Lost(35)

Satisfied with that part of her plan, Hanna had to firm up the details that would mean the difference between earning half a million euros or hiding from the Russians for the rest of her life.

Hanna had noticed surveillance at the port in Rotterdam; she’d started looking at alternative ports. She’d finally settled on Ostend, Belgium, near Bruges.

Her brother had put her in touch with the first mate of the Scandinavian Queen, a midsize freighter that operated under a Danish flag.

Now Hanna was meeting the first mate at a bar in Ostend. The place didn’t even have a name. It was just “the bar near the port.” The bare concrete floor showed stains of old fights. Other stains represented where patrons had puked up the thick Belgian beer.

She looked across the table at the tall, weather-beaten first mate. “My brother says you’re reliable and will make sure everyone arrives safely,” she said.

The fifty-year-old sailor nodded, then took another giant gulp of beer from an oversize mug. Albert had told her the man had been on the ship for the past seven years.

“For what I’m paying you, I expect reliability,” Hanna added. “I should probably expect more than that for the cost.”

The sailor put down his mug and looked across the table at her. “You came to me. Not the other way around. I know Albert and trust him, so I agreed. But taking shit from a skirt is not part of the price tag.”

He seemed to think that he’d put her in her place, which bothered Hanna. She chose her next actions carefully. She stood up from the table and marched away. With every step, she expected the first mate to call out and stop her. She paused ever so slightly at the door, lifting her hand to the knob slowly.

Still silence.

She stepped through the doorway into the evening air of Ostend. A cool breeze blew from the water. She couldn’t have people she paid talking to her like that. She’d have to find another way to move the load.

The specially built storage container she’d bought had already been moved to a facility just outside the port, and the plan was easy. Just before the ship was set to sail, she would have her cargo loaded. The extra-large container, with four air vents and a small toilet built into one corner, could be used over and over.

Apparently, the container would now have to be on a different ship.

As she reached her car, Hanna heard a man say, “Hold on.” It was the sailor.

She opened the car door as if she hadn’t heard him.

He raised his voice. “Perhaps I was a bit too blunt.”

Hanna glanced at him. “Too stupid is more like it.”

The man looked sheepish. Finally, he said, “I’ll do it. I can check on the container every day and bring them extra food. If I do it late enough, when most of the crew is asleep, I can even let them out onto the deck.”

Hanna thought about it, then said, “No. I’ll hire someone else.” She slid into the car.

The sailor stepped closer and said, “C’mon, I’ll do a great job.”

Hanna said, “For half the money.”

“You mean half the money up front?”

“No, nothing up front and half of our original price when the load arrives safely. That’s my only offer now. Consider it a tax on being reactionary and sexist.”

The man stood there, mulling over the offer. Finally, he said, “Damn, I thought your brother was the tough one.”





CHAPTER 51



Amsterdam


MAGDA ANDRUSKIEWICZ SAT on the edge of the bed. If she looked out the window, she could catch a glimpse of the moon. She’d turned sixteen a few months earlier, but to the other girls in the room with her, she was something like a mother.

Sitting next to her on the edge of the bed was a thirteen-year-old Belgian girl who couldn’t stop crying. The only common language they had was English, but the other girl’s accent was so thick it was difficult for Magda to follow what she was saying. As best she could tell, the girl was homesick. That didn’t explain why she was trying to get to the United States, but it did explain why Magda’s shoulder was soaking wet from the girl’s tears.

Magda didn’t know what else to do but put her arm around the girl and tell her everything would be all right. That approach had worked with the other girl crammed into the room with them. She was also sixteen and had been crying earlier, but Magda had gotten her to lie down quietly and close her eyes. The exhausted teenager had fallen asleep almost immediately.

Magda had left Poland with her older brother, intending to come to Amsterdam. They had met a nice man in Poland who’d said there was plenty of work in Amsterdam and easy transit to the U.S. from the Netherlands’ largest city.

The trip was a series of bus rides and hostel stays until they reached Germany. There, in a chaotic Berlin station full of refugees from various nations, they’d been caught up in a crushing crowd, and she’d gotten separated from her brother. Magda didn’t have any identification or a working mobile phone, and she was too scared to go to the police.

She waited in Berlin for three days, hoping to find her brother again, searching the streets; she’d even tried e-mailing him from an internet café.

Out of options, she had found a way to get to the United States, thinking she could get in touch with her brother from there. The lady who had set everything up, Hanna, had even given her a new backpack with clothes and a few other things. Hanna told Magda that she could get her into the United States and that all Magda would have to do was work for someone in Miami to pay off the expense. It sounded like a pretty good deal.