“Who was murdered?”
“I’ll tell you who. The very guy you were asking about.”
“Quemal? Who killed him?”
“Who knows? All anybody knows is someone blew his brains out. And I mean that literally. Call Irmie, Alex. The detectives want to talk with you. They don’t know how to contact you. You’re supposed to be registered with the police. That’s another little detail you’ve overlooked.”
Max was right. It’s the small stuff much more than the big stuff that trips up agents on foreign assignments. I knew that well enough.
When I told Sylvia about Max’s call, she said, “The police are calling you in?” When I nodded, she said, “What do you think it is?”
“I expressed an interest in Quemal, and now he’s dead. Naturally, they want to talk with me. It’s not anything to worry about.” I hoped I was right. I picked up the telephone and dialed police headquarters, but when I gave my name and asked for Irmie I was told she was away from her desk.
“I’m Detective Schneider. I’m running the investigation of a murder at the Kalashni Klub. Detective Nessler said she spoke with you about—”
“About the Albanian who was shot out there.”
“Right. How did you know?”
“I just got a call from Max Peters.”
“Okay. Can you come in today, say about three?” I said I could and put down the telephone. Sylvia still had a worried look on her face. I told her I had an appointment that afternoon at police headquarters.
Before she could say anything, I said, “You worry too much, Sylvia.”
“And you don’t worry enough. If the German cops tumble to what’s going on, we end up in the slammer. I don’t like the idea of my career going down the tubes for something like this.”
If my career hadn’t already gone down the tubes or up in smoke or wherever it is old careers go, I was grateful. Although I wasn’t too concerned about that end of things, Sylvia was right that landing in the Kraut slammer for murder wasn’t an attractive prospect.
“Tell me what Ramush Nadaj did to break the besa.”
“I’ll tell you later.”
It was still early morning in the States, and on my way to police headquarters, I stopped to make a telephone call.
Buck and I had long ago worked out a mildly elaborate system for diminishing the possibility of an NSA analyst becoming an unwanted eavesdropper when one of us was calling the States from overseas.
From a public call box near the Romanplatz that could handle overseas calls, I dialed Buck at home and asked if “Josie” was there. When Buck, sounding just a little sleepy, said he didn’t know “anyone named Josie,” I recited the number I was supposedly calling, which was the number of the call box I wanted him to call, read backward. He was then supposed to call back from a public phone in his neighborhood.
I hung around the call box next to the Romanplatz for ten minutes before it rang.
I picked up, stuck my thumb inside my cheek, and said, “You callin’ Alex he ain’t here.”
“I’m happy to see you haven’t forgotten all your tradecraft.”
“Some things you never forget, like always making your bed with military corners. You’ll never guess who’s running this operation.”
“Isn’t it Jerry?”
“Colonel Frost. She showed up only hours after I arrived over here.”
“Colonel Frost reports to the deputy secretary of defense.”
“I know. I’m in exalted company. You could have knocked me over with a toothpick when she showed up. Not only that. We’re sharing the same quarters. A safe house near the Hirschgarten.”
Buck was silent for a second, then said, “Be careful, Alex.”
“Don’t worry. It’s not gonna happen.” I wished I felt as confident as I sounded.
“Don’t let it. You could end up in hot water.”
“You mean in more hot water than I’m in already?”
“What else?”
“Somebody broke into Ursula Vogt’s place.” Buck would know who the “somebody” was. “It seems that there’s a Kosovo connection to Ursula Vogt’s murder. But that’s not all. The same ‘somebody’ killed the chief suspect in the Vogt murder, who happened to be one of Nadaj’s KLA lieutenants. That could lead to problems.”
“Why did he do that?”
“His life was being threatened. He had no choice.” I paused. “Things have to happen quickly.”
“Things?”
“What I’m wondering is, do you still talk to the senator?” I was referring to one of Buck’s long-time contacts, a senator who was a member of the Intelligence Committee.
“From time to time.”
“I’m hoping he still owes you some favors. Colonel Frost is still very tight lipped about what happened in Afghanistan when Nadaj’s people were out there. Also, anything you can dig up on Kurt Mehling.”
“The name rings a bell.”
“He’s the publisher of Welt-Bericht. I have a feeling he’s in this up to his eyebrows.”
“That’s not good. A guy like that has a lot of clout.” Then, after a brief pause, Buck said, “Anything else?” He all of a sudden sounded worried.
“I saw Irmie. She’s a detective now, working homicide.”
“Good for her.”
When I told Buck I was on my way to police headquarters, he said, “Tell Detective Nessler hello.” Then he added, “Be careful, Alex.” Everyone seemed to be telling me that these days. I told Buck I was grateful for whatever he could find out and that I’d get back to him.
“I suppose you know what happened,” Detective Paul Schneider said. Irmie had introduced Schneider to me as one of her colleagues on the homicide squad, and he was dominating the interview. When I told Schneider Max had mentioned a murder at the K Klub, he said, “Quemal Sheholi, a visitor from Kosovo, was shot two nights ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” I looked at Irmie. “I was hoping to be able to talk with him.”
I was in the detectives’ office, a long room with a window at the far end. Schneider and Irmie had desks alongside one another. The shelves on the walls were lined with the kind of sturdy plastic binders you see in offices all over the European Union. On one of the shelves was a coffee machine, next to it a package of filters. I remembered that Irmie liked her coffee strong.
I also remembered that we drank a lot of coffee together in the morning on the balcony outside her apartment as we watched the sun move higher in the sky. I wondered how often she thought of those times, if ever. Somewhere in the course of my travels I learned that women are much less sentimental than men.
I was seated on a chair facing Schneider. From behind her desk, Irmie was looking intently at me, her blue-green eyes filled with curiosity. She was wearing a pantsuit that was probably supposed to be practical but to me looked sexy. Beneath a dark-blue jacket I could see a beige blouse and, around her neck, a silver necklace. When Schneider gazed down at some papers on his desk, I stole a glance in her direction.
I was recalling a long-ago birthday when I gave Irmie a silver necklace.
“Was this a coincidence?” Schneider asked sharply. He wore rimless glasses, had a dark mustache, thinning hair, and a rugged face. He also had the kind of bull neck you see on football linemen. His white shirt was tailored to emphasize his broad chest and shoulders and to let the world know that he liked pumping iron. He’d be a tough guy in a fight. Munich cops often put me in mind of New York cops—whatever it is, you have the feeling they’ve seen it before. And when you’re dealing with them, you want to be careful, always remembering that no matter how friendly they may be, they’re never your friend.
And as with New York City cops, you’re generally well advised to forget the excuses and explanations—and throw yourself on the mercy of the court. Unfortunately, in this situation that wasn’t going to be possible.
“Is what a coincidence?” I was stalling, remembering Sylvia’s warning to be careful what I told the p
olice.
Schneider flashed an impatient frown, grabbed a pencil, then let it drop.
Irmie picked up Schneider’s line of thought. “The fact that you asked about him only days before he got shot.”
Schneider fixed me with an unfriendly stare. “You should know, Mr. Klear, I’m skeptical about coincidences.”
I said, “I only wanted to talk with him. I didn’t want to kill him.” That was true enough—but I was glad I wasn’t hooked up to a lie detector.
Irmie said, “You indicated that he had some connection with the KLA. Could this murder have been politically motivated?”
I thought for a moment, then nodded. “I knew very little about him.” That, too, was true.
“But you say you wanted to talk with him,” Schneider said. “About what? What would you have said?”
“I would have asked him some questions.”
“About what?”
“About what he was doing in Afghanistan, for one thing. I would have asked what kind of connection the Kosovo independence movement has with the Taliban.”
“Do you think he would have answered questions like that, Mr. Klear?” Irmie asked.
“I don’t know.” If this kind of interview were being conducted in the States, I would have refused to answer any more questions and called for a lawyer ten minutes ago. But in Germany you don’t do things like that. In France, where the Napoleonic Code still applies, things are even worse. If the police deem you to be not forthcoming, you can be tossed into the cooler immediately.
“Take a guess,” Schneider said.
“He might have. You never know.”
“Suppose he didn’t?” Schneider asked. “What would you have done then? Offered some encouragement?”
“We never got that far. Why bother to speculate?”
“The reason we’re asking,” Irmie said, “is that when you lived over here you were attached to the American government.” When Schneider looked at her, she added, “Mr. Klear told me that.” When I nodded, Schneider frowned, started tapping with his pencil. Irmie said, “We’re concerned that you’re not planning to do anything unlawful.”
“Unlawful? That’s not my—”
Schneider said, “Like planning a rendition. That’s what you people call it, isn’t it? When you grab someone off the street? A rendition?”
“Rendition?” I shook my head. “You’ve got the wrong guy.”
“You could be the advance man. You say you’re here as a tourist, but you could be scouting the territory.” When I shook my head, Schneider raised his hand. “You were maybe thinking of grabbing him, carting him off to an American military installation, and flying him off somewhere.”
“Absolutely not.”
Schneider was sharp and not that far from the truth. I couldn’t help thinking that this all began with our failed attempt to grab Ramush Nadaj. I wouldn’t be here in Munich police headquarters, stalling and evading, if the original rendition had gone according to plan.
“Can we be sure?” Schneider asked.
“That sounds pretty fantastic, Detective Schneider.”
“I have to tell you, Klear. It’s happened, more than once, and the last time wasn’t that long ago.”
I knew what Schneider was talking about. A German court in Berlin had tried three terrorists charged with setting off a bomb at an American military installation and found them innocent. Shortly after being released, the terrorists disappeared, and it was rumored that they’d been grabbed by an American special ops team.
In any case, I decided not to answer Schneider’s question. Instead I said, “I worked in Germany for the American government for quite a while. I never did anything unlawful.” Of course the truth was, I never got caught doing anything unlawful. And in those days, with Russia as a common enemy, the aims of the American and German governments pretty much harmonized. We were in close touch with the German Counter Intelligence units headquartered in Pullach as well as with the BND, the German equivalent of the FBI. The BND almost never countermanded our activities, although they expected to be thoroughly informed of what we were doing. On that score, we were always as obliging as we could be.
“Things were different back then,” Schneider said.
“I think Mr. Klear’s making sense.” Irmie stared straight at me. “With Quemal dead, it’s all pretty much beside the point.”
Although Schneider continued to look skeptical, he didn’t say anything. Thank you, Irmie.
There was a brief awkward silence, then Irmie said, “We have an idea that Quemal was murdered by another Albanian.”
“Can I ask who?”
Irmie looked at Schneider, and when he shrugged, Irmie said, “Someone named Sulja. Sedfrit Sulja. He runs a trafficking ring, and he has close connections to some organizations back in Kosovo. He’s a conduit for funneling money out of the EU back to Kosovo.”
Tania said Sedfrit Sulja was the name of the individual who’d come barging into the K Klub with a beef about the K Klub boss having picked off one of his women. According to Tania, that was what had caused the fight.
Sedfrit had walked right into it.
“And there’s something else,” Irmie said. She looked at Schneider.
“He was castrated,” Schneider said matter-of-factly.
I suppose I looked startled when I heard that. I hadn’t done anything along those lines. Thinking back to what had happened right after Quemal was shot, I remembered Sylvia saying she wanted to go through Quemal’s pockets. Well, she’d definitely been thinking ahead. No question that the detectives’ first thought would be that this was some kind of gang killing. Sedfrit would fill the bill almost perfectly.
“It’s possible someone was sending a message,” Schneider said.
“They’ve certainly got a language all their own,” I said.
“Of course, you never know.” When I asked Schneider what he meant, he said, “This Sedfrit’s a trafficker. He imports women by the carload for his brothels. He’s been accused of kidnapping women, but he’s got plenty of money and he can buy off any dame who complains. He’s always been smart enough to avoid any kind of violence. I don’t exactly see a guy like that doing something so stupid.”
“Maybe he has a short fuse.”
Irmie held up a flyer she was reading. “There’s a meeting of the Kosovo Liberation Organization tomorrow evening. Sedfrit’s listed as one of the officers.”
Printed across the top of the flyer in bold letters were the words Drejtësi për Kosova! Justice for Kosovo!
Before I could comment, there was a knock at the door. Schneider got up, stepped out into the corridor, and held a brief conversation with someone. During the minute that he was gone, I scrawled a note and pushed the piece of paper across Irmie’s desk. She only had time to slide it beneath a folder when Schneider reappeared.
“We’ve arrested Sedfrit,” Schneider said. When Irmie asked where they’d found him, Schneider said, “He was at the club’s headquarters. They’ll be bringing him here within an hour.”
Irmie was on her feet. “Will we get to talk to him today?”
Schneider said they’d be holding him overnight in the presidium’s detention facility. I knew the drill. Within one day they’d decide whether or not to keep him in U-Haft or release him. I had an idea they’d want to keep Sedfrit around for a while.
Irmie came out from behind her desk and escorted me to the door. When I looked back, Schneider was standing alongside his desk with a telephone in his hand and punching in a number, and pretty much ignoring me. With Sedfrit as the primary suspect, I wasn’t important anymore.
The question was, how long would Sedfrit remain the primary suspect?
I nodded a goodbye to Irmie. She gazed up at me for a long moment, but her expression betrayed nothing.
As I walked down the corridor away from the office on my way to the stairwell, I thought about the message I’d pushed across the desk. It had said, “Meet at the bench, tonight 7:30.” Irmie would kno
w what “the bench” was. We used to go for long walks in the English Garden, and for some reason always ended up on the same bench, which was situated in a quiet corner not far from the Tivoli Bridge, near Radio Free Europe where, pretending to be a journalist, I’d worked, on and off, for a number of years.
I spent a nervous three hours walking around the city, gazing into shop windows, drinking coffee—and wondering if Irmie would show up.
Irmie came.
She arrived ten minutes late, but she came. And I don’t think I was ever so happy to see someone as I was to see her approaching up the path. A minute later we were seated next to one another. It suddenly seemed to me as if nine years hadn’t gone by. “Thanks for coming,” I said.
“You knew I’d come.” When I shook my head, she said, “I gave you some help.”
“I know.” In the distance, lights from the Hilton Hotel flickered. The trees of the English Garden were a dark silhouette against a blue-black sky. The John F. Kennedy Bridge across the Isar was less than twenty-five yards away. A young woman with a small dog went by without giving us a glance.
“I know what you’re thinking, Alex.”
“You could always read my mind, Irmie.”
“No, Alex, things would have worked out differently if I could have read your mind.” She turned to look at me. “Why did you ask me to meet you here?”
“I haven’t gotten over you, Irmie. I want you to know that.”
“Well, I’m sorry for you then.”
“I never will get over you, Irmie. Ever.”
“It’s over, Alex. Over between us.” She looked away. “It’s been over for a long time. That’s why I came—to tell you that.”
“I don’t believe that, Irmie.” I paused. “I don’t think you do, either.”
“Detective Schneider still thinks you may have some connection to this murder. I have to tell you, Alex, he’s smart and persistent.”
“I could see that.”
“He won’t let up until he’s solved this case. He told me he’s considering having you arrested.”
“You’ve arrested someone.”
“We’re skeptical about whether Sulja committed the murder. Detective Schneider has more questions he wants to ask you.”
The Rendition Page 19