Whirlwind

by Joseph R. Garber

  Thumbing the On switch, he keyed in Sam’s private line.

  One ring, then, “Yes.”

  “Hi-ya, Sam.” Charlie eased into the right lane, taking Nineteenth Avenue — a shortcut to the airport.

  “Charlie!” No joy in his exclamation. “I’ve been wondering how you’re doing. Have you made any progress? Where are you, anyway?”

  “To answer your first question, yes. To answer your second, in San Francisco.”

  “What!?!” Utter disbelief. Charlie had been hoping for foaming rage. Oh, well, sooner or later he’d ignite Sam’s powder-keg temper. And that’s when the useless ape would start making mistakes.

  “Pretty close to Golden Gate Park actually.”

  Confused, Sam muttered, “Schmidt said you were in Arizona.”

  Charlie felt a happy smile creep across his face. “Hey, Sam, if you send a boy to do a man’s job, don’t be surprised at the results.”

  “Why are you in California anyway?” Sam’s voice was pitched higher. Ditto Charlie’s spirits.

  “Interviewing your buddy Max Henkes at DefCon Enterprises.”

  A low groan, a wounded animal: “How did you find out about DefCon? Just how —”

  Come on, Sam, you know you want to go ballistic. Be a good boy and blow your stack. Here, I’ll give you a little incentive. “Irina told me. You know Irina. Nice girl. I like her a lot.”

  “Kolodenkova? You’ve got her? Thank God! Good news at last!”

  “Good for me at least. We spent the night together.” It was a petty thing to say, and thus doubly pleasurable. “At the Airport Marriott. Just up the road from the Hilton Schmidt stayed at. You know, Sam, he really is a bonehead.”

  “Forget him. Just fucking forget him. Bring me Kolodenkova and —”

  “No can do, Sam. I let her go.”

  Gratifyingly, Sam was propelled past the point of shouting. He could barely whisper. “You’re lying.”

  “No lie. I kid you not.” Charlie gunned his rent-a-car through a yellow light, cut across traffic, and wheeled onto Route 280 south. If he pushed it, he could hit the airport in fifteen minutes. He planned to push it. Likewise Sam.

  “If you had your hands on that bitch and you cut her loose…Fuck! Do you know what I’ll do to you? Do you have any idea?”

  “Twice, Sam. I had her twice. So to speak. Turned her free both times. But not to worry — there’ll be a third time. Although maybe I’ll let her go then, too. Maybe not. That’s up to you. No, Sam, do not swear at me, do not insult me, and least of all do not make me angry. Making me angry could put me in a vindictive frame of mind. You don’t want me in a vindictive frame of mind, Sam. Uh-uh, no. Trust me on this, if you piss me off, to use your very own favorite word, you’re fucked.”

  “You want more money, right? Of course you do. Well, I’m certain we can work something out.”

  Charlie laughed. He was on a roll, having a grand time. “Hell no! I’ve got all the money I need!”

  Sam spat, “Then what? Tell me. Name your fucking price.” He was on the edge, right on the brink, and Charlie could explode him like a toy balloon.

  Tempting, mighty tempting.

  However, a pleasure postponed is a pleasure doubled. Besides, the only way Charlie could be sure of getting everything he wanted was to do it face-to-face. “I will. But not now. Meet me at the Albuquerque airport in…oh, adjusting for the differences in time zones…meet me at three forty-five local time. If you tell your pilot to put the pedal to the metal, you can make it. But don’t be late, Sam. If you’re not on the tarmac parked next to Air Charlie — which is a blue and white Citation — at exactly three forty-five P.M., I’m outta there. And you, Sambo, will be left twisting slowly, slowly in the breeze.”

  So saying, Charlie hit the disconnect button and tossed the cell phone out the window.

  Well now, he grinned, that has well and truly set the cat amongst the pigeons.

  Glancing at his speedometer, Charlie tapped the accelerator. Eighty miles an hour. Safe enough on this particular road, the scenic route to Silicon Valley. The highway patrol didn’t even blink unless you were clocking ninety.

  Timing was everything now. He had to get airborne fast, had to be on the ground in New Mexico a few minutes before Sam. If he wasn’t, his plan wouldn’t work.

  It was a good plan, or at least he hoped it was. It had only one flaw — Mitch Conroy. Letting Sam know that he, Charlie, was in California was as good as telling Schmidt that the black BMW X5 he was following was a red herring. As soon as Sam’s plane was in the air, he’d be on the radio giving the mercenary the reaming of his life. Schmidt would be livid. If he was mad enough, he might take it out on Mitch.

  Nah, Schmidt’s not that dumb. By now, Johan would be at least three hundred miles from Albuquerque; once Sam called him, his top priority would be getting there ASAP. Yeah, he’d grab Mitch for a quick Q&A session, and yeah, being the sadist he was, he’d probably leave a few bruises. But Schmidt was a pro. He’d understand that Mitch was hired help, an innocent bystander, and he wouldn’t waste his time doing serious damage to someone who didn’t deserve it.

  Charlie turned his thoughts elsewhere. What he wanted now was quiet time — a couple of airborne hours to relax, empty his mind, and sift through the miserably few pieces of information he had about a defense scientist named Sangin Wing. Something wasn’t right, more than a single something. The story told by the newspaper downloads didn’t cohere; Sam’s role was twice the mystery it had been; the whole damned puzzle had blown to smithereens and nothing seemed to fit.

  He was missing the heart of the matter. Infuriating, it was like…it was…suppose you’ve mislaid something important. Suppose you know there are only four or five places you could have put it. Suppose you look in every single one of those places but you can’t find it. Nonetheless, you know it’s there. It’s in the drawer or on the shelf or under the counter, and damnit, it’s probably even in plain sight. But you look and you look, and you can’t see it for the life of you. Some inexplicable mental blind spot is keeping you from finding what you know is there; and try as hard as you can you just can’t remember and the only thing to do is…

  Forget about it for a while, then come back afresh.

  That’s what he’d do on the flight to Albuquerque. He’d re-read his downloaded files, then he’d shut his eyes and meditate. Sooner or later he’d see it, because he always did, and that was the one thing he did best of all.

  SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

  MAIN TERMINAL LEFT LANE

  CARGO AND GENERAL AVIATION RIGHT LANE

  Sledgehammer was waiting at the private plane boarding area. Charlie didn’t like the frog’s smirk on the hacker’s face. He figured he was about to hear some distasteful news.

  “No refunds,” Sledge said, handing Charlie a computer disk.

  “You damaged it?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Sledge sneered.

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “Nothing on it, man. It’s virgin. You paid me fifteen grand to crack a blank disk.”

  Charlie blinked, shaking his head with disbelief. “You sure?”

  Sledge drew himself straight, mastery addressing amateurishness. “What do you mean am I sure?”

  “Sorry. Of course you’re sure. Which means…” Charlie’s mouth broadened. “…which means…” A smile spread from cheek to cheek.

  And he laughed.

  He roared and rollicked and guffawed, and could not control himself as he doubled over whooping like a loon, immobilized with hilarity, gasping breathlessly at Irina Kolodenkova’s outrageous, monumental, positively epic brazenness.

  “You all right, man? Like, are you having an attack or something?”

  “No!” It was so diabolically funny he could barely stand. “I mean yes!” She’d flummoxed him like a raw recruit, switching disks, and he’d never noticed. It was beautiful. It was perfect. And he was…he was…

  “Then what are you l
aughing about? I mean, fifteen grand to scope out a blank disk is not so funny to me. So tell me the joke, man, what am I missing here?”

  “What you’re missing, Sledge…” Another gale of laughter erupted. “What you’re missing, my friend,” Charlie gasped, “is that I think I’m in love!”

  “In my personal estimation,” reflected Mr. Schmidt. “A. G. Russell is the finest knife maker in America.”

  Mitch Conroy watched the mercenary through a single swollen eye. The other was crusted closed with blood. “I’ve heard that said,” he mumbled, his lips bruised and numb.

  Not far from Mitch, a portable CD player rested on a rock. Act I of La Boheme echoed through the arroyo, Mirella Freni’s voice soaring as she sang that she was only a humble seamstress, an ordinary girl nicknamed “Mimi.”

  “This particular knife,” Schmidt continued, “is one of two hundred and fifty, a genuine rarity. Titanium case, one-handed operation, and a damascened blade sharper than a surgeon’s scalpel. I’ve taken a man’s hand off with it. Flesh, sinew, and bone — a single stroke. The fingers were still wiggling when it hit the ground.”

  “I can believe that.” Mitch forced himself to nod. It was the best he could manage with his wrists lashed behind a stunted juniper tree, his legs wound tight with towrope.

  “The important thing, Mr. Conroy, the very important thing for you to know is that you won’t feel it. Not at first. That’s how sharp the edge is. It cleaves clean and fast. You don’t notice until quite a few seconds later. Then your nerve endings sense something’s missing. Neurons fire signals to receptor cells that are no longer there. When they receive no answer, they fire harder. I am told the pain mounts to astonishing levels. Any man who’s lost a limb will assure you the agony is quite beyond comprehension.”

  “There ain’t no need for this, Mr. Cobra. I done told you everythin’. Heck, I told you the whole story before you and your boys started whuppin’ on me.”

  (Now Rodolfo sang, the incomparable Domingo as the struggling playwright.) Mercenaries stood at some distance, unmoved by the music, more interested in their cigarettes than anything else.

  “So you say, so you say.” Cat-like, Schmidt stalked back and forth across loose cobbles. The sun was behind him. Mitch squinted painfully as he watched him prowl. “I suspect you have told the truth. Indeed, I’d assign a high probability to it — ninety-nine percent, shall we say. Alas, that leaves me one percentage point’s uncertainty. Under normal circumstances, I’d let so trivial a figure pass. However, these are not normal circumstances. First, you have annoyed me mightily —”

  “Ain’t nothin’ compared to what you’ve done to me.”

  Schmidt’s voice was level, neutral, carefully modulated to communicate no emotion whatsoever. “You have annoyed me by playing a wicked little prank. You have annoyed me by wasting a considerable amount of my valuable time. You have annoyed me by making sarcastic remarks —”

  “That’s just my way of speakin’. It don’t mean nothin’, and there’s no insult intended.”

  “And you have annoyed me by interrupting me. Please do so no longer.” Schmidt put his hands on his hips, examining Mitch from behind smoky eyeglasses.

  Mitch swallowed hard. “Yes, sir. But can I say something, Mr. Cobra?”

  “Certainly.” Schmidt waved his hand in a gesture worthy of a king granting a petition to a commoner.

  “T’ wasn’t a prank or a joke or nothin’. Weren’t no malice in it at all. Like I said, that McKenzie fellah, he paid me good money to drive his truck. It was just a job that come my way when I needed one bad.”

  (The seamstress and the playwright stand in a chilly garret, dumbstruck by love at first sight. Their impassioned voices soar as they are drawn into one another’s arms.)

  “And rewarding employment it was. Twenty-five thousand in cash. A brand-new BMW — I am sorry that it’s no longer in pristine condition, but I trust you have insurance — yes? Well, Charles is a generous soul. Suspiciously so. That is my second concern — second to the annoyance you have caused me. My third concern is a wholly understandable apprehension that you have omitted something from your tale, some small and seemingly irrelevant fact that could shed light on the whereabouts of Irina Kolodenkova.”

  “Sir, I honest-to-god don’t know. Last time I saw her was in my house. You say she was in that Marriott with Mr. McKenzie. Well, I guess I gotta believe you, but I sure didn’t know it. I didn’t see her, I didn’t hear her, I figured she was long gone by then. Everythin’ I know about her, I’ve told you. Told you three or four times now. I just can’t think of anythin’ else to say.”

  “Perhaps if I prod your memory something fresh will come to mind, eh? A little something to jolt your system might open up fresh channels of thought, and, behold!, you will recollect some few other facts.”

  “Mr. Cobra —”

  “Ah, listen.” Schmidt cupped his hand to his ear. “That sound you hear is an approaching helicopter. It will dust down above this gully in just a few short moments. The pilot’s bringing someone quite singular with him, one of those exceptionally few specialists whose skills exceed my own. My most sincere counsel to you, Mr. Conroy, is to tell me everything now. You really and truly do not want this gentleman interrogating you.”

  “If I could think of one other thing to tell you, I surely would. Let me start over at the beginnin’ —”

  Pressing a finger to his chin, Schmidt tilted his head. “No, no. That won’t do. I shall ask a question or two instead. Minor matters. Small sources of perplexity. Question the first, what kind of a vehicle is Ms. Kolodenkova driving?”

  “Can’t rightly say. She was tryin’ to steal one of them suburban utility buggies when I bumped into her. After she left my house…well, hell, I just don’t know. I suppose she stole one of the neighbor’s cars.”

  “And your pickup truck? We’ve checked the DMV computer. You own a black Dodge. Where might that Dodge be at the present time?”

  “Probably out at the airport. Like I told you, that Mr. McKenzie and I traded cars. He said he was headin’ for the airport, and I’m pretty sure he was ’cause I’m the one who chartered a jet for him.”

  Behind Mitch, out of his limited field of vision, a helicopter thundered in descent. A gale of dust whipped down the slope of the arroyo. The engine revved then fell silent. Mitch heard the sound of boots sliding down a dry river bank.

  And a lilting Irish voice, thickly accented. “Cobra. Good to see ya. And this wee shite all wrapped up beneath the tree, this would be my party favor?”

  The voice’s owner sidled into view. He was short and paunchy with dark, greased-back hair. Despite the desert heat, he wore a black leather jacket, and his bandy legs were ill disguised by loose blue jeans.

  Schmidt glanced from one man to the other. “Mr. Conroy, let me introduce Mr. Keough. He hails from Belfast, and his former employer was the Irish Republican Army.”

  “Sinn Féin, actually,” said the Irishman, bending at the waist and placing a tool chest on the ground.

  “A trifling distinction at best. Now understand, Mr. Conroy, that men enlist in the IRA either because they wish an excuse to steal, or because they enjoy hurting people. There are no other reasons. The brotherhood’s kitchen serves only those two flavors of soup. I’m sure you can guess which flavor Mr. Keough represents.”

  (Their duet complete, the orchestra falls to a hush, sweet notes of love, gently played. Mimi and Rodolfo have found their destiny: each was meant only for the other.)

  “Ain’t gonna serve no purpose to hurt me more.”

  “Ah, but it will. It will serve to make me happy — although Mr. Keough will be happier still. Unless, of course, you can convince me that you’ve told me everything you know. Do that, Mr. Conroy, and you are free to go, and will be none the wiser about Mr. Keough’s arts.”

  “I don’t reckon. You and all your boys been callin’ each other by snake names. Only this fellah you call by his real name. I figure that means onc
e he’s through with me, I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

  Schmidt pressed his lips together. It might have been a smile, if he were capable of that. “How unfortunately observant you are.” He walked to the left, out of Mitch’s sight. “It appears I need to administer a small object lesson in being less attentive to my subordinates, and more attentive to my questions.”

  Schmidt’s hand appeared in front of Mitch’s face. It held something. Mitch blinked. Sweat dripped off his forehead and into his one good eye. His vision was blurred and he couldn’t quite see…but could begin to feel…growing, mounting, rising…pain that defied belief…and the horrifying agony of it jolted up his arm like an electric shock.

  Johan Schmidt put Mitch’s little finger between the cowboy’s lips. “Bite down hard. I’m told it helps with the pain.”

  Mitch screamed.

  “Zippo,” said Schmidt, lifting a hand. One of his men tossed him a lighter. He snapped its cover open, spun its wheel, and held the open flame to Mitch’s severed joint. “This will cauterize the wound. We can’t have you bleeding to death, can we?”

  Head turned to the sky, Mitch howled a cry he had not known he had in him.

  “You may think the removal of your finger painful. In this you err. You do not know what genuine pain is. The severing of a single digit is not even — metaphorically — an overture. It is merely the orchestra tuning up. The real symphony, Mr. Conroy, begins when Mr. Keough steps to the podium.”

  (Outside the garret, Rodolfo’s friends summon him to the Cafe Momus. It is Christmas Eve, and he has promised to join them in celebration. With Mimi hugged to his side, he calls out that they should go, that he will catch up later.)

  Keough squatted by his toolbox, the lid open. He removed a car battery, a power cord, and an electric drill. Smiling like a child, he said, “Back when I was a young ’un, the provos shot Protestant bastards in the kneecaps. Primitive, would you not say? Bang, and it’s over and done, and where’s the fun in it? Now we use Black and Decker, and the advantages are numerous, numerous. No wasting valuable ammunition. A man can take his time. And the boyo at the receiving end of the business always finds he has more information in him than he thought he did.”