Blood Trust - Eric van Lustbader [77]
Naomi’s heart began a trip-hammer beat. “I’m telling you I don’t know who Arian Xhafa is.”
Annika stared at her for a long time, apparently trying to make up her mind. At last, she sighed. “I can only assume that he chose to keep you in the dark in order to protect you.”
Naomi could hear the blood rushing in her ears. Her chest hurt with the desire for Annika to continue. The irony of her source being a professional liar wasn’t lost on her. In fact, it pained her.
“Did he tell you he killed a man at the Stem?”
How do you know all this? Naomi asked herself, but she was canny enough to intuit that Annika would never tell her. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised, given what Jack had told her about Annika Dementieva, but she couldn’t help herself. This woman had a preternatural intelligence. A shiver of foreboding passed through her. She had the distinct sense Annika was three steps ahead of everyone else on the game board.
She nodded. “A man named Dardan.”
“Dardan is—was—Arian Xhafa’s brother.” Annika took out another cigarette, stared at its unlit tip. “Arian Xhafa is one of the most feared warlords in Eastern Europe. His power and influence are growing exponentially every day.”
“Is he the head of the sex slave trade ring that ran its auction at the Stem?”
“Ah, at least you know something.” Annika cut her eyes sideways. “Yes, Arian Xhafa is running young girls from Russia, the Baltics, Macedonia, Albania, all over Eastern Europe, in fact. He imports them into Italy, Scandinavia, and, of course, here in America. It’s a multimillion-dollar business, one that’s made easy by international law enforcement’s indifference. The girls are runaways, whores, girls sold into slavery to buy their family food and shelter. Whether they live in slavery or die of beatings, multiple rapes, AIDS, or a drug overdose, it’s of no concern to the police of any nation.”
“But there are laws, some very new, specifically put in place to—”
“Laws are only legislative pieces of paper, Naomi. They aren’t effective if they’re not enforced. These laws are not. In poor countries, they’re often ignored, even in the larger cities and particularly outside urban centers. In the more developed countries, there is a network of corruption among officials in law enforcement and government, fed by both greed and blackmail, that ensures the sex trade continues to flourish across borders.”
Naomi sat back. She had read articles about the widening international traffic in girls and the growing worldwide alarm it was causing. But she’d also assumed—idealistically, perhaps—that the new laws enacted in many countries were having an effect. Frankly, it came as a shock to her that they might be largely ignored.
“But this sex trafficking—”
“Both those terms are misnomers,” Annika said. “What we’re talking about is slavery.” She slipped the cigarette back into its pack and her amber eyes lifted to engage Naomi’s. “Let me ask you a question. Have you any idea of the worldwide number of enslaved girls and women at this moment?”
Naomi considered. “Hundreds of thousands, I would guess. Maybe a million?”
“Twenty-seven million.”
“My God!” The sheer size of the figure took Naomi’s breath away and made her feel sick to her stomach.
“To put the figure in perspective, that’s the population of New York City and Los Angeles with nine million people to spare.”
“That figure has to be an exaggeration.”
“Really? One million children are forced into prostitution every year,” Annika went on. “And that’s only prostitution. To be enslaved can mean many things, not only in a sexual sense.” She flicked her lighter open, the reflection of the flame burning in her eyes. “But in all cases enslavement entails the breaking down of the individual through humiliation, deprivation, torture, and, yes, many times, multiple rapes. It relies, in any event, on the total dependence on the enslaver. This can only come about through the annihilation of hope.”
Naomi realized that she had been holding her breath. Letting it out now seemed like only