Read Online Zero Hour by Andy McNab - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Andy McNab
Tags: Fiction:Thriller
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morning the next day. Twelve hours every day, except when I had my period. The Russians took everything. They said if I tried to escape, the police would bring me back to them. The police were their friends.
‘There were three other girls. We were all locked in the same room until a customer came. We had to wear big T-shirts. For six months, I did this work. The customers paid fifty euros for half an hour. Sometimes I made a thousand euros a night. I got nothing.
‘And then, at the end of each night, the Russians had a game. They would come into our room and they would rape us all one by one. One of the girls cried so much they said the neighbours would hear. They crushed her toes under a door as punishment.
‘Escaping was not easy. You cannot just jump out of a window and be free. And we had no money. Some of the regular customers were policemen. Our visas were renewed even though we were prisoners. But we talked about it a lot.
‘The apartment was in a big old building. In the winter it was cold. We used to put a blanket in the big gap under the door to stop the draught. I was doing that when I suddenly had an idea. The door was locked from the other side, but they always left the key in. It was a big old-fashioned key. I pushed about a metre of the blanket underneath, and I used an eyebrow pencil to push the key out of the lock. It fell onto the blanket and I pulled it to our side. The others were too scared to come with me, but I ran.
‘I ran and ran. A lady waiting for a bus gave me some money. I took a bus to another city.
‘I went to a church and the priest telephoned Lena. She made all the arrangements and she was at the airport for me. Not my family. They were too ashamed. When I went home, the police came to my house two days later. They didn’t want information about the Russians. They didn’t want to know anything about my friend or her friend in Athens. All they wanted was sex. I said no. They said they would tell the Russians where to find me. They knew who they were. I called Lena and she rescued me - again. Now I help her with her work.’
Irina looked exhausted from retelling her story, but also defiant. ‘I still work twelve hours a day, seven days a week. But now it is with Lena, helping others like me. We will stop the trafficking one day.’
The way she said it convinced me she’d succeed - or die trying.
5
Irina went to make more coffee. Lena offered me a cigarette. I shook my head but Anna was straight in there. They both lit up.
‘Who are these guys? Old-fashioned Mafia?’
Anna waved a hand at the case files that surrounded us. ‘Or the Russian, Albanian and Ukrainian gangsters who run mixed cargoes of women, drugs and arms? Take your pick. But one thing is certain: they’ll do anything to turn a profit. Lena told me about those speedboats being intercepted in the Adriatic. The traffickers threw the women overboard to distract the police and protect the heroin and the hardware.’
Lena nodded. ‘But it must have hurt them. I’ll tell you a sad statistic. After weapons and drugs, human trafficking is now the third most profitable criminal enterprise in the world. Tens of billions of dollars a year. Obviously, trafficking on this level requires organization and cross-border networks. But at the Moldova end, things aren’t so structured. Many of the recruiters are amateurs who see an opportunity and grab it. Friends betray friends. Even a family member sometimes, in exchange for a couple of hundred dollars. Maybe worst of all, it can be the person the girl shares her bed with.’
Anna and I exchanged a glance.
‘Anna told me when she called that she’s helping you research a piece on girls who end up in the UK - is that right? In which case, there’s something you have to understand about Moldova. More than a quarter of the economically active population have migrated in search of work. A third of our GNP - a billion dollars - is money sent home from abroad.
‘Irina and
‘There were three other girls. We were all locked in the same room until a customer came. We had to wear big T-shirts. For six months, I did this work. The customers paid fifty euros for half an hour. Sometimes I made a thousand euros a night. I got nothing.
‘And then, at the end of each night, the Russians had a game. They would come into our room and they would rape us all one by one. One of the girls cried so much they said the neighbours would hear. They crushed her toes under a door as punishment.
‘Escaping was not easy. You cannot just jump out of a window and be free. And we had no money. Some of the regular customers were policemen. Our visas were renewed even though we were prisoners. But we talked about it a lot.
‘The apartment was in a big old building. In the winter it was cold. We used to put a blanket in the big gap under the door to stop the draught. I was doing that when I suddenly had an idea. The door was locked from the other side, but they always left the key in. It was a big old-fashioned key. I pushed about a metre of the blanket underneath, and I used an eyebrow pencil to push the key out of the lock. It fell onto the blanket and I pulled it to our side. The others were too scared to come with me, but I ran.
‘I ran and ran. A lady waiting for a bus gave me some money. I took a bus to another city.
‘I went to a church and the priest telephoned Lena. She made all the arrangements and she was at the airport for me. Not my family. They were too ashamed. When I went home, the police came to my house two days later. They didn’t want information about the Russians. They didn’t want to know anything about my friend or her friend in Athens. All they wanted was sex. I said no. They said they would tell the Russians where to find me. They knew who they were. I called Lena and she rescued me - again. Now I help her with her work.’
Irina looked exhausted from retelling her story, but also defiant. ‘I still work twelve hours a day, seven days a week. But now it is with Lena, helping others like me. We will stop the trafficking one day.’
The way she said it convinced me she’d succeed - or die trying.
5
Irina went to make more coffee. Lena offered me a cigarette. I shook my head but Anna was straight in there. They both lit up.
‘Who are these guys? Old-fashioned Mafia?’
Anna waved a hand at the case files that surrounded us. ‘Or the Russian, Albanian and Ukrainian gangsters who run mixed cargoes of women, drugs and arms? Take your pick. But one thing is certain: they’ll do anything to turn a profit. Lena told me about those speedboats being intercepted in the Adriatic. The traffickers threw the women overboard to distract the police and protect the heroin and the hardware.’
Lena nodded. ‘But it must have hurt them. I’ll tell you a sad statistic. After weapons and drugs, human trafficking is now the third most profitable criminal enterprise in the world. Tens of billions of dollars a year. Obviously, trafficking on this level requires organization and cross-border networks. But at the Moldova end, things aren’t so structured. Many of the recruiters are amateurs who see an opportunity and grab it. Friends betray friends. Even a family member sometimes, in exchange for a couple of hundred dollars. Maybe worst of all, it can be the person the girl shares her bed with.’
Anna and I exchanged a glance.
‘Anna told me when she called that she’s helping you research a piece on girls who end up in the UK - is that right? In which case, there’s something you have to understand about Moldova. More than a quarter of the economically active population have migrated in search of work. A third of our GNP - a billion dollars - is money sent home from abroad.
‘Irina and
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