One for One (John Flynn Thrillers Book 3)

by A. J. Stewart

  He used the meager pay he had gotten from the Legion over ten years to pay off his parents house. They had protested but were impressed all the same. With his other money he formed a trust out of Luxembourg that purchased a small tract of farmland in southern Poland. He settled into his home and spent his days painting and chopping wood and mending the equipment he bought for cash. He spent time in Zakopane and made a few casual friends but got close to no one.

  Then he got the message from his mother. The Polish tax office were auditing his parents. They were modest people—his father was a butcher and his mother had been a school teacher—and had no outstanding luxuries. Except that somehow they had paid off their house in one final sum.

  Gorski thought what his parents thought. It was nothing. A large payment would come to the attention of the tax office, and he had provided an additional amount for his parents to pay tax on his gift. His parents completed the paperwork and filed and worried about it the way law-abiding people worry about governments everywhere.

  Then the second letter came from Warsaw, from a senior audit manager by the name of Lisowski, demanding evidence of the source of the funds their son had provided them. Gorski sent his mother copies of documents he had received upon discharge from the Legion, detailing the payments. He knew the money was legitimate and appropriate.

  Then the third letter came.

  Again from Warsaw, again from Lisowski. But this letter was different. This letter demanded that Gorski present himself at the Lisowski’s Warsaw office, at 4:45pm on a Friday. The fact that his presence was being requested raised Gorski’s first alarm. He was not a party to the audit and the letter was not addressed to him. His second alarm rang when he noted the time. No tax office manager in the world scheduled an audit meeting at 4:45pm on a Friday, but especially so in Poland since typical office hours were 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. But then he noticed the small thing that set the letter apart from all the other correspondence his parents had received on the matter. Every other letter had a file number. An alpha-numeric code at the bottom, which Gorski was sure linked to the tax office’s database, where copies of all official correspondence would be filed. This letter had no such code, no such file number. It was on official letterhead, and signed by the same manager—of that, Gorski was certain—but there was no file number below his signature.

  A small detail, but one that Gorski found incongruent. This letter had no counterpart in the government’s record system. Which set off Gorski’s third alarm.

  He went to Warsaw. Two days early. He used the department’s website to get a picture of Lisowski. He was short and thin as if he had suffered malnutrition as a child. His hair was thin and combed over. Gorski followed him home to the suburbs and then watched his house. It was large, with a nice lawn. Twin Audis were in the driveway. Lisowski appeared shortly after 9 p.m. to walk his miniature Schnauzer through the quiet streets. He walked slowly, taking in the air, before returning by 9:30 p.m. The lights went off in the house at just after ten.

  Gorski slept in his truck. In the morning he drove around looking for a suitable location. He found one in an abandoned apartment building that was slated for redevelopment. He left his truck and acquired a van from the lot behind a florist. Then he returned to the tax office.

  Lisowski was a creature of habit. He left the office at the same time—4 p.m. on the dot, which, Gorski figured, would have made their proposed meeting the following day a lonely one. Lisowski drove the same route and got home within two minutes of the previous day. Then he disappeared inside until 9 p.m. Perhaps the Schnauzer was also a creature of habit. Lisowski walked the same route, which he inevitably would, whether it was this night or some other in the future. Gorski had time to wait until things fell his way. But the creature of habit made it easy.

  He took the tax man from behind with a pinprick of succinylcholine as he reached the parked van. He’d seen the drug used before, and he’d seen it go horribly wrong. It was a paralytic, used in general anesthesia to allow tracheal intubation. It was fast acting but he knew he must be cautious of the dose for fear of paralyzing the muscles Lisowski used to breathe. The effect wasn’t instant, so Gorski took Lisowski’s arm pulled the van door open, and then helped him sit. Within thirty seconds Lisowski fell back inside, aware of everything around him but unable to move. Gorski considered the fate of the dog. He didn’t want to let it loose—if a neighbor found it roaming they would raise the alarm over the owner—and he didn’t feel good about killing it. A jab of the drug Gorski had given the dog’s master would almost certainly kill such a small animal. So he tossed it in the back with it’s owner, jumped in himself and then pulled the door closed.

  First point of action was to tie Lisowski up. Succinylcholine worked fast but because he erred on the side of too little rather than too much, its paralytic properties would not last more than five or ten minutes. He bound Lisowski’s hands and feet quickly and then jumped through to the driver’s seat and took off.

  The apartment block was nothing more than a concrete shell. All fixtures and fitting, even the water pipes and electrical cabling had been removed. Demolition was imminent, but Gorski wasn’t planning on staying long. He just needed someone to go to work on the tax man where the man’s screams wouldn’t be heard, should it come to that.

  Gorski dropped Lisowski in a chair and flicked on a battery-powered work lamp. He left the dog in the van with some sausages. Gorski put the lamp in Lisowski’s face and stood back in the shadows. One look at Lisowski and he knew this was not going to be a long interrogation.

  “I have money,” said the tax man. “I can get you some.”

  “Be quiet.”

  “Yes.”

  “You work at the tax office,” said Gorski.

  “Yes. This is about taxes?”

  “You know it isn’t about taxes. You’ve been doing things off the record, Lisowski.”

  “What?”

  “Someone has been telling you to use the tax office to threaten people.”

  “No.”

  Gorski watched the man’s face. He wasn’t saying no, he hadn’t done it. He was saying no, it had finally caught up with him.

  “How many people have you done this to?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Maybe thirty or forty.”

  “You’re going to stop. Right now. No more letters, no more threats. Close every case. Do it tomorrow.”

  “I can’t. You don’t understand.”

  “I understand. I understand that your lovely wife spends most of her time at home and likes to lunch with the ladies, and I know what time your son finishes school. I know the route he takes home. I understand everything. Now do you?”

  “You can’t. These people. They’ll hurt me.”

  Gorski flicked open his switchblade. The sound was emphatic in the dark abandoned apartment. He held the knife into the light.

  “The person who tells you to do these things, they will stop telling you. So you will stop doing them.”

  “How do you know they will stop telling me?”

  “Because you are going to tell me who they are and I am going to stop them.”

  The tax man wasn’t eager. He clearly feared those who directed him. But he also feared his wife learning about how he supported their lifestyle. That was going to end. The Audis would have to go. Perhaps used Volkswagens, or matching Skodas. Gorski delivered the tax man a couple of blocks from home, and let him and his dog out. His wife would think he had gotten lost, or found a pub somewhere. He told Lisowski that warning his contact would see him lose a family member and an eye. It was a risk to let him go, but Gorski thought he saw relief in the man’s face at the thought of not having to do it anymore.

  Gorski moved into the city center. The Rondo 1 tower was one of the tallest in Warsaw. It made surveillance difficult. Thousands of people walked through its lobby every day. And although he knew the men he wanted worked within, he also knew this wasn’t the place.<
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  So he returned to his farm. He bought a computer and cork board and set up a small office in his basement. He researched. He learned. He discovered links and bonds and friends and enemies. Strengths and weaknesses.

  The man’s name was Wilk. He was a partner in a law firm, the kind of firm that didn’t go looking for publicity. The kind of firm that did more in boardrooms than courtrooms, and the kind of firm who was extremely discerning when it came to choosing their clients. Money and power were appreciated traits. Morality, or lack thereof, was not a concern.

  Wilk was tall and immaculate in his presentation. His driver ferried him around town in a black Bentley. He ate in Warsaw’s finest restaurants and flew to Brussels and Paris and Munich for meetings and dinners. He was always busy and never alone.

  Except for the trips to Lublin. It was moderately-sized city of a few hundred thousand, in the east of Poland, not far from the Ukraine border. These trips Wilk took alone in his BMW M5. He drove out to Lublin once every two weeks. He wasn’t from the city and had no family there. On his third trip, Gorski watched him valet his car at the Grand Hotel Lublinianka. Later that evening he collected his car and drove to a modest neighborhood north of the city center. The accommodations were mostly cheap and the restaurants basic and hearty. This was where working people lived. Wilk parked his M5 on the street and walked a short block to a small restaurant. When Gorski checked through the front window he saw no sight of Wilk. Assuming a private room of some description, he wandered the perimeter of the restaurant’s block.

  At the rear he saw the vehicle. It was an unusual vehicle masquerading as an everyday ride. But a large black US-made Chevrolet Suburban was not a common sight on Polish streets. Neither were the three men in heavy coats smoking by the door to the restaurant. Gorski got as close in the shadows as he dared and studied the vehicle. He saw the signature black trim around the bulletproof glass, and noted the lower ride of an unarmored vehicle. The license plate was Russian.

  Gorski retreated back to the main street and waited. It took as couple of hours before Wilk appeared out of the restaurant. He walked along the street to his car and pulled out his fob to open the door. As he slid in to the seat, a gun nozzle passed against his temple.

  “Don’t move,” Gorski said in Polish.

  “Do you know who I am.”

  “Taxi driver?”

  Gorski hit the button to release the rear door and then pulled it open. He stepped around with his Beretta pointed at Wilk and got into the backseat.

  “Drive.”

  “You can walk away,” said Wilk. “Last chance.”

  “For you. Drive.”

  Gorski directed Wilk to drive south-east out of town along expressway S12. Once the landscape opened up into farmland Gorski told Wilk to get off and stop. At the end of his Beretta he directed Wilk into the back seat.

  “You are going to die,” said Wilk.

  “Of this I am certain,” said Gorski.

  Gorski took a flask out his coat pocket and handed it to Wilk.

  “Drink,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “Vodka.”

  Wilk smelled the flask. “I will not.”

  Gorski cracked the Beretta against Wilk’s head. “You call yourself a Pole? Take a drink.”

  Wilk put his lips to the flask and tip it up.

  “Drink it down,” said Gorski.

  Wilk eyed Gorski but shot the spirit down.

  “See, vodka,” said Gorski.

  Wilk frowned. For a moment he looked at Gorski, then he put his hand out onto the front seat as he wobbled forward. He blinked his eyes hard as if they were full of dust. Gorski told Wilk to put his arms out and he bound the lawyer’s hand together. Then he pushed his back across the rear seat of the BMW. Wilk dropped without word and Gorski tied his feet and then pushed the door closed.

  Gorski took the wheel and started the car.

  “Vodka,” slurred Wilk.

  “Tak,” said Gorski. “With a little crushed up valium for good measure.”

  Gorski drove on while Wilk dozed. Two hours south-east. Most of the border between Poland and Ukraine was delineated by the River Bug, which in places was easy enough to cross, but not in an M5. Gorski drove on to the tiny village of Zaręka. The dirt roads cut through farm land, and he took a road that ended at a line of trees. The headlights lit small stakes in the ground, showing the position of the border. Gorski followed a dirt track along the tree line until he came to a spot where branches had been separated, perhaps by farmers, or more likely smugglers.

  It was a tight fit for the BMW, and the branches scratched at the paintwork, but within seconds Gorski was in Ukraine. He drove on for another forty kilometers until he reached the outskirts of Chervonohrad. He stopped north of the reservoir. He wound down the window and looked around. It was a dark and lonely area. He got out and felt asphalt underfoot.

  Wilk was awake, but the valium had made him woozy. Gorski sat him up and slapped him hard to get his attention.

  “You do business with some very bad people.”

  Wilk snarled. “You, you are dead.”

  “Who were the guys in Lublin?”

  “You don’t know what you are getting into.”

  “Russian, right? Moscow mafia? You do things for them.”

  “I will find your family. Everyone you know is dead. Their blood is on your hands.”

  “You already found my family.”

  Wilk looked puzzled. The valium was wearing off but his brain still wasn’t at full operating capacity.

  “You put Lisowski onto my parents.”

  “Lisowski? Who?”

  “Your friend from the tax office.”

  “Oh, him. Congratulations, you just got him killed, too. And his wife. And they have son, don’t they?”

  “Who told you to do that?”

  “This is what you want?”

  “I want to know who told you to do it.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m their son. And you will tell me who.”

  “I will tell you nothing.”

  Gorksi didn’t show the switchblade. He just stuck it into Wilk’s arm. The lawyer howled.

  “Yell louder. The owls might hear you.”

  “You are dead!”

  “We established that, yes. I will die. As will you. The question is, will it be today, or tomorrow, or decades from now?”

  “Soon for you.”

  “I will cover your entire body in wounds. I will stab every bare inch of you. Do you understand? You will howl until you have no howl left. And then you will tell me who tells you to do these things.”

  “They don’t know anything.”

  Is that so.”

  “This is bigger than you.”

  “Let me guess, it’s the system.”

  “You joke.”

  “I’m not worried about the system. I just want one name.”

  “He isn’t one of them.”

  “Of course not. He’s another pawn, like you. But once I take all the pawns, then I will take the knight, and the bishop and the rook, and then I will take the king.”

  “You don’t know—aargh!” Gorski stuck the knife in again.

  “More?” he asked.

  “He’s a lawyer. In Paris. But you can’t get to him. It would be easier to get the French president.”

  “Only if I have to. The name.”

  Wilk gave Gorski a look of defiance. Gorski stuck the knife in again.

  Wilk gave him a name.

  The name meant nothing to him. He pulled Wilk from the car and dumped him on the bitumen, and then rifled through his pockets and found his phone. He used the web browser to look the name up. It still meant nothing to him. But the man was connected to some powerful people. Which one was the next link? He turned off the phone and pocketed it.

  “Get in the car.”

  Wilk frowned again. “Why?”

  “You told me what I want to know. Now I need you to understa
nd that I can get to you. So you will leave my parent alone.”

  Wilk looked puzzled for a moment. Then he nodded.

  “You have my word.”

  Wilk dragged himself into the drivers seat and looked at Gorski with a clenched jaw. The he faced froward and put his finger to the start button.

  Gorski shot him in the head.

  Then he walked away. It would be dawn in a few hours, and he expected the body to be found by a worker or a jogger or someone else within a few hours of daylight. Perhaps before. It took twenty minutes to walk into town. He found the station and waited for a local train south to Lviv. Then he ate a breakfast of bread and coffee, and caught another train headed for Krakow. He crossed the border using a German passport and then carried onto Krakow, where he transferred to another train bound for Zakopane.

  It was dark by the time he got to Zakopane but he marched the twenty kilometers to his farmhouse. The night was cool but snow was a month or two away, and it was perfect for marching. He had never gotten the marching out of his system. That’s how these things went. Some men never wanted to walk again after the Legion, and some couldn’t stop.

  Chapter Five

  Present Day, Zakopane, Poland

  “And your parents never heard from Lisowski again?”

  “No,” said Gorski. “They just put their taxes in each year and that’s it.”

  “So why set up all this equipment?”

  “I didn’t believe it would stop. I figured someone would take over from Lisowski, and someone else would take over from Wilk. So I kept looking. I learned everything I could about the name I got in Paris, and from there I created a network of contacts, all of whom had questionable practices in the past or present, but all of whom were powerful, able to make things happen in pretty much any country.”

  “But it’s over for you. There was no comeback against your or your parents.”

  “No,” said Gorski. “Until three weeks ago.”

  Flynn stood up from against the desk. “What happened three weeks ago?”