Yellow Bird : Kidnapped by Russian Mafia: El Aqua D'Or

By John Palmer

     Hired by a Russian mafia boss to recover stolen diamonds, two men hijacked a pleasure yacht from Miami Beach off the coast of Freeport, Bahamas. This is the story of Tanya and her mother, Nikki, who were kidnapped after the father and two other men were murdered. Brought onboard a mega yacht, the women found themselves abused as sex slaves to the cruel Russian owner. His boat traveled throughout the ocean and Caribbean while he conducted his illegal activities affording the women little opportunity to escape. When they attempted to escape, he sadistically punished them. On the boat's return to Russia, the women's hope for release was soon dashed. However, on arrival at Odesa, Nikki's home in her youth, their courage, ingenuity, and persistence would keep them steps away from an uncertain fate. Their flight to safety took them through the Ukraine countryside and finally to Zurich, Switzerland, where they found themselves again close to recapture.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Palmer
• Release date: Apr 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215539590

John Palmer

John Palmer grew up close to Lake Erie saying he always wanted to be close to the water. Sailing and power boating in New Jersey and then owning three power boats on Lake Erie, he continued to boat when he moved to the Cape Fear region of North Carolina where the Cape Fear River intersects the Intracoastal Waterway before flowing into the Atlantic Ocean-Bald Head Island to the East and Oak Island to the West. This area is rich in history and folk lore of pirates who visited centuries ago. 

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Yellow Bird

Kidnapped by Russian Mafia

A Novel by

John Palmer

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2022 by John Palmer

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information, address: [e-mail]

Also written by John Palmer:

Return to Cape Fear

Dedicated to the victims and survivors of human trafficking and families affected by it.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1      Jump

Chapter 2      Four Months Earlier

Chapter 3      Ride to Captivity

Chapter 4      Sold

Chapter 5      Lesson Learned

Chapter 6      Work

Chapter 7      Cuba

Chapter 8      The Bank

Chapter 9      Jamaica

Chapter 10      Aruba

Chapter 11      Splash

Chapter 12      Floating

Chapter 13      Nikki

Chapter 14      Hurricane

Chapter 15      Mediterranean

Chapter 16      Sicily

Chapter 17      Greece

Chapter 18      Odesa

Chapter 19      Goodbye

Chapter 20      Pete

Chapter 21      Not Quite Free

Chapter 22      Seclusion

Chapter 23      The Farm

Chapter 24      Jan

Chapter 25      On Alert

Chapter 26      Train

Chapter 27      Cold

Chapter 28      The Call

Chapter 29      Passports

Chapter 30      Help

Chapter 31      Church

Chapter 32      Hope

Chapter 33       Flumersberg

Chapter 34      School

Chapter 35       Identified

Chapter 36      Interview

Chapter 37      Apartment

Chapter 38      Photographer

Chapter 39      Wedding

Chapter 40      Replaced

Chapter 41      The Assignment

Chapter 42      The Model

Chapter 43      The Skier

Chapter 44      Alone

Chapter 45      FBI

Chapter 46      Bern

Chapter 47      Parting

Chapter 48      Cape Town

Chapter 49      Reunited

Chapter 50      Justice

Chapter 1       Jump

Прыгать! Jump! shouted Kir Kozlov in Russian and English, his face red with anger. You wanted freedom. Da, I give you freedom, you worthless and ungrateful pizdy. Let’s see you swim to escape now! Go! Jump! They were standing by the open mahogany railing on the sun deck of Kozlov’s 70 meters or 230 feet long dark navy-blue yacht, OCTO. Nikki and Tanya were wearing the female crew members’ uniform-of-the-day, white monogrammed blouses and white Bermuda shorts with white sport shoes. They also wore the tracking wristbands fastened after they attempted to escape in Aruba. At 6 feet tall weighing 260 lbs., with jet black hair and big bushy eyebrows, 60-year-old Kozlov’s intimidating body stood glaring at the frightened women. He was in a navy-blue speedo and a white terry cover with OCTO, the boat’s name, embroidered on the left in navy blue with a black octopus above it. It was loosely tied, which exposed his hairy chest and bulging stomach. He growled, The hell you’re going swimming in my clothes! Take them off! They quickly removed blouses, shorts and shoes and then threw them over the railing into the sea and stood defiantly in only bras and panties. Further angered, the Russian mafia boss picked up 115-pound Nikki by her waist and dropped her over the side into the water, 30 feet below. Grabbing hold of the handrail for balance, he then kicked 102-pound Tanya, Nikki’s 16-year-old daughter, through the open gate into the Caribbean Sea, too. Both landed hard in the water but recovered to float in the sea while Kozlov continued to shout curses at them in both his native Russian and English.

It was 3:30 p.m. on this sunny August day off the coast of Aruba, about 20 miles from the capital city of Oranjestad, from which they sailed an hour ago. Land was too far away to be seen. The water was warm for swimming at 80° F. However, with a body temperature of 98.6° the women would eventually lose heat. The sea was calm, with a slight breeze. Swells were less than 2 feet. From water level, the sea was not blue and not like where, closer to shore, one could easily see the sea floor. Here, it was more than a mile deep, too far to see the bottom.

You bastard motherfucker, go to hell! blonde Nikki yelled back. She continued to yell out every curse word she knew in English, Ukrainian, and Russian. Blonde Tanya, having swallowed a mouthful of salt water from the fall, was coughing to clear her windpipe. Are you alright, Tanya? Nikki asked, trying to pat her daughter hard on her back as best she could while staying afloat herself. The kick had knocked the wind out of Tanya and she inhaled water when she hit the sea. After a few minutes, Tanya stopped coughing and was treading water next to her mother, slowly kicking her legs forward and swirling her arms and hands in the water. Nikki continued her cursing, even though Kozlov was no longer at the boat’s rail.

Mom, Mom, Tanya said, tears in her eyes. What are we going to do? We’re going to drown. I know it. I don’t want to die. She sobbed.

All Nikki could do was to give a brave smile before she grimaced and then said, We’ll live, honey. We are going to live. We are going to live. The bandage over her severed little toe stump washed away and the salt water increased her intense pain, but she didn’t say anything about it to her daughter. She needed Tanya to stay alive to help her stay alive. Tanya started screaming every profanity she knew. They were directed at Kozlov and his first mate, Georgii.

Kozlov called for the captain to move away slowly, leaving the two women floating behind OKTO. Lara, who had gone down to the back deck, threw a small plastic bag into the water. It landed about 20 feet from them. I’ll get it, both women said simultaneously. They swam furiously to get the bag before it could sink. It was a short swim, but left them exhausted from rushing to it. Inside was a blue plastic inflatable boat intended for children playing in a pool. It was never intended to be used to hold two people in an ocean to float to safety. It was not even accurate to call it a dinghy. The toy was just a toy. Plus, it was not inflated.

While slowing kicking their feet to tread water, Nikki said, Me first. This was not a time to have a discussion. She ripped open the plastic bag to get the folded little boat out. Both women knew how to inflate pool and beach toys. Inflating them by mouth was the hard way, but the only way here. Nikki found the valve on the right side and blew into the inflatable boat. Tanya didn’t hesitate to blow into the left air chamber. When it was near inflated, they flopped on with feet still in the water and continued blowing into the plastic valves until the side air chambers were almost full. Exhausted, they laid on the sides and tried to get away from OCTO using their hands as paddles.

Mom, which way is land? How can we paddle this boat by hand all the way to land? Oh, Mom. I love you. I’m sorry. It’s all my fault, isn’t it? I’m so sorry. I love you, love you. She cried. We’re going to drown, aren’t we? Tanya bawled.

Nikki put an arm around Tanya and said in a now hoarse voice, We will not die, sweetheart. I am strong and you are strong. We both know how to swim and float and we are survivors. This mini plastic yacht will keep us afloat until another boat comes along to rescue us. I am sure of that. You love me. I know that and I love you even more. Nikki didn’t say it, but was afraid help might not come in time. She wasn’t sure how long she could stand the pain in her foot.

Meanwhile, with his boat out of sight of the women, Kozlov told the captain to stop. An hour after they left the women floating in the sea, the boat returned and circled Nikki and Tanya in a wide arc.

He’s taunting us now. I think he’ll come back to pick us back up. Maybe not for a while, though. Nikki could see the sun reflecting off Kozlov’s binoculars.

Mom, he’s just teasing us. Tanya held up her right hand in a fist and extended her middle finger. Go to hell, you sick pervert, child molester, rapist, kidnapper, murderer! Tanya screamed. She knew he couldn’t hear her words, but knew he could see her finger.

After circling them for almost an hour, Kozlov gave Lara a disapproving scowl and then told Georgii, his first mate, who was standing next to him, to go get his Merkel. Returning shortly with Kozlov’s favorite deer and boar hunting rifle, a Merkel RX Helix—a deadly accurate weapon even at a great distance.

After chambering a shell in the bolt-action rifle, he brought it up and looked through the eyepiece of the mounted Swarovski Z8i scope. He could easily center the crosshairs on both Nikki and Tanya. He then handed the rifle to Georgii and asked him what he thought.

Doable, Georgii replied in Russian. Why don’t you make it a little more challenging?

Kozlov grunted and picked up his Swarovski EL rangefinder binoculars. The little raft was about 200 meters away. Da. Let’s make it more interesting. He instructed the captain to spiral out slowly to circle around the little blue boat at 750 meters away and to keep the speed at 5 knots. Kozlov wanted to stalk his prey.

What is he doing, Mom?

He’s just teasing us.

Bang. The women heard a gunshot and looked at each other to see if the other was wounded. Kozlov fired his first shot high into the air to get the ladies’ attention.

Kozlov then looked through the scope and could put each woman in the crosshairs, even though his boat was moving and bouncing up and down on the sea swells. Bang! He shot and quickly loaded another round. Bang!

Did you get them? Georgii asked.

I got them, Kozlov replied with a smile. I got them. I got them both.

Move on, he told the captain.

Chapter 2            Four Months Earlier

Lounging in her pale blue and light pink bikini by her swimming pool with AirPods in her ears, Tanya was playing a game on her latest generation iPhone. Her phone rang breaking her concentration on the game. It was from her best friend, Katie. Tanya was home from high school on Spring Break and enjoying her leisure and freedom. Like her mother, who had a brief career modeling before marrying her father, Gregory Orlowski, Tanya had blue eyes and blonde hair. Occasionally, strangers would say the two women looked like they should be models or in movies. Both were beautiful, and both turned heads. Life was good for them, living in a large million-dollar home in a small, upscale gated development in Miami Beach. The home had a three-car garage for two Mercedes cars and a vintage yellow 1962 Jaguar E–Type convertible. The white stucco home, which had a view of a 25-acre pond in the back with two fountains, had a tall screened-in pool enclosure with an outdoor kitchen and bar. Fifteen-year-old Tanya was expecting her 16th birthday in two months. She told Katie, with a laugh, she was going to ask for a red Ferrari convertible for her birthday. That was an extreme wish, but she expected to get her own car so she could drive to school and get to her activities. Not that she would express it, but life was good, and she was happy. Popular at school, with four close friends, and one boy who took her on two movie dates and asked her to be his prom date, she was looking forward to a great spring and summer.

Laying on the lounge, my conversation with Katie was interrupted when I glanced up and noticed my father walk out the back door. As he sat down on the chaise next to me, he had a big smile on his face. He said, How would you like to go to Freeport this weekend? It would be a fun way to end your break. I have business there and you and Mom could find fun things to do.

I asked if Katie could come with us. She came with us on his old boat before and we had fun swimming in the ocean off the back deck. We took Dad’s old boat to Freeport in the past and this would be the first time to take his new one, which he only had for a month. It was a little bigger Bertram than his old fishing boat. He told me he named it El Aqua D’Or because he likes water and gold. It didn’t make sense in either Spanish or French, but he liked the sound of it.

Katie said, Sure, but let me ask my mom. I’ll call you right back. When she called back, she had to decline. This was to be her weekend with her father.

Dad and Mom were born in Ukraine, and each came to the United States with their parents as teenagers. Mom was from Odesa and Dad was from Kyiv. Dad owned an export/import business dealing in minerals and ores. I didn’t really understand it, but apparently it was a good business to be in. His office was in a building in North Miami. I didn’t go there very often. Mom did, though, often bringing office work home. Dad traveled to Russia for business and more often to New York, and I remember once he flew to Buenos Aires in South America. I sometimes heard both Mom and Dad talking on the phone in Ukrainian or Russian, which I learned very little of. I lived my entire life in Miami Beach. Mom usually spoke Ukrainian with her mother, Valentyna, who lived not far away. Gram Val said I should learn more Ukrainian. Like, really? Dad had blue-gray eyes, short white hair, and was at least a half-foot taller than me. His parents, my other grandparents, lived in Ohio. They were older than Gram Val and didn’t enjoy flying or the long drive from Ohio to Miami. My family only flew up to Cleveland once a year, if that, to visit. Living in Miami, in South Florida, I learned Spanish in school from kindergarten to ninth grade.

Friday was my last day of Spring Break. This was the first time for Dad to take out his boat on more than a brief fishing trip into the Atlantic Ocean near home. El Aqua D’Or was a one-year-old fifty-six-foot-long yacht. With a butter yellow hull and white deck, I thought it was really super and a much better boat than that old one. My cabin was in the very front with a queen-size bed. It was a beautiful warm morning and the weather report said the entire weekend would be sunny. I was wearing white short shorts, and a white printed t-shirt, Dr. Martens sandals and mirrored sunglasses. My nails and lips were colored bright red. Both Mom and Dad were wearing t-shirts and shorts, too. My hair was in a ponytail sticking out the back of a hat with a cool pink sequined dolphin on the front. As we were getting ready to leave, the son of the owner of the boat docked next to ours, hearing the roar of our engines coming to life, came out to help us get untied and underway. Dad yelled over to him as we cleared our dock, Thanks, Alex. I waved to him, too, as we were pulling away. Alex, who lived in New Jersey, came down to spend the week with his father on his boat, Aces and Eights. He was three years older than me. I’d known him over the years seeing him whenever he came with his father. I’d never met his mother.

We started off excited to start our mini-vacation. Dad said he wanted to conduct a little business with pleasure. He was going to buy raw, uncut diamonds and was bringing a heavy, hard sided suitcase full of cash for the purchase. Making the purchase in international waters, and in cash, he explained, was a way that both parties could legally avoid paying taxes. Later, I learned that this isn’t true. He said they were mined in Siberia, Russia, and he had buyers in the United States.

Before we entered the harbor of the Freeport marina, Dad used the boat’s radio to make a call to Stardust. He said there was no boat called that and it was just his way of alerting the person he was to do business with that he had arrived. After tying El Aqua D’Or into the assigned slip, we were soon ready to go up to our room. The resort hotel where we’d stay was part of the marina complex. A cart was pushed down for us to load our duffel bags and dad’s suitcase. A hotel guy pushed it all back into the hotel. He was cute and smiled at me a lot. I gave him a smile back. It always made me feel good when boys smiled at me. After dinner that night at the resort, Dad got a call from someone called Paul. Paul gave Dad the instructions on when and the coordinates where to be meet him tomorrow for the diamond/payment exchange.

Early the next morning, we left the room. Dad, rolling his suitcase of money, said we’d be back by noon. Earlier, Mom and Dad had an argument about whether I should go along on the boat while Dad did his business. Not wanting to be left alone in the room, I promised to be quiet and not interrupt anything. We traveled for a long time when Dad shut off the motors and we drifted around in the ocean until dad spotted another boat approaching through his binoculars. When that boat tied off on ours, Mom told me we needed to go below into my parent’s cabin and stay there and be silent while dad conducted his business. As we went below, I saw one man step off that boat and come aboard ours. He was wearing blue shorts and a flowered shirt, and sandals with dark socks. Honestly! Dad greeted him Ukrainian. That I understood. A little. The boat he came off of looked like one of those charter fishing boats with two big outboards and a half dozen rods in holders mounted to the canopy. That boat’s captain stayed aboard. I brought out a book to read when Mom said it would be several hours before we could go topside again. Mom opened a closet door and took out a shotgun, which scared me. She said everything would be fine, but she wanted to be ready if Dad needed help. I was getting really nervous. Forget reading-I shook. Mom patted my head and back and said not to worry. I was worried.

Soon we heard Dad talking to the man who came aboard as they went below into the galley area. Mom whispered Dad would examine the diamonds to see if they were genuine. She said he dealt in diamonds before and knew how to appraise them with some scales and other stuff he brought with him. After an hour, while the men were busy with the diamonds, Mom looked out of the cabin window and noticed another boat approaching. It soon tied off to our boat on the other side. From the cabin window we saw two men get out who were wearing what looked like police uniform shirts and they were carrying small machine guns. With brown skin, long hair and mustaches, they must have surprised Dad and the other man while they were looking at the diamonds. We heard shouting in Spanish and shortly later, a gunshot. When I heard my dad cry out in pain and moan, both Mom and I came bursting out to see him doubled up on the floor.

What happened next came so fast I don’t remember it clearly. I heard their names and thought they must be brothers, Luis and Evaristo. That’s what they called each other. One of these Spanish-speaking men grabbed the barrel of Mom’s shotgun and twisted it away from her grip. She jumped on him and tried to claw his face. She was then hit in the back of the head by the other brother and fell to the floor. I was in shock watching all this. They put Dad’s hands in black plastic straps behind his back and did this to the man who brought the diamonds and the captain of the fishing boat who brought him. They pushed them all into the back of the fishing boat. Both Mom’s and my hands were also tied in plastic straps, too, but in front of us. Both men carefully lowered us onto the seats of the speed boat they came in. The brothers stayed on our boat for a long time before the one called Luis got into the boat we were in and pulled a short distance away from my father’s boat at a low speed. We hadn’t gone far before we heard the loud, fast-popping sound of a machine gun firing. The shooting seemed to go on forever. When we heard it, Luis made the Sign of the Cross. Mom and I turned around to see what was happening and cried. Then looking each other in the eye, not needing to vocalize what we knew. Evaristo sank that fishing boat dooming my father to drowning if he wasn’t dead already. Luis threw his fake police shirt into the water and punched the throttles of the three powerful outboard motors, speeding to God knows where.

Getting my anger and my nerves back, I looked at Luis and took a big bite on his right arm just below his shoulder. I held on and shook my head back and forth, wanting to inflict a fatal wound. Letting go of the steering with his left hand, he smacked me on the head. When my biting grip was loosened, he used his right elbow to punch me hard in the ribs, knocking the breath out of me. It felt like he might have broken some ribs; it hurt so much. He called me a ‘fucking bitch’ and a barracuda.

Do you two want to swim back to that sinking boat to join the men? he sneered. Sit still and behave.

You fucking bastard! You asshole! Let us go. Now! I yelled. That was the first time I used such words in front of my mother. My wrists were tied in front of me. I raised my hands to capture Luis’ head wanting to strangle him. He used his right elbow to hit me under