by Mark Parragh
“So he runs everything now.” Crane vigorously beat some eggs in a bowl and then splashed some white wine she had open in the refrigerator into the pan. She sat at the table and watched him cook for her with a curious expression.
“What do you call this?”
“It’s a Greek omeleta. Nothing fancy.” He dumped the eggs into the pan and then covered it with a plate. “So is one of Kucera’s lines of business robbing hotel rooms, by any chance?”
“Oh, yes. The rich tourist hotels. Very much.”
Well, that was probably who had ended up with his surveillance gear, then. May it serve him well, Crane thought. It seemed pretty useless to him at the moment when he didn’t have any idea who he should surveil with it.
“Here comes the tricky part,” he said. He flipped the pan over and then took it away to reveal the omeleta on the plate. “And now the other side.” He slid it back into the pan and adjusted the heat slightly.
Before long, Crane was satisfied with it and slid it back onto the plate. Natalya produced more plates and some mismatched silverware, and they ate it with the rest of the wine at her little table while an electric clock hummed on the wall above.
“Nobody ever cooked for me before,” she said.
“Really? Nobody?”
“Well, my mother, of course. But apart from that…no.”
“That’s too bad.” Then his phone chirped in his pocket—Josh’s ringtone.
He gave her an apologetic smile. “I need to take this. Go ahead and eat.”
He wandered into the apartment’s small living room and took the call.
“Yes?”
“Can you talk?” Josh’s voice. He glanced over his shoulder. Natalya was still at the table, but the apartment was small. It wasn’t as though she couldn’t hear him. He decided she was no danger.
“It’s okay.”
“Well, we got what there was to get from their computers, but we hit a dead end.”
Crane really didn’t like the idea that he’d done all this and killed at least two men for nothing.
“What do you mean?”
“The guy in charge of BioKapital is one Dalibor Cermak. I’m sending you pictures and a brief on him now. But trust me, this is not the kind of man who sends a squad of dirty cops with assault rifles to shoot up a research facility in the rainforest. Guy’s about as interesting as a box of saltine crackers. And I wouldn’t want you to think there’s an interesting picture on the box or anything. We’re talking generic saltines. He’s that dull.”
“Is he leading a secret double life?”
“No. Or at least, he’s doing it really well if he is. There’s more. The company’s financial structure is all screwed up. Everything’s triple blinded through trusts and holding companies. My people got nowhere. And they’re very good at what they do.”
Crane didn’t doubt it. So this Cermak had to be a distraction, a squeaky clean puppet for whoever was really running the company.
“Do you want to meet him?” Josh asked suddenly.
“Cermak? What do you mean?”
“One thing we turned up, there’s a state trade congress that he’s part of. They’re holding a function for some Chinese investors tomorrow night.”
“Can you talk somebody into giving me an invitation?”
“We can do better than that. My guys can get into that system, no problem. We’ll just add you to the list. Your name?”
“No, I’m persona non grata around here. Make me German. Gerhard von Brandt. With BASF.” He thought for a moment. “And a plus one.”
He lowered the phone for a moment and called back over his shoulder to Natalya, “You want to go to a real party?”
###
Crane stepped out of a rented limo in front of a building that could only have been built by Russians. Its huge, brutalist facade was hung with long, spotlit banners displaying the Czech and Chinese flags.
“What are you smiling at?” Natalya asked as she took his hand and got out of the limo. Crane nodded toward the flags. “Strange world. All those former and current communists in there talking about making money.”
“I suppose,” she said with a disinterested shrug.
They looked stunning as they walked up the wide steps to the main entrance. Crane wore the Brioni suit, freshly cleaned and pressed. He’d added a new pair of Stefano Bemer shoes because he thought they fit this new, temporary character and because he wanted Josh to feel he was getting his money’s worth. Natalya wore a sleek Fouad Sarkis dress in a soft green, with a halter neckline and a long slit up the left leg. It cost more than the rent on her apartment, and Crane was sure she’d never worn anything remotely that expensive. But he had to admit she knew exactly how to wear it.
All eyes were on her at the front entrance. Just as Crane wanted.
“Von Brandt,” he said in accented English to the large, tuxedoed man at the door. “And my companion.” The man struggled to keep his eyes off Natalya as his second checked the name against a list on his tablet.
“Good evening, Herr von Brandt,” the second said after a moment. “Welcome.”
Inside, the main atrium was strewn with flowers and banners with slogans in Chinese and Czech. Guests made small talk while a string quartet played, and waiters distributed wine and hors-d'oeuvres.
There were a few shallow steps down from the entry to the main floor. They stopped at the top and surveyed the crowd, searching for Cermak.
“Got him,” Natalya said in triumph. “Ten o’clock, near the wine bar.”
She indicated a man with a subtle flick of her fingers, and Crane realized that was indeed Dalibor Cermak standing at the bar, although he had a different haircut than in the picture Josh had sent. Natalya had spotted him first. “You win,” said Crane, and he passed her a folded one hundred Euro note.
“I don’t even know what we’re doing here.”
“We’re here to figure that man out. See how he handles himself. See who he talks to.”
They walked down the steps to the main level and accepted glasses of wine from a waiter.
“That sounds like a very dull party,” she said with a bit of laughter in her voice.
“Probably,” he said. “If it stops being dull, put some distance between us. Get out of here by the nearest exit and catch a cab.”
She looked at him with sudden concern. “He doesn’t look dangerous. What are you planning to do?”
Crane tried his wine. It was a local varietal, sweeter than he liked, but he thought Gerhard von Brandt would probably like it, so he smiled and nodded.
“I’m just planning to gather information. But things haven’t been going the way I’ve planned them lately.”
A photographer appeared in front of them and told them to smile as he snapped off a couple quick shots. Then he moved on through the crowd, turning and snapping and moving in quick bursts of speed.
“Who’s this for again?” asked Natalya.
“Chinese trade delegation,” said Crane. He nodded toward a group of Chinese in boxy gray suits talking with a group of what he took to be Czech government officials. The Czechs’ suits had wider lapels, and they seemed to be drinking more. The Chinese looked more uncomfortable than anything else as their hosts made sweeping gestures and spoke a little louder than necessary.
“Like I said,” Natalya murmured. “Bad party.”
Cermak took a drink from the bartender and stalked away to the center of the room. Crane watched him join a stocky fireplug of a man with graying hair and another who had to be a bodyguard based on the musculature and the suit.
Crane moved closer, Natalya following in his wake. She traded a couple words in Russian with someone as they passed. Then a waiter with a tray moved into Crane’s path, and he stopped short. When his view cleared again, he saw the gray-haired man staring straight at him. Their eyes locked for a moment, and Crane felt an animal hatred in the other man’s gaze. Hatred and fear. He’d gone pale, as if he’d seen a ghost. Cermak was trying to
talk to him, but the gray-haired man wasn’t even hearing him.
Crane broke the eye contact and glanced around. Everything seemed normal. Nobody else was paying attention to either him or the other man. No, there was no question who the older man was looking at or what his reaction meant. Crane had never seen him before, but he knew beyond doubt that the man recognized him, and he was no friend.
The bodyguard had picked it up too, following his boss’ gaze and homing in on Crane. Crane saw him instinctively slip into a combat-ready stance.
Then there was a squawk from the PA system and the sound of someone tapping on the mic. Everyone turned toward the dais where someone made a quick announcement in Czech.
The sightline between Crane and the gray-haired man was broken as the crowd shifted. He turned to Natalya. “What did he say?”
“Speeches now,” she said in disgust. “This just keeps getting better.”
The first speaker introduced another one, and everyone applauded. “Deputy minister of industry and trade,” Natalya murmured. “Hurray.”
Crane noticed a slim figure moving through the crowd a step or two at a time, apologizing and excusing himself as he came. A moment later, he recognized Klement Novak. Damn it, he thought. Not now.
He turned toward the dais and focused on the speaker. Perhaps Novak wouldn’t recognize him. Or at least wouldn’t want to make a scene in the middle of the speech.
But Novak brushed against Crane as he passed. “You have to get out of here,” he said softly but with urgency. “Right now. You’re not safe here.”
Then he moved on in a straight line past Crane and vanished into the crowd.
Crane glanced over where the gray-haired man had been, but he was gone. He scanned the room and spotted the bodyguard, without his boss, leaning in to speak with one of the event’s security personnel.
There was an emergency exit on the far side of the space, near one of the bars. He nudged Natalya and guided her through the crowd in that direction.
“What did that man mean?” she asked. “What’s the matter?”
“It’ll be okay,” said Crane, his voice as reassuring as he could make it. They made their way to the edge of the crowd, and Crane swept this side of the room. There was the bar, and the fire exit just beyond it. To his left was a hallway. Crane watched two waiters walk down it with their trays at their side. They passed restrooms—identified by icons on frosted glass panels—and then disappeared through twin swinging doors into what had to be the kitchen.
“What’s happening?” Natalya repeated a bit more urgently.
“It’s okay, but I don’t know the score, so we’re going to fall back. You first. While I’m getting a drink at the bar, you go to the ladies’ room.” He nodded toward the hallway. “Except you’re really going through the kitchen and out the back. Get a cab and go home.”
“Come with me! You’re frightening me!”
“You’ll be safe on your own. It’s me they’re interested in.”
She hesitated but finally she bit her lip and nodded. “You’ll come back to my place?”
“I will. You’ll be fine. Go now.”
He stepped away from her toward the bar, and that seemed to shake her out of inaction. She walked into the side hallway. Crane watched her walk past the restrooms and disappear into the kitchen.
He ordered a vodka and tonic and watched the security people get nervous, one after the other, as word that something was up spread across the room.
He tried looking for the gray-haired man—he decided he had to call him something better than that and settled on “Ivan.” He looked for Ivan but couldn’t find him. Either he was just lost in the crowd or he’d left without his bodyguard.
The speech ended suddenly, and the crowd applauded. The next speaker was Chinese. He came to the podium with a translator, and the whole cycle began again.
Crane was watching Ivan’s bodyguard when he noticed the photographer pass by and head down the hall toward the kitchen. Crane followed.
He walked through the swinging double doors into a steamy, loud expanse of white tile and stainless steel. The place was peppered with chefs and waiters lounging while they waited for the end of the speeches to signal the next course. Nobody paid any attention to him.
Crane found the photographer in a disused corner, pulling lenses out of a shoulder bag. He looked up as Crane approached.
“You shouldn’t be back here,” he said.
“No,” Crane said, “probably not. But I’m going to offer you a thousand euros for a copy of your pictures, and I didn’t want to do it out there in public.”
The photographer wasted no time. He pulled a spare card out of his bag and slapped it into the camera’s second slot and then copied the first card over to it. A few moments later, he traded the card for a handful of bills.
“I’ll be back with more pictures later,” the photographer said with a wide grin as he stuffed the money into his pocket.
Crane smiled back. “These will do. Thanks.”
The photographer headed out the doors toward the main space, and Crane was about to do the same when the doors swung open and Ivan’s bodyguard came through.
He and Crane startled each other. Crane could see him tensing to attack. Crane slapped the guard’s fist away and stepped inside the arc of his swing. Then he punched the man hard in the solar plexus and knocked the wind out of him. He followed up with a palm strike that broke his nose, and finally grabbed the lapel of his suit and threw him over his hip. The bodyguard hit the floor hard and stayed down.
Crane turned and realized the entire kitchen was looking at him in stunned silence. He smiled at them.
“Sorry,” he said. “He’s an awful tipper. You all work too hard for that.”
Then he walked past them, between a pair of long prep tables and out the back door.
Chapter 34
Branislav Skala stalked through the building’s security office like a caged panther. He’d retreated here for his own safety and to give his bodyguard freedom to operate. He didn’t like being alone with only a handful of the building’s security men for protection. They looked useless, and they weren’t his people. But at least the head of the security division knew very well who Branislav Skala was and knew better than to stand in his way.
Skala watched the party on the monitors. The assorted trade functionaries had no idea what was happening. The man from Team Kilo must have come here for him. But at the moment, he was nowhere to be seen. That just made Skala more nervous. He’d sent his bodyguard Pavel to search the parts of the building that weren’t on camera, but there’d been no report yet. He’d also called back to his estate for reinforcements. They’d be useful even if Team Kilo’s man—this “John Crane” or “Gerhard von Brandt,” or whoever he was—had backed off and fled. Whether he could find him in the building or not, at least he could start cutting off his enemy’s lines of support.
“Show me the recordings,” he told a nervous camera operator. “Show me that man from the moment he entered the building.”
The door opened and Skala’s hand instinctively went to his jacket, but of course, there was no gun there tonight. He’d wanted to become a gentleman, and gentlemen let others do their killing for them. He was beginning to miss the edge of adrenaline, even the taste of blood in his mouth. This was a strange, desiccated world he was moving into, where every signal was subtle, every move obscure, and its results invisible to the eye but only felt in the gut.
It was his reinforcements. Four of his best men filed in. They looked wary, on edge.
“Boss?” said the leader.
“Do you have that footage yet?” he snapped at the security guard.
“Monitor two, sir,” the man stammered. He pointed to a screen, and Skala saw a view of the front door. An annoying, fat manufacturer of plastic goods came through into the party with a blonde on his arm who was way too young for him. Too tall as well, Skala thought.
“According to the log, he che
cked through the front door about three minutes from here,” said the operator. “I’ll fast-forward.”
Skala let a bit of cold slip into his voice. “Yes, do that.”
The image raced forward, and there he was, the same man he’d seen in the pictures from San Juan airport. He walked beside a sleek woman at his side and stood at the top of the stairway, surveying the party.
“Freeze that,” he snapped. “Print half a dozen of them.”
He turned to his own men. “Find the girl,” he said quietly. “She’s local. If he’s not with her, she’ll know where he is.”
The office printer spit out screen grabs of Crane and the woman, and Skala distributed them. “Go now. Call me the moment you know anything.”
Two of his men nodded and walked out. A moment later, the door opened again and two of the building’s security brought in his man Pavel, holding a bloody handkerchief to his face.
“What the hell happened to you?” Skala snapped. This was bad. It made him look weak in front of the outsiders.
“He broke my nose,” Pavel said through the blood and the handkerchief.
“I can see that! Where is he now?”
One of the guards holding Pavel said, “According to the kitchen staff, after he beat up your man, he went out the back. He’s gone.”
Skala shook his head in disgust. “Get him to the car,” he said to his other two men. “The side entrance! Not through the damn party!”
They took Pavel from the security guards and helped him out into the hallway.
“We’re done here,” Skala said to nobody in particular, and walked out after them.
“And put someone on Klement Novak,” he said to the backs of his men as he followed them down the hallway. He’d seen a glimpse of something earlier on the party floor. He’d seen Novak moving through the crowd toward the man Crane. It might be nothing, but Skala had learned never to assume something was unimportant.
“He’ll know something,” he muttered, and followed his men out into the dark where his car waited to take him to the safety of his estate.