A round buzzed over my head. Not from the guy I’d just taken out but from someone just around the corner. I ducked back down, maneuvered around the island to a point where I hoped I’d have a clear shot at him. I got to my feet, aimed, and fired. The bullet struck the corner of the wall. The man just behind it fired back. Once, twice.
The shots were wild. He was no marksman, so I felt better about what I was going to have to do: take him head-on. I rose from my position and moved forward, walking straight toward him. The boldness of the move froze him for a moment, enough time for me to get off a shot. He tried to duck, so the bullet caught him in the throat. I now presumed that Chudzik’s two men were down.
The living room was empty and there was no way anyone could have escaped without running past me. Which meant they’d either headed to the back of the house or gone upstairs. I quickly cleared a bathroom and a guest bedroom and a small space turned into a library.
I then rounded the final corner and found a set of carpeted stairs. Footfalls were headed down the steps in my direction. I didn’t wait until I saw full bodies. I cut the first man down with two shots to the knees. He tumbled the rest of the way down the steps, dropping his weapon directly in front of me. I kicked it away.
The second man turned to retreat. I chased him back up the steps. When he reached the top, he turned and fired a pistol. The shot grazed my right arm. I fired back, took him down with a gut shot, just as a third man fired a rifle over my head. I turned and shot him square in the chest.
On the third floor, I heard doors slamming. It was where Chudzik, Dabrowski, and the Turks would make their stand.
I raced up the stairs.
Just before reaching the landing, I lay on the stairs, my gun raised, glimpsing the layout. Looked as though there were four doors. Three were closed, one open. The open door led to a toilet. The three other rooms, according to the guard, were bedrooms, one of which Chudzik had made into a den, which opened onto the grand deck. That was the room in which he stored most of his weapons. Chudzik would be behind that door, the door to my far left. That door would be the most dangerous.
*
I paused for a moment, checked my right arm. Barely a flesh wound. I gathered my courage and picked myself up off the stairs. I went to the far right and back-kicked the door. As it flew open, I pressed myself up against the wall, expecting shots. None was forthcoming, so I chanced a careful move into the room with my Glock raised. From the corner of my eye I caught the glint of a blade. I tried to turn but I was a moment too late. The knife slashed my left forearm, a deep cut that caused me to drop my gun.
The man who had slashed me kicked my gun aside and came after me again with the knife. He was a large man, dark, with a mustache wrapped across a wide face. Talik, I presumed.
With my good right arm I snatched him by the wrist before he could drive the knife into my chest. I twisted his wrist until I heard a snap, then back-kicked him hard in the chest.
As I bent to retrieve the knife, someone leaped from the closet and jumped onto my back. It was Alim. He wrapped a phone cord around my neck and tried to strangle me. With all my strength, I threw my body back against the wall, slamming him into the Sheetrock. His grip around my throat loosened but he remained on my back.
As I tried to pry him off, I glanced up. Talik was again on his feet, coming at me with the knife. He held it awkwardly in his left hand. I blocked the blow with my right and, with the aid of my injured left, turned the knife back on him.
We struggled for what felt like forever. The big man was even stronger than he looked. Sweat dripped down my forehead, stung my eyes so badly I had to blink them closed. My face was burning up, and the purple vein in my exposed right forearm looked as though it might break free from my skin. My muscles were tiring. It was now or never. I took a deep breath and summoned every last bit of strength.
Finally, the blade plunged into Talik’s chest.
Alim jumped off my back and made for the door as I moved for my Glock. By the time I picked it up and spun around, Alim was gone. As I listened to his footfalls fade down the carpeted stairs, I looked down at his uncle. Talik was either dead or dying. I didn’t bother to waste a bullet on him.
As I took my first step back into the large hall, the door to the far left burst open and Kazmer Chudzik fired a shotgun at me.
In a single motion, I turned and threw myself behind the wall of the room I’d just left.
The blast just missed me and I landed on my stomach next to Talik’s body. I considered lifting the corpse and using it as a shield, but surely Talik was too heavy.
I pulled myself up, crept over to the doorframe.
I chanced a quick look into the hallway. The moment I showed myself, Kazmer Chudzik fired a second time.
Big mistake.
Wasting no time, I stepped into the hall and began firing, leaving Chudzik no chance to reload. A bullet nicked his shoulder and a spray of blood shot across his large round face. He tossed the shotgun, turned, and ran into the room.
I followed.
When I reached the doorway, Chudzik was halfway through the sliding glass door to the deck. He hadn’t grabbed another gun. He didn’t appear to be armed.
I moved swiftly across the room, my left forearm bleeding profusely, my right still aiming the Glock at his head.
I stepped onto the deck. Yelled over the howling wind, “Nowhere to go, Chudzik.”
With his back now against the wooden rail that looked over the canyon, Chudzik held his arms out at his sides.
“You do not want to kill me, American,” he shouted. “If you do, you will never find the little girl. I am the only man in all of Poland who can lead you to her. No one else—not the Turk, not the lawyer—has the slightest clue where she is, or where she is going.”
Chudzik’s tone was defiant, his face set in a sneer. I believed him. He was too smart to have made it otherwise. I needed him. He was the man I needed to keep alive.
“All right, then,” I said. “You live to lead me to the little girl. Under one condition. You tell me where Anastazja Staszak is. I know your men took her from Pruszkow.”
Chudzik’s eyes flickered over my shoulder. The moment they did, I dropped hard onto the deck.
The sound of an automatic weapon spilling its chamber filled the air as holes peppered Chudzik’s ample chest, throwing him backward into the wooden rail. The rail splintered and his body, covered now in red, burst through and fell hundreds of feet into the canyon below.
I rolled and leveled my Glock at Dabrowski’s chest. Before I could fire, I heard the click of his weapon, signifying it was empty.
“Drop it, Dabrowski,” I shouted. “Drop it and don’t move an inch.”
The lawyer’s face flushed with shock. He did as he was told, raising his hands above his head, his entire form trembling.
With the aid of my injured left arm, I rose to my feet.
“Where’s Ana?” I said.
Chapter 33
Dabrowski led Marek and me into the basement of the late Kazmer Chudzik’s lake house. The lawyer was still trembling, his voice little more than a rasp. Several times he stumbled on the creaky wooden stairs, as though he might faint. It was understandable: Dabrowski’s life had instantly turned to shit. He’d just killed the most fearsome mob boss in Poland. If Chudzik’s associates didn’t ice him in revenge, Dabrowski would spend the rest of his life in prison for murder and kidnapping, not to mention possession of hundreds of images of child pornography.
Several times on the stairs I heard the lawyer mumble, “You should have killed me, Fisk.”
In the cold, dark basement, I pulled down on a chain overhead. A single bare bulb threw light over the large space, exposing Ana, who lay clothed but motionless on a dirty mattress in the shadows. Ana’s hands and feet were bound together; a gag was stretched across her mouth. Marek ran to her as soon as he saw her. He nudged her and pleaded for her to wake as he untied her bonds. A lump formed in my throat, another in the
pit of my stomach, as Marek gently slapped his sister on her pale, round cheeks.
Finally, she came awake.
Something inside me soared. We’d just met, yet looking at her, I suddenly felt as though I’d known her a lifetime. Realized her death would have killed so large a piece of me that there would have been nothing left but bones.
Marek, crying, hugged her with all his might.
Next to me, Dabrowski breathed a sigh of relief.
“Woda,” Ana begged as soon as Marek undid her gag.
Marek was prepared. He’d snatched a bottle of Naleczowianka from Chudzik’s fridge upstairs. Now he pulled it from his pants pocket, twisted the cap, and held it to her lips. She drank hungrily, as though she hadn’t ever tasted water before.
I wanted to run to her, throw my arms around her, but how could I deny her brother?
“Are you okay, Ana?” Marek said, once she finally pushed the water bottle away. I knew he was speaking English for my benefit and I was warmed by that fact.
“Yes,” she said, her eyes moving from him to me, then settling on Dabrowski.
She stared fiercely at Dabrowski—her boss, her mentor, her friend, her lover, her betrayer. When she started to rise from the mattress, Marek helped her up, but wouldn’t allow her to approach the lawyer.
“You bastard,” she hissed at Dabrowski. “How could you?”
“I did nothing, Ana,” he said softly. “You have to believe me.”
The shock was clearly wearing off; Dabrowski was going into professional mode. From here on out, we’d be dealing with a defense lawyer.
A sudden rage coursed through my veins and I shoved Dabrowski to the ground.
“Didn’t do anything, eh?” I said. “Upstairs you tried to spray me with an automatic.”
“I saved you,” he cried from his spot on the cold cement floor. “I killed Chudzik.”
“The hell you saved me. Chudzik was unarmed. If I didn’t hit the deck, I’d be full of holes right now, and you and your client would be long gone.” I stepped toward him. “But we’re not down here to put you on trial, Dabrowski. Frankly, I don’t care what happens to you once I leave this basement.”
And it was true.
“Thing is,” I said, “if you want me to leave you here alive, you’re going to tell me where I can find that little girl.”
“You are mistaken,” he cried.
I leveled my Glock at his knee. “I don’t think that I am, Dabrowski.”
“I only represented Kazmer Chudzik in a professional capacity. All I did was arrange his meeting with Talik Yilmaz and Alim Sari. I have no idea what you are talking about when you say ‘that little girl.’”
Ana stepped toward Dabrowski with a look of pure hatred in her eyes. “If you do not tell us where Lindsay Sorkin is, Mikolaj, I promise you, I will kill you myself.”
Dabrowski seemed more convinced of Ana’s threats than of the threats from the guy holding the gun on him.
“I—I—I…” he stammered, searching his mind for an answer. “I can only tell you what I overheard, Ana.”
“Make it quick,” I said.
“Then you will go?” Dabrowski said, regaining control of his voice. “Then you will all leave and I will be free to go?”
Marek stepped forward. “You son of a bi—”
Ana held a hand on her brother’s chest. “No, Marek. Mikolaj is not important now. Only the girl.”
I had to tear my eyes from the corners of her mouth, which were irritated from the gag. Had to look away from Ana’s reddened wrists or else I might have killed the lawyer on the cold cement floor on which he sat.
“Fine,” I told him. “You share with us everything you know, and if we’re satisfied that you’re telling the truth, not holding anything back, then the three of us will leave. What happens after that will be left to you.”
He considered it. But what choice did he have? At least a half-dozen men at the house were already dead, including Chudzik himself. What was one more? He had nothing to gain by keeping silent. If he talked, at least he had a chance that we’d let him live, let him go free.
“This is what I know,” he said tentatively. “Two weeks ago, Chudzik was behind bars, still awaiting his trial. He could not talk to anyone in prison, except for his lawyer. All other conversations were recorded by his jailers. So, early one morning, he called me and asked me to come in, said he needed to speak with me about something urgent. Naturally, I assumed it had to do with his case. But when I arrived, he simply gave me a telephone number and instructed me to call it. The number was to a lawyer in Berlin, a man who represented Alim Sari. The lawyer’s name was Ulrich Unger. I was to tell Unger that Alim’s uncle needed to pick up a package in Paris and deliver it to Warsaw.
“I made the call. This Unger, the lawyer in Berlin, seemed as much in the dark as I was. But he said he would deliver the message to his client and call me back later that day. When Unger called back, he said simply, ‘Send the details, and my client will tell you his price.’ I returned to the prison that evening and gave Chudzik the message. Chudzik instructed me to call the lawyer back with the details. I took out a pen, ready to scratch them down. But Chudzik ripped the pen from my hand and threw it on the floor. He said, ‘Nothing in writing!’ He told me to memorize what he said and repeat it verbatim to the lawyer in Berlin.
“Now, mind you, I had no idea what any of this meant. I thought maybe Chudzik needed someone to retrieve stolen diamonds or laundered money or drugs. I never dreamed it was a person, let alone a child. Chudzik said only this: ‘Lindsay Sorkin, six, Hotel d’Étonner,’ then he gave me a date. I confess I was curious at this point. I told Chudzik that I would rather not get involved in anything so nefarious. He told me, ‘You are already involved.’ He seemed dead serious and I became scared, but then he smiled and told me there was nothing to worry about. I figured this Lindsay Sorkin was a courier. She was to deliver six of something. Maybe six diamonds, six million laundered euros, six kilos of heroin. Anything but a girl.
“I passed the information along, and I thought that was the end of it. But Unger called me back again, late that night at my home. I was shocked; I hadn’t given him my home number. It is unlisted because of the business I am in. It frightened me that he was calling. I said, ‘What do you want? Why are you calling me?’ Unger said, ‘My client insists on five times the usual amount. He will drop the package off at Hauptbahnhof Station.’ I hung up on him. The next day, I visited Chudzik and relayed the message. I said I was done. He said, ‘Fine. Just call Unger and tell him that you agree to the price.’
“After the call, I heard nothing about it until after Chudzik’s acquittal at trial. Unger called me. His client wanted to know why I hadn’t paid. It wasn’t until then that I realized that Unger did not even know the name of my client. Unger said Alim and his uncle Talik were threatening to kill me. That I needed to come up with five million euros or I would be dead by the end of the week.
“I went to Chudzik’s office in Pruszkow. I was a mess. I yelled at him and he laughed at me. I cursed at him and he said that if I was any other man, he would kill me where I stood. I asked him what I should do. Chudzik told me to call Unger and to arrange a meeting here in Poland, at his lake house. But I don’t dare ever use his name. He said I would meet with Talik Yilmaz and negotiate a settlement.
“I was scared, but he said I would have protection. He’d hired private security for the meeting. Chudzik himself was not supposed to be here, but today he showed. He spoke with Talik and Alim for a long time. It was only today that I learned what the package was, that the Turks had had two Germans steal that little girl from her parents in Paris. Just before you arrived and all hell broke loose, I realized why Chudzik had arranged the meeting. He intended to kill Talik and Alim. And I became certain he was going to kill me as well.”
Dabrowski was lying—at least the part about not knowing what the package was until today. Just about everyone in the civilized world knew the name Lindsay
Sorkin by now. He’d heard the name on television and recognized it; he’d had to. But that didn’t matter now. I wasn’t here to prosecute him. I just needed a lead on the girl.
My left arm throbbing, I leaned over and grabbed Dabrowski by his jacket, pulled him to his feet. “What was said at the meeting? Where’s Lindsay Sorkin now?”
Dabrowski dry heaved. “I swear,” he said, “I do not know. All I gathered was that Talik was upset because his two men—the Germans who kidnapped the girl—had to be killed because an American and a Berlin investigator nearly got to him and Alim. Of course, they were speaking about you and whoever accompanied you in Germany.”
“Why did Chudzik want the girl? Why specifically Lindsay Sorkin?”
“I swear I do not know. But if I had to guess, I would say that he was selling her to someone else, someone who requested her specifically. Chudzik has sold girls before. Never that young, but teenagers, even preteens, yes, I am sure.”
“Who did he sell them to?”
“Who, I do not know. Only that, geographically, they usually go the other way. They are purchased from someone in Eastern Europe, someone from Moldova or Odessa. And they are sent west to the EU or the United States.”
“What about children?” I said. “Who handles the child pornography?”
“Child pornography?” he cried. “I have no idea.”
“Enough lies.” I threw him back to the floor and raised my Glock.
Marek said, “We saw what was on your computer in your law office, you filthy pervert.”
Ana’s eyes went wide. “What?”
“Those pictures, they have nothing to do with this girl. You must believe me. I paid for the photos. I have no idea who makes them.”
He was being truthful, I knew. At least about Lindsay Sorkin having nothing to do with the photos. Not only had she been specifically targeted but now we were talking millions of dollars. Could be that the same conspirators were involved, but we’d have to pick up the trail from where we had left it in Berlin, avoid getting too far ahead of ourselves. That’s when you get clumsy. That’s when mistakes are made.
Good As Gone (Simon Fisk Novels) Page 14