This Land is no Stranger Sarah Hollister (best biographies to read .txt) 📖

a half dozen rails of cocaine on the coffee table. Fevzi sent the driver out to the Mercedes to retrieve a bottle of Johnny Walker blue label.

The woman doctor led Varzha into a small room with a single bed. She shut the door behind them.

“Lie down on the bed,” she said, pantomiming her command with a gesture. “Do you speak Swedish?”

Varzha shook her head. “We will have to make do,” the doctor said.

She proceeded to speak Swedish anyway. “My name is Hira Nur. I am a medical doctor. You will do as I say.”

The woman retrieved a small pouch from her bag. The pouch contained some sort of metal instrument. The sight of the strange tool alarmed Varzha. She didn’t know what was happening. Was this it? The first rape among many? When the doctor attempted physically to place her on the bed, she pushed back.

   Escape was not possible. Varzha knew that, but she attempted to flee anyway. Bursting out of the little room, she turned down the hallway, away from the open living space in front.

“Voss!” Hira Nur shouted. But Jarl was already on her, chasing down Varzha as she ran. Catching the girl by the hair, he slammed her against the wooden paneling. She called out in pain. Her thick braids unraveled, and the barrette holding them in place clattered across the floor.

They stood facing one another, Varzha cornered, breathing hard, the doctor Hira Nur framed in the doorway of the little bedroom. Fevzi and the driver loomed behind Jarl.

“I’ve been so nice to you, älskling,” her captor said. His voice had a nasty edge to it. “But I can be not so nice, too.”

As Jarl advanced, his foot crushed the wooden barrette. He ignored it, reaching out and gripping Varzha roughly by the neck.

“Are you going to behave?” he yelled.

“Voss,” Hira Nur said, staring down at the broken hair clasp.

“Are you?” Jarl shouted. A spray of his spittle landed on Varzha’s face. He shook her like a rag doll.

“Voss,” the doctor repeated. She knelt down and picked up the shattered barrette. With it came Beat the Man, the world’s tiniest cell phone.

“What the fuck is this?” Hira Nur demanded in English.

39.

Brand watched Dollar Boy and Moro through the binoculars Hammar provided. They had followed the boy as he left the baron’s estate in the big Scania truck, watching from a distance as he rendezvoused with Moro Part. The two then had driven on, Brand careful not to be noticed on their trail. In that way, Dollar Boy unwittingly led them to an isolated A-frame vacation home located on the banks of the frozen-over Hede River.

The highway continued west toward the Norway border, a few kilometers away. Dollar Boy and Moro parked the Scania truck in a turnout along the road. Brand pulled the Saab into a snowed-over lane nearer to the chalet. She and Hammar got out to wait and watch what was happening.

Through the binoculars, she saw Moro train his own pair of field glasses toward the isolated chalet. A fancy Volvo SUV and a Mercedes sedan were parked next to the building.

“There,” Brand said. She allowed Hammar a glimpse through the binoculars, not removing the strap from around her neck. “So they are tracking the pipeline after all.”

She put the glasses to her eyes again. As Brand watched a tall individual emerged from the chalet. He ducked briefly into the Mercedes, and then returned to the house carrying what looked like a bottle of booze.

“What’s going on?” Hammar said. “What was that?”

“Male subject, I’d say around six feet, blond, young, maybe about thirty, black leather jacket.”

“Do you see anyone else?”

“Not at the chalet,” Brand said. She swung the glasses around to check on Moro and Dollar Boy.

“Dollar Boy,” Brand muttered. “Where’d he get that handle, I wonder?”

“I don’t know,” Hammar said. “I had just a quick word with him at the baron’s. I didn’t have time to question him about it.”

“I notice he’s wearing a hat. Camouflage, hiding the pink hair. It must be hard to get lost in the crowd with a hairdo like that.”

Hammar examined the darkening sky. “I’d say maybe a half hour to twilight. No moon tonight, so…”

“So we work by the light of the aurora,” suggested Brand facetiously.

Downslope, the river twisted around in a long curve. Between ragged sheets of ice, the water was black. Downstream, at the inner crook of the river’s bend stood the chalet. A ridge above the lodge forced the highway off to the south, further isolating the property.

Held in suspension as the last daylight faded, Brand traded the field glasses back and forth with Hammar. They surveilled the two Roma males as they surveilled the chalet. Finally she saw movement around the Scania.

“Whoa, here we go,” Brand said. Dollar Boy dropped the back gate on the truck and allowed the muzzled hyena to jump off onto the snow. The animal crouched low, pushing its snout upward.

“What’s happening?”

She handed the binoculars to Hammar. Brand still had not totally worked out what had been going on between Varzha, Moro and Dollar Boy, or what the baron’s involvement might be. Clearly, despite the danger, the three Roma principals had somehow been able to remain in communication with each other. And someone—probably Dollar Boy, along with the beast Fenrir—had been following after Varzha and brutally eliminating her abductors at every stop along the human trafficking pipeline.

Brilliant, Brand thought. Berserker crazy, for sure, but brilliant. Instead of being a victim, the girl had turned the tables and succeeded in becoming the victimizer, first at the first stop in the trafficker’s pipeline, the Manor House, then at Västvall village. Brand believed Varzha might actually deserve a medal for cleaning up her little corner of the world.

Was the same bizarre business about to happen at the little chalet on the shores of the Hede River?

“Are we going down there?” Hammar asked.

“That kid’s got my Glock,” Brand said. “I want it back.”

“He is also in possession of