War Lord

by David Rollins

  The doorman growled at me as I thanked him again.

  ‘Darling,’ said Petinski, ‘you’re back. See what that nice rich man over there has just sent us?’ A bottle of Krug sat in a silver bucket on a tripod beside her elbow. A waiter placed two frosted flutes of cut crystal on the table and pulled the bottle from the ice. I glanced over my shoulder and gave von Weiss a friendly nod, which he returned. Out the corner of an eye I saw Shilling angle her way back to her seat, silencing the conversations at the tables she passed. ‘And look what else he sent me,’ Petinski continued, motioning at a silver tray in front of her that I hadn’t noticed. On it was a small black plastic envelope with gold trim. A condom! Fucking cheeky bastard.

  Petinski smiled a fake smile at me and said, ‘Measured response, Cooper.’

  I picked up the rubber, pushed my chair back and went to have a few indignant fiancé-type words with the man who’d just tried to pick up my bride-to-be. By the time I got there, two goons were already standing behind their boss, one of them being Dolph, ready for whatever I might choose to do in retaliation.

  ‘What the hell’s the meaning of this?’ I said to von Weiss, slamming the raincoat onto the table in front of him.

  ‘Your girlfriend is very beautiful, Mr . . .’

  ‘She’s my fiancée, pal. You’re lucky I don’t bust you in the nose.’

  ‘Oh, you are American. Where are you staying?’ he said, looking up at me pleasantly, a long way from being threatened, full of accommodation. ‘You must allow me to—’

  One of his security doofuses, the guy monitoring the front door, walked in a hurry across the room and interrupted us to have a word in his boss’s ear.

  And suddenly the front door of the restaurant burst open and four helmeted men in black overalls and body armor tagged with the word Polisi stormed in. Consternation filled the room, along with the blue and red flashing lights from law-enforcement vehicles outside the windows. One of the police made an announcement in Portuguese, which drew a muffled scream from a woman somewhere in the room, and everyone was instantly on their feet, rushing for the door.

  I grabbed the maître d’ by the arm as he ran past. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Please, there is a bomb threat. We are being evacuated.’ His eyes were wide with fear. I released him and he made a break for the door, pushing in front of restaurant patrons.

  Petinski arrived beside me, dabbing the corners of her mouth with a napkin. ‘Great. Just when we were making progress . . .’

  A worried police officer with an MP5 submachine gun attached to the ammo rack across his chest approached us. ‘Senhor, senhora. Desta forma, por favor. Pressa, pressa . . .’ he said and ushered us toward the exit.

  Once at the door, we got some notion of the pandemonium outside. It wasn’t just the restaurant that was being evacuated, but the entire street outside the Olympe along with the one beside it, two blocks at least. Many of the buildings in the area were apartments, which meant a large number of occupants – frightened people of varying ages being moved along. Here and there, folks were having their IDs checked by police with powerful flashlights and German shepherds. Dark blue police vans were everywhere, along with bomb squads and bomb detection dogs. Fifty yards from the restaurant, a beat-up white Toyota van had been taped off and surrounded at a distance by police. I gathered that’s where the device was.

  Dogs barked, lights flashed, infants bawled and people shouted at each other. I was about to say something to Petinski when I realized that she was no longer beside me, the generalized panic having separated us.

  ‘Cooper, come with me, please.’

  It was a police officer, suddenly materialized in my face. He had to say it again before the fact that he knew my name registered on my brain. I looked at him. Black helmet, black armor with the word Polisi on it, side arm strapped to his thigh. He looked familiar.

  ‘Hey, Cooper, wake up there, boy. Jeb Delaney, here to do some good.’

  Recognition. ‘Hey, Delaney.’

  ‘This way,’ he said.

  Four armored Polisi formed a box around us and we hustled across the street to a double-parked white Ford Explorer with darkened windows.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Delaney said, pulling open the door.

  Inside I caught a hint of gold dress. Emma Shilling. The door slammed shut behind me and the Explorer hauled ass, a blue light flashing up behind the windshield, the siren chirping on and off, people scattering in its headlight beams like schools of frightened fish.

  ‘This bomb scare your idea?’ Shilling asked me.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  Delaney looked over his shoulder from the front passenger seat and grinned. ‘Well, actually, Cooper, it was, kinda . . . You called and said you needed some action, and that’s what y’all got.’

  ‘Jesus, Cooper,’ Shilling huffed, ‘you’re determined to get me bloody well killed, aren’t you?’

  ‘Relax. Your boyfriend will be convinced,’ said Delaney. ‘This is genuine, at least as far as the police are concerned.’

  ‘You didn’t need to do this,’ she insisted.

  ‘How were you gonna pull off a meeting at that restaurant?’ I asked.

  ‘Subtlety.’

  ‘Subtlety . . .’

  ‘You wanted the name of the man von Weiss has been entertaining, right?’

  ‘Among other things.’

  ‘Look in your right-hand pants pocket.’

  I leaned back to get my hand inside and felt around in there – loose change, some gum, a lint ball and a card. Everything in there I already knew about except the card. I took it out as the Explorer bucked viciously over a curb and accelerated into the general Rio traffic, the sirens and lights by now killed off. There was handwriting on the card. I glanced at Shilling.

  ‘I slipped it in there when you stormed up to defend your fiancée’s honor,’ she said. ‘Subtlety.’

  I angled the card at the streetlights strobing through the window. ‘Gamal Abdul-Jabbar. Who’s he?’

  Shilling had her own question. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘A safe house,’ said Delaney.

  The British agent scanned the streetscape through her window. ‘How far away is it? Not in another bloody country, I hope.’

  ‘It’s a couple of minutes from here,’ Delaney reassured her.

  ‘What about von Weiss?’ she asked. ‘He doesn’t like it when people go missing, unless he’s the person who ordered it.’

  ‘Don’t worry about lover boy. We figure you’ve got forty minutes breathing space.’

  ‘Forty minutes? No. He’ll call me.’

  ‘I don’t think so. We killed cell reception in the area. Don’t want our terrorist setting off his car bomb remotely now, do we.’ He winked at us.

  The Explorer veered off the main road and reduced speed as it climbed up a hillside. Several wild corners later, we came to a stop.

  ‘We’re here,’ Delaney announced.

  ‘Good, I think I’m about to be sick,’ said Shilling.

  Out the window was a narrow gray terrace in an old rundown neighborhood. Delaney dangled a Smurf hanging from a key at us. ‘Who wants it?’

  ‘Twenty minutes and not a minute more, okay?’ said Shilling, snatching the little blue guy. ‘Then you take me back.’

  Delaney agreed, ‘Okay, twenty minutes. The alarm code is CIA-have-a-nice-day.’

  Shilling rolled her eyes and we both got out.

  Inside, the safe house appeared to be someone’s home. Football trophies were arranged in a glass case, photos of kids playing the game shared the walls with cheap artwork from the tourist market. On the floor, old green carpet complete with stains. In the kitchen, an ancient fridge painted up like the Brazilian flag contained some cheeses, various bottles of spices and condiments, plates of leftovers and so forth.

  ‘So what do I call you?’ I said. ‘Shilling or Shaeffer?’

  ‘Shilling. Let’s keep it in character.’

  ‘You want a drin
k if I can find anything?’

  ‘Love one. There’s sure to be a bottle of cachaça somewhere.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘National drink of Brazil. If there’s a choice, I’ll have scotch.’

  The woman had taste. ‘You get the glasses,’ I said. ‘I’ll have rocks.’ I found the liquor in a cupboard. ‘What’s cachaça distilled from?’ I held a bottle of the stuff with a graphic of a squid on it.

  ‘Sugarcane.’

  ‘Not calamari?’

  ‘No.’

  I was intrigued, but I put it back anyway and found a liter of Cutty Sark moored in the back of the cupboard. Shilling had glasses with ice on the benchtop. I took the card she’d slipped into my pocket and flicked it over, repeating my earlier question. ‘Gamal Abdul-Jabbar – who is he?’

  ‘A Somali pirate. He was involved in that cock-up back in ’11 with the Italian cruise ship. The one where three of the crew were shot. We think he might’ve been one of the shooters. Before that he was a hit-man for Al-Shabab, killing opposition elements in Mogadishu. Not particularly skilled, just your average psychopath. He’s twenty-two, illiterate and already has five million US in a Swiss account. He’s learned that crime pays.’

  On my cell, I pulled up a photo that Petinski had sent me of the tarantula guy taken poolside and showed it to her.

  ‘Yep – that’s him. We going to have that drink or we going to let it age in the bottle a little longer?’

  I grinned and poured. ‘What’s he doing with von Weiss?’

  ‘Don’t know. Not exactly. He’s not a direct customer, not a buyer. London suspects he’s acting on someone’s behalf. He’s a middleman, or a lieutenant perhaps. More than likely he’s representing a big fish back home in Mogadishu, one of the city’s war lords. Several of them are von Weiss’s regular customers. What’s your interest in him?’

  The only question that mattered was whether he had anything to do with a missing W80, but I couldn’t go there. ‘Is it possible Gamal might be striking out on his own?’

  Shilling picked up her drink. I followed her out of the kitchen into the front room where she turned on a lamp and switched off the main ceiling light. I noticed she wasn’t wearing underwear.

  ‘London doesn’t think so,’ she said. ‘But you don’t know until you know, right?’ She clinked my glass with hers. ‘Cheers, Vin Cooper, number twelve on the World’s Sexiest People list.’

  ‘You googled me.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘No biggie. Homer Simpson was number eleven.’

  She sipped her drink. ‘I also read about your escapades in the Congo with those celebrities. What were they like?’

  ‘Like you’d expect they’d be.’ I went back to the business at hand and scrolled through the photos on my cell till I found the one I was looking for.

  ‘Yes, that’s Randy,’ she said when I showed it to her. ‘Nice photo. Who’s the woman?’

  ‘His girlfriend.’

  ‘She’s pretty.’

  ‘At the moment, she’s pretty worried.’ The photo was a headshot of the both of them, laughing, the Vegas skyline at sunset in the background. ‘You manage to get anything more on Randy’s whereabouts?’

  ‘No, not in the few hours since this morning’s escapades. I can’t exactly go round asking direct questions, you know. I pick things up in conversation, or not at all. I’m just an ornament with ears.’

  And now that she mentioned it, those ears of hers had ornaments: a three-carat stone on a fine platinum chain swung from each lobe, the light refracting through the facets, breaking into rainbows.

  ‘Get those on a captain’s salary?’ I asked.

  Shilling knew what I was referring to and her fingers came up and fiddled with one of them self-consciously. ‘They were gifts. And even though I’ve bloody well earned them I don’t get to keep them. As for Randy, I’m sorry – especially for his significant other.’ She rested up against the edge of a table. ‘I wish I knew more.’

  The fact that he just seemed to have disappeared was making me think of the vultures up on Sugarloaf.

  Shilling sipped her drink. ‘He tortures people, you know. There was a man not so long ago – von Weiss had his hands smashed, all of his fingers and knuckles. Then he beached him on an island off the coast here called Queimada Grande. The place is full of venomous snakes. Von Weiss laughed his head off watching the poor sod die.’

  ‘You were there?’

  ‘On the boat.’

  Snakes. Queimada Grande. The FedEx package sent to Alabama. ‘His name was Fruit Fly,’ I said.

  She was surprised. ‘You know about that?’

  ‘There’s something big going down in, we think, around eight days time,’ I said.

  ‘But you can’t tell me what it is?’

  I shook my head. ‘No, but we think it involves this guy.’ I brought up a photo of Lieutenant Ed Dyson, alias Stu Forrest, the weather guy who stole a plane from Nevada Aircraft Brokers and flew it south at pretty much the moment Petinski and I turned up there to ask questions.

  ‘Yeah, I’ve met him before. Several times. He stayed with us just yesterday, and then he left.’

  ‘Headed where?’

  ‘I walked in on a conversation between him and von Weiss. I heard Dar mentioned.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Dar es Salaam.’

  ‘Africa?’

  ‘D’uh.’ Shilling smiled, glints in the flecks in her eyes matching the ones in her diamonds. ‘Anyway, as you say, there is a kind of countdown going on in the von Weiss world. I don’t know what it’s about – you do, obviously – but O Magnifico’s up to his neck in it. I’ve been told to pack. We’re leaving tomorrow or the next day. Meanwhile, everyone’s jumpy as hell. And pulling that vanishing act on White’s bodyguard today didn’t help.’

  ‘You travel with von Weiss a lot.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Does he usually tell you where you’re going?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But this time he’s being vague about it.’

  ‘I don’t think the vagueness is directed at me. Even though I’ve heard it mentioned, I just don’t think we’re going to Dar es Salaam. Berlin is more his speed, sometimes Rome. Just lately he’s taken a shine to Moscow.’ She examined my face. ‘You think because he hasn’t told me where we’re going I’m under suspicion?’

  ‘Would you jump ship if you thought you were?’

  ‘In a heartbeat. Von Weiss takes great pleasure watching people die.’

  I wasn’t convinced she’d be going anywhere in a hurry. Shilling was a conscientious employee and maybe too eager to please for her own good.

  ‘Hey, I know what I’m doing, okay.’ She poured another splash of Cutty for herself and a regular sousing for me. ‘Anyway, along with the usual suspects, I’ve heard Dubrovnik mentioned, along with Cape Town, Tel Aviv, Malta. Von Weiss knows there are other moles in his organization, aside from the ones he’s unearthed. Not being specific about our destination is just him being careful. Loose lips and all that.’ She took a big mouthful of whisky and passed it from one bulging cheek to the other like she was rinsing her mouth.

  I showed her another photo. ‘How about this man?’

  ‘Sure. That’s Laurent Duval, von Weiss’s personal pilot.’

  ‘His real name is André LeDuc, formerly of the French Air Force. He’s a deserter. He’s also wanted by Interpol and the Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure for illegal weapons trading, murder, conspiracy to murder, and extortion.’

  She smiled. ‘Yeah, but can he fly?’

  The jury was out on that one. ‘The one time I flew with him he crashed the plane, so maybe not.’

  Shilling snorted. ‘Jesus, this just keeps getting better.’

  ‘How about this guy?’ I asked, pulling up another mug shot.

  ‘Yeah. He came to dinner on von Weiss’s boat over a month ago. Can’t remember his name.’

  ‘Ty Morrow.’

&nb
sp; ‘What’s his claim to fame?’

  ‘Attempted murder, conspiracy to murder, conspiracy to import drugs, illegal weapons smuggling.’

  ‘Well, you wouldn’t expect von Weiss’s pals to be missionaries. Do you really know what’s going on? What von Weiss is up to? Or is this just a CIA fishing expedition?’

  ‘I’m not CIA,’ I told her.

  ‘Jesus, Cooper, of course you bloody well are. Maybe you just don’t know it. Your partner, Kim Petinski – I’ve seen her before. In London a year back at some US Embassy bash. Before I came here. We weren’t introduced, but she was pointed out to me as a Company girl.’

  Petinski, CIA . . . Of course I knew that. I just hadn’t been prepared to accept it.

  ‘So, you know of course that von Weiss is a snake expert, and now you know he enjoys making people suffer. Oh – and he’s a big fan of the Nazis, which is connected in his mind, I’m sure, to his bastard father, Josef Mengele.’

  ‘We know,’ I said.

  Realization dawned on her. ‘Hey, it was you who broke into his home, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I didn’t break anything. The door was open.’

  ‘You took his Mein Kampf signed by Hitler. You know that’s his most treasured possession? O Magnifico was mad as hell when he realized it was gone. There’s half a million dollars on your head because of that.’

  ‘That’s a lot of money. I might turn myself in.’

  ‘Well, it’s not on your head, exactly,’ she said. ‘Von Weiss doesn’t know who stole it, but the word is out. The man who tries to sell that diary will end up like Mr Fruit Fly.’ Shilling finished her drink and put the glass down on the table beside her. She was getting edgy, conscious of the time.

  ‘What can you tell me about von Weiss? What kind of man is he?’

  ‘Well, for one thing, he hates the United States. And perhaps hate isn’t a strong enough word for it. He’s in a constant rant about what he calls “the American evil”.’

  ‘What’s his problem?’

  ‘He’s convinced that if we hadn’t entered the war, Hitler – his big hero – would’ve won.’