5. First Contact
First Contact
Nikolai
I return to the port through the same service access I used earlier, because the best way into a controlled place is rarely through the fence. Fences are for amateurs and men who enjoy dramatic scars. Paperwork gets you much farther.
Crew drops me two streets from the commercial entrance in a battered local van that looks like it belongs to a mechanic with unpaid invoices. Dimitry stays beside him long enough to confirm the radio check, then the van moves on to wait near the harbor road where it won’t draw attention.
HAVEN doesn’t need to stand on the doorstep. They need to be close enough to move if the situation changes.
I wear a faded port authority jacket, work boots, and a cap pulled low.
The identification card clipped to my vest isn’t perfect, but it doesn’t need to be.
It only needs to survive a bored guard, a bad camera angle, and the assumption that a tired man carrying a clipboard belongs where he’s walking.
At the service gate, the guard glances at the badge, then at the tablet I hold out with a delivery reference already loaded. He doesn’t want a conversation. He wants his shift to end.
I give him that.
Inside the port, I don’t move like a soldier.
I move like labor, slow enough to be ignored, purposeful enough not to be stopped.
Trucks idle near the loading bays. Containers stand in long, dark rows beneath floodlights.
Men smoke beside a forklift while pretending they’re working.
Somewhere beyond them, the water slaps against the harbor wall.
I already know where Solace is being held.
The room sits at the rear of an old storage building near the customs overflow yard, far enough from the main office to avoid casual foot traffic, close enough to the docks to move prisoners quickly.
The blue container has been positioned beside the same building, almost flush with the rear wall, close enough that a woman striking the steel from inside would carry through Solace’s room.
Practical. Ugly. Efficient.
Meridian prefers places like this.
A bored guard stands near the container doors, smoking beneath a failing security light and watching the service lane with the enthusiasm of a man counting minutes until his shift ends.
I wait behind a stack of pallets until he turns away to spit into the dust, then cross the narrow lane and move along the back of the building. No front approach. No unnecessary contact. If I need to leave fast, the rear alley runs toward the maintenance yard and the service gate beyond it.
The window is exactly where the stolen maintenance plan said it would be.
High. Narrow. Built for ventilation, not escape. A metal grille is fixed into the concrete with rusted bolts, and behind it, the inner pane sits cracked open by less than two inches. Enough for air. Enough for sound. Nowhere near enough for a body.
Good.
If she could climb out, they’d have moved her already.
I stay below the sightline first, listening.
Nothing from inside. No movement in the lane. No footsteps behind me.
I take the folded paper from inside my jacket and flatten it against my palm.
HAVEN. RESCUE. 48 HRS. NOD IF YOU UNDERSTAND.
Not elegant. Clear.
Clarity matters more than comfort when a woman is locked behind concrete, metal, and lies.
I reach up and tap the grille twice with one knuckle. Soft. Measured. Then again, spaced differently.
Inside, something shifts.
Good.
She’s awake.
Fear makes careless people noisy. She stops herself before the sound carries.
I stay low against the wall, keeping my face below the window until she reaches it. The opening is too narrow to see through clearly from where she stands inside, just a cracked pane behind fixed metal and dirty glass, but shadows shift behind it. A hand touches the frame. Careful. Testing.
Smart woman.
I lift myself enough for her to see me.
She goes completely still.
I know what she sees. A large man outside her window after midnight, broad shoulders in a port authority jacket, cap pulled low, face half-cut by security light, eyes that have made stronger men reconsider bad choices.
To her, I am one more threat in a week already full of them.
So I don’t move again.
“My name is Nikolai,” I say quietly. “HAVEN sent me.”
Silence.
Behind her, the room is too dark for detail, but I can make out the shape of her through the gap. Tall. Thin from days of poor food. Hair loose around her face. One hand still on the frame as if she’s deciding whether to pull away or stay.
“What’s HAVEN?” she whispers.
Her voice is rough, but it doesn’t shake.
“The people fighting Meridian.”
Another pause. Shorter this time.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
That earns a small shift from her. Surprise, maybe. Suspicion sharpening into something useful.
“I expect you to listen,” I say. “Then decide.”
A faint sound comes from the container beside the building. Metal flexing under a weak impact. Someone inside striking the wall once, then again. The guard near the doors turns his head, cigarette hanging from his mouth, and mutters something in Greek before looking away.
Solace hears it too.
Her shadow changes.
“There are women in there,” she says, urgency cutting through the whisper. “At least seven. Two more were brought tonight.”
“I know about the container.”
“You don’t know enough.”
“No,” I say. “That’s why I’m here.”
She leans closer to the narrow opening, close enough that I see the pale line of her cheek and the flash of blue eyes through the grille. Tired eyes. Furious eyes. Still working.
“They move women through the port after midnight,” she whispers. “White minibus from the camp. Blue-stripe truck. Dock three. Petrakis is involved.”
I file each detail away.
“Giannis Petrakis?”
“Yes.”
That changes the shape of the problem. A corrupt guard is one thing. A senior aid official tied to the movement schedule is another.
A radio crackles near the container.
The guard straightens.
I lower slightly, keeping my body close to the wall.
Solace goes silent at once.
Good instincts.
The guard listens to whatever comes through, answers with one bored word, then spits into the dust and settles back against the container doors.
I wait two full breaths before speaking again.
“We can’t take you tonight.”
Her fingers tighten against the frame.
I see the answer before she gives it.
“I won’t leave without them.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know enough.”
That irritates her. Good. Irritation has more strength in it than fear.
“They said forty-eight hours,” I say. “That was three hours ago, and they move women at night. We don’t plan for forty-eight. We plan for dark tomorrow.”
Her silence sharpens.
“Until then, you stay alive. You keep listening. You do not confront anyone.”
“I’m not an idiot.”
“No,” I say. “You’re worse. You’re brave.”
Her breath catches, almost a laugh, but not quite.
Footsteps sound at the far end of the lane.
Too close.
I flatten immediately against the wall.
Solace pulls back from the window, but before she disappears fully, she whispers one last thing.
“There’s a wall.”
I glance up.
“What?”
“My notes. Everything I know. It’s carved into the wall.”
Footsteps move at the far end of the lane.
Too close.
I flatten against the wall.
Solace pulls back from the window, but not far enough to leave it.
We both wait in silence as the footsteps pass the corner, pause, then continue toward the container.
Only when they fade beneath the sound of the port does she return to the gap.
Good.
Because I’m not finished.
I can’t take anything from her.
The grille is fixed, the window barely opens, and everything inside that room is either bolted down, taken away, or useless.
So I lift my phone, screen dimmed, recorder already running.
“Tell me.”
She doesn’t waste time.
“Container guard smokes. Food guard comes once a day. Movement usually starts after the port quiets, somewhere between half twelve and two. White minibus from the camp. Blue-stripe truck near dock three. Women held in the blue container before they’re moved.
At least eight inside earlier, two more added tonight.
Petrakis is tied to the schedule. Captain involved, but I don’t have his name. ”
I record every word.
My expression stays still. My opinion of her does not.
She’s dehydrated, starving, locked behind concrete, and giving me operational intelligence like she was trained for this.
“The wall,” she adds. “I scratched everything there. Names, times, vehicles, what I heard.”
That matters.
If they move her before we reach her, this room becomes evidence.
“Keep the wall hidden if you can,” I say. “If anyone comes in, act weaker than you are. Let them underestimate you.”
Her whisper turns dry enough to cut. “I’m five days into bread and water. I don’t have to act that hard.”
I almost smile. Almost.
The guard by the container shifts, and I lower my head, keeping my body close to the wall.
His boots scrape over grit. A cough. Another wet spit into the dust. Then the thin flare of his cigarette as he draws on it and turns away again.
Solace waits through it without making a sound.
When I look back up, she’s still there.
“Can you get to the door from inside?” I ask.
“No handle. Lock outside. Hinges covered.”
“Window?”
A faint, humorless breath. “Unless you can turn me into smoke, no.”
“Bars fixed?”
“Yes. Into the concrete. I tried.”
I glance at the scraped metal near one bolt, the tiny marks almost hidden by rust. Not enough movement to matter. Enough to tell me she spent strength she didn’t have testing it anyway.
“Any cameras inside?”
“Not in this room. Passage, maybe. I’ve never seen one, but the guards behave like someone checks movement.”
Good answer. Observation, not assumption.
“Who comes in?”
“Food guard. Sometimes another man. Petrakis came a couple of times. Asked who else had the files.”
“Did you tell him?”
“That someone did. Not who.”
I understand immediately.
“You sent them before he took you.”
“To London,” she whispers. “A colleague. Intake sheets. Transport manifests. Vehicle registrations. I don’t know if she received them.”
“Name.”
“Harriet Bell. Refugee Legal Network. London.”
I repeat it softly, so the recorder catches it.
Another piece. Another pressure point.
Solace’s hand slips from the window frame, then returns. The movement is small, but weakness has its own language. She’s reaching the edge of what her body will allow.
I keep my voice low.
“Sit down.”
“I’m fine.”
“No.”
Silence.
“You’re very bossy for someone lurking outside a window.”
“You’re very argumentative for someone I’m rescuing.”
A beat.
Then, barely there, “Fair.”
The sound that almost follows might have been a laugh if she’d had the strength for it.
Footsteps move somewhere beyond the service lane.
This time, more than one man.
I close my hand around the phone and end the recording.
“Listen carefully,” I say. “We come after dark tomorrow. If anything changes before then, scratch it on the wall if you can. If you’re moved, leave marks where you pass. Fabric, blood, scratches. Anything. I’ll look.”
“You’ll find us?”
“Yes.”
“You sound very sure.”
“I don’t say things to comfort people.”
Her shadow stills behind the grille.
“Then don’t start now,” she whispers.
I look at the narrow window, the rusted bars, the dirty glass, and the woman behind them who has every reason to collapse and hasn’t.
“No,” I say. “I won’t.”
Mytilene Port, Greece. 0050 hours
The first guard reaches the corner of the service lane as I clear the back of the storage building.
I keep walking.
Same pace. Same posture. Clipboard tucked under one arm, cap low, shoulders set with the tired irritation of a man finishing work too late for too little money. The kind of man people ignore because ignoring him is easier than asking questions.
Behind me, the container guard says something in Greek. One of the others laughs. Their voices bounce off the corrugated steel and fade beneath the low idle of a truck near the loading bay.
No alarm. No shout.
Clear.
I cut behind a row of parked utility vehicles and follow the maintenance lane toward the service gate.
The port looks different on the way out.
Less like a target, more like a machine built to swallow people in pieces.
Containers stacked like walls. Floodlights bleaching the color from the concrete.
Men moving cargo without looking too closely at what waits beside it.
Solace is back there behind rusted bars and dirty glass, with five days of hunger in her body and enough discipline to brief me while a guard spat beside the container holding other women.
I’ve seen trained assets do less.
At the service gate, the same guard barely looks up from his phone. One earbud sits beneath his cap, and the screen paints his face blue in the dark. He glances at my badge, more from habit than interest.
I lift two fingers in farewell.
He grunts and waves me through.
Only when I’m two streets from the port do I remove the badge and slide it inside my jacket. The van waits beneath a dead streetlight near a closed mechanic’s shop, exactly where it should be. Battered panels. Dull paint. A missing hubcap. Ugly enough to be invisible.
The side door opens before I reach it.
Dimitry sits inside with a weapon low across his lap while Crew waits behind the wheel.
I climb in and pull the door shut.
Crew drives before anyone tells him to.
“She’s alive,” I say.
Dimitry studies my face for a long second.
“Condition?”
“Five days on bread and water. Weak. Nauseous. Dehydrated. Still thinking.”
I hold up my phone.
“She gave me this.”
The recording file sits on the screen, carrying enough information to change the extraction.
“Guard routine. Vehicle descriptions. Dock timing. Petrakis. Possible captain involvement. Container location. Number of women.”
Crew lets out a low whistle.
“Hell of a woman.”
“Yes,” I say.
Dimitry nods once.
“Steve needs to hear this.”
“He will.”
I thumb the screen awake and hand the phone to Dimitry.
He scans the file name before passing it to Crew, who plugs it into the van’s audio system without taking his eyes off the road.
Solace’s voice fills the cabin, quiet, tired, but unmistakably English, every word clear and deliberate as she lists names, vehicles, timings, and everything she’d pieced together during five days inside that room.
No one interrupts.
By the time the recording ends, the atmosphere inside the van has changed.
Crew shakes his head slowly.
“She missed nothing.”
Crew turns the van toward the hotel, the port shrinking behind us in the mirrors.