I hate cameras or surveillance of any kind—a feeling from my former life that I don’t understand. Nevertheless, I pray faced away, whispering the Jesus prayer.
One of the guards asked me whether I would like a cross for the wall. I told him I would prefer an icon, and he was able to get one similar to the one I found on the steppes—a little more modern, but Jesus wears the same colors and holds his hand in the same beautiful gesture. This icon serves as a window to heaven just the same as one covered with gold or lit with a thousand suns.
I don’t think he got it for me out of kindness; I believe my being a nun makes me desirable to bidders with evil intentions.
Still I am grateful.
I pray for salvation from my dark past, and for a peaceful and righteous way to lead these captive sisters of mine to safety.
Chapter Six
Viktor
Aleksio has me help him with the money-laundering surveillance and the plans for the heist. He thinks I need something to focus on other than Valhalla. Maybe he’s right.
Still I watch Tanechka and track the feeds. I sleep perhaps a little more, but I have to watch her. Sometimes Yuri helps, sometimes Mischa. These brothers of mine understand.
When two weeks are up, I win the virginity auction on the street urchin named Nikki for a mere $2,678, which means it’s time for us to focus there.
The men who run the brothel told me what to expect: that I’ll be put in the back of a van and blindfolded for the trip, which will last two hours. I’ll be checked for transmitting devices, weapons, and anything else suspicious. I’ll have a maximum of two unobserved hours with this Nikki, during which time I may do anything aside from striking, choking, maiming, or killing her.
I put in my request for her to be tied and gagged, and I meet the Valhalla van at the bus station downtown as instructed. I’m posing as a German businessman with very little English. I wear a fat suit, a blond wig, and a fake tattoo on my neck. Aleksio teased me that disguises such as this are so KGB, so Russian spy. In fact they are. Some of the old men in the Russian mafiya got their start in the KGB. We learned much from them.
I’m instructed to hold out my arms. They bring out the wand. Relief flows through my heart when I see the wand is the type we predicted they would use. The tools I’ve brought are hidden in my fat suit, encased in a pouch with a device designed to manipulate the waves and send them back in a format that tells the men that I carry no hardware or no transmitting devices of any kind.
I promised Aleksio that I would abort the mission if they tried with any other type of wand. It was a difficult promise to make.
I ride alone in the back of a windowless van. I take my blindfold off, tracking turns, listening to the route, forming a map in my mind. The trip takes two hours, though I’m quite sure we haven’t left the metro area.
I’m even more sure of this after they blindfold me again and lead me out; the feel of the air alone tells me we’re near Lake Michigan.
I’m led into a structure that smells of new lumber and taken downstairs, as I knew I would be.
We stop, and they remove my blindfold. I’m in a hall in a finished basement flanked by two men, both armed. Guards are stationed on each end of the hall, also armed. Gray carpet underfoot, fluorescent lights above. Tanechka could make a bomb of such lights.
I remind myself she doesn’t need my help.
A manager of some kind with a thick white beard comes up and explains the rules to me. He, too, is armed. I nod, keeping my posture humble as I make my assessments: a corridor, exits at either end, five doors on either side. I merge this with the map I created in my head from watching the girls, noting where they are relative to the sun.
Tanechka is up and over.
I can feel her—that’s the worst part. My soul orients to her as a flower strains toward the sun.
The manager tells me the rules in slow, careful English. He wants to make sure I understand. I assure him that I understand, I repeat everything back to him, working to get the full sense of the place before I’m sequestered away. Carpet all around is good. Everything muffled.
I remind myself of the promise I made to Aleksio—unless Tanechka is in danger and needs me, I will not leave the parameters of my mission. I’ll plant the surveillance and get out. I will not go to her.
The burly guard shows me his watch. “Knock when you’re finished. If you use the full two hours, you’ll have a ten-minute warning.”
He opens the door. Nikki is inside, tied to a chair as I’d requested, glaring up at me. She grunts and protests from behind her gag.
The door shuts and I lock it, though I’m sure they can come in at any time. The room is frilly. Part of the fantasy. It disgusts me. The soundproofing looks good, though. This will work in my favor.
I turn my attention to Nikki in her white dress, rage in her eyes. Even muffled by the gag, her insults come through. She calls me a disgusting pervert with a small dick and so forth. An American.