Authors: Steve Richer
Since it wasn’t the high season of
tourism, the little bistro was rather quiet and it suited Rick just fine. His
table was isolated, not quite by the window yet not by the kitchen either. He
was left alone, exactly how he wanted it.
Most of all, he felt rejuvenated this
morning. In spite of his anxiety about the whole thing, he had slept like a
log. The stress and jetlag had finally gotten to him. Now he was drinking
coffee and eating croissants like they were going out of style.
The big Russian entered the restaurant
and ignored the hostess. He looked as if he hadn’t changed from last night,
looking like a pimp from a Luc Besson movie. At last he spotted Rick and headed
for his table.
“God, this is good,” Rick said as he
motioned for the man to sit down across from him. “You have to try some.”
The Russian obliged as Rick handed him
the basket of croissants.
“I told you it was good. They make it
themselves every day.”
He broke himself a piece of buttery
croissant and shoved it into his mouth. The Russian had suggested this place
for their morning rendezvous and Rick definitely couldn’t complain. This
breakfast was the highlight of his trip so far.
“So, what’s the verdict?”
“It’s okay.”
“Okay? What does that mean?”
The Russian swallowed and wiped his hands
on the tablecloth. “You have to go to Amsterdam.”
“Amsterdam? That’s where it’s gonna
happen?”
“You have to go to antique shop.”
His hands now clean enough, the Russian
produced a small card from his wallet. He slid it across the table to Rick.
There was an address handwritten on it. At least he thought it was an address,
Dutch words might as well have been Egyptian hieroglyphs to him.
Wait
, there
was something in English written on the back too.
“This is it?”
“Be sure to ask exactly for that,” the
Russian said. “That way they will know I sent you.”
Rick nodded and pocketed the card while
the Russian stood up.
“And you better pay them otherwise I won’t
get my fee.”
“That would be bad, wouldn’t it?”
“If I don’t get my fee then I have to
find you.”
There was no doubt in Rick’s mind what
the subtext was. If the Russian tracked him down it wouldn’t be to give him is
favorite borscht recipe.
It would be to put a bullet in his head.
~ ~ ~ ~
Jemiolo walked into the Luxe Patton Hotel
with a purpose. The first thing you learned during training to become a Central
Intelligence Agency operative was to project confidence. There was no limit to
what you could accomplish if you appeared as if you belonged.
He had been doubtful at first but it didn’t
take long for him to be proven wrong. One of the first exercises he’d been
tasked with had been to infiltrate the office of the executive senior partner
in one of Washington’s most prestigious law firms.
There had been no tangible reason for
this aside from proving the instructor’s point. So Jemiolo had gotten a
haircut, put on a thousand-dollar suit, and he’d strolled upstairs without
anyone giving him a second look. From that moment on, he’d been a convert.
Today it was no different. He walked
through the hotel lobby as if he was himself a client, as if he’d been here a
million times before. He headed up the stairs since his surveillance had been
enough to determine which room the subject was staying in.
Going through proper channels had been
his first instinct but Hertz had nixed the idea. Getting a warrant, getting
Luxembourg’s Grand Ducal Police aboard, it would have made the whole thing
easier. At the same time, it would have involved too many new players and the
mission was too sensitive to risk it. What if there was a leak?
So for the moment they were keeping this
a covert op.
Jemiolo rushed down the hall – but never
too fast that you attract suspicion – and found room 214. He reached into his
back pocket and produced his lock-picking kit. He unzipped the small nylon
case, pulled out two metal instruments, and dropped to his knees.
Truth be told, he loved this shit. He
looked at Hertz and saw a cynical man, someone jaded by a long career, someone
who hated everything and everyone. Maybe it was because Jemiolo was younger
that he didn’t feel like this, he wasn’t sure.
He thought it was more accurate to
believe that they came from different stages in the CIA’s history. Hertz had
started out during the Cold War, he had lived through the transformation of the
government’s national security goals.
For his part, Jemiolo had known nothing
but the War on Terror. He’d been recruited straight out of college because of
his proficiency with languages and he’d taken to it like a duck to water. It
had been right after 9/11 so the incentive to perform had been unimpeachable.
He believed in what he did and he faced absolutely no moral dilemmas.
Yeah, he really loved being in the field.
The door clicked open in under 20 seconds
and Jemiolo hurried inside, closing the door behind him. He glanced around and
resisted the urge to do a victory dance when he saw that the room hadn’t been
cleaned yet.
He turned around and sank to his knees
once more while he faced the door. He grabbed a jar of good old-fashioned
fingerprint powder and sprinkled it on the doorknob, using a fine brush to
spread it evenly. Next, he used a plastic film to lift the clear fingerprint
from the brass surface.
He had taken a photograph of the American
last night but the image was blurry and face recognition software still hadn’t
been able to identify the subject. Hopefully this would do the trick.
Hopefully, they’d be able to find out who
the treacherous American was and why he was dealing with terrorists.
~ ~ ~ ~
Just a little 30 minutes later, Jemiolo
was back at the apartment/office in the Gaasperech neighborhood. Hertz put down
his coffee and looked up from his computer.
“Get anything?”
“I have some fingerprints.”
Without pausing, Jemiolo went to another
computer at the work desk. It was always turned on and all he had to do was
plug in a handheld scanner. As the software loaded, he pulled out the
fingerprints he had lifted from the hotel room. He had collected a dozen and
they were mounted on squares of cardboard.
Hertz shuffled over to him as the younger
operative scanned the prints. When he saw that they came out rather clearly, he
went to the secure telephone unit and dialed a familiar number. A technician
picked up almost immediately.
After the greeting protocol Hertz said, “I
have a level five request for fingerprint analysis, Majestik priority.”
Jemiolo took a step back. “It’s been sent.”
Both of them knew what was going to
happen now. A technician in a windowless room in Langley would receive the
files, clean up the scans to make sure there weren’t any artifacts, and then
they would be inputted into the system. At the beginning of Hertz’s career,
this process could take days.
Today they got results within six
minutes.
Jemiolo went to the computer when it
beeped and started to read the transmission.
“Rick Travis, 28 years old, resides in
Washington DC. Educated at Virginia Commonwealth University, degree in
communication. Applied three times at the FBI Academy and was rejected every
time. His uncle is with the Bureau.”
Hertz ran a hand through his thinning
hair. “I’m afraid of that little bastard. He could really fuck things up.”
“We’ll have to work our magic,” Jemiolo
replied with a shrug.
“Yeah. Get some tickets.”
Going to Amsterdam took longer than
coming to Luxembourg City. Rick first had to board a train bound for Brussels
and then he had to transfer to another railway system to leave Belgium. All in
all, it took over six hours to reach the Netherlands.
It was midafternoon when he got to his
destination and he immediately went to a hotel, mostly to drop off his bags.
This time he didn’t bother with the please-forget-my-passport charade. He was
afraid of running out of money and he didn’t see the point. There had to be a
hundred ways to prove he’d been in Europe if it ever came to that.
No, the one thing that truly mattered was
following up on his lead.
He took a cab to the Jordaan
neighborhood, part of central Amsterdam. The place was old with narrow streets,
beautiful canals everywhere. It was classy, definitely expensive by today’s
standards. It reminded Rick of Georgetown back home.
“Thanks,” he told the cab driver after
they’d come to a halt in front of an antique shop.
Inside the store, his impression of the
place was knocked down a couple of pegs though. Instead of being organized like
a fine upscale gallery, there were heaps of junk piled throughout. It was as if
the owner had just received a shipment and hadn’t sorted through it yet. It
smelled like dust and mold.
“
Goedenmiddag. Kan ik u helpen?
”
Rick turned quickly to find an elderly
clerk standing behind the counter.
“Uh,” he racked his brain for what little
Dutch he had learned during the train ride. “
Spreekt u Engels?
”
“Yes, I speak English. Can I help you,
sir?”
There was something jovial about the man,
like somebody who’d been parked in a retirement home and was glad for his
children to visit once a year. He was dressed in brown tweed from head to toe.
Rick finally made his way to the counter.
“Hi. You have beautiful stuff here.”
Well, it wasn’t totally a lie. He was
certain there was some good stuff buried somewhere. Buried deeply.
“Thank you.”
Okay, time for the plan.
“I was wondering if you had any movie
memorabilia.”
“What kind are you wanting?”
“Actually, it’s for my father. He’s a
pretty big movie fan.”
“What is favorite movie?”
“Oh, he loves
The Maltese Falcon
.
You wouldn’t have a blue wax replica of the falcon, would you?”
The elderly clerk looked left and right,
as if they weren’t alone already, before leaning in toward his client. “Just a
moment, I go look.”
He disappeared into the back and Rick
resumed his browsing. He was playing with an ugly lamp when the man returned.
“I don’t have falcon now.”
Rick winced. “That’s unfortunate, I
really need one.”
The clerk nodded solemnly.
“Come back tonight, ten. I have one at
this time.”
“Okay then,” Rick declared, not finding
anything else relevant to say.
He nodded goodbye and left the shop.
As he reached the sidewalk, Rick lifted
up the collar of his jacket. It was colder than in Luxembourg. He crossed the
street and started scanning the area for a taxi when he felt a presence next to
him.
He twisted his head and found a man in
his early 30s, a head full of curly black hair. He was staring straight at him.
“Hey Rick, how’s it going?”
Rick stopped to face him.
“Who are you? How do you know my name?”
“I’m the Prize Patrol. Come with me, I
got somebody who wants to speak with you.”
“What do you want?”
“I just told you. Come on.”
The stranger put his hand on Rick’s back,
right above the revolver, and encouraged him to start walking.
“The hell’s going on?”
“It’ll only take a minute. Please, let’s
go.”
Until now Rick had pretty much been
confident in his plan of attack. Aside from contacting the Russian, he had
stayed at a fair distance from trouble. Now he was hitting a snag and it wasn’t
the worst part.
No, the worst part was that he didn’t
know what to do.
He had no training whatsoever, he didn’t
know the procedure for dealing with a situation like this. Should he obey?
Should he resist? He had the massive gun shoved down his pants but he didn’t
trust himself to whip it out and point it at the stranger before being himself
subdued.
What else could he do, run away
screaming? Do his best to hit the man in the face with his elbow? And what if
he did? What happened after that? Maybe this was a representative from
Greenwood who had noticed him following. This could be the chance he’d been
looking for.
“All right, fine,” Rick said with a faint
shrug so the man would stop touching him.
“This way…”
Rick followed him – well, actually walked
next to him – and they went down the street until they rounded the corner. A
black BMW was parked on the curb.
Curly opened the rear door and Rick saw
that an older guy was sitting in the back. Having come this far, he slid in
next to him.
“What’s this about?”
“Hello, Rick.”
“Is somebody gonna tell me what’s going
on? And how do you know my name? Am I famous on YouTube, or something?”
The younger guy went around the car and
got behind the wheel.
“Let’s go, Jemiolo.”
He nodded, turned on the engine, and
shifted into gear.
“Hey, wait a minute! I never agreed about
driving anywhere.”
“I don’t talk in cars, Rick. Gives me
motion sickness.”
“And talking to strangers gives me
heartburn. Who are you guys?”
“We’ll be there in just a minute,”
Jemiolo said from the front seat, looking at Rick through the rearview mirror.
Was this supposed to be reassuring?
~ ~ ~ ~
The guy had been right about this being a
short drive. In less than ten minutes, they had parked in an underground garage
and walked up into a hotel. Again, Rick thought about kicking and screaming, he
was convinced he’d be able to pull it off here since there were people around,
but he had to see where it led.
They went upstairs and entered a hotel
room. It was pretty standard, certainly better than his previous accommodations
in Luxembourg. The older man pointed to a chair.
“Have a seat, Rick. Please. My name is
Hertz, by the way.”
“Can you spell that for me, just so I can
tell the police who kidnapped me?”
“Cute. Now sit down.”
Still unsure, Rick collapsed on the chair
anyway and was grateful that the gun wasn’t too uncomfortable. Jemiolo sat on
the nearest queen-size bed while Hertz remained standing.
“I’m gonna take a wild guess here. You
guys aren’t with the FBI, are you?”
Jemiolo smiled. “Touché.”
“CIA?”
“Does it matter?” Hertz said.
“Hell yeah, it matters! I usually like
knowing who it is that abducts me. Call me concerned.”
Hertz crossed his arms. “We’ve had some
people under surveillance for some time now.”
“Some bad people,” his partner added.
“So when you contact them it makes us
wonder. Are you a bad person, Rick?”
Rick grinned. “I shoplifted a candy bar
once.”
“I think you’re a little worse than that.”
Hertz took over. “You meet with some
Russian mobster, you make contact with some international drug runners. The
first thing that jumps to mind is that you’re planning some terrorist attack.”
“You guys don’t know the half of it.”
Jemiolo nodded. “It would be rather out
of character for you, that we know.”
“You applied to the FBI Academy, your
uncle works there in human resources, but you don’t seem pissed enough to blow
the Hoover building.”
Rick shifted forward, sitting on the edge
of his seat. “Okay, let’s stop ass-fucking each other. You’ve been staking out
the Russian because you want to get to Greenwood, am I right?”
Jemiolo and Hertz glanced at each other.
Rick took that as a good sign, he was no longer on the defensive for once.
He continued. “I know because the Russian’s
the only lead anybody has on Greenwood. I read the files.”
Hertz came closer, his eyes tightening. “Who
do you wanna blow up?”
“Nobody. I’m writing a book about him,
On
the Trail of a Terrorist
. I intend to find him and interview him,
chronicling all the steps that led me to him. It’s gonna make me rich.”
This was another thing that Rick had
worked out before leaving. He’d had to find a logical reason for doing what he
was doing in case he ever got questioned.
“You have proof of this?”
“I got some notes in my laptop, I haven’t
started writing yet. When I get my interview, I’ll get a development deal. It’s
not illegal, is it?”
There was a long silence and Rick couldn’t
make up his mind as to whether this was good news or bad news. The older
intelligence officer waved his colleagues over and the two men went to confer
near the bathroom. It was several minutes until they returned.
“I wanna make a deal with you,” Hertz
began. “You keep on your trail and we keep you under tabs.”
“No way! Greenwood will find out and I’ll
end up being Elvis’ bowling partner.”
“We keep our distance, nobody’ll know we’re
there.”
Jemiolo used a softer tone. “I’m sure you
have our national security at heart, Rick.”
“Look, we all know this is a dicey
situation, right? This terrorist attacked New York, he attacked our country.
Now I have a good feeling about you, I think you’re telling the truth. I think
you really want to do the right thing, Rick. Why don’t you help us track him
down?”
Having been a salesman, Rick knew a sales
pitch when he heard one. “You boys are really desperate, aren’t you?”
“Yes we are,” Hertz admitted. “We want
justice, our country deserves it. Besides, your family is FBI, yes? You tried
to join yourself, three times. It’s because you wanted to serve your country,
right? Well now is your chance, kid.”
“When you’re done, we’ll extract you. We’ll
keep an eye on you, you’ll never be in danger. We’ll bring you home safe and
sound.”
Rick’s gaze shifted from Hertz to Jemiolo
and to Hertz again. The last thing these guys inspired in him was confidence.