Authors: Douglas Corleone
Taking a step toward me, she said softly, “I know that, Simon. We were not prepared for that. We had not properly planned. For this, we will be ready. We will make sure you know where I am at all times.” She wrapped her arms around my neck and gazed into my eyes. “If things get too hot, you can save me. And you will not have to run around an entire country looking for me to do so.”
Looking into her eyes was like gazing into the calm Caribbean Sea. All the tension flowed out of me.
“It’s too dangerous,” I said softly.
“I cannot think of a better reason to put my life in danger than to save the life of an innocent little girl, Simon.”
She was right, of course. People risked their lives for all sorts of senseless reasons. For sport, for instance. To get home under one’s own volition following a night of serious drinking. The wealthier among us often put themselves under the knife for things as silly as a smaller nose, larger breasts, or, worst of all, a tighter tummy, while people all over the globe were starving to death. I flashed on my father ascending mountains, attempting to convince me of how noble it all was.
I thought,
What’s more noble than trying to rescue an imperiled child?
“All right, then,” I said. “We’ll—”
Suddenly, Ana’s lips were on mine, her tongue probing my mouth with a hunger I hadn’t known since my first months with Tasha in college. This time, the mere thought of turning her away was physically painful, and I quickly rid my head of it, allowed myself to savor her flesh without that unfounded sense of guilt that creeps into too many of us. I wanted her and I’d be damned if I was going to deny myself again.
In a tangle, we dropped onto the bed, our hands clawing at each other’s clothes as though our very existence depended on our being undressed, on our melding our bodies together as one.
Over the next thirty minutes all the fear I knew would melt away, and the past would cave in on itself. For a time it would be as though all the troubles of this world had never truly existed, that they’d been figments of our imagination. For one half hour, there would be no danger to consider, no horror. There would be no war. No violence.
For the next half hour, I would be perfectly at peace.
It wouldn’t last, of course; I knew that.
Neither sex nor peace ever did.
Chapter 36
Ana dressed herself in peasant clothes from a local thrift shop and worked for nearly an hour on her background story, talking it out with me in our hotel room. She would pose as an unemployed seamstress from Bialystok, the capital city of one of the poorest regions of Poland. Bialystok, which was located in the eastern part of the country, not far from the Belarusian border, was currently cursed with an unemployment rate of nearly 40 percent, and those unskilled laborers fortunate enough to have jobs took home roughly $180 per month. Ana subtracted ten years from her true age, then turned to me and asked if she’d pass, and without a second’s hesitation I said, “Yes, of course,” and it was true.
“One problem,” I said, when she stepped out of the bathroom in her peasant clothes. “Dressed like that, you won’t get into the clubs we’ll need to go to in order to find our way to a pimp.”
She looked down at her thin cotton beige blouse with matching skirt, then tore off a large piece of fabric that hung over her midriff and another that covered her legs to the knees. She spun, showing off her exposed belly and back, her perfect bare thighs.
“You do not think so?” she said.
“I stand corrected.”
As for me, I finally traded the bloodstained turtleneck, peacoat, and jeans for one of the suits Davignon had procured for me in Paris. The suit had just been pressed, courtesy of the Mozart Hotel. While my own exposed stomach might get me into Shede, one of Ukraine’s most popular openly gay nightclubs, it wouldn’t gain me entry to Palladium, which was where we would need to start at this time of year. Had it been summer, the action would have been at Arkadia Beach, where two colossal Ibiza-style nightclubs were packed to overflowing seven nights a week. But with Ukraine’s current biting temperatures, the crowds moved inland, closer to Odessa’s city center.
We waited until nightfall, then took separate taxis downtown. It was imperative that no one in or near the nightclub noticed Ana and me together. One minor slip could easily get both of us killed. I was especially concerned for Ana; in fact, I could hardly stop thinking of her.
I entered the club first. It was just after 11:00
P.M.
and there was a show being performed on the stage. A half-dozen half-naked women and a single half-naked man moved to pulse-pounding house music in front of an immense screen displaying quick cuts of Ukrainian words and psychedelic images. Palladium was brimming with sexual energy, with both the chemical and mind state of Ecstasy, with all levels and constructs of debauchery.
It wasn’t my scene, of course. Having aspired to become a federal agent from a young age, I hadn’t dared experiment with illegal substances as a teenager. And I’d married Tasha straight out of college, so I’d never really experienced the singles scene. Thanks to work, I’d been in my share of bars and clubs around the world, but searching for kidnappers or deadly armed fugitives was one sure way to put a damper on an evening.
As the whole of my body tingled with adrenaline, I surreptitiously watched the entrance for Ana’s arrival. I’d already spotted several men who fit the successful eastern-European mobster mold—flashy cashmere suit; silk shirt with no tie, the top few buttons undone, revealing multiple necklaces nearly lost in a jungle of chest hair; a gold Rolex, rings on at least three fingers; shoes so shiny they’d blind you in sunlight; and the clincher, prison tattoos covering almost every inch of the hands and neck.
When Ana sauntered in, she turned heads, just as I’d expected. For the briefest of moments our eyes locked on each other’s from across the club, then she turned and vanished into the sea of sweating bodies on the dance floor.
I moved down the length of the bar, pausing once to order a glass of Glenlivet on the rocks. If you didn’t drink in social settings in Ukraine, Ana had told me, you were regarded with suspicion, as someone who couldn’t be trusted. So, scotch in hand, I continued along the bar until I spotted Ana gyrating on the dance floor. Just watching her move was a complete aphrodisiac, and as much I hated to admit it, a pang of jealousy struck me deep in the gut every time I saw another man place his hands on her.
I did what I could to remain inconspicuous, talked to a few women, flirted, bought each a drink or two. My background story was much less elaborate than Ana’s. I was a bar owner from Brooklyn, here in Ukraine on holiday; exploring Odessa’s nightlife would allow me to enumerate the costs as a tax write-off. “That damn Uncle Sam,” I joked more than once.
After a solid hour and a half, I saw Ana move toward the bar with a man in tow. He was dressed well, but not flashy, and for a moment I wondered what the hell Ana was doing. But as per our plan, she picked a spot at the bar immediately next to where I was standing. I turned the other way, put my rocks glass to my lips, and prepared myself to eavesdrop.
I heard Ana call the man Pavlo, and made a mental note. I listened to her deliver her background and was particularly amused when she improvised, adding an absent father, a sick mother, and a paraplegic brother with two kids. She often had to have sex with her terribly overweight landlord in lieu of rent, she told him.
And there, I realized, was her segue.
“Well,” Pavlo said loudly in broken English, “you enjoy certain physical attributes that should make money not so much of an issue, I would think.”
“Really?”
she said, as though relishing the compliment.
“I am being dead honest,” he told her. “Your landlord is not the only man who would forgive your debts just for a taste of you.”
“Unfortunately,” Ana said coyly, “the grocer does not accept blow jobs in exchange for fresh fruits and vegetables, and the baker no longer welcomes hand jobs for bread.”
“How about the plumber?” Pavlo said, laughing raucously. “Surely, he enjoys laying pipe.”
Ana joined in with a forced chuckle. “You are too funny, Pavlo.”
“But in all seriousness,” he said, “if you are willing to trade your services for money, I can introduce you to the right people. Just say the word.”
Ana jumped at the opportunity. “Consider it said. As long as I can send money home to my family. I cannot simply abandon them. Especially my disabled brother and his two kids.”
“Of course you can send money back to Bialystok. Sending money home is what most of the girls do.” Pavlo motioned to the bartender. “Two Nemiroff martinis,
proshu.
” Turning back to Ana, he said, “Let’s enjoy a drink and then I will take you to meet my friend Marko.”
“That’s sounds perfect,” Ana said over the music. “Really, I do not how to thank you.”
“I know a way,” Pavlo said with an unmistakable snigger. “Later tonight, my dear, you can allow me to sample the goods.”
I closed my eyes and took a swallow of scotch and reminded myself that deep down I was really a man of nonviolence.
Chapter 37
“Follow that black ZAZ,” I said from the rear of a taxi. “The vehicle that man and woman just stepped into.”
I sighed deeply and leaned back in my seat, wishing I still had the motorcycle. I didn’t want to lose sight of Pavlo’s car even for a second. The plan was for Ana to text me once they reached Marko’s location, or before, if there was any trouble. But any number of things could go wrong. Pavlo could stop the car and take Ana’s phone away before she had a chance to use it. She could lose her signal. Her battery could die.
I removed my mobile from my pocket, checked the battery and the signal; both were fine. So I took the opportunity to call Ostermann’s number in Berlin, but there was no answer. Next I called Lieutenant Davignon in Paris.
“Simon,” he said the moment he answered. “What in the hell is happening in Poland? The lawyer Mikolaj Dabrowski is all over the news. He is apparently being questioned in connection with a shootout at his client’s house in Pomerania. The client, they are saying, is some notorious gangster named Chudzik who was recently acquitted in a racketeering trial. Is this the man behind Lindsay Sorkin’s kidnapping?”
“I’m sorry, Lieutenant, but I don’t have time to fully explain. Suffice it to say that I had a chat with Dabrowski, who led me to a corrupt chief inspector in Warsaw named Aleksander Gasowski.”
“Why does that name sound so familiar?”
“If you’ve been tuned in to the Polish news, you no doubt heard it mentioned during the broadcasts. Gasowski blew his brains out at the Kyriad Prestige in Warsaw. But not before he admitted to his role in Lindsay Sorkin’s abduction. Two of Gasowski’s officers picked the girl up from the Polish military museum after two of Chudzik’s men delivered her there.”
“Chudzik the gangster?”
“Precisely,” I said. “Chudzik’s men had retrieved her from the men’s room at Hauptbahnhof Station in Berlin, where Dietrich Braun and Karl Finster had dropped her off after taking her from Paris.”
“Wait a minute, Simon.” Davignon lowered his voice, presumably so that Vince and Lori Sorkin wouldn’t hear. “So, you are telling me that the girl is now with the police in Poland?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “Before Gasowski committed suicide he said that Chudzik had ordered his men to deliver her somewhere in Ukraine. That’s where I am now.”
“You are in
Ukraine
?”
“Odessa, to be exact. Gasowski didn’t know which city in Ukraine, or even which region. He was kept in the dark just in case someone like me got to him.”
In the background I heard a woman’s voice repeating a statement in French; it sounded as though it was coming from a loudspeaker.
“What is that?” I said. “Where are you?”
Davignon sighed. “We are in hospital, I am afraid. Lori Sorkin collapsed in the elevator of the hotel. No word yet from her doctors. My fear right now is that she suffered a miscarriage.”
Life is like dominoes,
I thought.
Once one tile falls …
Once Hailey went missing, I lost Tasha, then slowly Tasha’s parents and brother as well, who’d become a surrogate family to me over the years. I couldn’t fault them for distancing themselves from me, of course. Seeing me was too painful. I was a glaring reminder of all they’d lost. A daughter. A granddaughter. A sister, a niece. Trying to forget was a defense mechanism I understood too well. Hell, even years after the incident I couldn’t drive past the parks Hailey had played in, couldn’t shop in the grocery stores Tasha had favored. I certainly couldn’t live in our house.
“Which reminds me,” Davignon said. “We haven’t been able to get in touch with Keith Richter.”
“Keith Richter?”
“Lindsay’s pediatrician back in the States. We get only an answering service, and no one returns our calls. Apparently the doctor is on vacation this week. But we were able to track down a hospital that drew Lindsay’s blood. Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. Where Lindsay received her stitches as a toddler. The medical-records department is faxing over her lab report, which will contain her blood type and anything else you may require.”
I hoped I wouldn’t require anything more than the photo I had of Lindsay Sorkin smiling.
Through the windshield of the taxi I saw Pavlo’s ZAZ make a sharp right turn.
“I need to leave you for now, Lieutenant. I’ll call you with an update as soon as I can.”
I ended the call and shouted, “Make that right!” to the driver.
Our tires squealed as we turned nearly ninety degrees onto a narrow roadway. I could almost sense Pavlo staring into the rearview. Did he know he was being followed? Had Ana somehow tipped her hand? Was she already in grave danger and unable to contact me?
Sure enough, seconds later, the ZAZ accelerated. The car shot into the wrong lane and passed several slower-moving vehicles before kicking back into the right just in time to avoid an oncoming SUV. Horns blared all around.