by Greg Rucka
“What is it I can do for you, Mr. Shephard?”
“You're holding a friend of a friend of mine. His name is Arzu Kaya.”
Çelik pursed his lips, then took a sip of his beer. “We have this man.”
“My friend is very worried about Arzu. I hate seeing him like this, I really do, and I was hoping I could discuss with you some means of getting them together, if only for a few hours. Maybe by making a donation to a charity you support, something along those lines.”
With absolute seriousness, he remarked, “It would need to be a large donation.”
“I was thinking around ten thousand euros,” I said.
“That would be an acceptable amount.”
“The thing is,” I said, “I want to surprise them both, Arzu and my friend. I want it to be a gift.”
“A gift?”
“Yeah. Maybe I could even get it wrapped.”
Çelik didn't blink. “Gift-wrapping is extra.”
“I'd expect it would be.” I took out the piece of paper I'd been carrying folded in my pocket, handing it over. “If I could get him delivered to this address.”
He took the paper, opening it one-handed. “Not a very busy location.”
“I want the reunion to be private.”
Captain Çelik nodded sagely, drank some more of his beer, looking past me, at the clientele. “He couldn't be away for more than two or three hours.”
“I think that'll be more than enough time for them to discuss what they need to,” I said.
He checked the address on the paper I'd given him again, then folded it and tucked it into his breast pocket, beneath his badge. “Also it would need to be at the right time.”
“Of course. Wouldn't be a surprise otherwise. I was thinking around two in the morning.”
“Then he will be dropped off at two, and picked up no later than five.” He looked at me impassively. “Half of the donation will be expected when he arrives. The rest of it when he is picked up.”
“That'll be fine. There's one other thing.”
He fixed me with his dead brown eyes, bored.
“I'm wondering if someone could provide me with some information about his family,” I said. “My friend wanted me to speak to his wife, and I don't know where I can find her.”
“I'm sure we have that information,” Çelik said. “In fact, I'm sure I could get that for you now. But I would have to see some sort of gesture on your part, that my charity will actually be rewarded.”
“Would five hundred euros be enough?”
“No. A thousand.” He finished his beer, then rose. “I will make a call, see if I can find out about his family for you.”
He walked back into the clubhouse, and I took out my wallet. I'd restocked it since meeting Vasylyna, but was going to have to restock it again. I put ten one-hundred-euro bills in a stack, and then slipped the stack into a paper napkin. I moved the napkin over to where Çelik had been seated.
After six minutes, he returned, sat, and put the napkin on his lap. He kept his head down for a few seconds, counting the money, then shifted in such a way I knew he was pocketing the bills. From the same pocket that he'd stowed my little piece of paper with the delivery address on it, he produced a new one, handing it to me.
Then, with no other word, he rose and left me with the address of Arzu Kaya's family.
Two in the morning meant I had ten hours before I'd be seeing Arzu, and there was a fair amount I needed to do between now and then. First, I found a bank and withdrew the cash I was going to need. Next, I did some shopping. Finally, with the aid of a map, I found the address Çelik had given me. That took the most time, and I was there for nearly three hours before I had what I needed and could depart.
It was already dark when I returned to the hotel I was staying at on Gençoglu Street, a place called the Otel Horon. One of the two women manning the front desk called out to me as I came through the lobby, saying that a package had arrived for Anthony Shephard. I thanked her and took the UPS pack back to my room, then dumped the new papers Nicholas Sargenti had sent out on the bed.
There were two sets of documents, a fresh set for me, in the name of Matthew Twigg, a citizen of the United States who lived in Tukwila, Washington, just south of Seattle. Along with the passport and the Washington State driver's license was an Amex and a Visa. The second set of documents were all Ukrainian, two passports—one for domestic travel, the other for international. I checked these carefully, using the lamp at the desk to verify the laser imprinting on the photographs, and was impressed that everything looked perfectly in order. Then I flipped through the two documents, noting the stamps.
Nicholas had outdone himself.
I moved my new set of papers to my bag, then took the Ukrainian ones with me down the hall, to the room where Vasylyna had spent much of the last two days. I knocked on the door twice, identifying myself, and after a few seconds she let me inside, cautiously backing away as I shut the door behind me. I showed her the documents, each of them in her full name, Vasylyna Pavlina Kozyar. She took them with wide eyes, opening each in turn, gazing at the photographs of herself. I'd taken the pictures of her with the camera on the BlackBerry, using the shower curtain in the bathroom as a backdrop. Then I'd emailed the pictures to Sargenti.
“The stamps say you came to Turkey two weeks ago,” I told her. “This room is paid for until tomorrow morning. You could be in Kiev by tomorrow afternoon, if that's what you want.”
She looked up from the documents in her hand, bewildered. Bathed, wearing garments that she had picked herself, clothes that fit, with two safe nights of sleep behind her, she looked better, but, sadly, younger.
“I didn't believe you,” Vasylyna said.
“I know.”
She was holding the passports as if afraid they might sprout wings and fly away from her. I headed to the door.
“Good luck,” I told her.
At 10:43 that night I did a SIM shuffle on the BlackBerry and called Alena for the second time since leaving New York. We were back onto our convoluted schedule, and she was expecting me.
“Still in Trabzon?” she asked.
“All goes well I should be leaving early tomorrow.”
“You received what you were waiting for?”
“Got it this afternoon. Had to make a large withdrawal, too.”
“There's enough money. Don't worry about that.”
“How are you?”
“Miata is doing better.”
“Good,” I said, aware that she hadn't answered my question. Then I heard Bridgett in the background, saying that she wanted to talk to me. “Put her on.”
“I know what she's going to say to you,” Alena said. “She wants you to agree with her.”
“About what?”
“I'll let her explain.”
There was a rustle over the speaker as the telephone changed hands on their end, and then Bridgett came on the line, saying, “She's being stubborn.”
“I'm pretty sure that's not how she sees it. Stubborn about what?”
“About the fact that I want us to leave Odessa.”
“That's always been the plan.”
“Yes, I know that's the fucking plan. But she wants to stay in Eastern Europe and I don't.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Someplace I speak the fucking language. Ireland. All I am right now is a warm body to draw fire if things go to hell. At least there I've got some connection with the people, I know something about the country, and I speak the goddamn common tongue.”
“I agree,” I said.
“It's stupid to stay here and you what?”
“No, you're right, it makes sense. Let me talk to her about it.”
The phone exchanged hands again. This time, Alena spoke in Georgian.
“I knew you would agree with her.”
“Because she's right,” I said, using English.
“It's too long a trip for Miata.”
“Then t
ake it slow. And do me a favor?”
“What?”
“Switch back to English. Speaking in Georgian just proves her right.”
“Fuck her,” Alena said, then switched to English, petulantly asking, “Better?”
“Much.”
There was a pause, then she said, “We've been in Odessa too long already.”
“I was thinking the same thing.”
“We'll move tomorrow. Check the box, I'll leave the new contact there.”
“I will.”
There was another pause, and I knew what she wanted to say, and why she wasn't saying it.
“I know,” I told her.
The address I'd given Çelik was for a truck depot near the Trabzon harbor, on the east side of town, close to the water. Like Batumi, Trabzon was another port city, built upon the trade that came over the Black Sea, trade that the residents traced back to Ancient Greece and beyond. I'd driven by the location the previous day, then returned to it this morning, parking and taking a walk around on foot. The depot was a warehouse farm, and it was busy with forklifts and lorries, but near the southwestern side was a section that clearly suffered from disuse. I pried the door open at the side of one of the warehouses, and within discovered a space that looked like it would give me the peace and quiet to do what I needed.
I wasn't going to leave Trabzon without Tiasa's location. One way or another, Arzu was going to give it to me.
From eleven until one in the morning, I staked out the location from my rental car, twice leaving it to scope the area on foot. Just as in Batumi, the depot rolled twenty-four/seven, creating plenty of ambient noise. For the entirety of my surveillance, no one even came close to the warehouse I'd chosen.
Just past one I took my gear and headed inside. There were fractures in the ceiling, missing pieces of roof, and through the gaps small packets of city light managed to reach inside. It wasn't a lot of illumination, but it was enough to work by. I unfolded the metal chair I'd purchased, set it smack in the center of the space. Then I opened the carry-all I'd bought, checking its contents once more. It was exactly the same as it had been the last time I'd looked. I took out my laptop, set up everything I was going to use on it, then closed the top and put it to the side until it would be needed. Next I took out the knife I'd purchased, moving it to a pocket, and then finally removed the first of the two envelopes with Çelik's payment. Finished, I took a slow walk around the interior once more, giving my eyes time to adjust, waiting for the arrival of my guest.
They were prompt. By my clock it was two precisely when the same door I'd used was pushed roughly open and two uniformed police officers entered, dragging a hooded and bound third man with them. Çelik followed after them, saw me, saw the chair, and spoke in Turkish to the officers. Then he crossed to me, and we watched together as his officers maneuvered their struggling cargo into the seat. Metal rang on metal as they handcuffed him to the chair.
“Complimentary,” Çelik said.
One of the officers, finished, came over and handed him the key to the cuffs. Çelik held it out to me with one hand, his other open and waiting. We exchanged items, the envelope for the key. I tucked the key into a pocket while Çelik counted the money, checking the stack of euros in the weak light, taking his time to be certain he wasn't being ripped off. When he was satisfied, he replaced the bills, then stowed the envelope inside his jacket.
“We will be back at four.”
“You said three hours,” I told him.
Çelik shrugged. “I meant two.”
Then he and his two men left the warehouse.
I waited for a minute after they were gone, not moving, just listening. In the chair, Arzu had stopped struggling, but his head beneath the hood was swiveling around, searching desperately for some sort of noise. I watched him, and after another thirty seconds or so, he began pulling at the cuffs, making the chair beneath him hop and scrape on the concrete. The third time he pulled at his restraints, he twisted and went off balance, toppling over and slamming his left shoulder into the floor. The sound he made was muffled by his hood and gag.
I moved around behind him, not saying anything, not making a noise, then took hold of his shoulders and righted him in the chair. His reaction to the contact was instant, more muffled words, pleas. I couldn't understand what he was saying, realized he was using Turkish.
Still standing behind him, I pulled the hood from his head and cast it aside. He strained to find me, but I'd positioned myself well, and he couldn't get an angle. I opened the blade on the pocketknife and used it to cut the gag from behind. He spat it out immediately, began speaking quickly again in Turkish.
I closed the knife and replaced it, then brought out the BlackBerry and put the picture of Tiasa Lagidze up on its little screen. The illumination from the device was like using a small, weak-celled flashlight, but any light in that place was enough, and Arzu's Turkish came faster.
With my free hand, I took a handful of his hair and yanked his head back so he could look up at me. Then I put the BlackBerry in his face, so he could see the screen.
“This girl,” I said in Russian. “Vladek Karataev sent her to you just over three weeks ago. You sold her. You're going to tell me to who and where.”
He blinked rapidly, looking past the BlackBerry's screen up at me. The recognition was not happy.
“Go fuck yourself,” Arzu said.
“You want to rethink that answer.” I turned the BlackBerry off, put it away again as I moved around in front of him. “I mean, you really want to rethink that answer.”
He spat on me. “What's she to you, David? Huh? Why you so fucking desperate for that skinny ass?”
“Tell me where she is.”
“You wanted that virgin cunt for yourself, is that what you wanted? You wanted to bite her little tits? You wanted to be her first fuck, to have her cherry? You're too fucking late. We opened her like a fucking garage, we fucking split her in—”
I punched him, shattering his nose, sending the chair over backward. His head smacked into the concrete hard enough that he went abruptly, dangerously silent. For a second, I thought I'd hit him too hard in my anger, that I'd knocked him out, or worse.
Then he croaked out a laugh.
“Yeah, you wanted her little cunt. Something small enough to make you feel big.”
I took a breath, trying to calm myself, then moved to him and righted the chair once more. Blood from his broken nose flowed in a black stream over his lips, reminding me of Vasylyna.
“It's one girl,” I told him. “I'm not after your network, I'm not after your business. I'm after just one girl. Tell me where she is.”
He spat again at me, this time ejecting blood. This time I was expecting it, and he missed.
“Fuck yourself.”
“You're going to tell me.”
“Fuck yourself. You might kill me, David. But I give up my contact, he will kill me. And if not him, the ones he works with, the ones who work with me.” He shook his head, spat out more blood, this time directing it at the floor.
“This is the second time you've been in lockup in three, four weeks,” I said. “You think the people up the line don't already think you've turned rat? You think the people who supply you, the people who work for you, don't already think you're compromised? You think they still believe they can trust you?”
“I'm getting out. They'll buy me out.”
“You're going to tell me,” I said.
“No, David. I'm not.”
“Have it your way,” I said, and went back to where the carryall waited on the floor. From inside I removed a hammer, a hacksaw, a pair of pliers, and a bottle of lighter fluid. I showed Arzu each item as I brought it out, then set them, in a line, on the ground so he could see them.
“You're going to fucking torture me?” There was bravado in his voice, so obvious that I knew he was scared. “You're going to fucking cut me? Beat me?”
“Oh, no,” I said, opening the laptop. “These are
n't for you, Arzu. They're for them.”
I turned the computer, showed him the pictures I'd put up on the screen. The glow on the monitor illuminated his face, showed me the recognition and then the horror.
“You never should have told me you were married,” I said.
“You cocksucker,” he whispered.
“Your wife is very pretty. And the kids are good-looking, too. Your youngest, how old is he? I'm thinking he can't be much older than ten.”
Arzu pulled his stare from the monitor to me, his expression warring between hate and fear.
“You fucker, you cocksucking motherfucker, you stay away from my family!”
“Well,” I said. “That's really up to you now, isn't it, Arzu? You can tell me where I can find the girl, who you sold her to, or you can keep it to yourself. But you do that, you better pray to God that you can buy your way out of jail quick. Because if I don't get what I want by the time Çelik comes back to collect you, you better believe the first stop I make after leaving here is your home.”
I snapped the lid of the laptop down, letting the gesture serve as emphasis, then set it aside and met his eyes. He stared back at me, brimming with hate, believing every one of my words.
That I would never—could never—bring myself to follow through on my threat didn't matter. Arzu could imagine the horrors I threatened to visit upon his family, because Arzu could imagine himself doing the exact same things. What was beyond the pale to me was simply the way you did business to him. He believed me, because he still thought that we were alike.
“Theunis Mesick,” Arzu muttered.
“Where do I find him?”
“Amsterdam.” Arzu shook his head, angry. “I don't know where.”
“You have a way to contact him,” I said. It wasn't a question. “Tell me the procedure.”
“You motherfucker.”
“I can head over to your home right now. That what you want?”
“Fuck you! I have a number, all right? A phone number, it's for a landline somewhere, I don't know where. I leave a message for him, tell him I have a friend who'll be coming to town, give him a number. He calls me back, we set it up!”