This story is almost entirely a work of fiction.
Almost …

Sasha Sabota is a former criminal journalist. Some of the
events depicted here are inspired by actual real life events.

PART I

1.

IT HAD BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE DIANA LAST SAW THE SHADOWS.
Way too long. Which could only mean one thing—the storm
was close. A single gentle push and she would jump headfirst
into the abyss.
Her daughter was growing. Diana knew it was only a matter
of time before the girl slipped out from under her wing. The
little girl would one day become a woman, but the little girl was
still not ready for that – for the world out there.
Diana wanted Nora away from all the evil. All of it. Even if it
meant protecting her from herself—from her own mother. So,
she decided to start taking her pills again. But she decided on
her own dosage.
From that moment on it was a matter of time before her
remission ended.

***

DIANA OPENED THE NEWSPAPER – JUST LIKE SHE DID EVERY
Saturday – starting from the last page and reading backwards.

She had just finished her second cup of coffee. It was a
tradition for her.
Rules, traditions, and habits. That was how Diana lived. She
only bought the paper on Saturday, and every time she’d start it
from the last page while drinking her coffee, waiting for Nora
to wake up.
The girl walked into the kitchen barefooted, with sleepy
eyes and messy hair.
‘Good morning, sunshine!’ her mother said.
‘Morning,’ Nora answered.
‘We have pancakes, sweetie,’ Diana told her with a smile.
‘I know …’ Nora said. ‘It’s Saturday.’ She took the milk box
from the fridge.
While she had her pancakes her, mother read the rest of the
paper.
All of a sudden, Mother’s eyes got bigger than the pancakes.
Nora had a bad feeling about that.
‘What is it, Mom?’ Nora asked.
‘Nothing, sweetie,’ she answered. ‘Just some bad people
doing bad things.’
Diana got very, very silent.
It was not a new thing for her brain to play this trick on her:
project every bad thing on her own life. She started seeing those
things, described in the article, happening to her and her
sweetie.
Nora finished her breakfast in silence. Later that day she
sneaked into the kitchen and read the paper just like her
mother did – from the last page. Eventually she got to page six
and the crime section.
“The body of a six-year-old found in the river.”

Nora knew right away this was the one that caught Mother’s
attention.
“The mother of the victim – Silvia Rozavov – is a respected
investigative inspector,” the article continued. “She is well known

for the investigative work on the double murder of the Zadi sisters,
and the double murder of nuns in Grozan’s church, where the priest
was found guilty and sentenced for life.”

The article continued with the assumption a slightly crazy
person, a fanatic churchgoer from Grozan, was the murderer of
Silvia’s child, an act of revenge for the arrest of the priest.
Silvia’s daughter was six. She had just started school. The
first time she was not under her mother’s wing.
Months passed. Diana grew colder, more silent and
absorbed by her inner world. She smiled rarely and grimly.

2.

THERE IS THIS WAY OF MAKING MONEY YOU HAVE PROBABLY NEVER
heard of. But Eddie Kevorkian has. To deceive the deceivers.
An online ad caught Eddie’s gaze, and his face stretched
into a smile.

3.

THE POLICE DIRECTORATE’S BUILDING WAS FAR FROM NEW; EVERY
room carried the scent of yesterday’s coffee and cigarettes.
Holding the press conference there was the ministry’s idea of
progress, an adoption of a more European model of policing to
connect the local districts with the local press.
‘Any questions?’ the inspector asked, opening the press
conference up to the bored looking journalists. Most were
glassy eyed, but one hand shot up eagerly.
Few of the other journalists talked to each other, not paying
attention to him at all.
The Ministry of interior and the state prosecution had
finally decided to start this long-postponed campaign against
the perpetrators of the phone scams which were spreading like
a plague all across Eastern Europe, and especially the Balkan
states.
They wanted to give people a general idea what to look out
for. Mostly the old people who were the main targets. The
campaign had to educate them on how the scams worked, what
tricks the scammers used, the ruses, how to avoid them, and
so on.

‘How do you explain the success rate? After all, they
manage to close a few deals a day?’ One of the half-asleep
journalists worked his mouth a bit just to keep himself from
falling totally asleep.
The inspector cleared his throat. ‘Truth is they … It’s a
numbers game. Sometimes they call as many as three or four
hundred people before they get a hit.’

4.

EDDIE KNEW RIGHT AWAY WHAT THE AD WAS ACTUALLY ABOUT.
Put this way it could only mean one thing.
It was time to put his plan into action.
But Eddie Kevorkian didn’t just find the ad by chance. He
was looking for one. He browsed among what he called the
peasants’ websites. They always published those ads on small
websites, owned by shady businessmen from the deep
province, money laundering machines themselves.
Eddie nailed it.
“Small-time private practice doctor looking for a courier with
own car. Competitive pay rate.” Eddie Googled the phone from
the ad and another similar ad popped that contained the same
contact information. This one claimed a distributor of
wheelchairs and medical consumables was looking for a
courier with own car.

***

THERE ARE TWO POSSIBLE WAYS TO ACT AROUND SCAMMERS WHEN
you work for them.

Option A: be direct. Tell them you know what they’re up to
and don’t mind it. Or, option B: play dumb.
Eddie chose option B.

5.

‘HOW DO THEY FIND THE COURIERS?’

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