by Peter Riva
A slight click and all the lights suddenly went out.
There was a noise behind and Pero turned just in time to see Sergio collapsing to the floor on top of the now equally unconscious Swiss guard. Pero raised his hands to defend against what he was sure was going to be a blow. But no blow came, just a wire noose, a deadly garrote. Off balance as he was, the man spun him around and put his knee in the small of Pero’s back. The noose tightened and started choking. Through blurred vision, he saw Mbuno was also struggling.
As black clouds were gathering in Mbuno’s mind, images came floating to the surface. A zebra once filmed with a snare still around its throat, cutting into the flesh. It would probably die … but not a Meerkat in Botswana. Ferret-looking, the little Meerkat learned to turn in the noose until the larynx was facing the slip knot. No matter how tight the noose, there was still a little bulge at the slipknot. The Meerkat had spun. Once facing the knot, he regained his breath. The noose became useless.
Ever the observant hunter, Mbuno saw, in his mind’s eye, how he could strike back.
He twisted, turned, fought, and finally spun to face his attacker. By placing his hands on the man’s and pulling, Mbuno prevented him from further tightening the noose wire. Mbuno seemed to be doing what the assailant would expect him to do. Now that the slipknot was over Mbuno’s Adam’s apple, it still hurt but he could breathe, just a little. The man was trying to apply more pressure. Twenty seconds of this and Mbuno knew he would pass out, and fifteen seconds later, he’d be dead. Mbuno let the man think he was going unconscious. As if he was fainting, Mbuno allowed his left arm to slump and his left hand to drift to the man’s torso. The man’s eyes, inches from Mbuno’s, suddenly showed recognition that Mbuno might be reaching for his weapon, and that accelerated his pressure. The assailant could not let go of either hand.
Mbuno’s fingers reached the man’s gun in a holster above the waistband of the man’s trousers and, desperately, the assailant squeezed Mbuno’s arms to prevent Mbuno pulling out the weapon from his shoulder holster.
The man had expected Mbuno to struggle to remove it. He was certain his force on the noose would prevail before Mbuno could extract it. He was wrong. Mbuno had recognized primal animal power in his assailant and that prevented Mbuno from experiencing incapacitating fear. He knew animals and knew this man would want to reach and pull out a weapon. Mbuno did the unexpected. Mbuno simply keyed the safety off and pulled the trigger.
Mbuno had recognized that his assailant didn’t want anything—no talk, no threat, nothing except him dead. That focus prevented the man from evaluating Mbuno’s possibilities. Mbuno didn’t need a weapon. He needed to change the balance of power.
Mbuno didn’t care where the shot hit, as long as it hit the man. The bullet exited the barrel of the gun, passed inside the man’s trouser belt, chipped the hipbone, continued down along the length of the man’s thigh, and stopped at his knee, where it shattered knee bone fragments, destroying the knee and spraying blood. As the assailant released his hold on the noose, Mbuno fell on top of him, kneeing him in the groin. In the dark, Mbuno removed the noose wire and quickly wrapped it around the man’s neck and applied pressure with one hand like a lasso. The fingers of Mbuno’s other hand found the gun, and he extracted it. He pointed it vaguely at Pero’s assailant. In his best imitation of a British accent, Mbuno yelled, “Stop, I shoot.” He squeezed off one shot. It passed to the right of the man’s left ear, close enough to cause Pero’s assailant to release Pero and raise his hands.
At that moment, the lights came on as the police came barreling down the corridor, so Mbuno put the gun on the ground and raised his hands. Sergio and Pero were both on their knees, groaning.
The Swiss are efficient. After they had handcuffed everyone and told them to be quiet, Mbuno’s assailant on the floor moaned, handcuffed with the wire noose still loosely looped around his throat. The local police radioed for assistance, and when Major André Schmitz had called in—Pero overheard his name—they shut down all personnel activity and sat, waiting for the bigger boss or bosses to arrive. First four uniformed officers arrived in under twenty minutes by Alouette helicopter, all dressed in crisp uniforms. Sergio was just coming round. A medic was dealing with a two-inch gash on his scalp. Pero could see the bump from six feet away. Sergio was told he was going to hurt and maybe have a concussion. Pero knew that when you are pistol whipped, it really hurts. Or it might have been a lead bag, no one was yet sure.
The man who had tried to garrote Mbuno was writhing under the care of a medic, while another officer went through the man’s pockets. They administered morphine, and he succumbed. They carted him out of the small room and into the corridor, but not until they had handcuffed him to a stretcher. They had found a knife, a night vision scope, and another garroting wire in his pockets. Pero’s assailant refused to talk, but the contents of his pockets also produced a bottle of chloroform and a rag. There was an empty gun holster that fit the gun he had dropped after bashing Sergio. As for Mbuno’s assailant’s gun, after smelling the barrel, they seemed satisfied it was the same gun Mbuno had fired. They looked inquiringly at the little man. Mbuno nodded. They nodded back. But he still wasn’t allowed to move.
Meanwhile, Danny and Heep were assisted, carefully removing their hoods. Then they were given water to drink, as their ropes were also unwound and unknotted. Heep, much to his credit, simply said “hello,” and stayed otherwise silent waiting for a cue from Pero. Danny, frightened as he was, looked around the room and asked a million questions. He got no answers. So, in the end, he sat down and was silent. His trousers were soiled, as were Heep’s. As prisoners, they had not even been given bathroom facilities.
A short but fit looking man, mid-forties, in civilian clothing, no tie, walked authoritatively into the room and flipped open his warrant card. The local police and the late arrival officers all saluted. After a few brief questions, they indicated Mbuno was the man who had been holding the gun. He stood in front of them all and was handed a small plastic tray with the contents of all their pockets. Picking up Pero’s passport and satellite cell phone, he asked, “And you are?”
“Pero Baltazar, American. I came here to rescue my friends.” Heep and Danny started telling their version. They were told to be quiet. “The man there on the floor is Sergio Negroni, that’s his plane out there, his private plane. There’s a Major André Schmitz who can vouch for him, he’s on his way.”
He gave Pero a curt nod, “Does it hurt?” He pointed to his neck. The noose was still hanging there.
It was hurting, Pero had to admit, but he felt no blood seeping. Meanwhile, a medic came over and first examined Mbuno’s trousers and legs because of the assailant’s blood splatter. On orders from the man in charge, one of them took Mbuno’s handcuffs off. Another put his hands under Pero’s ski parka and green coat and padded him down, between the legs as well. Finding nothing on his person, he asked Pero to remove his trousers and jackets. He did. The Russian bag, having been in the inside green jacket pocket had been missed. Pero dumped them all, carelessly, on the floor, in a heap of nylon and Gore-Tex. Next was Mbuno’s turn. He was thoroughly searched. The officer motioned to them both to raise their hands. They did, and the wound on Pero’s stomach became visible. The medic gave it a quick inspection, puffing some powder over the slit. The head police officer stood there, thinking, saying nothing. Pero followed his lead. For Mbuno, silence was always preferable for a Waliangulu when dealing with authority.
As it started to ring, the head officer handed Pero the satellite phone.
“May I answer?”
The officer nodded.
“Hello?” Pero heard the static. He shrugged his shoulders. The officer took the phone and listened. He turned it off. He took a digital recorder from his pocket and switched it on to record.
“Now, you three, and you three only, tell me what happened one at a time, you first.” He pointed at Pero. They all did, one by one, exactly, from the time Sergio, Mbuno,
and Pero landed. The officer’s eyes got wider when Mbuno described shooting the man.
When they were all finished, the officer asked, “Now, who was he or the other man?” he pointed to the other assailant, now sitting on the floor, refusing to speak.
“We have no idea.”
“Who are they?” Indicating Danny and Heep still getting medical attention. Pero introduced them. The officer’s jaw dropped. He hadn’t recognized the disheveled Danny at first. “Really?” Pero told him yes, really, abducted this morning from Berlin. Pero told him he had followed a lead and asked Negroni and Mbuno to help rescue them.
“Why didn’t you ask the police?”
“A German policeman, an ex-Stasi, helped abduct them. I didn’t know who to trust. And when I asked Sergio Negroni, he said he knew who to trust, so he called Major Schmitz, who is his personal houseguest. He telephoned him.”
That got the chief police officer’s attention, “Personal houseguest?” Pero nodded. An officer came in and whispered in his ear. To Pero and Mbuno, he said, “You may sit.” They sat. To Danny and Heep he said, “Sit tight. Wait.” The regular uniformed police officer stood at attention. The chief police officer left the room giving orders to keep the guns trained on the assailants. Mostly, the local cops had eyes on Danny. They knew the real article when they saw it.
No more than fifteen minutes after the chief officer had arrived, perhaps thirty-five or forty minutes after they had rescued Danny and Heep, Major André Schmitz arrived. Sergio was sitting up by now, still a little woozy, holding an icepack to his head. André first kneeled by him and they talked intimately back and forth for a moment or two. Pero caught words, like radioactive and kidnapped. Sergio ended with, “We rescued these men, and then Mbuno there saved all our lives.”
With that, Mbuno’s hand was shaken and Danny and Heep were allowed to get up and move around. The medic helped move them. Mbuno protested his role in the action, starting to lay on the credit where he wanted it: anywhere but on him. Mbuno had learned decades before that white men, mzungus, preferred not to have a Liangulu hero. “No, no, it was Mr. Sergio who led us here and Mr. Pero who knew where they were. Without them we would have never found them.”
Le Lion looked at Pero and smiled. He was smart, knew what Mbuno was doing. By diffusing hero credit, there might be no tale for the police to report to the media. After all, they had knocked a man unconscious, pointed guns at another, set off a fire alarm, and, not least, shot a man severely.
Major Schmitz seemed to understand. “Sergio, there will, however, be one more newspaper clipping to add to your collection. The apprehension of these criminals will make front pages around the world. May I credit you as being part of the rescue?”
Sergio nodded weakly. “As long as it is no big deal.”
The other officer, taking his cues from Major Schmitz, understood, “We shall, of course, say it was a police rescue.”
After the euphoria of rescue had worn off, the reaction to Heep and Danny’s ordeal began to surface as the medics still attended to them. Heep had welts around his neck from where the rubber hood had cut into the soft flesh. His nose was red, sore, and swollen from where the slits in the rubber mask had squeezed his nostrils, the breathing holes being stuffed with hard plastic tubing. As Heep pulled the tubes out, his nostrils bled, at first profusely.
Danny wasn’t much better. The medics cracked some cold gel-packs and told both men to hold them in place. Heep couldn’t stand to put anything on or near his face. Pero was worried at Heep’s reaction. Pero couldn’t blame him for being frightened, those masks spelled death any way you looked at them. Heep was very pale, eyes downcast.
“Heep,” Pero was holding his shoulders, his arms straight, trying to get him to look up at him. “Heep, come on Heep. Don’t go there my friend, it’ll be alright.” He said it softly.
Danny looked over. He saw Heep was beginning to zone out. Going introvert was the way he saw it. Danny waved off his medic and limped over. “Hey Heep, what the hell am I going to do tomorrow on the set, this nose looks like Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer for fuck’s sake.” Heep glanced up. Danny yelled at him, acting the prima donna star, “Well, it’s your damn movie. I give you your big chance, and this is how you behave? Heep, do your damn job!”
Heep stood, paused, and looked as if he would explode at Danny … then smiled, looked around, pointed at Pero and simply said, “Oh God, you’ve learned that trick from him!” But he had stopped looking so scared. He was gathering himself together. “Okay, okay. Well, if we’re going to film tomorrow, we had better get back to Berlin then.”
The men, the medics, and the police officers, realizing a corner had been turned, all smiled. Then, first Pero and then Sergio laughed hard. Mbuno was nodding contentedly.
Heep said, “Thanks, Danny.”
“Hey, you’re the one who kept me sane all those hours, least I could do.”
The Swiss police medics looked at them as if they were a little bit crazy.
Perhaps they were. They had been tortured and were destined to be executed. Yet, Danny had just performed, as actors do. Heep had regained control, as directors do. Neither should be going anywhere except to the hospital for medical attention and then therapy, in that order. But the moment that was a dark corner, once turned, should be safely behind them.
Danny, his nostrils still dripping blood, wanted to know, “Pero, how the hell did you find us?” But Pero told Danny they would discuss that later. Instead, he introduced Sergio and Heep also hugged Mbuno and said, “Jambo mzee, jambo. Asante!” (Hello chief, hello. Thank you!).
The fog in Pero’s brain began to clear. It helped to have the wire noose off from around his neck. The medic was rubbing salve on the welts with Danny looking on, curiously peering at the welts, professional curiosity of an actor, ever the observer.
But for Pero, something Major Schmitz had said to Sergio was like an alarm bell getting louder in Pero’s head. Sergio on the front pages? Telling people? Wait, there’s something we haven’t dealt with, that we haven’t answered.
Pero loudly told everyone to stand still.
“Major Schmitz, please secure the building, I beg you, or else a major catastrophe will occur. No one must be allowed to leave here. Something is missing—a crime so great, millions could die.” In that instant, Pero had everyone’s attention. Danny’s mouth was, once again, wide open.
“Everything Negroni told you is true, but what we need to find out is: where is the thing that is secreted here? There’s a ton of gold at Zurich airport that had a huge radiation signature.”
If Pero had his attention before, as Schmitz stepped up to face Pero, he had his burning curiosity now.
“That gold is Nazi concentration camp gold. When it was hidden, it concealed something. It was not accidentally radiated.” Pero watched Schmitz nod as if he knew about the gold, “but hides a shipment of maybe a third of a ton of unstable Uranium 234, made by the Nazis prior to 1943. Here, where we are, this company, Brinker, especially all the employees here, are guided by a man called Tische, head of TruVereinsbank. They were going to receive that shipment, extract the uranium, and, somehow, make it into nuclear fuel rods. Those rods could be used as replacement fuel rods in an IAEA verification accounting. Like a doppelganger switch, the fake rods for real ones. Swapping for real, secret, and deadly arms-grade fuel rods to make nuclear bombs. These new rods made of the old uranium, pretending to be expleted plutonium rods would sell to the highest bidder, possibly a rogue nation. We don’t know who, yet.”
The major held up his hand, commanding silence, “Who’s we?” The major asked sternly.
Oh hell. Pero thought. Before he got to that, he needed to get assistance.
“Look, I promise to tell you, but will you please get the two men who abducted these two men? They went to the local hotel for the night. It’s imperative they do not report to Tische. And for God’s sake round up all the employees here and their families. Tische’s real name is, by the
way, Stasi Oberführer Heinrich Aue. I think there’s a massive conspiracy here.” Pero had realized there was no way the bosses or employees of Brinker couldn’t have known what they were dealing with. “Look, the radioactive precautions they would have to take here, that they must have been preparing for, would mean they had to know—and had to be keeping it secret.”
Schmitz turned and barked orders. Officers sprinted.
Give the major his due, Pero thought, he is quick. Schmitz had ordered the arrest of the men at the hotel and every person associated with the Brinker facility, no matter where they were—at home, in a car, anywhere. He gave his men and the local police twenty minutes to round them all up. “And in case you are wondering, Herr Baltazar, even the cell phones here have stopped working now, temporarily.” He had a little smile. Pero was sure the landline phones were out as well. Schmitz was clamping down, fast. Pero was pleased and showed it.
“Okay, who am I? I was a simple film and television producer, traveling the globe, sometimes I was supposed to help out the CIA in passing along a document. Instead …” and he explained it all. While he tried to present the evidence as he knew it and events he had experienced, his mind was searching for something, something just out of reach.
Pero knew he needed help. The time for secrecy was past. But he also knew there was an important piece missing from events … where would the fuel rods be made and who were they to be shipped to? And had others been shipped out already? Now that Heep and Danny were safe, he thought that his part of the job was done—someone else could do the tracking from now on. Let someone else track down the loose ends. He was to be proved wrong.
Pero sat on a guard’s chair as the medic massaged salve on his neck and continued to tell his tale. Danny and Heep stood over him, their trousers still smelling of urine. They didn’t care, they were alive. Pero didn’t care, they were safe. He felt exhausted, on an adrenalin downer, but he finished the telling.