The Traitor's Story by Kevin Wignall Read Free Book Online Page A

was looking on, mesmerized by their conversation though she clearly understood none of it. “I killed him, Harry. I didn’t even think about it. I knew she was in trouble, and look at her, she’s a kid. It would have got back to Karasek that it was me.”
    “Witnesses?” Finn shook his head. Harry turned to the girl and spoke a few words. She looked astonished, her eyes lighting up as she asked him if he spoke Russian. Harry nodded and she told him her name: Katerina.
    Harry introduced himself and Finn, and she said, “Finn,” and smiled, shy again as she said something else in Russian.
    As Harry poured the coffee he said, “She thanked you for saving her life.”
    “You’re welcome,” Finn said to her, then turned back to Harry. “Ask her what happened.”
    The story spilled out of her without much need for encouragement, her voice wavering occasionally, a pause to wipe a tear from her cheek—but the whole thing was retold with a remarkable stoicism.
    She was an orphan from some provincial Russian city, southeast of Moscow. She’d been offered the chance to become a model, a plausible offer given her looks, but she’d been drugged and brought to Estonia. It wasn’t such an unusual story for Finn or Harry, given that their job was dealing with organized crime.
    But after one brief exchange, Harry looked momentarily lost and said to Finn, “I asked her if she’d been attacked by the people who took her.”
    “And?”
    Harry shook his head.
    “But the guy you killed, he told her Karasek wanted her for himself—that’s the only reason she hasn’t been raped. Karasek wanted her.”
    “How old is she?”
    There was another brief exchange, but this time Harry was so shocked that he asked the question again and she laughed as she repeated her answer.
    “She’s thirteen. Can you believe that?”
    “I thought thirteen or fourteen, but you’re right, she could pass for older.”
    “When you first brought her in I thought eighteen or nineteen.”
    “She’s a child. If you’d seen her afraid, you wouldn’t have doubted it. Thank God I was there, thank God . . .” He paused, trying to think what it was that he was grateful for. “You know, two weeks ago I wouldn’t have intervened.”
    “Yes, you would. It’s who you are.” Harry smiled. “It would have been wrong, probably, but you still would have done it. Anyway, at least now you know you were right to kill the guy.”
    Finn hadn’t given it any thought. He’d killed a man half an hour earlier, had sliced through the side of his neck and watched him bleed to death. But for the time being at least, it carried no weight whatsoever within his thoughts. He was too busy wondering what to do now.
    Harry was clearly thinking along the same lines because he said, “Whatever Karasek had in mind, he’ll be peeved as hell about losing her, and peeved that someone killed one of his guys, too. Of course, he could think the girl had done it herself.”
    Finn thought back to the dead guy. The knife wound could have been inflicted by a determined girl of her age, but Finn had given him a beating beforehand.
    “No, he’ll know it was someone else.”
    “And you’re sure no one saw you in the church?”
    “Absolutely.” Now that he said it, he realized he should have checked the church before leaving, not that there was much he could have done, short of killing any witnesses. He supposed he would find out soon enough if he had been spotted. “Anyway, that’s less of a concern than what I do with her now.”
    The girl asked Harry something. He answered and she poured herself more coffee, and held the mug between her hands as if still trying to get warm.
    “There’s the authorities of course, but Lord only knows where she’d end up.” Harry looked preoccupied for a moment, as if mentally going through his address book before saying, “None of my old Russian contacts would be much use. I did know one or two who might have been able to help,