by L. T. Ryan
He zoomed out slightly.
Eberbach.
Or, rather, just outside it.
It was an unusual location. A small town, east of Heidelberg. Essentially in the middle of nowhere.
Blake was familiar with the area from his time in Stuttgart. He had never been to Eberbach, but he’d been around the general area. An hour and a half north of Stuttgart and south of Frankfurt, the area was old and picturesque. Not the kind of place Haeli normally gravitated to.
The thought popped into his head that he should just call her back. Maybe she would be in a position to pick up. But what seemed like an obvious solution was quickly squashed when he pulled his phone out and remembered he shut it off. And for good reason.
What he needed was to get closer. If she was in trouble, he wasn’t going to be any good to her there. Four thousand miles away, he wasn’t exactly poised for a quick response.
That much would be an easy fix. A few clicks in the browser and voila.
Lufthansa. Direct flight from Dulles to Frankfurt, eight hours and twenty minutes, leaving at 9:05 PM. If there was an available seat, it would put him in-country in thirteen hours. Accounting for the time zone offset, rental car and customs delays, and travel time to the Eberbach area, he could be to Haeli by 2:00 PM.
Blake clicked through the prompts, entering the required information.
Done.
A one-way ticket to Frankfurt, Germany. He would have added the digital boarding pass to his phone’s wallet but, under the circumstances, he’d have to check in at the ticket counter—the old-fashioned way.
Having secured a ticket, Blake felt as though a small amount of weight had been lifted off him. But it was unwarranted. There were still so many questions.
He thought back to the sound of Haeli’s voice on the phone. Frightened. Out of breath. She was running from something. Was that why she left? Running from something?
There was one way he might find out.
Of the forensic tools he had installed on the laptop, the most relevant was a piece of software that could parse phone backup files. Given proper credentials, the software would download device backup archives from a user’s cloud account and parse the data into human readable form.
Blake located the software and ran it. The graphical user interface appeared, prompting for the cloud credentials. He entered Haeli’s information. A list of available backups popped up. He chose the newest, which, based on the date and time stamp, appeared to have started when she turned her phone on to call him, twenty minutes prior.
The download completed quickly, and a progress bar showed that parsing had begun. Now, he would wait.
“One water.” Arty dropped the pint glass on the table, sloshing the liquid over the end of the glass. “On the house.”
Blake laughed. “Thanks, Arty.”
If Arty was put off by Blake taking up space and not adding anything in the way of revenue, he didn’t show it.
On the screen, the progress bar jumped from half to full, then disappeared. A menu appeared. Phone calls, text messages, photos, videos, and a dozen other categories.
Text Messages. Sort by timestamp. Newest to Oldest.
He started to read.
His stomach dropped as if the textual content had reached out and punched him in the gut. It provided some answers, but even more questions. Who was this Sokolov? What diamonds?
One message jumped out. “If you fail to do so, the boyfriend dies,” it said.
It was the answer to the question that had burned his mind since he’d returned from Rhode Island.
Blake didn’t know who Sokolov was, but he would bet the farm the guys who just paid him a visit did. He would go to Germany, but it was starting to become clear that he might be in over his head. Sokolov was a Russian name. But he had reach in the US? In Germany? How many people did this guy have at his disposal?
All the training and experience aside, Blake was only one man. He needed help. But with Fezz, Khat, and Griff off the grid, he knew he wasn’t going to get it.
The best he could do was use the travel time to gather as much information as he could on this Sokolov. The rest he’d figure out when he got there.
Blake closed the laptop and stuffed it into his bag. He peeled a fifty from his billfold and tucked it under the untouched glass of water.
“See ya later, Arty.”
“Right-o.” He gave a wave.
It was ironic. It was tradition for him and the team to come to Arty’s before every mission. And now, as if directed by some cosmic force, there he was again.
23
Haeli’s eyes drooped, and her head bobbed.
The leather belt snapped across her jawline again. “No sleeping.”
She snapped her head upright and opened her eyes wide.
Since she left Virginia, she had not slept a wink. Not on the trip to Tel Aviv. Not on the trip to Frankfurt. It wasn’t that she didn’t have the opportunity, but she had been so charged up by the circumstances, it wasn’t in the cards. Instead, she had stared out the window of the plane and run through scenarios, over and over. Scenarios that would never come to pass. Now, she wished she had forced herself, if only for a few minutes.
Her exhaustion was taking its toll. If her estimates were correct, she’d been tied to the chair for somewhere between fifteen and twenty hours. Which meant she had gone over three days without sleep. She would start to lose touch with reality soon. And her captors knew it.
Beaten, psychologically tormented, and deprived of any food or water, she was fading fast. But she had made a pact with herself to not give up. To not let them break her spirit. The moment she relinquished that, it was over.
Her mind was still clear enough to realize that she would be in it for the long haul. One day was only the tip of the iceberg. No one had asked her a single question yet. They hadn’t demanded anything.
On top of it, Sokolov had yet to show his face since she was captured.
As the men bound her and carried her from the woods to the car, she had gotten a glimpse of him. But then he was gone.
While she was being moved, the men had made no attempt at blindfolding her. Even still, she couldn’t begin to guess where she was. She knew it was a couple hours or so drive. There were mountains. A lot of trees. And something that looked like the ruins of a castle, early in the journey. But none of that helped her get her bearings. She just wasn’t familiar enough with the country for any of it to matter.
Once they arrived at wherever she was, the men stripped her of her clothing and tied her to the chair. Tasked with guarding her, the men came and went in shifts. The latest two bumbling blockheads were a treat. Obviously ordered to keep her awake, one had taken to whipping her with his leather belt. The other preferred the backhand.
At least they were gentlemen enough to leave her in her bra and underwear. So far, there hadn’t been any indication that they planned to sexually assault her. In fact, they seemed quite content with plain ol’, run-of-the-mill, aggravated assault.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There was the one man who exposed himself and seemed to have gotten a kick out of slapping Haeli in the face with his manhood. He and the others had gotten a good laugh out of it. She wondered how much he would have been laughing if she could have gotten her teeth around him. And she had tried. Oh, she had tried.
Her current two babysitters were all business. They diligently carried out whatever little responsibility they were given.
Haeli looked around the room for the umpteenth time. Hoping to see something that could help her turn the tables, should she ever find herself free from her restraints. But there was nothing. Nothing except bare cement and the bright florescent fixtures which flooded the windowless room with perpetual daylight. And of course, the metal door through which the newest Russian nitwit just appeared.
“Numbers.” The new man pointed to the phone in his hand. Her phone. “What are numbers?”
Haeli tilted her head back and g
iggled to herself.
They left the phone on. Idiots.
When they first arrived, they had dumped her onto the floor. One of the men stepped on her chest while another yanked her pants by the ankles. As he ripped them free, her phone was sent skittering across the concrete. Haeli not only assumed that it was damaged, but that they would have immediately powered it off. Neither seemed to be the case.
It gave her hope. If Blake was out there, it would only be a matter of time before he or someone would come looking for her. She was at least happy to tell herself that.
“I don’t remember,” Haeli said.
With his left hand he held the screen a few inches from her face. With his right, he sparked an electronic stun gun. The crackle echoed off the bare walls. The display didn’t come with a verbal command, but its message was clear. No passcode? Zap, zap.
Haeli shrugged and shook her head.
Then, as promised, came the pain. The business end of the device jabbed into her side and the electrical arc sent pain shooting through her neck and down her legs. Her body tensed. Her abdominals rippled. And then it stopped.
“Numbers.” He tapped the screen with two fingers.
Haeli caught her breath, then groaned. “Sorry. I forget.”
It came again. Same spot.
Her muscles locked and her back arched. This time, it stopped as quickly as it started. Not because the man was done, but because of the order that came from over his shoulder.
“Enough.”
Sokolov. It’s about time.
“Leave,” Sokolov said.
The man with the stun gun spoke in Russian. Sokolov answered. Haeli understood most of it. Sokolov assured him they would get the passcode from her, in time.
As the man was leaving, Sokolov barked another instruction in Russian. Demanding another chair.
The man left the door open as he went to retrieve it. In the adjacent room, Haeli could see wood-paneled walls and the edge of a metal filing cabinet. Besides letting in the pungent aroma of cigar smoke and rotting fruit, the open door let in the sounds of the outside world. The swish of brake chambers as compressed air was released. The shudder of a diesel engine. Then another, and possibly a third. Haeli wondered if she was at a warehouse of some kind. A distribution center or a trucking company.
Sokolov didn’t speak again until the chair was delivered and he had made himself comfortable. He sat a few feet away, facing her.
“Now, let us talk, yes?”
The door slammed shut behind Sokolov, sealing out the context of the distant surroundings.
Haeli shifted and tried to ignore the pain in her back and jaw and ribs and just about everywhere else. She blinked herself as awake as she could manage. Keeping her wits about her would be critical.
“I think we’ve said everything there is to say, don’t you think? You want your diamonds, and I have no idea where they are. Doesn’t that about sum it up?”
Sokolov let out a deliberate laugh. “Where are my manners? Would you like some water?”
Haeli didn’t answer.
Sokolov nodded to the man with the belt. He hustled into the adjacent room.
Wood paneling. Rumbling diesel. Another whiff of the putrid odor.
“You are a very beautiful girl. I think you are smart, too, yes? Tell me, do you know how long a person can live without food?” He paused for an answer that was never coming. “No? Three weeks. Without sleep, who knows? Let us call it an experiment. For science if you like.”
The other man returned, wheeling a metal stand with a bag of clear fluid hanging from it. He brought it behind Haeli’s chair.
“This is, what do you call it?” Sokolov pointed to the crook of his arm. “The needle.”
“An I.V.,” Haeli said.
“Yes. And do not worry it is only—uh—salt.”
“Saline. Yeah, wasn’t worried.”
In truth, she had been. Still was. God only knew what they were planning to inject her with. Sodium Pentothal? LSD? Her arms tied behind her, she couldn’t see the needle being inserted. But she felt the man’s clammy hand clamped around her elbow. And then the pinch.
“Without this, you will die much too quickly. So, we do this. There are very many wonderful things planned for you.”
“I can barely wait.” Haeli knew that her mouth was instigating things her body wanted nothing to do with. But she couldn’t help herself. This was a battle of will, more than wit, and she needed him to know that hers was still intact.
“Of course, you can tell me what I want to know right now, and you go home to your boyfriend Blake Brier and I will not be forced to kill you and him. This is win-win situation, yes?”
Haeli wanted to cry. Blake was alive. Sokolov’s words had all but confirmed it. She had been able to warn him in time.
“He’ll find you, you know.” Haeli laughed. A low, evil laugh, against a broad grin. Spittle mixed with the blood dried on her lips and trickled from the corner of her mouth. “He’ll make you pay.”
“It is true. He is a slippery guy. But do not mistake, he will die. And he will know it was you that brought it on him. But!” He held his index finger upward. “But. The good news is, now you can still save him.”
“Let—ahem.” She tried to clear the dry, scratchy lump at the back of her throat. “Let me ask you something. Why are you so sure I know anything about your diamonds? Because that weasel said so? Think about it. If Goldmann hadn’t planned on fleeing, if he only fled because things went south and someone else got ahold of the diamonds, how would he have the money needed to disappear and stay hidden for so long?”
“A desperate person can surprise you. He was not a stupid man. Very resourceful. But he was a very bad liar. You ask me how I am so sure?” Sokolov leaned in. “Because I know people. I can see into their souls. Like I can see into yours.”
“Yeah? How’s it look?”
The wrinkles around his eyes deepened.
“Like fifty million dollars’ worth of diamonds.”
24
Nikitin paced, bouncing between the stacks of discarded tires like a pinball that had been launched and then abandoned. Listlessly knocking its way downward, toward inevitable failure.
“Wait here,” Sokolov had said, before storming off to confront their captive. Twenty minutes, an hour, ten. It didn’t matter. When Sokolov returned, he would be there. Exactly where he was instructed to be.
Nikitin looked around. He had never been afraid of dying. It was an impending eventuality. For him, just as it was for everyone else on the planet. And while he’d always figured it would be delivered to him by a bullet, he hadn’t given much thought about where it might happen. The crumbling, defunct loading dock ramp seemed as good a place as any. Fitting, really.
As the breeze kicked up, pieces of litter scurried about. A flattened paper cup. A flimsy plastic bag which wrapped itself around Nikitin’s ankle and latched on, even as he tried to kick it free.
The scent of rain was in the air, but the sun continued to peek through the clouds. Its rays snuck through the gap between the building and the encroaching wood line. It warmed his skin.
A few feet away, young tree limbs reached out over the thicket. With each gust, they waved. Beckoning him.
But he wouldn’t be going anywhere.
Pain. Death. These things were easy. Admitting to Sokolov that he failed was the hard part. Harder than he imagined it would be. In all the years, he had never needed to utter the words.
Others, yes. But not him.
Nikitin had stood witness to what happened to the men who returned with only excuses. He himself had been the instrument of Sokolov’s vengeance on more than a few occasions.
But unlike them, he had no excuses to offer. He had chosen the men. Charged them with carrying out Sokolov’s instructions. Made the decision to leave the United States before the job was done to be by Sokolov’s side. The blame fell squarely on his shoulders. Along with the shame.
There would be n
o struggle. No resistance.
Nikitin had no doubt that Sokolov knew he was no match for him. The same way a tiger handler knows he would be at the mercy of the beast should it choose to turn on him. It was a truth that was never dared spoken. Not by him, not by Sokolov, not by anyone.
But it made no difference. Nikitin’s loyalty was all that he had. And he intended to take it with him.
His only regret was that he would go out a disappointment. No longer trusted enough to be on the other side of the thick concrete wall. On the inside with Sokolov. But if he were being honest with himself, it wasn’t only his exclusion that ate at him. He had set his heart on something. A trinket, really. One pretty little ear. A delicate specimen worthy of the distinction of being the final trophy in his collection.
As the raindrops finally began to thwap against the rubber tires and ping off the metal roof, Nikitin’s mind settled.
He waited.
“Pavel. What are you doing out here?” Sokolov threw up his arms.
“You told me to—”
“Come with me. We’re going to take a drive to the woods.”
Nikitin fell to his knees and bowed his head. “Do it here. Right now. I am ready.”
A droplet streamed from his hair, still drenched from the passing shower. It rolled over his brow and caught in his eyelashes before dripping onto his cheek. Incapable of emotion, it was as close to shedding a tear as he was ever going to come.
“Ready? For what? Get up. I need you to help with something.”
“But are you not going to kill me?”
“Kill you? Why would I do that? You are much too valuable to me, Pavel.”
“I have failed.”
Sokolov came close and put his hand on Nikitin’s head. “You never fail, Pavel. It is your best quality. Stop being dramatic, it does not suit you.”
“But, Brier.”
“It is a very big screw up, yes. But it is not yours.”