Authors: Keith Yocum
“Too right.”
Judy laughed. “I barely know him. I’m not even sure he’s fond of me. I keep wondering if he is just using me for his silly investigation.”
“Well, there is that,” Cilla said. “I’m sure you can tell if he’s really interested in you. And he’s available, right? He’s a widower.”
“Or that’s what he told you, anyway,” Sarah said. “Probably married and has ten children and a farm in Oklahoma or Manitoba. You’re just a safe tryst on the other side of the world.”
“Manitoba’s in Canada,” Judy said.
“Well, that’s two families he’s got then,” Sarah said.
“Oh hush, Sarah,” Cilla laughed.
“It’s not that I haven’t thought of that,” Judy said with a self-deprecating smirk. “Oh well, I don’t think he’s coming back to this side of the world anyway, and I’m not going over there. So that’s that.”
Driving home that evening Judy felt tipsy, and not coincidentally, lonely. She pulled into her driveway and cursed. The front-door light bulb had burned out again, and she realized it was just another one of the manly tasks she was forced to do in Phillip’s absence.
It was a beautiful, warm night with a gentle sea breeze flowing in from the Indian Ocean and rustling the waxy leaves of the giant eucalyptus tree in her small front yard. At the front door she fumbled trying to find the keyhole in the dark.
The bear hug from behind was so powerful that she was lifted off the ground in one motion, her arms locked to her side. Before she could scream, another hand came from somewhere and clamped a thick cloth tightly over her mouth and nose. A cloying medicinal substance made her gag, and she furiously squirmed and kicked backward with her heels against the shin of one of her assailants, but he just squeezed harder. She tried not to breathe the fumes, but the constriction of her rib cage, combined with the asphyxiating effect of the cloth over her mouth and nose, forced her to gasp.
Then it was over. A pervasive, almost welcoming blackness enveloped her, and she could hear voices filtering through what seemed like miles of tunnels. Not unpleasant, really.
***
“So how’s the hunt going?” Marty asked in that part-affable, part-serious tone of voice that came through loud and clear on the cell phone.
“Going well,” Dennis said, “and that brat may not just be a thief, either.”
“What are you talking about?”
“One of Garder’s sources in Australia showed up dead in what I’d call extremely suspicious circumstances. I think he might have slipped back into the country to cover his tracks.”
“Dennis, I’m not suggesting I remember every aspect of that case, but I don’t think any of Garder’s paid sources were identified in the file that we had access to, right? They were bogus sources.”
“That’s true,” Dennis said. “But I found a phone message from Pearson to Garder at the consulate. I’m certain he was a source: had to be. The guy knew everything there was to know about mining interests in Western Australia.”
“But what proof do you have that Garder killed him?” Marty pressed.
“No proof, just intuition,” Dennis replied.
“Have you told Massey about your theory? You work for him now.”
“I’ll tell him soon enough.”
“Dennis, I hear loudspeakers and announcements in the background. Are you traveling?”
“Hitting the friendly skies as we speak.”
“Where to?”
“Can’t tell you that,” Dennis said. “I work for Massey now.”
“Christ, Dennis, you are a huge pain in the ass.”
The flight from Dulles to Berlin was uneventful, except for a brief period of violent chop halfway across the Atlantic. Dennis tried deep-breathing exercises again, but in the end fell back to consuming several nips of Glenfiddich to deaden the anxiety.
The layover in Berlin lasted two hours, and he read an old
Newsweek
he’d brought with him. He was a little giddy, pleased with himself for stumbling upon this plan of attack. It was the kind of instinctive, split-second decision-making that had been a big part of his career successes. Dennis had the scent of his prey, and he was on the hunt again. All of the self-doubt about this assignment had vanished in the dust of the chase.
The flight to Basel was quick, and Dennis had to remind himself how small Western Europe really was.
The only hotel room Dennis could swing was a ridiculously expensive suite at the St. George. He knew he’d get grief from accounts payable on this expense report, but the only other option was a youth hostel.
This was Baselworld in Basel, Switzerland, the annual showcase of fine watches and jewelry from manufacturers around the world. Dennis could not believe his good fortune. Baselworld was taking place that week. Divine intervention!
Basel, situated on a bend in the Rhine where Germany, France, and Switzerland meet, was a classic old-new European city: both charmingly quaint and modern at the same time. Sleek twentieth-century glass-and-steel buildings sometimes stood alongside five hundred–year-old brick-and-mortar residential buildings.
But if he was a little put off by the city’s jarring juxtaposition of architectural styles, he was completely unnerved by the scene at the Messeplatz, the vast watch and jewelry exhibition hall.
Thousands of people roamed the exhibition halls ogling the latest watches from the world’s manufacturers, most of which he’d never heard of, nor could he pronounce their names.
The scene at the entrance of the Messeplatz was mayhem, with men and women of all nationalities squeezing through the exhibit-hall doors.
It seems more like Christmas shopping at Tyson’s Corner Center,
Dennis thought.
Most troubling of all, for purely operational reasons, was the volume of people; when he read about Baselworld on the Internet, it never occurred to him that there would be thousands of attendees. Finding Garder—if he was even there—in such a mass of people was going to be extremely difficult.
But Dennis felt he had two things in his favor: (1) Garder would never suspect that he’d be followed to Basel, of all places; (2) Garder wouldn’t know Dennis from an elevator operator since they had never met, and as far as Dennis was concerned, the guy didn’t even know Dennis existed. Now that the rogue agent had a million dollars to play with, he’d be cooing over the latest Patek Philippe timepiece. Dennis would ID him, call in the extraction team, and return to Langley a hero once again.
After several sweeps of the Messeplatz, Dennis staked out a seat on one of the small cement walls at the entrance to the exhibit hall. On his second day he grabbed a piece of the wall with a clear view of the main entrance. It was cool and cloudy outside, but he wore sunglasses and had his trusty spiral notebook in his lap. Taped to a page were three photos: Garder’s official ID photo at Langley, Garder’s ID photo at the consulate in Perth, and a casual group photo of him taken at a going-away party in Langley for one of Garder’s friends.
Still, Dennis was an investigator and not a fully trained field operative. To prepare himself, he concentrated on two physical features that he had culled from Garder’s Langley file: a broken nose in a high-school soccer game that had left Garder with a little notch at the top where the cartilage met the bone; and a thin, half-inch, horizontal scar below his bottom lip in the middle of his chin.
After the first hour Dennis realized that he had the wrong vantage point, since he ended up watching the sides and backs of people as they entered the hallway doors, so he entered the hall and grabbed another position that allowed him to observe the registration area and the entrance to the exhibits. He only had to look at young men, of course, who were Caucasian, about five foot nine inches tall with black hair. Garder could have shorn his hair, dyed it blond, grown a beard, or done all of the above, but it was the best Dennis had to work with.
After two hours of scanning he came down with a splitting headache and found his attention wandering. By lunchtime he was exhausted and ready for a drink, but he stayed at the entrance dutifully looking for his prey.
And, he wondered almost idly, how many Japanese watch retailers did that country have? Nearly one in four visitors appeared to be Japanese.
Dennis left at 1:00 p.m. and walked a block to a café. He had coffee, a pastry, a glass of red wine that he convinced himself would be good for his heart, three aspirins from a bottle he kept in his jacket pocket, and a large glass of water. For the first time since he left Dulles, he entertained the thought that he had guessed wrong, and that Garder was not in Basel, had never been in Basel, and would never be in Basel.
He went back to the entrance and took up a position at his original vantage outside the building, since people were now exiting in solid numbers.
The temperature outside had climbed into the high fifties, and the sun began to poke through the cloud cover. He could see snow-capped mountains in the distance, and his attention began to wander. Sometimes he would notice an extraordinarily attractive woman and would allow himself the pleasure of following her with his gaze for longer than was necessary for the task at hand.
At 3:20 p.m. the headache returned and centered itself directly behind his forehead.
“Crap,” he muttered. Dennis stood up and stretched, balancing the notebook on top of the short brick wall. He raised his arms above his head and absently lowered his outstretched arms, windmill fashion.
He accidentally brushed an older woman who was walking past.
“Sorry,” Dennis said, grabbing the notebook. He was tempted to go back to his hotel, hit the bar, and then go to bed. He took one more cursory glance at the entrance.
He saw two well-dressed Japanese men exit. They held one of the doors for two gorgeous young women that Dennis took for Scandinavian models; both were striking blondes at least six feet tall.
Directly behind the women, a young man walked out, squinting a little in the glare.
Dennis was stunned—the man could be Garder. He was about the correct height and had close-cropped, dark hair. Dennis glanced at the photos quickly and then back at the man walking toward him.
Christ,
he thought,
it could be Garder, and he’s walking right toward me.
***
There was a sensation of being rigid, as if she had been cemented in place. She regained her bearings and gagged at the taste of the sweet, medicinal vapors in her throat.
Judy tried to raise her right hand to rub her sore neck, but her hand would not move. She tried to open her eyes, but something covered them, and worse, she realized her mouth was tightly bound over with something. She appeared to be lying flat on a hard surface and was restrained, with only her nostrils open. She took big gulps of air through her nose, creating a snorting sound. Something had been inserted into her ears so that she could barely hear herself breathe.
“Hey,” she heard someone say, but the words were distorted and sounded as if they were coming from a cartoon voice.
“She’s coming to,” someone else said. The words sounded high-pitched and silly. Judy briefly wondered if she’d had a stroke or some other neurological injury, but then she slowly assembled the few facts at her disposal: she had been grabbed at her front door and then drugged. She was bound to a table of some sort, blindfolded, and had manipulated sounds piped into her ears by an electronic device that distorted voices.
This was a good sign; they wouldn’t be going through the trouble to change their voices if they didn’t plan to release her. So she waited, trying to calm her heart exploding in her small ribcage.
She heard what sounded like laughter, and then felt a hand on the inside of her right thigh as it slid up between her legs. Judy twisted violently and heard a voice bark, “Stop it! Told you none of that.”
This directive was followed by more laughter, and she estimated it came from perhaps two other people.
Then a cartoony voice came through loud and clear: “G’day, Officer White. How are you doing?”
Judy did not respond.
“Can you hear me? Nod if you hear me.”
Judy nodded.
“Good,” the voice said. “You may have guessed that we’ve altered our voices with this nifty gadget. Kind of like an iPod for criminals, eh?”
More cartoon laughter.
“You know why you’re here, don’t you?”
Judy shook her head and sent out a muffled “No” through her taped mouth.
“Come on, Officer White, you know what’s going on.”
“No!”
“Then we’ll make things so bloody crystal clear to you that even you—a copper—will appreciate the genius of this effort. We started by sending your lovely dad a message. I believe you could call that Phase One.
Judy heard more cartoon laughter.
“We have a very lucrative business here that is being bollocksed up. There are some very wealthy people involved in this import-export business, and they are extremely upset. Two of their shipments—one export at the airport and one import in Fremantle—were recently confiscated, and it made them very, very angry. So you’re probably wondering what that has to do with you then, yes?”
Judy held perfectly still.
What in God’s name are they doing?
she thought.
Don’t they know I had little to do with that bust?
She felt a stab of fear through her chest and again tried to slow her breathing.
“I believe that your AFP team has several informants they’ve planted in our organization. We thought we fixed that leaky faucet, so to speak, by shooting a very large hole in a very small man recently. We thought that would scare the other spies you have inside our organization. But then we recently lost a very large inbound shipment of merchandise, didn’t we?”
Judy was so terrified that she felt nauseated. She had indeed heard rumors of informers on the government payroll feeding tidbits of intelligence back to headquarters, but they were not her informers.
Surely they know I have nothing to do with any of the informers,
she thought.
“One of our benefactors is a bloody bright fellow,” the voice continued. “He’s convinced me that if your team has informers inside our organization, that it’s only fair that we have
more
informers inside your organization.”