She approached them and refilled their teacups. “Let me know when you’re ready,” she told them, “so I can go talk to the girls first.”
“Five minutes,” The bespectacled reporter, Thomas, said.
“Do we use the girls’ real names, Anna?” Hawk asked, using her assumed ID.
“First names are fine. It doesn’t matter now that they are free,” she replied.
Hawk nodded. “I was just thinking about the girls at thekafenaslater. They’ll want to use different names.” He glanced at Thomas. “I don’t have to spell out what could happen to them if somehow their pimps find out they gave interviews.”
Thomas nodded soberly. “Understood. We’ll be very careful.”
Amber turned and walked to the sofa. She gave Lily a nod. “Five minutes.”
“Okay.” Lily was holding on to the girls’ hands. “We’re ready.”
Her friend had lines of tension around her mouth, making her look older. Amber knew she was probably thinking about her lost sister, the one who had gone missing. She joined them on the sofa, giving Kia, the girl next to her, a hug. “If you feel uncomfortable, let me know. I’ll stop the interview. If you don’t understand or need me to translate, just turn to either me or Ludmilla.” They had already briefed the girls about the fake names. “These men will get your stories out in some form of media, maybe even television.”
The other two girls, Michela and Judi Kay, listened intently, then nodded along with Kia. Amber signaled and Hawk brought the men over. Brad took a seat nearby. The introductions were brief and Thomas explained about the tape recording.
“Let’s start with telling where you came from and how you were kidnapped,” he said.
“I’m from Bucharest,” Michela began first in slow, accented English. “I was sixteen when some man approached me and told me he was looking for models to send to America. He said he would take photographs of me and put me in an album with other girls and if I was lucky, I would be picked for magazine covers. Of course I said yes, and he took pictures of me and everything was okay because he gave me money and said he would contact me again. A week later he called and told me to meet him at a café because he had good news. I was very excited. He showed me a contract that I signed and said that I was to bring my passport with me that night so I could fly to Los Angeles. He showed me the plane ticket, so I believed him. When I went to the meeting place, he put me in a car with two other girls. There were two men sitting in front. I noticed there was a plastic divider between the front and the back seats, but I didn’t think much about it because I was so excited. It didn’t take me long to realize we weren’t being taken to the airport. We couldn’t get out because the locks in our doors wouldn’t open.”
She paused to take a deep breath, a frown creasing her forehead. She looked inquiringly at Amber, chewing on her lower lip.
Amber nodded back to assure her that she was doing fine, hoping none of her own anger was showing on her face. She had heard versions of this story many times before, and each time it broke her heart. She also knew, from experience, that if she showed how truly upset and angry she was, some of the girls either became too emotional to speak or they shut down entirely. She wanted to help the girls stay as calm as possible for the interview.
She interjected an explanation to give Michela some time to gather her thoughts. “These men are called impresarios and they are paid about a thousand Euro dollars for each girl they photograph for the album. In turn, the girls are sold for twenty-five hundred Euro dollars to different dealers, depending on where they are heading,” Amber said.
“So each destination has a different price?” Thomas asked incredulously.
“The girls are seen as goods and commodities,” Lily said in a low voice. “They’re taken to Bucharest, which is the headquarters for these operations. Then they are marketed to different branches in Moldavia, Ukraine, and Russia as dancers. It’s a legitimate business in Bucharest, by the way, since the authorities there sanction the businesses.”
“Businesses?” David, the other reporter, prompted.
“The agencies are legitimate businesses in Bucharest,” Amber said. “The business license costs about twenty-five thousand Euro dollars or the equivalent in deutsche marks.”
“You’re saying that it’s a legitimate business in which men are sitting around making bids on women being sold as prostitutes,” Thomas said. He shook his head and took a gulp of tea from his cup. “How do you know this?”
“Because I have sat through such an auction,” Lily said. “It isn’t very different from the slavery sales held in the United States not that long ago, gentlemen.”
Amber glanced over at Lily. She had never mentioned being at an auction before. She stared straight ahead. Amber could see the tension in her hand that was holding on to Michela. Looking up again, she caught Brad’s hard gaze on Lily.
“Tell me about yourself now, Judi Kay,” Thomas said gently.
“I’m from Chisinau, Moldavia,” Judi said. Her father was American and although her vocabulary was limited, she spoke English well. “I was picked up with my two friends after we went to see a movie. The men said they would give us a ride home.” She shrugged. “They took us to Bucharest. I knew we were going to be sold off; my father had told us things like this happen. From Bucharest, they drove us to Turnu-Severin, then we all crossed the border to Serbia, to Belgrade. From there, other men brought us here to Velesta, Macedonia. There are many girls from Moldavia here, all of them kidnapped and sold, like me.”
“Did you see your two friends again?”
She shook her head. “No, they weren’t sold quickly, like me. I heard those who don’t get sold are taken to Turkey.”
“They are taken through Hungary,” Lily told the reporters. “Hungarian passports are easy to get, about five hundred Euro dollars per fake one.”
“You appear to be very knowledgeable about these routes, Miss Ludmilla,” Thomas said.
“I make it my business to know about them. I prefer to get to the girls before they are taken to the brothels and broken,” Lily said calmly.
“How do you transport them in and out of Macedonia?” David asked.
