Chapter 1: The Ambassador’s Girl – Charlie, for now

She looked tired and worn out. Her hair was tangled, pants torn, blouse disheveled, shoes damaged almost beyond usefulness, and her face was dirty. Coal miner dirty. Her arms were, too. And bloody. At least one of them was quite bloody. She was a mess, half asleep if not half unconscious, and she looked like she needed a hospital, if not a priest.

I knelt down next to her and took her hand, very gently, in mine. Her eyes opened just a crack. “Miss, miss, do you need help?”

“Aidez moi. S’il vous plaît,” she pleaded. (Help me. Please.)

“Are you OK? Yeah, I know, stupid question. Of course, you’re not. Do you speak English?” I asked her.

She looked at me with a questioning look.

“I guess not. Do you need the police? Polizei? Gendarmes?” I asked her.

She shook her head and frowned. “No. Pas police. No.” (Not police.)

“OK, then, I’m going to pick you up, carry you to my car, and take you to the hospital.”

“No. Pas l’hôpital. No.” (Not hospital.)

“You speak some English, then. I guess everyone does to some extent. I understood ‘No’ and ‘hospital’. Do you even want my help?” Again, with the questioning look, but even then, I knew she needed help. My help? Who knew? She needed help just the same. “Come on. I doubt if I’ll be in jail forever if you decide to turn on me.”

I thought I saw a poorly hidden grin, but it might have been my imagination. I reached under her as carefully as I possibly could and picked her up. She might have weighed more than a bag of concrete but seemed so much lighter than one of those little bags. She was a lot longer than a bag of concrete, that’s for sure. I’ll bet she was five foot four or so, but quite thin. It wasn’t becoming on her, so I doubt it was her normal weight. She was probably starving, as well as in bad shape.

With her face closer to mine, as dirty as she was, tears streaking her face and all, she looked to be about eighteen or so, a bit older than I first thought. Maybe I wouldn’t be in that much trouble after all.

I carried her from the wall she was leaning against over to my rental car in the restaurant parking lot and put her in the passenger seat. As I set her in, I saw a faint smile and heard a soft sigh. Then, lifting her legs in, I got a bit of a moan or groan. The smile was gone. Some pain had caught her, but when her feet were on the floorboards, she seemed to be okay once again.

“Are you going to be all right with me taking you to my hotel? I mean if you can’t talk to me, you don’t want a hospital, or the authorities, I at least need to make sure you are going to be safe and figure out what to do. That seems the best choice, to me. What do you think?”

“Votre hôtel?” I nodded. “Oui, alors. Votre hôtel.” (Yes, then. Your hotel.)

I knew just enough French, that even with her decidedly un-French accent, she was agreeing with me.

I used my handkerchief to wipe her face a bit, then had her put my overcoat around her, with the collar up, to walk her through the lobby to the elevators. Once on my floor, we approached and entered my room where I immediately ushered her into the bathroom of the suite. One thing that did catch my attention was that she was constantly watching out behind, to the sides, and to every angle in front of her. This girl was afraid of something. She was very, very scared.

Once in the room, though, and upon hearing the deadbolt lock being thrown, she seemed to relax a little bit.

“OK, Missy. I want you to stay in there,” I pointed to the bathroom area in general, “And don’t come out until you’re clean. I doubt if you’ll understand me but try anyway. Bathrooms are pretty universal. Go in, get clean, come out. There’s a robe ... shit,” I said as I reached around the door, took it down and laid it out on the counter. “Robe. Get clean, put that on and come out.”

“I can do that, sir. Do you think you can ask the desk if they have any toothbrushes and disposable razors? Some of these places can help out with those things.” She said in perfect English, smiling a toothy smile at me. “I desperately need both.”

Her speaking startled me, but I recovered quickly and smiled. “Can’t speak English, huh?”

“Not out there. No way in Hell. Can I get your name, occupation, and citizenship status, please? It’s kind of important to me.”

“Sure. I’ll want the same of you, though.” She smiled and nodded. “Charlie. Charles Cochran. Cochran Equities, Limited. Cochran Enterprises, Incorporated. Cochran Motors, International, yada, yada, yada. American by birth and by choice. You?”

“Mandy. Amanda Birdweiler.” I must’ve gasped. “Surprising?” It was my turn to nod, vehemently. “Yes. That one. Does that pretty much explain my status for you?”

“Yeah. Enough, anyway. I’m a bit worried here, now. What do you want to do at this point? You’ve been declared dead, as has your father. Elizabeth and Robert were both found dead in Cologne a couple of months ago. Obviously, you aren’t. Dead, I mean.”

“No, and my father may not be, either, but he won’t want to surface if he’s still alive. Mr. Cochran...”

I interrupted her. “Just Charlie. Just call me Charlie, for now, Mandy. Now, if you don’t mind, please continue.”

“I don’t know how to say this, but my father is a wonderful father. He was a wonderful husband, at least according to his wives, my mom, and Elizabeth, that is. Hell, even Robert thought he was wonderful as a stepfather. I’m shattered by their deaths, by the way, but I have to continue on, much the same as I had to do when my mother died. In any case, he’s a wonderful family man, but he’s crooked as a dog’s hind leg. Not the finest American citizen ever produced, and he’s in a lot ... A really lot of hot water.”

“Wanna share?”

“Not even a little bit. I love the man to death, and that’s probably how it’ll wind up, with one of us dead, but I’m not going to do anything to hurt myself, or him, but especially myself, in my efforts to stay alive or keep him alive. There are several people who do not want that to happen, even if I tell them what they want to know. Which I wouldn’t even if I could. It would lead to my demise, I’m sure. There’s really nothing I can do for him except stay clear. Did that make sense?”

“Yes, you don’t want to die helping your father stay out of trouble or get him killed in the process. You seem calmer than most young ladies might be about this.”

“Charlie, I’m a teen going on sixty-two. I’ve seen stuff no girl, lady, or woman wants to see, regardless of age. I’ve spent time in countries where no one wants to live and seen how they do it. It’s not a pretty world, regardless of what people might think.”

“What are they after, Mandy, the people looking for you and your father, and can I even hope to protect you? At all?”

“Money. Stolen money. Lots of it. Silence. My father’s. Mine to a degree. He knows things over and above the laptop thing, and you’ve probably heard what’s on there. They think he told us, Elizabeth, Robert, and me, all the grisly details not yet seen, and while I know some of them, I don’t know all that much. If you use your imagination, though, what you may think about the president and his son are probably true.”

“Wow. I don’t think much of him, or them, either of them, anyway, but that kind of puts things in perspective.”

“Me neither. I’ve met them both. The president is in a constant stupor. The first son is a slug. I was fifteen the second time we met, and while I might have been dressed a bit more maturely than was appropriate, or necessary, he knew how old I was and still asked me to go out back and party with him. Drugs and sex. He was pretty explicit about the offer. He’s a wretched individual.

“My father is a closet conservative unless you consider his bad side. His bad side wanted wealth and fortune, regardless of the outcome, save his own family, and even that came around to bite him in the ass. He schmoozed well, though, both to the left and right, and fooled a lot of people in our government, in Italy, and elsewhere, into a lot of things he shouldn’t have gotten into. In any case, he ripped off the wrong people and now everyone wants him dead. The president, his staff, the local Italian families, their brethren in the states and elsewhere, the Arabs he used to gain seed money for the ventures he scammed ... Everyone. The Chinese and the Russians want him for what he knows about the laptop stuff. He was involved in some of the business deals the son was involved in. I don’t know why, other than the boss seemed to think he was assisting them gain fortune without fame as well. Trust me, Dad isn’t going to show his face anywhere for quite a while. That is, if he’s still alive.”

“Are you trying to get back home?”

“I don’t know yet, Charlie. I can’t go as me, at least not for a while anyway.”

“You’re only what, sixteen?” She shook her head.

“Seventeen, almost eighteen.”

“I have an idea, if you are willing. Just an idea, mind you, but at least I can make you a bit safer.”

“What idea might that be?”

“I know a guy. He helped me help a friend once.”

“Oh, God. ‘I know a guy.’ Your idea sounds as scary as my predicament.”

“That may be true. Have you ever been a Russian hooker?”

She giggled and told me, “No, and I’ve never played one on television. What are you getting at?”

“I helped a friend get a passport for a girl he fell in love with and subsequently married. She was a Russian girl with no papers, and we made her into a Ukrainian college student. They now have two little girls, twins, and are as happy as anyone I’ve ever seen. He fell in love with a prostitute, she fell in love with a john, and I helped them get back to the U.S. Just that simple.”

“And you want to make me out to be a Russian working girl and get me back to the states. What’s in it for you?”

“Ukrainian, not Russian, and nothing. I don’t need anything. You have been rescued by someone who wants nothing from you, or anyone else in the world. I just want to do the right thing. I think keeping you from being killed, whether you were dressed improperly around the Commander in Chief’s evil spawn or not, might be a good thing to do. At least the right thing. I’d rather you didn’t prove me wrong.”

“I’ll try not to, but I’m no wall flower innocent Mary Jane, either.”

“OK, Mandy Birdweiler, I’m going to ask you an honest question. I want an honest answer, OK?” She nodded, sheepishly. “Are you worth saving? Are you worth me putting my ass on the line to get you home safely, or are you going to use me for your ends and somehow get me drawn into this game and have me wind up dead as one of your pawns?”

“Yes, I am. No, I won’t do that. I am. Worth it. Yes, Charlie, I’m worth saving. I’m not a bad person. I don’t have my father’s thirst for all things material. I want to live. I want an education. I want to be a benefit to myself and society. Yes, I am. If you get hurt, it won’t be because I threw you under the bus or in front of me as they were trying to hurt me. You’re serious about helping me, though? Really?”

“Yeah, I think so. I’ve only been with one Russian hooker, and that was just as an escort for dinner to impress a client. It worked. I gave her enough money for a new dress, as well as enough for a month off the street, got a kiss, and off she went, happier than I was, and I was really happy. No matter, she was Russian, and we need to make you Ukrainian, for a few reasons.”

“How do I know I can trust you?”

“Well, to begin with, I haven’t killed you, raped you, or tortured you for information about your father.”

“Yet.”

“Good point, Mandy. I haven’t done those things, yet. I’ll go downstairs and get you a toothbrush and a razor. I assume you want the razor while you’re still in there ... As soon as I get back?”

“That would be nice.”

“OK. I’ll be right back. Do your thing. Don’t lock the door. I won’t do anything to make you think you should’ve.”

“I’m going to hold you to that.”

I could have continued the banter but chose not to. I left the room and headed down to the desk to see what I could find. Luckily, they had a little set of toothbrush and toothpaste, and disposable razors for guests that needed them. I gave the clerk a ten and asked her to put it in the freebie pot to help the next hapless and forgetful stranger. She laughed at that and thanked me but told me the closest she could do was the local charity the hotel supported. I nodded, and it went in the jar.

Back up in the room, I opened the bathroom door to an escaping bank of steam that almost choked me. Someone was taking a hot shower and trying their utmost to test the capabilities of the building’s boiler. The fan was obviously not up to the task.

“Mandy, I have a razor and the toothbrush. Here’s the razor.” I held it in my hand while waving it near the shower curtain.

“Charlie, I may not live long enough to show it, but I love you. For getting me the razor, that is. Don’t get full of yourself. Yet. Now, leave me alone, please. This is the first nice shower I’ve had in well over a month, and I plan on taking advantage of the hot water, and you, and this razor, and the soap, and the towels, and ohhhh, God, this feels good.”

I left the room, closing the door loud enough for her to hear. I was a bit stunned, still, by what had just transpired, but I regained my senses and made a call to a man I knew in what used to be East Germany.

Herr Mikel Hermann assured me that if I could keep the young lady happy and in one place for a couple of days, we’d be in business. He asked that I take a good picture of her and forward it to him so he could get to work. He also asked me for ten thousand dollars, U.S. American currency, or gold, if it was easier. I was expecting him to ask for the money. I had the gold in my plane, and told him that, then jokingly told him to get to work.

He laughed. “Yes, Charles, I will get to work. I will work on making another Ukrainian college girl for you. It is my pleasure, and the pleasure of my friend in Odessa, not to mention it will make several of my car payments.” He laughed heartily at his own statement. “We will make her legal, OK?”

“Thank you, Mikel. I appreciate your help. Just to let you know, this one is for me, not for a friend. I thank you in advance.”

“I would do well for you in either case, but I will add my own feelings of pride in doing well for you, personally. I hope there is no dark background you are hiding this person from.”

“Mikel, you have no idea, but let’s leave it at this. She needs my help. She needs your help. We can help her, so let’s.”

“Good plan, my friend. We shall stay in touch. Do not forget the picture.”