The Milieu Principle

by Malcolm Franks

“Mother,” said the young blonde woman. “Promise me you will be careful.”

  “Don’t worry liebchen,” she responded gently. “It will all be fine, I promise.”

  Catherine gave her daughter a reassuring smile and then wrapped her arms around the young woman and held her close in a warm, motherly hug. It was as they embraced the uncertainties began to infiltrate her mind. She realised there was more to lose now, in the shape of the young woman she held so tenderly to her bosom. Catherine had spent many sleepless nights over the holiday recess, praying nothing would go wrong with their arrangements. Doubt was ever present, nagging persistently at the inner recesses of her restless mind.

  “Everything is in place. I will ring when it is ended,” she soothed to the young woman.

  After a final hug Catherine picked up the laptop and the plastic bag, and departed the town house they had arrived at yesterday. She made for the chauffeur-driven limousine, taking care to conceal any nervousness in her stride.

  Eva-Maria walked quickly to the window and eased open the vertical blinds to watch her mother negotiate the steps from the building. Catherine turned briefly and smiled once more at her daughter before sliding onto the black leather seat in the rear of the limo.

  Once the car door had closed Eva-Maria pressed the send button on her mobile to release the message. Despite her mother’s insistence, she had no intention of staying at their capital residence and missing the conference today.

  Message sent, read the screen and she rushed to the hallway to pick her coat off the rack and her shoulder bag off the floor, next to the small nest of tables.

  The cold late January air made her shiver as the high wooden door of the building slammed shut. She feverishly buttoned her coat to avoid letting in the mid-morning chill. No sooner had she negotiated the deep steps, skipping over the slushy snow patches, than the taxi pulled up at the kerb.

  “Schafen,” she said to the driver through the open window and he nodded in agreement.

  The door opened to her firm tug and she climbed inside. Assuming the driver was waiting for a break in the traffic she failed to notice the shadows at the windows. The rear doors opened in a flash and two people slid onto the seat beside Eva-Maria, squeezing her frame tightly between them. There was no time to scream for help. The heavy man pushed his strong arm up against her throat and pinned her legs to the seat with a tree trunk like leg. His female companion forced the damp cloth to the young woman’s face and pressed down hard.

  Notions of fighting back were quickly expelled. Pinned to her sitting position, Eva-Maria hadn’t the strength to resist. In an instant, her head fell to the side and she was motionless.

  Catherine held the back of her hand up to her mouth and nipped at the skin of her knuckles with her teeth, as the limo sought to negotiate the heavy traffic. She could feel the nerves beginning to bite. As normal, she was immaculately attired for the conference, dressed in a pristinely ironed navy business suit. The hem of the skirt rested on her knees, the white wide collared blouse was spotlessly clean, judging by the even whiter cuffs protruding from the sleeve of the jacket.

  Without thinking she lifted her hands to push her hair away from the back of the collar and then slid her long, thin fingers around to the locket at the front in a well practised movement. And then she fiddled nervously at the chain.

  The limo took fifteen minutes to reach its destination. The car cruised slowly to a halt outside the conference venue set in the heart of the business district of Brussels. It was one of those long thin buildings so favoured by the town planners at the time of its construction. There were glass windows everywhere at the front of the building. The long corridors were stuffed with small offices and conference rooms, auditoriums were strategically placed on the third and fourth floors.

  She stepped out into the warming sunlight. Catherine briskly negotiated the twelve steps to the front entrance and breezed past the reception desk unchallenged. After passing through the security screening booths she headed directly for the senior official’s lift situated some way beyond the main entrance, to the right.

  Two more police officers were stood nearby and she greeted them with a nod and half smile. As with all the other on duty police they, too, were wired for communication. A few moments passed before the ring of a bell signified the lift’s arrival. The police officers followed her inside to travel up to the fourth floor, without any further exchange of pleasantries.

  Once the lift began its upward journey Catherine allowed her coat to slip to the floor. She reached to undo the buttons on her blouse and turned to face the two uniforms. Tugging the garment away from the top of her skirt she threw it open at the front. The policeman’s hands worked rapidly to produce the item of electrical equipment from his side pocket and unfurl the wire.

  He reached to lift Catherine’s bra upwards when he felt the smack of his colleague’s hand. A finger wagged in front of his face and pointed him to turn around. The female officer snatched the wire from his hand and began to tape one end to the section of cloth adjoining the two cups. The microphone fixed above Catherine’s left breast.

  “Don’t get too familiar,” quipped Catherine to the policewoman and she looked up with a mischievous grin.

  The taping done, she began to fasten the buttons of the blouse while Catherine fumbled into the plastic bag to reveal a sleeveless woollen waistcoat.

  “We’re nearly there!” she exclaimed, and the policeman reached to press the hold button, bringing it to a temporary halt. With the new garment in place Catherine tucked the blouse back into her skirt and the policeman released the lift before helping her put the coat back on.

  “This is going to ruin my reputation as a smart dresser,” she quipped again, and turned to face the other side of the lift where the doors would open.

  At the appointed stop, Catherine and the two police officers turned in opposite directions of the multi-roomed corridor to go about their business, sharing no further communication.

  Catherine set about doing all the things she would normally do before an event. Designated as an EC conference it was, in effect, a meeting of ‘Interior Ministers’ from each EU nation state and their officials. No more than sixty people at most, she hoped, other than a few Commission employees.

  She had made the organising staff triple check all of the equipment to be used; microphones, presentation slides, handouts; insisting they also check sufficient numbers of interpreters would be in position.

  The attendance of head of security was requested. She wanted to ensure the arrangements were to her satisfaction, and also to check her special needs for this particular day were in place. For several minutes the two referred to the written minutiae of her notes. There was no verbal communication between the two individuals.

  Once confident all was in place she started to attend to her own contribution to the event. Catherine carried the laptop to one of the private rooms available, to access the computer files to be used.

  The process took twenty minutes. She was about to close the computer lid and leave for the conference room, when the commotion first came to her attention. Ignoring the sounds, Catherine gathered her belongings and stepped from the desk.

  The door flung open and she heard the startled voice of her assistant, Marika.

  “Sir, you cannot disturb Ms Vogel.”

  The man’s figure filled the height of the frame of the open door. He directed his greeting at Catherine.

  “So this is where you are.”

  Scurrelli removed the black leather gloves and presented his most feared Dracula-type smirk. He slammed the door shut to exclude Marika from the room.

  “Hank,” Catherine answered in surprise, trying to maintain her composure. “This is unexpected.”

  “I want the files,” he demanded.

  “Which files?”

  “Don’t fuck with me, Catherine,” he said tersely, his eyes narrowing into a dark vicious, stare.

  She stood her ground, returning his expressi
on with a fixed glare of her own without agreeing to his demand. Seconds passed as the stand-off continued.

  “Thought this might happen,” he said, and proceeded to slide a mobile phone across to her. “You might want to look at that.”

  Catherine chose not to react, keeping her body perfectly still to keep hidden the concealed emotions.

  “This is an EU event, Hank. The United States has not been invited.”

  “Not any longer,” he replied. “Now it’s a Milieu event. Check the picture if you don’t believe me.”

  Slowly, she picked up the phone and looked at the screen. The picture revealed her worst fears. Eva-Maria, blindfolded and gagged, was strapped securely to a chair in an empty room. There were two plain clothes agents stood at her side, one of each gender. Moisture filled her eyes and she bit at her lip to prevent it escaping into view.

  “This is outrageous!” she yelled at his triumphant grin, “kidnapping EU employees in this manner.”

  “Cut the crap Catherine and give me the goddamn files,” he interrupted. “Or that’s the last you see of your daughter.”

  Her eyes blazed with initial fury, then froze in horror. This supposed secret was not such a secret after all.

  “Where is my daughter?” she asked, unable to disguise the defeat in her trembling voice.

  “Near enough for you to hear the screams when they start messing with her young face,” hissed Scurrelli. “Now cut out the delaying tactics and give me the fucking files.”

  The policeman released the finger pressure to his earpiece and pulled out a map of the building layout from his breast pocket.

  “Well done, Catherine,” he whispered. “Keep him talking. We need every second you can buy.”

  He unfolded the document and they scoured its contents. Scurrelli had said Eva-Maria was being held close, which was a useful start. No-one had planned for Eva-Maria’s kidnap and unless they could rescue her before the end of the conference, all was lost. Matt used the pencil to draw a line through those rooms that could be immediately ruled out on each floor. This left several dozen others to cover in just over the hour they had left.

  “Shit!” he cursed. “We need more Catherine, try and get some more out of him,” he muttered.

  “For all I know you could be bluffing about Eva-Maria,” she said. “You probably don’t even have her.”

  “You know me better than that, Catherine,” was his caustic reply. “But I’ll get her to scream if you need any convincing. Don’t worry. We’ll bring her into view five minutes from the scheduled end of the conference.”

  The reaction in her eye movement said enough. It wouldn’t be necessary to inflict any pain on the child. At least she knew her daughter was close. Catherine threw the memory sticks across the table and Scurrelli stuffed them into his pocket before nodding towards the laptop.

  “That as well,” he ordered.

  “My presentation is on there,” she responded.

  “You’re a smart lady, Catherine. It’s only an hour long event. Do it from memory.”

  She nudged it towards him and he leaned forward and yanked the machine away with such force the plug burst away from the socket.

  “Oh dear, I might have broken it,” he said.

  Catherine had never felt the urge to physically harm anyone before. She felt it now, a powerful desire to reach out and claw Scurrelli’s eyes from their sockets.

  “Is this all of it?”

  “Yes” she replied.

  “Show me.”

  Catherine flung her topcoat at Scurrelli and he examined the garment before dropping it to the floor. He motioned the Austrian woman to raise her arms to each side.

  “When I tell Jimmy about this …” she began.

  “Hah,” he interrupted. “Who do you think made the call?”

  He was in front of her, waiting for her arms to be raised. She knew he would discover the microphone if he did the search properly. Breathing in deeply she gradually lifted her upper limbs level to her shoulders and he began to pat the sides of her torso, the wide grin on his face only a few inches apart from her.

  His hands deftly brushed along her arms and then he hunched down and did the same to her legs. Standing back up he stared into her angry eyes, unyielding with defiance at his unwelcome touch, and his hands reached up in front of her bosom. A sickly, triumphant grin returned to his face while he held his hands there, daring her to react.

  Catherine stood motionless, looking directly ahead over his shoulder. Unable to exhale the deep breath taken earlier, she was convinced an inadvertent blink had escaped her command and betrayed her nervousness.

  More seconds ticked away. She counted them by in her head while the American held his hands close to her chest. Then Scurrelli turned abruptly, without any further man-handling of her body.

  “Where’s your boyfriend and his bitch?” he asked.

  “What boyfriend?”

  “Durham, where is he?”

  “Hasn’t shown,” she replied. “Perhaps he‘s changed his mind and decided against turning up.”

  “Did he say this was everything?”

  “Everything,” she replied.

  Scurrelli looked for giveaway signs in her expression but she was impassive. He glanced at his watch while his long fingers rapped in rhythm on the desk in front. Catherine was unable to judge what he was thinking.

  “You better go. Five minutes before start,” he said. “And Catherine, I’ll be in the audience, hanging on to your every word.”

  She didn’t reply. Choking back the tears of rage she picked up the coat and strode out of the room without closing the door. She heard Scurrelli’s voice once more.

  “Maplin, any sign of the targets yet?” There was a brief pause while he listened to the response. “Keep looking. The bastards are here somewhere, I can smell them.”

  Matt approached the next room on his list and rapped sharply against the door. He’d already crossed out the upper floors because of what Scurrelli had said to Catherine.

  “Police, Polizei, Gendarmerie,” he said in quick succession. There was no answer. He waited a little longer, checking his watch as he listened for movement.

  The conference had been running for fifty minutes and was scheduled to last no more than an hour. Even if Catherine took some questions he guessed they had no more than another twenty minutes, at the outside. He could hear her struggling to keep the attention of the audience through the microphone, having difficulty coping with the pressure and worry over her daughter. Despite her consummate presentational skills she was in danger of losing control of the event, allowing the audience to disperse.

  He slid the thin mirror, attached at right angles to the long piece of metal, under the bottom of the door. He moved it slowly to each side. There was nothing here. Crossing out the room from the floor plan he moved on. Nineteen minutes to go, he estimated.

  “Police, Polizei, Gendarmerie,” he called for the umpteenth time.

  The sound of a chair scraping along the floor caught his attention. Swinging open, the door revealed a tall, well built, young woman.

  “Can I help?” she asked.

  “Security check,” he answered and peered into the room. There were five to six manned desks full of official looking Commission papers. Although not designated as a working office on the plan, this clearly wasn’t the temporary prison he was searching for. He thanked the girl and tipped his hat in courtesy.

  Matt checked his watch again, eighteen minutes left. He was beginning to despair of finding Eva-Maria in time. He made the same call at the next room and waited. A shadow hid some of the light trying to escape from under the door. This is the one, he thought, I can feel it.

  “Security check,” he called, before repeating the phrase in German. The shadow moved. Someone had raised their foot away from the door. He let the cosh slip from his sleeve.

  “Security check,” he called once more. “Please open the door.”

  He pictured the scene, hand si
gnals between the occupants trying to decide. The mirror slid underneath the doorframe to reveal a heavily-built man standing on the other side gun in hand. A tilt of the mirror revealed the back of a seated figure with long blonde hair, and a woman standing next to her.

  Matt pushed the microphone up to his mouth and whispered urgently.

  “Rosa, I’ve found her, room four hundred and one.”

  “On my way,” she responded.

  “Open up. Security check is necessary or additional officers will be called to the scene.”

  The sound of the lock turning tensed the muscles in his body and he tightened his grip on the cosh. Leaning back against the wall at the side of the frame, he waited. Slowly, the door prised open from the inside.

  It took what felt like an age before the thick set man’s head emerged through the opening, and looked down the opposite side of the corridor. Matt brought the cosh down with as much force as he could muster, to crash down on the back of the man’s neck. The bulk collapsed to the floor with a heavy thud and the gun spilled from his grasp.

  Picking up the weapon Matt sprang over the limp figure into the room, gun in hand. The woman turned the swivel chair in one swift moment and, before Matt could react, held the sharp serrated knife to the vulnerable neck of her young captive.

  “Put the gun down,” she insisted, pressing the blade against Eva-Maria’s skinny neck.

  She was darkly clad in a tight fitting, fully sleeved top and loose fitting trousers. Matt had no time to mess around with this woman.

  “The girl’s not the objective. You are,” he said coldly.

  His words caused a reaction to the woman’s plain face and he felt the need to consolidate the point.

  “Before the blade finishes its stroke the next bullet in this gun will be between your eyes,” he added.

  She hesitated to move. Her dark hair was drawn back into a pigtail and he noticed her shoes were flat and soft, signalling she was set for close quarter contact. Matt guessed her height to be little more than five six at best, with a build similar to Rosa. She would be nimble, fleet footed and fast he reasoned. He lowered the gun to signify his intentions and she removed the knife from Eva-Maria’s throat.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Agnes,” she replied, the lie writ large on her face.

  “Well, Aggie,” said Matt. “Are we gonna dance or are we gonna dance, as they say in the movies.”

  Now they were both unarmed, circling each other within the tight confines of the square shaped office, no more than fifteen feet to either side. Eva-Maria had been pushed to the corner of the room, facing the wall, able only to hear the unfolding drama.

  The woman was cagey in her approach. Bouncing on the balls of her feet, she made to feint one way then the next, showing clear confidence in her ability to take Matt down.

  Her first meaningful attack brushed her opponent’s jaw as he swayed to avoid the thrust and recovered his stance. She lunged and caught him with a blow to the leg before smacking against his chest, the snap of her knee joint sending the fast travelling foot hurtling into him. He was lucky. The foot only marginally connected with his body. Matt wavered briefly before regaining his balance and waited for the next move. She feinted, dipping her right shoulder as if to change the direction of her movement before rebalancing her weight on to her left leg. Matt recognised the manoeuvre. Her right foot shot towards him, aiming for his ribcage. He evaded the assault by swaying to his left and threw her off balance with a sweep of his leg.

  Crashing to the floor in unexpected confusion she found her neck trapped between his knees, and he began to exert pressure. She gasped out aloud to demonstrate his tight grip had her in difficulty.

  It was an unconscious thing, the sudden memory returning of his training sessions with Rosa on board the freighter. Her words echoed through his mind.

  Never give an enemy a chance. Man or woman - without exception.

  Matt thought no more. He pressed his knees together and twisted the grip of his legs. The snap of her neck was loud and brutal, but the job was done.

  He gave Eva-Maria no time to think. Freeing her from the chair as Rosa arrived, he demanded she stop crying and go with Rosa to help Catherine. He waved them both away in animated fashion while he searched for the gun.

  They had disappeared from view when a shadow loomed in the doorway. The first agent had recovered, filling the entire frame with his bulk. Matt looked at his watch. Twelve minutes left.

  “I haven’t got time for this,” he said to his opponent.

  The heavy man grinned, daring him to try and get past his massive shape. Seeing Matt was unarmed, he took a couple of steps inside the room. The sound of the blowpipe followed and the man fell forwards, blood seeping from the hole in the back of his head. Rosa appeared in the doorway.

  “We need to spend more time on your multi-tasking,” she said with a grin.

  They soon caught up with Eva-Maria, taking a firm grip of her arms to rush her along beside them at an ever-quickening pace. The Austrian girl’s feet scrambled to keep up with the forceful strides.

  Six minutes left and Matt’s heart was racing.

  He could tell Catherine had reached the end of her mental agility and was desperately seeking to encourage and take questions from the floor. Then they were there.

  Approaching the main door Matt could see three plain clothes men barring the entrance and he realised they had to be Scurrelli’s people. He steered the two women off to the right and stopped them just inside the corridor, guiding Eva-Maria up against the wall.

  “There isn’t much time,” he told her. “You’ve worked here before, is there another way in to the conference hall?”

  She was feeling sorry for herself, tears forming in her eyes at the thought of how her ordeal could have ended. Rosa grabbed the young woman’s arms and shook her body.

  “Eva-Maria, snap out of it or they’ll be burying you and your mother next to Johannes,” and shook her again.

  Her words made the impact they’d hoped for. The posture straightened and the wickedly piercing stare of her mother’s found its way into her eyes.

  “This way,” she said and led them through a side room into another corridor, where a single plain clothed agent minded the side door to the auditorium.

  They marched Eva-Maria through the corridor, in the manner of escorting a prisoner from the premises. The cosh slipped into Matt’s right hand from the sleeve.

  Less than two feet separated all four when Rosa tripped Eva-Maria and she stumbled towards the floor. The man reacted by trying to catch her fall, giving Matt all the advantage he needed to drop him to the floor with the cosh.

  Three faces peered through the round window, directly at Catherine. She was summarising the event, preparing to wrap up the conference, when her glance caught them looking into the room. Matt closed his eyes and envisaged the journey back to the front entrance. He pulled up Eva-Maria’s wrist to look at her watch.

  “Take this,” he said to Eva-Maria. “When the minute hand clicks to eight, wait for one more minute and then walk in and give it to your mother. Do you understand?” he said sharply.

  “Yes,” she replied and Matt set off to retrace his steps back to the main entrance.

  The man on the floor began to groan. Eva-Maria lifted her booted right foot and smacked it against the side of his head.

  “Shut up,” she hissed.

  Rosa smiled.

  “Matt would be proud.”

  He had timed it right, approaching the entrance at a suitably hasty speed. The three men saw the uniformed figure nearing their position and moved shoulder to shoulder to impede his path. The first man recognised Matt’s face.

  The initial upward swing of the cosh caught him square under the jaw and sent him crashing backward, over the chair behind. The instant downward swing caught the second agent flush on the temple and he toppled into the third, felling them both.

  In the struggle to lift his inert coll
eague off his body, the third agent was unable to release his handgun. It gave Matt enough time to take aim with the cosh, which crashed against the man’s jaw, rendering him immediately unconscious.

  Confident all three posed no further threat Matt retrieved their weapons. After emptying them of their contents, he turned to the assembled conference officials, jaws dropped in disbelief.

  Matt tucked the ammunition cartridges into a pocket. Then plucked one of the plastic carriers from the reception desk and dropped the agent’s empty weapons into the bag. Tipping his hat at the row of aghast faces, he eased the entrance door open to hear Catherine’s renewed introduction. Eva-Maria entered to join her mother.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen,” she began, confidence restored. “There is one final agenda item.”

  Matt scanned the room and the audience, a hundred people or more. Marika rose from her seat to the right of the presenter’s table and placed a laptop in front of Catherine.

  The interpreter booths spread along each wall of the main meeting hall, glass covered fronts shielding the upper sections of the rooms from the internal noise. Delegates sat within rows of adjoined desks, fronted by individual microphones to allow their voices to carry through the room. Individual headsets enabled them to listen to the interpreters.

  A raised arm to the left end of the front row of seats caught the corner of Matt’s eye.

  Scurrelli!

  He signalled to a tall woman, dressed in a grey trouser suit, standing over to his right. She spoke into her mouthpiece in response to the American’s urgings. Matt concentrated his attention to the sides of the hall, counted six others and his heart sank. There were too many. They had no chance of taking them all down on their own, and to try would result in more innocent casualties.

  The sense of ultimate failure brought his optimism to a crashing halt. His mind urged him to cry out as his gaze cast helplessly forward to Catherine. She had spotted his anxious, despairing look and smiled broadly at the distress upon his face.

  He’d been double bluffed. Catherine had been working against them all the time, trapping them with her stories of honour and integrity, of public service commitment. As a spider patiently builds its trap, she had drawn them into her web before unleashing the scale of her deception.

  How could he be so stupid?

  As the seven agents moved towards him he felt his heart begin the process of surrender, shattering his spirit, crushing his will to live. He tried to send a message to Rosa with his eyes, alert her into making a run for it while she still could.

  They were feet away when Catherine raised her arm to attract the attention of the head of security. Large quantities of uniformed police spilled into the room from the lower access doors to the interpreter booths. They surrounded the handful of Scurrelli’s people, and quietly disarmed them.

  “This final agenda point under any other business is for Government representatives only,” said Catherine. “I would ask all other officials to please leave the conference.”

  The majority of delegates rose from their seats. Catherine nodded Matt towards a flustered Scurrelli. Rosa rushed to join him and they sat either side of the American. He started to rise and Rosa deposited him back into his chair by elbowing his midriff.

  “Now, Hank,” said Matt. “Be a good lad and sit quietly while the presentation is running,” pushing the barrel of the gun deep into Scurrelli’s stomach.

  Matt inwardly cursed himself for doubting Catherine. He sat and marvelled in admiration of the clever Austrian woman, for it was she alone who had arranged for the hordes of police officers to be secretly in place; yet another example of her meticulous eye for detail, leaving nothing to chance.

  The speaker system sprang into life.

  “My name is David Laverick ...” said the voice.

  Chapter Thirty Six

  The Question