“I know, I know.” Tony’s condescending attitude pissing me off. “It affects the coronary arteries, lymph nodes.”
Tony nodded.
“Permanent heart impairment if untreated,” I added drawing on the full extent of an in-service at Baylor. “Aspirin, which is funny,” I added, “because it’s usually contraindicated in children.”
“We saw a lot of this in Mali,” Tony said.
That’s all he could say? No acknowledgement I kept up with the journals. I hid my disappointment behind a polite nod.
He went on. “The ambulance crew can start a pediatric IV.”
The door opened with a gust of cool morning air and six masked men glided over the threshold and gathered near the entrance. The grandmother screamed and clutched the front of her dress. The farmer leaped to his feet, knocking over the chair behind him. I stepped back until I hit the wall.
“Que quieres?” The farmer shouted.
Fear slid from my mind to my knees that were about to give out. The Emir’s Army here for their imam’s kid. I reached for the rail of the grandmother’s hospital bed. The soldiers wore black hoods and black gloves. All were in camouflage, but each tunic differed from the others. One guy in desert fatigues, another in jungle green. The tallest in the group—he seemed to be the leader—stepped forward and barked in Spanish.
From the kitchen, Casey replied, then translated, “He says for none of us to move. Not to panic. They’ve come for the baby.”
“Gracias,” the leader said. No Castilian “th” lisp at the “c” in the way he pronounced the word.
“He’s telling all of you to stay where you are,” Strange, Casey barked the order as if he too was a thug with a gun. Wasn’t he one of us?
Something to figure out later. I steadied myself against the bed’s side-rails. A flash of the woman’s head on the beach, of the BBC’s discussion of a newly adopted method of beheading going viral in Morocco, a wire sawed across the victim’s throat. “Get these men out of here,” I begged Casey.
“Don’t lose it, Paige,” he replied.
The walls spun. Something was wrong with my eyes.
Casey rested his elbow on top of the miniature refrigerator watching the bad guys as he would watch visiting relatives.
Tony crossed his arms over his chest. “Do not touch this infant.” Spoken with a quiet dignity that would put decent men to shame.
The leader snapped his fingers and led his men to the crib.
Tony called out firmly, “Casey, I want you to demand—hear me? Demand the baby be taken to a hospital. Emphasize die. Hospital. Now.”
While Casey translated, the leader studied Hamid and scratched the back of his head through the mask.
With exaggerated movements, Tony felt the infant’s forehead and lymph nodes, then stepped away motioning for the leader to do the same. But the man shook his head and turned to the guy behind him.
The soldier rested his rifle against the crib, reached down and slid his hands under Hamid. I dashed over and blocked his arm. “Animal,” I screamed. “Animal, animal.”
The soldier let go of Hamid and reached for the gun.
Tony whipped around and stood between me and the assailant.
The grandmother screamed.
The soldier tucked the butt of the rifle into the curve of his shoulder.
The grandmother shot over and with one hefty shove, pushed the soldier forward almost into my arms. The rifle clattered to the floor. Two other guys ran to help their comrade. Hamid’s howls outdid the grandmother’s, while Casey continued to yell, “Stop. Everyone. Stop.”
The leader came forward, lifted the weapon from the floor and muttered, “A god damned clusterfuck.”
Panting, I looked up trying to think if I heard right. “You’re American?”
“Que?” he quickly replied.
A whispered exchange between the leader and the guy in the desert fatigues and he once again reached for Hamid. The baby’s legs flailed against the crib. His screams echoed from the stone walls.
“He’s only in a diaper,” I said, my voice strangled.
Casey called out in Spanish, and the guy paused. “I said you wanted to dress the kid,” Casey said. “He’s telling you, hurry it up.”
I struggled with the one-piece pajamas, while Tony rummaged in his bag and came up with a vial of what might be aspirin. Showing it to a soldier, Tony ran his finger under the writing on the label. “En Español” he pointed out.
The soldier shrugged.
I went to the changing table and handed over a carton of Pampers. When the soldier reached for it, I was hit with the blast of alcohol on his breath.
I glanced at the soldier beside him and did a double-take at the ring on his finger bearing the Naval Academy logo.
Relief loosened every muscle in my body. Relief? My next thought was, why? Simply because these were Americans? My people? What were they doing here?
The Annapolis man lifted Hamid from the crib. I tucked the blanket around the frail thighs. “Keep a good grip,” I said loudly enough to mask the catch in my throat. The man lifted Hamid and held him awkwardly against his chest, looking around for the door. The grandmother sobbed softly as Hamid was carried past. I followed the guy outside where a white Ford Explorer was parked in the mud. A driver and a passenger sat in front. A soldier gripped my elbow to escort me back into the room. On my way inside, I heard, “Papillion.” I turned and saw the desert guy pass Hamid to the passenger in the front seat. “Papillion,” drifted across the driveway. Then, “The A 46.” Followed by, “All the way to Antequera?” in English.
Inside, the room was cool, damp, and strangely desolate. Tony as fussing around the empty crib. I went over and joined him. “You hear the guy speak American? Were they real Muslims?”
Tony shook out the sheet. “Probably converts. Volunteer terrorists. A boy on the Net lured by the glitz of barrel bombs.” He folded the sheet neatly and smiled at the grandmother. “The jihadists recruit on social media.”
“Why didn’t they kill us?”
Tony held a tiny blanket in mid-air. “I’d say any number of reasons. They didn’t want to draw attention to the kidnapping, they hadn’t planned on us being here.”
A quiet whimper and I turned to the grandmother sitting sat at the table rocking back and forth. I walked over and touched her shoulder and asked Casey. “Can you lie? Please? Tell her the baby will be all right.” A lie because assuming he’d be returned to his father, he would never be all right. The old woman looked up with red-rimmed eyes.
In the far corner, the farmer, on his knees, groped for dominos under the cabinet. Tony resumed putting the contents of his bag in order. He seemed resigned, as if having witnessed this scene too many times, in too many places that were as evil and strange as this one.
11
The Pajero Bistro
A rickety wooden walkway led from the street to the Pajaro, a combination tapas bar and beach-front restaurant. Paintings for sale by local artists covered three walls, the fourth opened to the sea. When it rained—as it was when Zak entered and shook out his umbrella—the Pajaro’s owner, Heinrich Otter, rolled a ragged curtain of clear vinyl down over the opening. Theoretically, customers would stay dry while still enjoying the view. And indeed, they would have a view, Zak thought, if it weren’t for the black mold breeding on the plastic.
Zak drew out a chair and waited for Kurt, who was at the bar buying cigarettes. The sale seemed more complicated than it should. Kurt and Heinrich in a huddle with their heads together until Heinrich held up his index finger and disappeared behind the curtain that hid the kitchen. Kurt turned and
gave Zak a thumbs up.
Kurt had introduced Zak to the Pajaro, where the unwritten rule was to order only German brew and German tapas if there were such a thing. The steins and tacky Hummel figurines reminded Zak of a beer haus in Munich. But this was Torremolinos, and like everything else, in the decrepit resort, the Pajaro was in serious decline. Its hey-day in the seventies came after Franco died and the entire nation reeled in an orgy of topless bikinis, North African dope and home-grown porn. Torromalinos was hot: movie stars, royalty, and beach bums swarmed the vacation apartments and packaged-tour hotels. The splendor of Spain, Zak thought, its glory and gravitas buried with Franco. When the country’s exhilaration of liberation settled down, and the economy shot up, Torremolinos was trumped by Marbella, Puerto Banus, and Estapona, the prestigious addresses moving west.
What was taking Kurt so long? The cigarette transaction a work-in-progress. And who’s he trying to impress, Zak wondered, with that dark suit and shiny maroon tie. Dapper was the word. The watch on a chain across his vest would be an anachronism on anyone else. But Zak had to admit it suited Kurt to a T, as did the Ferragamo loafers. All in all, he looked more like the owner of Great Estates, than like an employee. Kurt’s official title, Fiscal Manager and Director of Operations understated his true calling—a fixer. The salary from Great Estates would never cover his BMW 750, and three-bedroom condo in Puerto Banus.
“A man has to do a little of this, a bit of that.” Kurt’s banal wisdom.
Yet Zak knew there was far more in that small Gothic brain than just Germanic pragmatism. He told Zak he joined the Knights for the same reason Americans joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War, to fight for the cause. He wasn’t paid to serve as treasurer of the local Knights, no reward except, as he put it, fixing the broken world.
Or undermining it. Zak never knew what the guy was up to with his ties to banks tolerant of anonymous depositors, and ties to provincial administrators who waived fines. He even had a roster of customs officers willing to sign off on bogus bills of lading. Kurt said his most lucrative contacts were with suppliers with whom he bought and sold arms, gently used guns and grenades peddled to regimes in sorry need of change.
With three cartons of Marlboros under his arm, Kurt approached the table and chose the chair with the fewest missing slats. “Heinrich’s tobacco’s duty-free. Can you imagine such a thing?”
“Speak English, please,” Zak said. “Your German-Spanish-French mix grates on my nerves. On the phone, you said the baby was kidnapped from the church. He’s gone. What the hell happened?”
“So. As I started to explain before you insisted on one-for-one—” Kurt paused to break open a carton. “The Texas woman who owns the summer house found our hostage.”
“How do you know?”
“When she left her father’s house—remember? The day we were all there, I followed her to the church. Then later, for another reason, I talk to Veber. You’ve heard of Global Assets, the American company in Gibraltar?”
“Weber, The W in English, is pronounced like the one in water.”
“So., He told me the woman told her British neighbor who calls himself an international relations expert, in other words, unemployed and useless.” Kurt unwound the cellophane strip from a cigarette pack. “She told this O’Brannigan—I don’t know his full name—where the kid is, and he goes to Veber to sell the baby’s location.” Kurt thumbed his monogrammed Dunhill, trying for a light.
“Weber wanted to buy a baby?”
Instead of laughing, Kurt motioned to Heinrich coming toward them with a tray. “Ah, here it is. I ordered our usual.”
In a white apron stained with orange grease, Heinrich lowered cheese, a small loaf of black bread and mugs with mud-colored beer showing through the frost. He held a plate in mid-air. “Who’s for curried sausage?”
“Don’t look at me.” Zak pointed to the pickled herring. “That’s mine.” He lifted the mug and took a sip as if testing the vintage.
Kurt tapped ashes into an ashtray. “You ask why Veber? O’ Brannigan knows the Muslim’s will pay top price to get him back, but that means finding a mosque rat who speaks a human language, meaning a contact who can negotiate the price and the sale. He, himself, can’t do this because normal people don’t know where the rats hang out. Why he goes to Veber.”
Zak studied Kurt’s face looking for a clue as to why Weber would confide in a German accountant who worked for an estate agent.
“Why is he telling you this?”
“Too much caraway seeds in the pork. Otherwise, perfection.”
“Kurt, I asked you a question.”
“Let me finish it in order.” Kurt lifted his fork. “O’Brannigan goes with the Texas woman and some doctor when they went to check the kid physically. It was sick or maybe just pretending.”
“Smart kid.”
“While the Texan and the doctor were there, Veber’s militia-men went in and hauled off the little boy. Went like clock time.”
“Clockwork.”
Kurt speared a slice of sausage and held it out to Zak, red sauce dripping on the tablecloth. “Try it.”
To humor him, Zak eased the portion to the edge of his plate.
Kurt set down his beer and winced. “Mud.”
Zak eased the spine from a segment of herring, knowing full well that Kurt knew the kind of business Weber ran, but wanting Kurt to know he knew.
“Don’t trust Weber. Americans have what are called beltway bandits. Let me explain.” Zak trying to keep it light. “The beltway is the ring road around the city—like the ring road in Berlin.” Giving Kurt the picture. “Consulting firms along the interstate are owned by military guys who worked for US contracts shops in Defense, then retired while their connections are still hot.”
“Happens here, too.”
Zak went on. “They stay on top of RFPs—that’s requests for proposals—and know when to bid, to compete for the big ones.”
Kurt seemed to be tracking the scenario.
“They go for costs plus exorbitant fixed fees,” Zak went on. “Or negotiate overhead with former colleagues. Selling to any buyer, they play it close to the chest because who wants to be fingered selling AK 47s to both Assad and ISIS at the same time.” With his knife, Zak scraped the shiny gray skin off the fish. “No morals get in the way. Weber’s the worst.”
“You know him, too?”
Zak slid another herring from the tray. “I hired him for a workshop on spy-craft for our new recruits to the Knights. But what were you doing with him in the first place? Why would he tell you anything about anything? Why—? Wait.” Zak sat back, stunned by his insight. Or rather pleased by his knack for putting the facts together. “Weapons?” Zak said, awed by Kurt’s audacity. “You sold to Weber’s guys? Maybe the very ones used to take the kid from the Knights? From us? The organization you belong to? The cause you work for? The Christian Europe you swore you’ll die for?”
“No, no, of course not.” Spoken with such conviction, Zak knew he was lying
“It’s the other way around. Veber called me. “Kurt tapped his chest. “Not wanting to buy. Wanting to sell. Dump his overvalued chicken-shit used materiel. Always, always I verify the provenance before I pay. I’m careful with serial numbers, models, and recent, shall we say, purposes, uses.”
“You’re saying you bought the weapons used by Weber’s mercenaries. What a clever lie. But not good enough. Whichever way it came down, you’re still screwing your own people.”
Silence, before Zak asked, “Why are we having this conversation?”
Kurt closed his eyes as if looking for the best way to get off the hook. “Because I have to tell you, my boss,
everything, always, what’s going on.”
Covering his ass, Zak thought. He knows, I know Weber. In case I happen to run into him and he slips. “Meaning you’re afraid,” Zak said. “If I found out through someone else, I’d make you a new body orifice—”
“Oh, my, how dramatic.”
Zak continued through gritted teeth. “Our own asset. The kid we—” Zak searched for the word and came up with, “Borrowed. The only leverage we had.”
Zak stared at Kurt as he would stare at a cockroach in the bathroom sink. The German lowered his head and tore off the heel of the loaf.
Zak finished the last of his beer to damp down his rage. An unexpected feeling of something similar to loss, but more like disappointment came over him. Kurt, his trusted right-hand man, now needing to be kicked out of the Knights and fired from Great Estates. And Zak would do it in a heartbeat. Except Kurt had his hand in every padded line-item buried in the books, records, accounts, labor. But the golden days of Kurt the confidant were over.
From now on I’ll use him only for what I absolutely need, Zak thought. Which is how he’s using me.
Carry-on, Zak thought. He slid the mug aside as if making room on the table for damage control. “Let’s turn the situation around. How much will the jihadists pay Weber to tell them where the kid is?”
Kurt looked up.
“Would Weber sell the kid back to us, the Knights, instead of the Muslims?”
“If we offer more euros.” Kurt dipped his napkin in his water glass and dabbed at a spot of sauce on his cuff. “On the other hand, Veber sells to us, and the mosque-rats will be very, very upset. I wouldn’t like to be the target.”
“How much ready cash is in the Knights account?”
“None.”
The Loss of What We Never Had Page 9