastern end where they shoved
them through the delivery door Sasha always used whenever he met Lydia.
Sans spat. “I knew
it. See, that’s the stink bomb. They throw a few kids in our face, but they
know we know it’s not enough.”
Lydia said, “Are
you insane? They’re little boys about to be sold into slavery. We have a legal
and moral obligation to help them. I gave Sasha my word.”
“Since when do you
report to a child? You report to me and your obligation is to follow orders.”
Scraping and shuffling noises made it sound like Sans was on the move or wanted
to be. “Your source promised me two-hundred boys. You know we can’t make our
case with just a few. We’ll never get Markiza this way.”
“Plus the seventy
kids inside,” Lydia said.
“You’re forgetting
something. If we move now, we’ll never find the others. Ever. So we have to
wait.”
“For what? For more
innocent children to get abused? To die? You bastard.” “Lydia—”
“If they’re onto
Sasha, they’ll kill him. It’ll be on you.”
“No, special
detective, it’s on you. You’ve completely lost your objectivity. Your emotional
hang-up with this Russian boy has overshadowed good police instincts. What the
fuck happened to you, Lydia? How did you lose the ground beneath you?”
“I walked up on a
bigger stage.”
Sans sounded
bewildered. “You were trained to withstand the effects of emotional
involvement. You’re better than this.”
“You can’t know
what’s really inside until something like this case opens you up.”
Forgetting that
they were still eavesdropping Andy cut in. “Lydia, it’ll be okay. Captain’s got
a point. We have to find all of the kids. And Markiza.”
“Fuck you.”
Darryl said, “Lyd.
I hate this just as much as you. But you know it’s not over. We’re going to get
them, right? Just not tonight.”
Lydia said, “It
never occurred to me that you two would sandbag me. How stupid was I?”
CHAPTER THREE
When Lydia walked
down Biscayne Boulevard people gave her wide berth. Not because they were
afraid of her—although some might be—but mainly to get a better, longer look
before she turned into an afterimage and then disappeared altogether.
The Special
Intelligence detective was tall and leggy with a slim athletic build; today she
wore her hair gathered into a thick ropy braid that switched like a nervous
pony’s. She wore a faded jean jacket with a white tank underneath, fitted
chinos that molded to buttocks like they had been ironed onto her body, and
rugged black lace-up boots. Green-tinted, mirrored shades accentuated a mixture
of delicate and sharp features. She had skin that was tawny and as soft as a
chamois cloth, and full pink lips that glinted in the sun. People always
looked. But the manner in which she got scoped depended on who was doing the
scoping.
Lydia knew she
invited attention. She didn’t really mind because she likened her fast walking,
strong body to a traveling mirror that could secretly record the city’s social
yearnings. Along the roadway while men and women examined and passed judgment
on her, often heaping on flirtatious leers; others showing disapproval or even
jealousy, Lydia sensed escaping memories, secret dreams and desires, unspoken
sadness and loneliness, and the unwinding emotional toll of being alive.
The old Cuban men
always took the full snapshot and almost immediately withdrew their ogling eyes
when Lydia returned their stare, but not before something shifted behind
clouded gazes. Behind the ruins of their old selves lay hidden memories of
strolling down Havana’s romantic seafront promenade with a girl who might have
looked a lot like Lydia. During a time when war and embargo had not collided
with their youth, managing to lock out childhood dreams forever.
The younger Cuban
males, who never had to witness bloodied history right outside of their front
doors, assessed Lydia with everything from overbearing gaping to whispered
catcalls. She thought their actions were typical of the unemployed youth; they
belied a bored, unfulfilled existence that no amount of swagger or machismo
could mask.
Cuban women with
small children often smiled up at her shyly, as if hoping that a drop of her
essence might imbue their progeny with the same kind of confidence and success
she seemed to possess. Sometimes Lydia looked back to see the women still
watching her. They could never dream that even though she had the right kind of
exterior packaging, inside and on most days, she felt as helpless as any one of
them.
Black and dark
Latino men watched her obliquely but took the most time. They hardly ever
smiled but something in their gait slowed and altered, as if their thoughts
were being invaded; for a split second they thought they might know her. Might
stop and talk to her. But they never did. Because even though more than thirty
years had passed since the savage beating and death of Arthur McDuffie by white
Miami police officers, the hurt was still too deep, the cultural divide still
too wide. Lydia was more white than Latino and, if they looked closer, they
would know that the bulge under her jacket could only be a gun belonging to a
cop.
Black and dark
Latino women appeared to ignore her but managed to slide their eyes sideways
for the quickest release of the shutter. It was enough. She was an attractive
giant who posed no threat to them.
