Swimming with Sharks

by Nele Neuhaus

  “Go on,” he said and massaged his sore knuckles, “give her the special treatment!”

  They grabbed her, tore her clothes off, and tied her up on a metal table dressed in just her underwear. The blows with the leather strap split the skin on her thighs and chest. Her agony took her breath away, but she suppressed any cry of pain. She became dizzy and almost blacked out, but they brutally kept her from losing consciousness.

  “Talk!” Sergio hissed, clenching his hands in his pockets. He had been quite certain that it wouldn’t take long to get her talking, but now it turned out to be a problem. He particularly feared losing face in front of his men.

  “What will you do if I die before that?” Alex mumbled through her swollen lips. Any sign of arrogance had vanished from Sergio’s face. In the bright fluorescent light, she noticed the bags under his eyes and the increasingly sagging skin on his neck. She realized that even Sergio Vitali had to capitulate to her stubbornness. The pain in her body was like a dull droning. Alex could no longer distinguish which body part hurt the most, but her triumph over Sergio in his rage and helplessness eased the pain.

  “I’ll have all of my men rape you!” Sergio threatened. “Until you open your fucking mouth! Is that what you want?”

  Alex was silent. She closed her eyes; she didn’t fight back when they loosened the tape around her ankles and the first man attacked her—a fat, slimy guy who stank like sweat and garlic. The edge of the metal table rammed painfully into her back with every thrust. Without a word, Alex endured the pain and humiliation. She stopped counting after the third man. She just heard Sergio’s angry voice from a far distance. Nothing mattered anymore. She was just a numb shell. The minutes stretched into hours, and Alex felt like she was looking at herself from above. She saw her injured body, her face swollen and disfigured by the beating. Her thoughts wandered to Nick. Not even this brutality could defile her memory of the most beautiful night of her life.

  “And?” Alex heard Sergio’s mocking voice. “Do you like it? Or do you finally want to talk to me?”

  If it would have helped her at all, she would have told Sergio everything. Yes, she would have begged him, beseeched him, done everything just to live. But he would kill her anyway. She needed to remain strong. She knew her pride would drive him crazy.

  Speechless with anger at her persistent silence, Sergio watched as one man after the other lustfully pounced on Alex. The sight of these men panting like animals, taking possession of the body of this woman he’d once truly loved, filled him with disgust. There were even worse methods for forcing a person to talk, but something deep inside made it impossible for Sergio to have them sever Alex’s limbs or mutilate her.

  “She stopped breathing,” one of the men said. He leaned over Alex and felt for her carotid artery. Sergio jumped up from his chair. He stared at Alex’s lifeless body. The humiliation he’d suffered in front of his men drilled into him like a barbed hook. Nevertheless, he felt respect for this woman who dared to defy him. She wasn’t afraid of him. He ran both hands through his short hair. Alex had been right. Nelson had given him bad advice. What a great companion she would have been to him! She would have remained loyal if he had only allowed her to stand by his side.

  Sergio’s anger suddenly subsided and made way for a leaden fatigue. Beautiful, passionate, brave Alex! He would never meet a woman like her again. She dealt him a major defeat with her death. But above all, his feeling of invincibility had died with her. Alex had beaten him. In every sense.

  “What should we do with her?” Luca asked. Sergio winced. Impatiently, he chased away these sentimental feelings. This little whore deserved to die. She had lied to him, betrayed him, stolen from him. Basta. Life goes on. He needed to clear his head.

  “Throw her in the river,” he said coldly. Then he turned on his heel and walked out.

  Nick didn’t get a wink of sleep all night. Shortly before one thirty in the morning, he had left the US Attorney’s Office and walked the two blocks to city hall as it began to snow. He could no longer stand to just sit there and wait. And he could hardly bear how Jenkins and Engels talked about Alex. She was nothing more than just a witness to them. They didn’t care that she was a human being. They were completely indifferent to whether she was innocent or guilty. They’d certainly solve the corruption case without Alex. Nick had a feeling that Vitali would manage once again to squirm free. His high-powered lawyers would squash every allegation, and he’d probably intimidate anyone who considered revealing anything to use against him. But Nick didn’t really care about Vitali. His thoughts revolved around Alex. Where was she? What had they done to her? Was she still alive?

  Nick knew that he wouldn’t be able to cope if something happened to her. His intense feelings were completely different than the love he had felt for Mary. He couldn’t quite explain it to himself either. But his attraction toward Alex was far more than the desire of a man over fifty trying to regain his youth.

  He entered city hall through the back door and walked to his office. The security guards greeted him respectfully. No one asked him what he was doing here at this time. He strode into his office and switched on the small lamp that drew a warm yellow circle of light on his desk. Nick sat down in his wet coat. His gaze wandered over the spacious office and landed on the framed portraits of his predecessors. This office was the place he had wanted to be ever since he was a little boy. It was his dream, and he had achieved it. He had spent so many nights working, neglecting his family. Nick was used to fighting, but now he was tired. There was a different life out there, one without politics, outside the public eye. He intensely longed for this life more than ever before. He sighed despondently. He had achieved so much, but he’d lost even more. He hadn’t watched his son grow up because he had no time. He knew the New York TV stations better than his own home, and some reporters were more familiar to him than his own son. His days were ordered by his schedule, from early morning until late at night.

  And then Alex appeared in his life, and she succeeded in doing what Mary had tried in vain for so many years: Nick started to take a hard look at himself. Suddenly, he no longer understood the driving force behind his crazy ambition—what his enemies had labeled his “obsession.” Why had he been so unwilling to compromise? It was Alex who had made him take a critical look at himself. And when he did this, he realized that, during all those years of fighting, he had completely forgotten to live.

  No, Alex couldn’t be dead! It simply couldn’t happen. Nick wrapped his arms around his chest, doubling up.

  “Dear Lord,” he whispered in desperation. “Please, don’t let her die…”

  Travis Stewart cursed. On the short path from the car to the docks, the wet snow had soaked through his jacket and the wind was icy cold. To make matters worse, he had overslept. Dawn would break in about a half hour, and cops would be teeming everywhere. He needed to hurry. He cursed as he climbed down the quay wall’s rusty ladder and jumped into the small motorboat. He pulled out a metal briefcase from beneath the oiled tarpaulin, and he was about to climb up the ladder again when he heard engine noise above him.

  “Shit,” he whispered. If that was the cops and they caught him with a briefcase filled with drugs, then he’d go back to the slammer. Travis stuffed the briefcase under the tarp and cowered in the boat. Car doors slammed, and he heard male voices. Suddenly, silhouettes appeared farther down the quay wall. Travis saw them razor-sharp against the brightening night sky. They carried a heavy bundle that they dragged to the edge of the old pier. People often threw garbage in the river here because the current was strong. But that wasn’t garbage! For a split second, Travis could see a person’s body being dumped into the water. He ducked down automatically. If those guys saw him, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill him as well.

  But they didn’t see him. They disappeared immediately. Travis stared at the dark-gray water and saw wildly flailing arms in the current. There was no doubt that this was not a dead body drifting in the ice-cold water, b
ut a living human being! He really shouldn’t care. Helping people only caused trouble. He strained to stare into the water. A head suddenly emerged just six feet from his boat’s bow. Travis threw himself forward with such force that the boat nearly capsized. Now he was completely soaked, but his fingers closed around a handful of wet hair. Then a hand grabbed for his. A woman’s face appeared. She coughed and spat water. Her eyes were wide open. The woman was more dead than alive, and she lost consciousness as Travis pulled her into the boat—but she was alive! He stared at her in surprise. She was completely naked. He took off his army jacket and placed it over the woman’s shivering body, which was covered with cuts and bruises.

  It wasn’t easy to climb up the slippery rungs of the rusty ladder with her weight on his back. The snow was falling heavier around him as he stumbled to his car, which was parked a few hundred yards away at an abandoned storage shed. Then he opened the door and placed the lifeless woman on the passenger seat. He grabbed an old wool blanket from the trunk and wrapped it around her. The last thing that he needed now was for her to kick the bucket in his car. He put the car in reverse, turning it around.

  “Nick?”

  Nick jerked up, dazed and confused. He needed a moment to realize where he was. He remembered that he had gone to his office last night, and apparently he’d fallen asleep at his desk. Then he remembered Alex.

  “Hello, Frank,” he said. “What time is it?”

  “Almost six.” Frank stood in front of the desk.

  Nick sat up straight.

  “Do you know if they found Alex?”

  “I don’t think so.” Frank shook his head. “I heard an announcement on the radio that she was missing just before I got here.”

  He noticed his boss’s reddened eyes, his tormented face, and wondered why this woman affected Nick so deeply.

  “I need to call Connors,” Nick mumbled.

  “You should get some sleep,” Frank said. “You look terrible. Have you been sitting at your desk all night?”

  “I came here at one thirty. I was with Connors until then.”

  “Do you think Sontheim is still alive?” Frank asked.

  “I don’t know,” Nick whispered.

  “That would be bad. Without her testimony—”

  “Damn it!” Nick cut him off harshly. “I don’t give a shit whether or not she testifies! I just pray to God that she’s still alive!”

  Frank stared at his boss in concern. He slowly began to understand that this was no longer about Vitali or uncovering this whole scandal. At this point, Nick only cared about this woman’s life.

  Nick’s face looked desperate. He turned away from the lamplight and stroked his forehead.

  “Frank…I…” His voice was hardly more than a whisper. His dark eyes were black with despair. “I…I fell in love with her, when she came to me at the cemetery and listened to me. She…she was understanding and compassionate, and suddenly I could bear everything that had happened to me. She gave me the courage to keep living; she even saved my life.”

  He took a sobbing breath, and Frank understood at once that Nick wasn’t just feeling wretched about Alex’s disappearance; he was also tormented by feelings of guilt about Mary. He watched a tear flow down Nick’s cheek.

  “I couldn’t bear to lose Alex now as well.”

  Frank had never seen Nick Kostidis cry before, and to see this man whom he admired and truly liked in such pain hurt him to the depths of his soul.

  Sergio sat in his office at the VITAL Building and watched a photo of Alex flash on the news. They could keep frantically searching for her all they wanted, because they’d never find her. The telephone rang. Sergio looked up. It was his private, tap-proof line that he used only for special calls.

  “It’s me,” a male voice said on the other end of the line. “What about the woman?”

  “She won’t talk again,” Sergio replied.

  “Good. I have my hands full putting the brakes on the deputy US attorney and the mayor. It’s inevitable that some people will have to be sacrificed.”

  “It’s all right,” Sergio replied calmly. “De Lancie wasn’t that valuable anyway, and Whitewater was about to retire.”

  “Connors arrested Harding. I couldn’t do anything about it.”

  “Harding was arrested?” Sergio froze.

  “Yes, but that won’t be a problem either. He won’t utter a word—he’s too smart for that.”

  “And too greedy.” Sergio relaxed a bit.

  “Maybe,” the man laughed.

  “The important thing is that you keep me out of this mess.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it. Once enough heads have rolled, the president and the public will be satisfied. There will be heated discussions, some people will pack their bags, and then everything will be business as usual again.”

  “What about Kostidis?” Sergio asked.

  “What about him?”

  “Don’t underestimate him.”

  “Kostidis isn’t involved in the investigation, and the deputy US attorney does as I say.”

  Sergio nodded. “What should I do?”

  “Just act normal. If the woman doesn’t reappear, then the US Attorney’s Office has nothing concrete but the statements. And as long as no one spills the beans, there’s no trail leading to you.”

  “How sure can I be about that?” Sergio furrowed his brow. “They’ll pressure people.”

  “No, I’ll make sure that it doesn’t happen,” the man said with a quiet laugh. “We’ve fixed bigger things than this before. Just think of the Iran-Contra affair, or Kennedy, or Watergate.”

  Sergio laughed too.

  “All right,” he said, “everything else should be as we discussed. Once this unpleasantness is water under the bridge, then we’ll take on Ortega and you’ll be a hero.”

  “Very nice. I’ll call you when I hear something new.”

  “Thanks,” Sergio said, “I’ll see you soon.”

  He hung up, grinning in satisfaction. That pathetic idiot from the US Attorney’s Office and this bastard of a mayor should just try to keep on him! Neither of them would even get close.

  Tate Jenkins entered Connors’s office with a cup of coffee in his hand. The deputy US attorney sat at the conference table with a bleary-eyed expression in front of a stack of files.

  “How far are your people with the indictments, Connors?” Jenkins inquired, sitting down.

  “They’re working on it,” Lloyd Connors replied and leaned back. “But without Alex Sontheim’s testimony, we have nothing but speculation.”

  “That woman doesn’t matter anymore,” Jenkins said. “The material we have is enough to remove half of the city’s political elite. We already have a dozen confessions. What else do you want?”

  Connors looked at the deputy director of the FBI, astonished. “I want the people who pull the strings,” he said. “I want the mastermind behind this, not just the small fries.”

  “I don’t know whether you can call the police commissioner of New York or the US attorney for the Southern District ‘small fries.’” Jenkins raised his eyebrows. “Get your people moving, Connors. I don’t feel like waiting until Christmas. I want the indictments on my desk by tomorrow.”

  “But I can’t possibly go public with this whole thing tomorrow!”

  “Why not?” Jenkins took a sip of coffee from his plastic cup. “We have bulletproof evidence; we should pounce before anyone disappears or blows their brains out.”

  “I want the mastermind,” Connors persisted, “and in my opinion, that’s Vitali. If it says in the newspaper tomorrow that his bribery scheme was busted, then he’ll cover his tracks. We need Sontheim as a key witness against him.”

  “And what if she took off and doesn’t surface again?” Jenkins asked. “How much longer do you want to wait, Connors? Until the whole case goes up in smoke?”

  There was an awkward silence before Connors responded.

  “But I—”


  “Let me tell you something,” Jenkins interrupted him. “Let’s wait another twenty-four hours. We’ll go public if she doesn’t show up by then. I’m getting pressure from above. The president expects something to happen, you understand?”

  “Yes, of course,” the deputy US attorney said with a helpless shrug, “but if we don’t get to the root of this, after a brief interruption things will just be the same again.”

  “You’ve got twenty-four hours to find the woman,” Jenkins cut him off. “One full day, and not a minute more. Then we’ll step in front of the press.”

  Jenkins finished his coffee. Connors turned to his files again. He was dead tired, and not particularly optimistic about the case. If Alex didn’t show up soon, then Vitali would get away again unscathed. Connors thought about Nick, and he slowly understood his frustration. Vitali was slippery as a fish.

  Alex scanned the small room. It was daylight behind the dirty curtains. She moved carefully, and sharp pain flashed through her body. She looked at her wrists and saw the blood-encrusted wounds where the restraints had cut deeply into her flesh. And suddenly the memory was there again, and the horror returned in a vicious wave, bitter as bile. She remembered all of the gruesome things that had happened to her. A tear ran down her disfigured face. She had experienced the worst things imaginable to any human being, and during those horrifying hours—where she thought she’d go crazy out of fear—something had irrevocably broken inside of her. To be at someone’s mercy, the futility of being unable to defend herself, had been worse than the pain, even worse than realizing that they were trying to kill her. The wounds and bruises would heal, but what about the trauma? Just a few days ago, she was one of the highest-paid investment bankers on Wall Street, juggling billions of dollars. She knew the most important people in the city, in the entire country. Until recently, she had a bright future ahead of her. Now she had nothing left but her bare bones, and even that wouldn’t be worth much if Sergio found out that she was still alive. He’d do anything to finally finish her off.