“I don’t smoke,” Smith said.
“I know that, but you’d better either smoke or drink. You’re far too clean-cut for this place and your face screams American WASP, come and beat the shit out of me.”
Before Smith could reply the bartender tossed two saucer-sized cardboard coasters on the bar in front of them.
“Was willste?”
“Bourbon,” Beckmann said. He leaned toward Smith. “What do you want?”
“I’m tempted to order seltzer water just to piss off the clientele.”
Beckmann smiled. “Do it. I like a man who spits in the face of danger.”
“Whiskey, neat,” Smith said to the bartender.
Beckmann turned a bit to face the room, leaned against the bar, and pretended to ignore the others while he spoke to Smith.
“Table at three o’clock is the alpha. Name’s Corenger. Dabbles in prostitution, arms, and drugs. Neo-Nazi sympathizer but only because most of his sales are made through that network and he’s smart enough to pretend. He couldn’t care less about politics. He has an extensive network of spies and informers. If something’s going on he’ll have heard about it and will be trying to profit from it.”
The bartender placed a drink before him and Smith took a sip. In the mirror over the bar he could see the five at Corenger’s table eyeing them both as they talked.
“Looks like we’re the subject of their conversation.”
Beckmann shifted away from the room. “Corenger is no fool. He’s checking out that technical black jacket you’re wearing and those fancy combat boots and he knows that you’ve got a lot more money than the average idiot. He’s trying to figure out why you’re here.”
Smith’s jacket was a lightweight running model and his boots had a high top, lugged sole, and steel toe. He wore black jeans and an army watch.
“Is he plugged into a national network? Or does he only work Berlin?”
“National, for sure. He’s trying to take over the entire market for weapons in Germany. Lots of enthusiasts want German engineering, and I don’t mean cars. But he has an impressive network of small-time thieves, pickpockets, and burglars in his pocket, not to mention hit men. If there’s something going on in the area they’ll tip him to it and he’ll demand either a piece of the action or hush money.”
Corenger waved at the man next to him, who rose slowly. He was bulky but muscled and had a massive beard that hung to his collarbones. He sauntered toward them.
“Here comes his lieutenant. Rolf something,” Beckmann said.
Rolf something stopped in front of Smith.
“Warum biste du hier?”
Smith took a sip from his drink, put it down in a calm motion, and only then looked at the man.
“I don’t speak German,” he said.
“Sprechen nicht Deutsch,” Beckmann translated.
“So I ask in English, yeah? Why are you here? Where are you from?” The man’s English was passable. Smith shrugged.
“Not anyplace for very long.”
“American? We don’t need you here.”
Smith took another sip. He leveled a gaze at the man. “And yet, here I am.”
“Leave.”
“No,” Smith said. “I’m here to learn things.”
Rolf something’s eyes narrowed. “What type of things?”
“Information. About foreigners in the area. I can pay for it, but it has to be solid.”
The man looked at Beckmann and rattled off a sentence in German. Beckmann replied and the large man turned back to his table.
“So what was that about?”
“He wanted to know if you were CIA. I told him no. Said you were a hostage negotiator looking to pay off a ransom.”
“Nice angle,” Smith said.
“Thank you, I try,” Beckmann replied.
Rolf something returned and stopped in front of Smith. “Corenger wants to speak to you.”
“I don’t know who that is,” Smith said.
Rolf pointed at the table. “He’s over there.”
Smith made a show of glancing at the table. “Well, I’m right here. If he wants to speak to me tell him to come over.”
Rolf frowned. “He wants you over there.”
Smith shook his head. “I don’t hold a private conversation in front of strangers. He wants to speak to me he can come over here. Now I’m busy talking to my friend.”
Rolf grabbed Smith’s left arm, a move that Smith had anticipated. He reached across his body, wrapped his hand over the meat of the other man’s palm, broke the grip, twisted the wrist almost ninety degrees, and swept it over his head, bringing it back down as he did. It was one of the easiest and most effective aikido moves that Smith had learned during his combat training in the military. Easy because it took almost no strength to do, but effective because it twisted an attacker’s wrist so unnaturally that it created extreme pain.
Rolf howled and his shoulders followed the movement until he was bent forward at the waist, with his wrist bent. Smith turned it even more and took two steps backward, still holding the torque on the wrist and hauling Rolf with him. Smith took two more backward steps and Rolf hit the floor, face-first, with his arm up behind him at an almost ninety-degree angle. Smith levered Rolf’s arm up higher and placed his knee on the man’s neck. Now the pressure point was on the shoulder joint, which was twisted unnaturally. Smith pushed the arm up so that it was hyperextended, cradled it against his shoulder, and leaned a bit forward to maintain the pressure. Rolf yelled from the floor.
Smith heard the noise of chairs scraping across floors as the entire room rose.
Beckmann hauled a Sig Sauer out from a shoulder holster and pointed it at Corenger. He spoke in German and the men in the room all stayed where they were.
“Don’t move,” Smith said to Rolf. “At this angle it will only take a small push to pop your arm out of the socket. Once I dislocate it I’ll pull right and stretch the tendons. It’ll take you three years to heal, minimum.” Smith looked up at Beckmann. “What did you say?”
“I asked if they really want to die for this fool,” Beckmann said.
“Let’s go,” Smith said. He rose and stepped back quickly. Rolf put his palms on the floor to rise and stopped when Beckmann shoved the muzzle of his pistol on the back of the man’s neck.
“Stay down until we’re gone,” Beckmann said. Rolf settled back on the wood.
Smith took a slow look around the room, stopping at Corenger. He walked through the crowd and out the door without looking back.
The cool night air smelled fresh after the smoky interior and Smith inhaled it. Beckmann joined him and they headed around the corner to the dirt parking lot, making their way around the motorcycles to their rental car.
“Hey, American.”
Smith turned to see Corenger strolling toward them, with two of his men half a step behind. Neither was Rolf something.
Smith waited. Beckmann tensed next to him and reached into his jacket. Corenger put up a hand.
“Just talking. I hear you need information.”
Smith nodded. “I do.”
Corenger held his hands palms out at Smith. “So let’s talk.”
Smith shook his head. “Those two stay back.” The men behind Corenger looked at their boss. Corenger jerked his head at them and they stayed put while he continued forward. He pointed at Beckmann.
“He stays back too.”
Smith shook his head. “He’s not a bodyguard, he’s a partner. He’ll need to hear the information as well.”
Corenger narrowed his eyes but said nothing. He came within five feet of them both and stopped. He was a large man with broad shoulders, a paunch, and hair past his shoulders tied in a ponytail. The few threads of gray at his temples told Smith he was in his forties, but his weathered, hard face looked at least a decade older.
“How much will you pay?”
“Depends on the information.”
“What if I told you I know where a certain
high-ranking American official is being held right now and that you are standing within thirty minutes of his location?”
Smith said. “I’d say that’s worth nothing. I need an address.”
Corenger shook his head. “No address. You can follow us there. We’re going now.”
“Now? Why?”
“Because they didn’t pay what I asked. I own this area. You want to run an action here you pay me a percentage. How much ransom did they demand?”
Smith pretended to think a moment. “About one hundred thousand euros.” Corenger’s eyes lit up and Smith waved him off. “But I only have authority to offer twenty thousand.”
Corenger gave Smith a speculative look “You pay me twenty thousand in bitcoins right now and I’ll not only take you there but I’ll retrieve your hostage for you.”
Smith snorted. “Absolutely not. Besides the fact that you’re giving me no guarantees, I need him alive. You bring him to me dead and I lose my job and you get nothing.”
“We’ll bring him to you alive. If you transfer the money to my account now we can get moving.”
Smith shook his head. “You promise a lot, but for twenty thousand it’s likely they’ll hand him over peacefully. Your way is too risky.”
“They’re not going to settle for twenty. Fifty maybe. But you’ll look like a hero if you get him for half.”
“We need to watch it go down and we take delivery of him at the location,” Beckmann said. “And we’ll send the money after.”
“Half now, the rest after we get him,” Corenger said.
“Twenty-five percent, and only after we verify that he’s actually at the location you take us to,” Smith said.
Corenger nodded. “Deal.” He waved at the others and barked an order in German. “Let’s go,” he said to Smith. He strode away toward his motorcycle.
“What the hell is a bitcoin?” Beckmann asked when Corenger was out of hearing.
“A form of crypto-currency. Internet-only money. Big in the underground world of arms and drugs. I’ve dealt with something similar before.”
“You think this guy they saw is Warner?”
Smith nodded. “I do. My concern is about what they’re going to do when they find out I’m not a hostage negotiator but a lieutenant colonel in the army.”
Beckmann opened the rental car’s passenger door. “They’ll try to kill you, me, and Warner. But hell, that’s nothing new for any of us. Let’s go.”
18
Darkanin stood over Warner wearing a surgical mask and watched as one of his men sprayed an aerosol over the bleeding man’s face.
“He’s taken one hell of a beating,” Darkanin said. The torturer, named Curry, a small man with a glass eye and a bad bowl haircut, nodded.
“He held out longer than a lot of the younger ones I’ve worked on. His generation is one tough group of assholes.”
“I understand that he served in Vietnam.”
“Ah, that explains it.”
They were in the basement of a tumbledown farmhouse at the Polish border. Warner was tied down on a plank table and unconscious. The table stopped at his ankles and his feet hung over the edge. Below them Curry had placed a bucket to catch the blood and pus oozing from the soles. Darkanin pointed at them.
“I thought there’d only be bruising.”
Curry looked nervous. “It wasn’t working, so I added a blade as well.”
Darkanin felt his anger beginning to boil. “Your instructions were clear. He was to have minimal scarring. What’s the point of wiping his memory if he has physical proof?” Curry danced sideways in a nervous, jerky motion.
“Even the bruising would show.”
“And would be healed by the time we released him. This looks septic. I’m not paying you the final installment.”
Curry looked outraged. “I did the work! You’d better pay me.”
Both men turned at the sound of shoes clattering down the wooden stairs. Brian Gore, Darkanin’s lead man on the kidnap project, ducked his head to avoid hitting it on the low-hanging ceiling while he leapt down the last two steps. Gore was a former sniper in the U.S. military who had been arrested after he’d gunned down his commanding officer in Afghanistan. He’d argued that he had post-traumatic stress disorder and didn’t recall the incident. He’d escaped from detention before his court-martial could begin and had been hiring out as a mercenary ever since.
“We’ve got trouble,” Gore said. “Corenger’s on his way over. Seems he’s pissed and wants revenge. I told you we should have paid him.”
“If I paid protection for every small-town loser who demanded it I’d be broke and a target for them all. How do you know he’s headed this way?”
“I pay one of his guys to tip me when something’s up. He just called. Said Corenger’s bringing two unknowns with him as well. A German with a gun and an American hostage negotiator.”
Darkanin’s arm shot out and he grabbed Curry by the throat and squeezed.
“A hostage negotiator? You thought you could cut a side deal and leave me hanging for the crime?”
Curry’s eyes bulged and his face slowly turned red. His lips moved and he made a gulping sound.
“Before you kill him let him talk. I know most of the negotiators in Europe and it’ll help if we have an idea who we’re up against,” Gore said. Darkanin let go and Curry stumbled and gasped.
“Who is this guy?” Darkanin asked.
Curry shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Darkanin punched him in the face. Curry fell back and landed against a card table filled with various implements of his trade. The pincers and wrenches fell to the floor as his weight upended the collection.
“I tell you I don’t know! I never cut any type of side deal. Someone on your end must have tipped him off.” Curry’s voice took on a whine of desperation. Darkanin rubbed the pain from his knuckles while he stared at the torturer. If what Curry said was true then someone, somewhere, was funneling information to a network.
Darkanin had spent months and hundreds of thousands of dollars preparing for the operation and he wasn’t about to let a lone hostage negotiator blow up the scheme.
“How many guys do we have upstairs and what kind of weapons?” he asked Gore.
“Three, an AK-47 for each, along with three pistols and an IED with a timer.”
“Why an IED?”
“We were going to set it to blow up the house after we’re done here. Best way to destroy any DNA evidence,” Gore said. Darkanin hauled Curry toward him by the shirt.
“Bandage his feet and get him ready to move. Collect the aerosol and whatever tools you need and get him to the van.” He shoved Curry away and indicated that Gore should follow him.
“Let’s give this hostage negotiator a warm welcome.”
19
Beckmann stopped the car on a small dirt road at the edge of an empty meadow. He killed the lights but kept the motor running. Corenger’s men rode to a halt around him. Smith estimated that at least five bikers of various ages and sizes had joined the convoy. Corenger got off his motorcycle and sauntered toward them, waving at Beckmann to lower his window.
“He’s being held at a farmhouse on the other side of that field. My last information was that he was alive. Whether he still is or not, I can’t tell you. We’ll go in on foot.”
“How many kidnappers are there?” Beckmann asked.
Corenger rocked his hand back and forth. “Four or five. One guy I know for sure. Name of Curry. A twisted son of a bitch who gets his kicks torturing people. He’s nothing to be worried about, but the rest?” Corenger shrugged. “I’ll be needing those bitcoins now.” He handed a scrap of paper through the window. “Here’s my address. Wash it through bitlaundry first.”
Beckmann raised the window and turned to Smith. “You have any idea what he’s talking about? What’s a bitlaundry?”
Smith reached to the seat behind him, unzipped a small computer case, and removed a tablet computer from
its sleeve.
“Just what it sounds like. It’s a money-laundering site. When I transfer the coins online it goes to an encrypted address before depositing in his.” Smith tapped on the tablet. The screen’s glow lit the small area.
“How many do you have?”
“A few thousand.”
“Where’d you get them?”
“Remember Rebecca Nolan from New York?”
Beckmann smiled. “The financier thief. Sure.”
“She gave me kilodollars and I exchanged them for bitcoins last year. I’m only transferring two thousand to Corenger. He’ll have to provide more assistance if he wants the rest.” Smith worked on transferring the funds and Beckmann opened the window again, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it, inhaling deeply. He blew a straight line to the outside.
“We should get backup before we go in there.”
“What, you don’t like the guys we’re with? Now, there’s a shock,” Smith said.
Beckmann grunted. “They’re likely to put a knife in our backs.”
Smith shook his head. “Not mine. I figure I’m safe. At least until I transfer the money. You might want to stay alert.”
“You’re all heart. Where’s Russell?”
“Turkey,” Smith said without looking up. He’d arranged the transfer and a small sand timer was spinning as the transaction processed.
“Howell?”
“London. I think,” Smith replied. “You’re too efficient. I didn’t expect to get a hit on our first try. Any backup I can arrange will take too long to get here. Why not call the local police? The FBI notified Interpol about the disappearances, so it’s not like it’s a secret.”
“Hmmm. May not be a great idea. I don’t know if they’ll come at Corenger. He has a lot of contacts in this area.”
At that, Smith did look up. “You think they’re bought?”
Beckmann shrugged. “Not sure, but I’d feel better if we had time to go to the federal level. Less of a chance there.”
A pinging sound from the computer told Smith that the transaction was complete.
“I don’t think we can wait. This is an opportunity that won’t come back.”