Good As Gone (13 page)

I moved as quick as I could along the ledge. Ana’s window was slightly ajar, which meant that it wasn’t locked. The curtains were drawn. I couldn’t see in but at least I couldn’t be seen. Overall, it was to my advantage; I knew that someone was in there, but that someone sure as hell didn’t know I was out here. I bent and raised the window, slowly so as not to make noise.

I heard the shower turn off and decided it was time to move.

I gripped the ledge just above the window, drew a breath, and swung my legs through first. I landed on my feet. Saw a thin skinhead with a blade spin around in surprise. I caught him hard in the temple with a right hook. The bathroom door swung open just as he crumpled. Ana stood in the doorway, dressed in a crisp white towel, and stared down at the fallen skinhead in shock.

Before I could say a word, a much larger skinhead came at us from the front of the room, swinging his knife like a sword. I turned and kicked at his knee and his large body blew by me like a bull blows by a matador. He shrieked in pain, his leg having snapped like a matchstick. Soon as he hit the floor, I stamped on the hand holding the knife and he dropped it.

I snatched the knife and gripped his bare head as he reached for his broken leg. As he cried out, I twisted his body, and held the blade to his throat. Over the next thirty seconds, his screams faded into whimpers.

Ana leaned over and recovered the skinny skinhead’s knife while he remained on the floor, apparently unconscious.

“I’m going to ask you two questions,” I said to the bull. “Lie about the first one and I’ll remove an ear. Lie about the second and I’ll cut your throat.”

He didn’t say anything, but I felt the warmth of tears rolling down my bare arm.

“First question,” I said. “Who hired you?”

“A l-lawyer,” he spit out with a thick Polish accent. “A lawyer named Dabrowski. He defended me on drug charges a few years ago.”

“Second question,” I said. “When and where are you supposed to meet Dabrowski to collect your money for the job you were about to do on us?”

“He p-paid … he paid us half up-front. The rest we were supposed to pick up outside Bunkier Sztuki at five
A.M.
”

I stared up at Ana. “Bunkier Sztuki?”

“Bunker of Art,” she said. “I know where it is.”

I nodded to her, then leaned in and whispered in the skinhead’s ear, “Congratulations, fat boy. You did good. For a minute there I was pretty damn sure you had eaten your last pierogi.”

Chapter 23

I filled the bull full of Ana’s Tylenol PM and waited till he fell asleep. The skinny one remained out cold. He’d wake with one hell of a headache, but at least both his legs were intact. The same couldn’t be said for the bull.

“Dabrowski will be watching the hotel,” I said, checking the skinheads for identification. “If he doesn’t see these bastards come out he won’t show at the rendezvous point. And he sure as hell won’t meet with Talik in a few hours.”

“I am sorry,” she said. “I blew our opportunity by bringing you to his flat.”

“Neither of us expected him to speak to Talik before the meeting,” I said, pocketing their driver’s licenses along with their knives and leaving the rest of their crap on the floor. “And we had no reason to think Talik knew I was in Poland.”

She shuddered. “I still do not understand why Mikolaj would have a child kidnapped. It makes no sense.”

“Ana, Dabrowski is nothing but a middleman, a broker. What he did, he did for money.” I took her gently by the shoulders. “Right now Dabrowski is the wall between Talik and whoever ordered Lindsay Sorkin taken.”

“You mean, even if you got to Talik in Berlin—”

“Even if I got him to talk, he would have only led me to Dabrowski. I’m sure of it. Talik and his nephew Alim Sari don’t know who’s on the other side of the wall, and they have no reason to want to find out.”

“So we must find Mikolaj,” she said. “That should not be so difficult. He will not leave his law practice, and I am sure he will not leave Poland.”

“You’re right, Ana. Finding him shouldn’t prove too difficult. But now that he knows that I’m here—that
we’re
here, working together—he’ll be gunning for us, just as he did tonight. Only he won’t continue to rely on amateurs like these two skinheads. Next time he comes at us, he’ll come with professionals. So the trick isn’t finding him. It’s staying alive until we do.”

“Then we must find him fast. How do we do that?”

“I don’t know,” I conceded.

“What do you mean you do not know?” There was that anger again. “You hunted fugitives, it was your job. How can you not know how to find one lawyer in Poland?”

“The U.S. Marshals don’t find fugitives in a day, Ana. And they have resources. Manpower. They hang up photos and offer rewards to the locals. They use phone taps. They have access to credit card transactions and cell phone activity. What do I have?”

“You have me,” she said. “Before credit cards and cell phones, what did they do, your marshals? How did they find fugitives?”

“By knowing who they were chasing,” I said.

“And I know Mikolaj. I know him very well. What do you need to know?”

“All right,” I said, pacing the length of the room, adrenaline from the confrontation still pumping. “Let’s start with his relatives. You said his parents live around here. Who else? Are there any restaurants or bars he frequents? What does he like to eat? What does he drink? What kind of a hotel would he stay at? Is he an outdoors man? Could he fend for himself in the wild? Besides skinheads, who else does he represent?”

Ana’s face went white. She bit hard on her lower lip to keep it from trembling.

“What is it?” I said.

“Gowno.”

“What is it, Ana?”

“It’s Mikolaj: he represents some very dangerous men, Simon. Members of the Pruszkow mob, the Polish mafia. Recently, Mikolaj tried the case of one of Poland’s most notorious gangsters—Kazmer Chudzik. Chudzik was acquitted. After the trial, Chudzik said in a statement to the press that Mikolaj Dabrowski was like a brother to him.”

“Christ,” I said.

I knew organized crime had increased in Poland in the late eighties and early nineties with the fall of communism and the rise of capitalism. The sea change in the country had also resulted in the diminishment of the power of the police, which allowed the Pruszkow mob and its offshoot, the Wołomin mafia, to thrive. Polish gangsters were known as much for their relentlessness as their ruthlessness. When given a job, their soldiers and assassins got the job done.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Ana said suddenly. “I am so silly. I should have thought of this before. You need resources, manpower. You need police.”

I shook my head. “We can’t afford the attention, Ana. If the media catches wind, Dabrowski, Talik, Alim Sari, all of them will go to ground, and we’ll never find Lindsay.”

“Then you need police you can trust.”

I smirked. “Right, Ana. Happen to know some?”

“No,” she said. “But my brother, Marek, does.”

*

“Have you found the lawyer?” Davignon asked as soon as he answered his cell.

“I found him,” I said. “But then I lost him. He sent a pair of skinheads to my guesthouse to get rid of me.”

Davignon sighed deeply. “If the lawyer disappears…”

“I know,” I said. “But he won’t. I made friends with one of his associates, a smart lawyer named Anastazja. Her brother, Marek Staszak, is a politician in Warsaw. He’s alerted the
policja
to be on the lookout for Dabrowski, but to be discreet. Marek also put me in contact with a chief inspector who has his men working on credit card transactions, cell phone activity, and wiretaps. Dabrowski is a criminal lawyer; he’s not exactly loved by the Polish police.”

“What if the lawyer crosses the border into the Czech Republic or Slovakia or Ukraine?” Davignon asked.

“If Dabrowski tries, he’ll have a tough time at it. Our politician also contacted the
Straz Graniczna.
”

“The Polish Border Guard.”

“Right.” In the background I heard Lori Sorkin sobbing. “We’ll find him, Lieutenant,” I said. “And soon.”

Davignon lowered his voice. “For the mother’s sake, Simon, please do.”

Once I hung up with Davignon, I called Ostermann’s cell. On the third ring, Magda answered. From her voice, I knew right away that something was wrong.

“Hello, Magda,” I said. “Is Ostermann around?”

“No,” she said. “He is not.” She could barely contain her sobbing. “Kurt was arrested at Hauptbahnhof Station this morning. He has been questioned by the police all day.”

“What happened?” I said.

“I do not know. All I know is that two men who appeared on the closed-circuit television for the time period he requested were found dead last night behind a nightclub in Kreuzberg. The police suspect it has something to do with the missing girl.”

“Damn,” I muttered under my breath. After Talik and Alim took care of Sidika, they must have gone after Dietrich and Karl, either personally or, more likely, through one of their men. Ostermann’s knocking the Germans out cold must have done them in after all. He hadn’t pulled the trigger but he might very well be charged with their murders. Ostermann and I had been seen in the club. And if the Berlin police discovered the prostitutes Ostermann had hired, their testimony would all but seal his conviction. The girls had not only seen us, they had seen our guns.

“The media has arrived from Paris,” Magda said. “They have surrounded the train station and our office. It is just a matter of time before they find our home.”

“I’m sorry, Magda.”

“Sorry is not enough, Simon. You must return to Berlin and confess to killing those two men.”

Of course, I couldn’t tell Magda over the phone what had really happened, that Ostermann had roughed up the dead men but hadn’t killed them. It was quite possible that Ostermann’s cell was already tapped. The police would be listening in.

“Listen, Magda. As soon as I find Lindsay Sorkin, I’ll return to Berlin and help Ostermann in any way that I can, I promise.”

Her voice rose in anger. “Every time you step into our lives you bring nightmares, Simon. Kurt has a family now. You can no longer do this to him.”

“Magda, it isn’t what you think,” I said. “Now please answer one question. Did Ostermann tell you who he saw take the girl from the men’s room stall on the closed-circuit television?”

I waited, but Magda didn’t answer. The line was dead. She’d hung up on me.

Chapter 24

Four hours later Ana and I were back in Warsaw, at a small office in a private building, to meet with Chief Inspector Aleksander Gasowski. In sensitive matters, Gasowski didn’t trust the probing eyes of the men and women in his department. Particularly where Kazmer Chudzik and the Pruszkow mob were concerned.

Gasowski, a hulk of a man with a round face and little hair, leaned back in his chair behind a black metal desk and smiled grimly.

“This morning alone,” he said, “Pan Dabrowski’s credit cards have made purchases in Katowice, Opole, Wroclaw, and Zielona Gora.”

Ana leaned forward, excited. “So Mikolaj is heading west, toward the German border.”

Gasowski shook his head. “All the purchases were made within thirty-five minutes of each other.”

I wasn’t surprised. The lawyer knew how the police worked, knew Ana had connections. He was smart. He was playing us.

“What about his mobile phone?” Ana said.

“Still transmitting a signal,” Gasowski replied. “Apparently from a train heading to Rzeszow. The train was stopped and searched. Pan Dabrowski was not on board, and his mobile could not be found.”

I said, “Do we dare ask about his automobile?”

Gasowski smirked. “Pan Dabrowski’s vehicle was stopped at the Slovakia border. It was being driven by a young skinhead, who possessed all the proper paperwork. He stated that the auto belonged to his lawyer and that he was borrowing it to see his girlfriend in Bratislava. My men took the skinhead into custody on suspicion of grand theft, but the kid is not talking and we cannot hold him much longer.”

“So much for resources and manpower,” I said.

“But why would Mikolaj go through all this trouble?” Ana said. “He could simply not use these things and we would be no better off in finding him.”

“Because he wanted us to show our hand,” I said. “Now that he knows we’re using the police, he can take the necessary precautions.”

“Dabrowski has always been a slick son of a bitch,” Gasowski said with disgust.

Ana bowed her head, defeated. “So, what do we do now?”

“For all his subterfuge,” I said, “Dabrowski will still go where he feels safe.”

“And where is that?”

“Where he will be under the protection of this Kazmer Chudzik.”

“Pruszkow?”

“Pruszkow,” I said. “My guess is, that is the only place in Poland he’ll feel secure enough to hold his meeting with Talik.”

Gasowski said nothing.

“So we are going to Pruszkow,” she said.

“
I
am going to Pruszkow,” I told her. “You are going to visit with your brother, Marek, until all this blows over.”

“You are crazy, Simon, if you think—”

“Listen to Pan Fisk,” Gasowski finally piped in. “I have spoken with your brother. We have arranged for the Biuro Ochrony Rzadu to protect you.”

“I do not need protection,” she hissed at us. “Not from the Government Protection Bureau and not from either of you.”

She rose from her chair and exited the room, slamming the door behind her.

I thanked Gasowski and promised I’d get Ana to her brother. Then I followed her outside.

I called out to her as she made for my bike. “Ana, wait!”

She spun on me. “I am coming with you to confront Mikolaj, Simon. And to retrieve that little girl.”

“Not a chance,” I said. “I’ve told you. I work alone.”

“
You
came to
me,
Simon. Not the other way around. You have already involved me, and you cannot discard me like a piece of trash. Either we go to Pruszkow together or we go separately. But either way, I
am
going.”