Sammy got out and unlocked a large roll-up door, raised it enough for the van to clear, and waved me in. Sammy drove in behind me. Once the heavy metal door clattered back down behind us the cavelike space was revealed. It was a dark and quiet as a catacomb. In this anonymous building, we were completely isolated from the outside world.
Sammy soon joined me and donned a Balaklava mask and plastic gloves. In the unlikely event Pinkus could remember where he had been held, he would not be able to identify anyone but me. What I had in mind some would construe as excessive and heavy-handed, a few may even call it torture. I would disagree; it didn’t even fall under the rubric of “enhanced interrogation tactics.” The methods I would employ insured Lowell would not endure any pain or suffer any injuries. I preferred to think of this process as “assisted recall,” it was a way to soften his natural defenses and make him more cooperative.
Sammy and I put on headbands fitted with high-intensity LED headlamps like those used by cavers. Then we laid Pinkus’s inert form on a sturdy industrial table near the far wall of the hangar. From the faded stenciling above some of the doors, this place had once housed a jet engine maintenance facility, and it still had the scent of heavy industrial solvents and grease. We untied Pinkus’s hands and took off his clothes, then secured him to the table using a restraint technique that would leave no obvious marks yet would make the subject feel completely powerless and vulnerable.
After making sure he was safely secured, I blindfolded Pinkus and poured some cold water on his face, and he started coming around. Sammy produced two small white pills and a paper cup half-filled with water. One of the pills in Sammy’s hand, I knew, was a “roofie” Rohypnol, the so-called date rape drug. The second pill was a hallucinogen obtained from a street drug vendor recently arrived from São Paulo, Brazil. Scopolamine, better known on the streets of South Florida by its third-world name, “burundanga,” is another memory-blocking drug, used by some intelligence agencies and criminal elements in subduing and interrogating subjects. The drug makes its victims incapable of resisting an order or asserting themselves. This makes for a very passive and willing subject, one who has some volition but will have no clear recollection afterward. With specific memory of the events that transpired while under the influence of the drug hazy at best, the victim generally is unaware of having been raped or, in this case, interrogated, and makes for rather poor witnesses in a court of law.
Pinkus began to stir. In my experience, the mind of a defenseless man, especially one who is physically impaired or injured, one who cannot move, talk, tell whether it’s night or day, and doesn’t know who took him or where he is or the fate that awaits him, quickly descends into a netherworld of chaos and despair. Survival instincts fueled by adrenaline soon take over and override normal behavior. Some sob inconsolably. Others tremble and pray. Only the strongest, most hardened men last any amount of time under such conditions.
Before Pinkus could come around fully, I lifted his head enough for him to swallow the pills, which I had crushed and dissolved in a couple of ounces of watered-down scotch. I poured the mixture into his mouth, and Sammy poured water down his throat and held his mouth shut till he swallowed. I saw his Adam’s apple shift several times, and his breathing soon became easier. The drug cocktail was in his system. Sammy let go of his jaw, and before he could say anything I stuffed a hand towel in his mouth. Now all we had to do was wait for the drugs to take effect.
After a moment, Pinkus began to thrash again. He pulled hard against the restraints pinning him down, but it was pointless. Anticipating this, we had secured him using a cocoon restraint setup, where we first placed him inside a thick sleeping bag and then duct-taped him tightly from head to toe, thus avoiding injuries or marks. We then tied the silvery bundle to the steel table with a thick orange net of trucking-grade nylon webbing designed to secure heavy cargo. This “cocoon” was then secured to the table’s metal legs with braided nylon rope cinched down as tight as possible without crushing his rib cage. The setup, though benign, rendered him utterly incapable of moving, no doubt flooding his mind with a claustrophobic feeling of impotence.
It wasn’t long before the unmistakable smell of feces and urine permeated the still air of the warehouse. Pinkus began to sob, a clear signal that he fully understood the seriousness of his predicament.
After several minutes of fruitless thrashing, his movements began to slow down and his breathing became less frantic and more rhythmic, and soon he was completely still. I checked his breathing: deep and relaxed. His pulse was low and steady. Lowell had reached the promised land.
Sammy took off his mask, and I took the towel out of Pinkus’s mouth called his name. He sounded drowsy but responded right away. I asked him about his relationship with Baumann, and with a little prompting, he began to deliver the goods. He disclosed details about his employment with the State Department. Although not entirely unexpected, I was still surprised to learn that Lowell’s prior life had been a well-crafted cover; he actually worked for the CIA’s Directorate of Operations. Clandestine work. The Spook Realm. He had worked many years under the guise of a diplomat, in several overseas embassies, until a car bomb in Chechnya left him a cripple. After a few years spent undergoing a long string of surgeries, he had been officially retired and, like most retirees, moved to Florida. He still remained secretly in the employ of the CIA as an outside contractor. He was “a patriot who loved his country and the agency,” he blurted at one point.
In this new job as an outside contractor for the Agency, Lowell Pinkus was serving as a liaison officer with several ex-CIA assets now residing secretly in the States as transplanted expats. He was charged with facilitating the relocation and absorption of these retired foreign assets who, for various reasons, could no longer safely remain in their home countries. Now, with their covers blown and further service in America’s national interest no longer feasible, these assets had been furnished with new identities and a new life in the States on Uncle Sam’s dime.
According to Pinkus, Stefan Baumann, whose real name was Kaja Slavik, had been one of some twenty such retired assets assigned to him. Slavik arrived in the U.S. in June 1994, his cover blown in the old totalitarian regime that had ruled Czechoslovakia since the Soviet invasion. Slavik had served in the upper echelons of the Czech Secret Service First and Second Directorate of the STB, the much feared Czech intelligence apparatus. Kaja Slavik had informed on Communist and Soviet activities in his country and later provided valuable intelligence on Soviet forces during and after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. His service had proved valuable enough that he was granted relocation assistance to his city of choice in America, a modest monthly stipend, and a new identity complete with a U.S. passport and social security number.
Pinkus did not know much else about his charges, he said. He was not routinely briefed on specifics. Their stay in the United States was mostly unsupervised, rather like being placed in the Federal Witness Protection Program. He was not a babysitter, he pointed out. Once the asset had settled into his new life, Pinkus merely acted as a conduit between the transplant and Langley. The newly retired assets were free to join the ranks of retirees who called Florida home, free to make their own way as they saw fit. Of course, nothing illegal was tolerated; indeed, criminal activities were grounds for deportation. But did that mean they all lived honest lives? Not necessarily, and in Baumann’s case, Lowell already knew that was not the case. As it turns out, Lowell admitted, among other things, to being instrumental when it came to preventing any such evidence ever reaching the higher-ups back at CIA. For this valuable service, he had been handsomely rewarded by Baumann.
Lowell had intimate knowledge of Baumann’s criminal activities in this country. Kaja Slavic was smart and played his hand extremely well. He performed his magic within the confines of the law, always operating in obscure ways that would stand scrutiny. Marrying his victims was a shrewd strategy. But the master touch was his subjugation of the victims through the use of alcohol and drugs a ploy that gave him complete control of their affairs. His last act before vanishing was to crush their spirits and rob them of whatever dignity remained. Depressed and destitute, his victims faced complete isolation and estrangement from everyone. The product of his handiwork was a sad, broken woman with few options. Alone and in despair, their tortured minds, full of corrosive images and patchy memories, were fertile ground for irrationality. Suicide became not just possible, but also desirable. It was a carefully concocted scheme, the net effect a death sentence. Such an outcome was the perfect exit strategy.
I glanced at Lowell Pinkus, cocooned and limp on the metal table. The talk had helped clarify the nature of his relationship with Baumann. He was well aware Kaja Slavik had been a key player in his country’s much feared Secret Police, an enforcer and a killer. He had agreed to assist Bauman defraud his victims in exchange for what else? Cold, hard cash. Lots of it. After all, Lowell adamantly sated that in his present condition he had considerable expenses and his disability pension was inadequate given what he had sacrificed in the service of his country. He was just trying to make ends meet. He also informed us that the CIA did not know the full extent of Baumann’s criminal enterprise since arriving stateside only that he had left his country with enough stolen cash to live decently well almost anywhere in the U.S. He was always moving, never in any one spot for too long. He was a perfectionist who never delegated any aspect of his life to anyone, and a man who trusted no one. He had a high degree of paranoia and delusions of self-importance, and was prone to frequent bouts of grandiosity. He was a true narcissist with strong psychopathic tendencies. He was the real deal, Emperor Caligula’s lost son, Lowell remarked with a snicker.
“Where can I find Baumann, Lowell?”
“Nowhere... anywhere.” Lowell began to laugh as if he had just made the cleverest joke. “But if you do find him, tell him to please call and check in!” The laughter continued. Lowell did not know Baumann’s whereabouts or his immediate plans. Obviously, the man rarely shared that type of information with anyone. Lowell said he had not heard from the man in weeks. I had extracted all I could out of Lowell and, again, I had hit a dead end. Worse, sooner or later, my search for search for Bauman was bound to raise some eyebrows inside the Beltway.
News of CIA involvement was completely unexpected. That alone mandated a change in strategy. Time for Sammy to quit the scene. I did not want him in their sights. There was also the possibility that Lowell might remember enough of our time together to raise serious concerns back in Virginia. That would bring unwanted attention and perhaps some interference from the agency. Would he remember enough in time to alert Baumann? Maybe. But it was a risk I would have to live with. I was not about to do any more harm to this man than I already had.
It was almost five in the morning when we pulled into the mostly empty parking lot of a large strip mall just west of Congress Avenue in Fort Lauderdale. The shopping area had a large supermarket, drugstore, beauty salons, a gas station and the usual assortment of fast-food chains, and it was close enough to Pinkus’s typical route home from the strip joint to make sense. It also had a liquor store, and I made sure he reeked of booze.
Initially, memories of his brief encounter would be minimal and hazy at best. But with time and coaching by CIA experts, he might be able to remember specific details maybe even enough to identify me. But, at least for the time being, anything we could do to avoid alarming the folks back at Langley was the preferred course of action.
I had pulled into a spot next to a delivery panel van and cut the engine off, then placed Lowell in his chair and began to wipe clean all the surfaces I had touched. I glanced back at Lowell Pinkus, slumped peacefully in his chair, eyes closed, his breathing slow and rhythmical. I wondered if the memories of what I had done to this man would affect my already screwed-up psyche. Everything mattered. For the most part, the distressing nightmares some of us experience at times are the direct result of past actions, questionable acts, wrongful deeds, damage inflicted onto others. Those images are always there, never subsiding. Some play like a bad movie constantly rattling off somewhere in the deep subconscious. Was what I had done to Lowell justifiable? Should the need for justice for my clients trump over Lowell’s basic rights as a human being? Was I really any better than the man I was after? There are no easy answers. We do what we must for our own reasons, demons be damned.
I moved Lowell back into the driver’s position, secured his chair in place, and buckled his seat belt. I wiped clean the last surfaces I had touched and I got out of the van, locked up, and walked toward the waiting SUV.
After almost three full days of following Baumann’s trail of deception throughout Florida and breaking a few dozen federal and state laws in the process, the stark reality of the situation dawned on me: I wasn’t any closer to finding Baumann than when I started.
Twenty
I awoke with a start. A loud thumping, then silence.
More thumping. I glanced at my new bedside clock. The old one had met with an untimely demise, I had yet to explain. It was almost one in the afternoon. I had overslept.
Shit.
The thumping again, this time louder, more urgent. Someone was banging on the main cabin door. I stumbled upstairs to the main living area.
Someone was calling my name... Sammy’s voice. I opened the door and let him in along with an unwelcome blast of sunlight.
“Been calling you for hours, chief,” Sammy began. I closed the door. “Your phone’s off.”
“I overslept.” I needed coffee. I stalked back toward the galley. “What’s up?”