by S L Shelton
The two men in street clothes reached the van first. They surveyed the situation without speaking and then looked at the four men on the ground in handcuffs. One of the newcomers smiled and shook his head.
“Oh, SB,” he said, with mock pity in his voice.
Broken-nose guy turned his head away in disgust. Broken-nose guy is ‘SB’ I noted, adding the information to my growing list of names.
The woman approached the van. Her eyes went wide when she saw my wounds. She spun her attention to the four men on the ground, glaring at them angrily. She opened her mouth to speak, but John spoke before she could form the words.
“Only the bloody nose is ours. The rest he showed up with, ma’am. I swear.”
That took some of the steam out of her fury, but she lashed out anyway. “He is an American citizen!” She turned and looked at me, composing herself. “Mr. Wolfe. I’m Beverly Martin, the consul general in Amsterdam,” she said in a startling south Texas drawl. She extended her hand, and I shook it, feeling a little uncomfortable addressing someone of her high office with no shirt on.
She continued. “I want to apologize on behalf of the United States Government for your treatment. I’d also like to invite you to ride with me in my vehicle to the US consulate here in Amsterdam.”
At that instant, Kathrin showed up with her escorting officer, carrying my shirt and jacket. I thanked her quietly, smoothed the bandage back down over my chest and then pulled the shirt down over my head with Kathrin’s help.
I looked at Ms. Martin and stood as I tried to pull my jacket on. “Thank you for your invitation, ma’am, but I was about to catch a train.”
She softened her posture and took a half a step forward. Lowering her voice, she said “I’m afraid, Mr. Wolfe, this is not one of those invitations you can decline.”
“Well,” I said, smiling. “In that case, I’d be happy to indulge your hospitality.”
As the two men in street clothes turned to go back with us, the consul general spoke to one of them. He peeled off to talk to the officer in charge. They immediately began releasing the four on the ground. “John” jogged to catch up as we walked to the SUV, joining us as we arrived. I looked over my shoulder and winked at Kathrin but spotted broken-nose guy scowling at me—I smiled and winked at him as well.
Once in the SUV, Ms. Martin dropped the diplomat’s mask. “Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on here?” Her matter-of-fact speech and her Texas drawl made her sound quite commanding.
“He resisted.” John said unconvincingly. “Then the German girl started screaming for the police.”
“Real smooth, fellas,” she said before turning to me. “Mr. Wolfe, let’s cut through the crap, shall we? You were seen leaving the residence of a Russian gangster by the name of Rodka Sobolev. Would you mind telling me exactly why you were there?”
“I’m here to find my girlfriend,” I said honestly.
“Is your girlfriend a Russian-owned prostitute?” John chimed in sarcastically.
I looked at him coldly. “Well. I haven’t seen her since Saturday, so she could be at this point.” Then I looked back at the consul general. “But she was here with her father, so I doubt it. You may know him, ma’am. Robert Whitney?”
All the expressions in the vehicle changed except mine. It took a moment for the depth of my answer to sink in, and once it had, the tone of the conversation changed dramatically.
“Mr. Wolfe, I’m sure you’ll understand we will have to verify this, but I want you to know how sorry we are, both for your treatment tonight and for the terrible tragedy that brought you here,” the consul general said. But although her sentiment was made in earnest, the missing key words betrayed her deception. There was no mention of death, loss, or condolences. They knew. But I appeared to know a little more—and I was going to keep it that way.
The first thing I needed to do was to get them off my back. I reached into my bag, but before I had my hand through the opening there were two guns pointing at my head and one stuck into my ribs.
“Put those away, boys. We aren’t measuring anything tonight,” Ms. Martin said.
“In my bag. Two phones. Mine and Barbara’s.” The man to my right reached into my bag and felt around for the phones. John reached for them, but the consul general grabbed at the phones first and jerked them from his reach.
“May we examine these, Mr. Wolfe?” she asked politely.
“Please do. If you find anything on them concerning her whereabouts, would you be so kind as to inform me?” I said smugly.
“Her ‘whereabouts’, Mr. Wolfe?” she asked with a curious expression. I knew, and she knew, but she wasn’t yet sure if I knew that she knew.
“Yes. Since her last text to me was almost twenty minutes after the explosion, I’ve been working under the assumption that she, at least, is still alive.”
The consul general and John exchanged a brief look.
“I think we need to start talking a little more plainly,” Ms. Martin said. “We need you to keep this knowledge to yourself. We are attempting to locate—”
She was cut off by John. “Ma’am. I don’t think that’s wise,” he said. “Mr. Wolfe has engaged in covert actions and is in possession of and has used encryption devices to transmit unknown information.”
I looked at John. “It’s nice to know that our government is on top of the dangerous communications between an American computer geek, his girlfriend, and his friends back home. Too bad the Serbs weren’t sending love letters, or you might have stopped them from blowing up Market Square.”
John lurched across the seat and grabbed me by my throat. Strong fingers. I seized his wrist, digging my fingers into the tendon just behind the ball of his thumb as if it were a finger hold on a rock face. His expression changed from anger to confusion and then pain. A split second later, the other two plainclothes security men were pulling him off me. The consul general was raging.
“Enough!” she screamed. “Captain! That is enough!”
John sat back in his seat, rubbing his bruised wrist while I rubbed my throat. I looked at John and saw a strange expression ripple across his face.
He did that for my benefit! I realized. It was an intimidation move to let me know I wasn’t safe just because I was in a diplomat’s vehicle. Sly bastard… Hello Mr. CIA Agent.
“Ma’am. I appreciate your hospitality. But if it’s all the same, I’d like to be taken back to my hotel.”
“Mr. Wolfe. I can understand your concern and your heightened emotional state,” she said, her last words spoken while glaring directly at Captain John. “And I promise you, as soon as we verify your story, you will be released… It shouldn’t take long.”
eight
Three Days Until Event
1:30 a.m. on Thursday, May 13th, 2010—U.S. Consulate in Amsterdam, Netherlands
CAPTAIN JOHN TEMPLE sat across the office from Consul General Beverly Martin, who was sitting with her stocking feet propped up on her desk. The late night showed its effect on her face, and she was already working on very little sleep since the explosion in the Nieumarkt. Temple was listening to her side of a phone conversation.
“So his story checks out, then?” she confirmed with the caller.
“Okay,” she replied. “Make copies of both phones and send them to Langley for a deeper analysis…and then bring Mr. Wolfe’s phone back up here.” She hung up and looked at Temple.
“Our boy is what he says he is,” she relayed tiredly, rubbing her eyes with her fingers and then pinching the bridge of her nose. “He’s some sort of security software specialist for an outfit called TravTech out of Fairfax. He and Bob’s girl have been dating for about three months, and he caught a flight here Monday after the explosion. He has fifty-five hundred in checking and thirty-five thousand in savings, which he cleaned out before coming to Amsterdam, and an eight-hundred dollar balance on his credit card, which he pays off each month. He’s been outside of the US five times in his life, never for
more than two weeks, and mostly here in Western Europe.”
“Well, the security job explains the encryption,” John said, looking down at his wrist where Scott had gripped him—there was more to this kid than meets the eye. “Computer geek from Fairfax, huh?” John said, unbelieving. “He played us downtown…expertly. There’s something...”
Beverly laughed. “It’s true. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you lash out like that before. He really knew what buttons to push,” she said, and then she took a softer tone. “But in your defense, this has been the week from hell, and it’s only going to get worse. We’re all on edge.”
John nodded without giving his secret away; she wouldn’t have been as understanding if she knew he had lashed out on purpose. “Okay. So what do we do with him?”
“I don’t know,” she said, exasperated. “I’m no spy, but I think we should cut him loose. He’s a love-sick puppy lost in terror land.”
“Do you mind if I tag him? That’s what I’ll get from upstairs,” John informed her casually.
“Under normal circumstances, I’d tell your ‘upstairs’ to get a warrant or kiss my ass. But I think I’ll look the other way this time. Patriot Act and all,” she replied.
John could tell her decision had immediately left a bad taste in her mouth, though. He understood; it was easier to bend the rules now than it had ever been before. It used to be that when you did something dirty, it was the exception, and you paid penance. Now it was so commonplace that the next generation of civil servants wouldn’t even think twice about it—it would be considered business as usual.
“You know what? I changed my mind,” she said, a level of energy returning to her tired face. “If your bosses at Langley want him tracked, they need a FISA warrant. I’m not letting a decent kid from the States be treated like al Qaeda.”
John nodded. His superiors would probably tell him to tag the kid anyway, but he respected the change of heart in the consul general. “Did you get a good look at the burns on his chest?” he asked without pushing the tracking issue further.
“Yeah,” she said, reflecting on the dark, crusty flesh she had seen back on the street. “What do you make of it?”
“I’ve seen it before. He was interrogated by someone. Propane torch, not acetylene,” John replied in a low voice, leaning forward to convey the seriousness.
“What did he say happened?” she asked.
“Said he burned himself shaving,” John replied with a smile and a chuckle.
The consul general laughed in spite of herself. “The kid’s got balls, that’s clear. Most would’ve been running into our arms, spilling their guts or begging to be sent back home on the next flight.” She rubbed her eyes again. “Do you think it would do any good to tell him to go home?”
“No,” John said plainly. “I think as soon as he hits the street, he’ll be back on the trail again.”
She thought about that for a moment and then softened her posture and expression, displaying an almost pleading look. “Give him your card, John. Tell him to punch your number into his phone,” she said. “I have a feeling about this boy. He thwarted an abduction by trained CIA operatives, cultivated an asset in that German girl in less than thirty-six hours. He was tortured, yet survived God knows what—and surrounded by guns and muscle he couldn’t hope to overcome, he provoked a seasoned CIA operative to blows in front of me. He also knew hours before we did that our people weren’t on that boat when it blew up.”
“And he almost broke my arm with that grip of his,” he added, rubbing his bruised wrist. “If Tom and Greg hadn’t intervened, I’d be in a cast right now, I have no doubt.”
She looked at him through squinted eyes. “We may have another asset here,” she said. “Make him feel like you’re a friend. Change his mind about you—and for God’s sake, keep Nick away from him. Something about that boy rubs him the wrong way.”
John smiled at a private joke in his head.
“What?” Beverly asked.
“That ‘boy’ is the first person in almost two years to bloody Nick,” John said, referring to Nick Horiatis. “Twice in one night. I think he broke his nose.”
“Well, that would do it,” Beverly said with a grin before taking a deep breath and then letting it out in a sigh. “Okay. Let’s go cut our boy loose.”
On the way out of Beverly’s office, they nearly ran into another man who was about to enter. He was a man of average height, build, and stature. He dressed like a diplomat, but under the suit, he carried himself like someone ready to fight.
“Deputy Miller?!” Beverly exclaimed, clearly shocked to see the man at this time of morning and in Amsterdam. “What brings you up from The Hague at this hour?”
“We got word that you have a boy here who knows the Whitney girl,” he replied in a tired and stressed voice.
“That’s right. We were about to let him back on the streets,” she informed him.
“Would you mind if I talked with him first?” Miller asked.
She gave him a puzzled look. “Well, certainly, sir. But if you don’t mind me asking...”
“I gave Bob Whitney’s girl my place on the cruise so the ambassador’s daughter would have someone her own age to keep her company,” he explained. “I...I’d like to say something to Mr. Wolfe. To apologize or something. Anything. The guilt is eating at me.”
“I understand,” she said sympathetically, but something didn’t sit as being quite right with John. “Let’s go down and see him,” she continued.
As they turned to walk down the hallway, Beverly and John’s gaze met for a second and they exchanged a brief look.
“I have to go debrief my team.” John said. “If you will excuse me. Ma’am. Deputy.”
“Of course, Captain. Why don’t you let Nicholas in on our conversation as well? Okay?” she said.
“Yes ma’am. Goodnight,” he said, and then strode off down an intersecting corridor.
**
Interview Room B
I had been sitting in an “interview” room with nothing but my thoughts to keep me company for the past three hours. I’d dozed on the couch for a while after the “interviewers” left, but I couldn’t stay asleep for long. I kept jerking awake, feeling like I was supposed to be doing something. But then I would realize I couldn’t do anything at the moment and would try to doze again.
When I first arrived, the consulate doctor had been awakened to tend to my wounds. He was somewhat concerned by the burn on my chest, but he’d said that the rest of my issues would cause more discomfort than any real health problems and that I should be fine if I kept the burns clean and avoided stress on my neck and ribs.
He confirmed what Nyla had said concerning my ribs. They were not broken. Maybe a crack, but more likely a separation and bruise. He said the compression bandage would continue to give me some relief until they healed completely.
The cigarette man, who I’d learned earlier was a captain—of what I had no idea—and whose first name was John, had sat with me in the small and tastefully, though sparsely, appointed room for about forty-five minutes, asking me questions about my experiences and purpose in Amsterdam. First he asked me to walk him through what had happened chronologically and then asked me questions about details in random order.
I was purposefully vague on most of my answers. I gave only yes and no answers when I could, leaving out key details most of the time and resorting to sarcastic jabs occasionally—particularly toward the end of the interview when my frustration had reached its height.
After my few unsuccessful attempts at sleeping, I sat up on the couch and started the machine in my head running again. I had to assume they would let me out at some point. If they didn’t, there was little I could do for Barb anyway, so there was no sense in wasting a planning opportunity.
I wondered if the GPS signal for the dialed number on the Serb’s phone was still in Dusseldorf. I wondered if I’d be able to pick up their trail again if it wasn’t... I wondered if Barb was o
kay. But I tried to push that worry out of my head quickly as it popped in. There was nothing I could do but focus on finding her.
I heard footsteps moving in my direction and got my hopes up that I would be released. But the door didn’t open. Some time later, the footsteps returned. Maybe this time? But no…still nothing. After the fourth time they came, stopped, and then left again, I stopped letting the sounds of movement be a source of optimism.
My frustration was rising and I was ready to pound on the door. Finally, before my agitation drove me to it, it finally swung open. The consul general and another man walked in and closed the door behind them.
The man looked at me with a bit of a surprised expression before turning to the consul general. “Beverly?” he said incredulously.
“I know, Deputy. He has seen a bit of trouble in the past twenty-four hours,” she said defensively. “But the security team didn’t do near any of it. Mr. Wolfe has been the guest of some rather unsavory types recently.”
She then turned to me. “Mr. Wolfe, this is Mission Deputy Chief Dwight Miller. He is the Charge d’Affaires at the Embassy at The Hague.”
“Mr. Wolfe, I want to apologize for your detainment and your treatment. But I also wanted to talk with you about Barbara if I could,” he said and then turned to the consul general. “Beverly, can I have a moment alone with Mr. Wolfe?”
“Of course, sir,” she said and then left the room, closing the door behind her.
He looked at me intensely with flashes of pain on his face, as if some internal conflict was tugging away at the mask of falseness. It took him a moment to form his first words. “I understand that you are in a relationship with Barbara Whitney,” he began. “Is it serious?”