The Rendition (20 page)

When I stepped around behind her in order to get a look at what she had on her computer screen, she shooed me away.

I didn't say anything. I'd come to realize that, where Sylvia was concerned, anything was possible. The Pentagon has its own intelligence agency, and in the years since 9/11, I've sometimes gotten the feeling that the spooks and people like Sylvia are running our government.

Sylvia was wearing a pair of ripped blue jeans and a man's white shirt that looked two sizes too large and no bra. She had the sleeves rolled up and the top two buttons were undone. When she turned to face me, I said, “How long since you combed your hair?”

“The last time a man made a saucy remark to me, I shot him.”

“If I'm going to die at the hands of an attractive woman, I'd prefer a lingering death.” When Sylvia said “Really?” I said, “What I'd like you to do is first—”

“Spare me your lingering death fantasies. What happened at police headquarters?”

When I looked at Sylvia, I couldn't keep from comparing her with Irmie. Gazing at her brown, not quite rust-colored hair, blue eyes, and delicate features, I was reminded that I was living at close quarters with a remarkably attractive and very capable woman.

After I'd told her the story of my interview with the police, she said,
“I don't like it. You talk too much. The German cops are smart. They pick up on everything.”

“I was careful.”

“I didn't think you knew the meaning of the word.”

“That's because you underestimate my vocabulary.”

“But you say you told them you were in Munich in a semiofficial capacity. That doesn't sound too bright. The police could throw you out of the country for that.”

“My passport was in order. No identifying stamps or notations. Nothing to raise suspicions.”

She threw me a skeptical glance, again making me feel she was able to read my mind. Sylvia's disheveled sexiness almost certainly would have been more of a distraction if I hadn't just seen Irmie again. I was still thinking about her and only half paying attention to this conversation. Although I'd told Sylvia that Max and I had spoken with a female police detective about Quemal, I diplomatically failed to mention that I'd known Irmie way back when. “Not too many people have been to Afghanistan,” I said. “It's worth checking out.”

“You didn't tell the detective how Quemal connects to the Vogt case?” When I shook my head, she said, “You're sure?”

I said, “They should make the connection, but I agree—better later than sooner.”

“I know you've known some of these people for a while, Alex, but we can't trust the German cops.”

“I never trust any cops. All they care about is themselves and their pensions. They don't have the honesty and integrity of us intelligence types.”

“They're not patriotic like we are.” Sylvia turned off the computer, stood up from the table, reached up, placed her hand on my shoulder, pulled me to her. I had no choice but to give her a brief kiss. “Not patriotic like you and me.” Her voice was a throaty whisper. “What do you have in mind, Alex?”

“Quemal could be our man,” I said, resisting the urge to put down the beer bottle, slip off her shirt, place my hand on her naked breast,
and tell her what I really had in mind. I fought against that urge. No one knows me better than Buck, and he says women are my big weakness.

Although Sylvia still had her hand on my shoulder and her lips were inches from mine, I continued to talk. “Quemal could have killed Ursula Vogt. He could be the character I encountered in Kosovo. He could have murdered this KLA soldier who was complaining about what happened in Afghanistan. Nadaj and his crew were all in Afghanistan. It seems to add up.”

“So what do we do?” Her voice was still a throaty whisper, more sultry than before. Naturally, I could have said that what we do first is go into the bedroom and spend the night in bed together—but I was already thinking about the Kalashni Klub.

“Do you have any plans for Sunday evening?”

“I hope you know what you're doing,” Sylvia said. “Check that. I mean, I hope you know what we're doing.”

“It doesn't sound as if you have much confidence in me.”

“No comment.”

Sylvia was dressed in a navy-blue turtleneck sweater, dark slacks tucked into black motorcycle boots. On her head she had a knitted cap, and to complete the package, she wore black gloves. When I told her she looked sexy, she told me not to be “facetious.”

I told her to speak English.

I was dressed more appropriately for an evening on the town, in a dark-green golf jacket, beneath which I had a blue flannel shirt, jeans, and the kind of peaked cap that's popular in Europe. Beneath my shirt, I had my KA-BAR in a sheath at my waist.

“Do you know where this place is?”

I said, “I drove by it today. If they haven't moved it in the last eight hours, I know.”

Sylvia was referring to the Kalashni Klub, where Doug Brinkman said Quemal hung out. If you knew it was there and knew what you were looking for, it wasn't that difficult to find. A small, lighted sign with an assault rifle fashioned to look like an arrow pointed you in the right direction.

If you weren't looking for anything, you'd ignore the sign and go on about your business.

When Sylvia asked if we were ready to go, I said, “Almost.”

I went into my bedroom and returned a minute later with a 9mm
Beretta pistol. I said, “I'm assuming you know how to handle one of these.”

I knew Sylvia was familiar with the weapon because the military had adopted the Beretta after concluding that the .45 Colt automatic was too bulky and, for most situations, not all that practical.

“I pick my teeth with these babies.”

“Oh, wonderful. A woman after my own heart.”

“What I'm wondering is, whose is it and where did it come from?”

“It's mine, and it's very dependable. I brought it with me.” I snapped an ammunition clip into the handle. Unlike the .45, which requires you to first slide a round into the chamber, the Beretta is ready to fire when you release the safety. That's a small wrinkle but, for some situations, a critical one.

“No problems at the airport?”

I'd placed the pistol in a glassine bag, then packed the bag in a mixture of epoxy and graphite. There are numerous ways to circumvent the most thorough baggage checks, and Sylvia knew them as well as I did.

I said, “As you know, I'd rather leave home without my credit card than a weapon of some kind.”

Although Jerry Shenlee had kept a straight face when he warned me against having a weapon in Germany, I figured he didn't mean for me to take the advice too literally. What he'd meant was, just be careful and don't let the authorities know you're carting around artillery.

Sylvia frowned. “I'm assuming you think this might come in handy.” When I nodded, she looked at me skeptically. “Are you sure we want to go out to this place?”

“I intend to be very careful.”

Sylvia watched as I sat down and strapped a holster to my left ankle. After slipping the weapon into the holster, I pulled my trouser leg back down and stood up. I pulled up my shirt and showed her the KA-BAR knife I had at my waist.

When her expression darkened, I said, “Don't worry. I don't expect to have to use any of this stuff.”

On the drive through Munich, I told Sylvia for the final time what
I had in mind. Although Max had warned me about the Kalashni Klub, I thought the risk was worth taking. If this Quemal was Quemal the Assassin, I could pick him up, and we'd get him to confess to the murder of Ursula Vogt. And we'd force the authorities to drop the charges against Doug Brinkman. The fact that he'd been in Afghanistan and had a connection with Ursula Vogt led me to think it could be the same guy.

If it wasn't, we were back at square one.

When we were within a half mile of the place and waiting at a traffic signal near the Münchner Freiheit, I removed a bottle of brandy from the glove compartment, and figuring I didn't fit the profile of the average K Klub customer, I'd splashed some of the liquor on my jacket, and rolled some around in my mouth.

A questioning look on her face, Sylvia shook her head, but didn't say anything.

It was after ten when we turned off the Ingolstädterstrasse and drove past the lighted Kalashni sign. Cars were scattered around, parked haphazardly on both sides of the road. Two hundred feet farther on I made a U-turn, then halted on the shoulder.

As Sylvia climbed out, she said, “How long will you need?”

“Are you nervous?”

“Of course not. Are you?”

“Yes, actually.” It was true. I didn't exactly have cold feet, but I was wondering if this was a wise undertaking.

Sylvia all at once looked troubled. “Maybe we should abort this mission, Alex. It's not too late.”

Although I had the feeling she wasn't as concerned for my safety as she was for the success of the operation, I was curious about this place. I shook my head. “I only want to have a look around, and maybe ask some questions. It's probably all a false alarm anyway. I'll try not to be obvious about it. If I'm not out in ninety minutes, call Max. Don't come looking on your own.”

I eased the car into gear, then drove slowly up the road. When I reached the lighted sign with the picture of the assault weapon, I made a right turn. Although it called itself a club, the German word
Poof,
or
brothel, would be more accurate. For some reason, Albanian gangsters have an international stranglehold on this business. They have strong stomachs.

It was a two-story building located thirty yards down a narrow street in an area of warehouses, factories, and old buildings, some with broken windows and an abandoned look. The K Klub's two front windows were covered by thick drapes. I found the sight depressing, maybe because during my two tours in Bosnia I'd been inside places like the Kalashni Klub, in Tuzla and Banja Luka, and hadn't liked what I found. I'd had a few encounters with some of the gangster types operating these businesses, from the Mafia chiefs to the pimps—and learned how quickly they like to reach for their knives. In fact, as a souvenir of a disagreement in Tuzla with one of those characters—a guy whose specialty was turning young girls into drug addicts—I have a small scar above my right hip.

Some steps led me up to a small concrete porch on which were a couple of chairs and a table. A guy seated on one of the chairs was bent over and smoking a joint and didn't bother to look up as I went by. I pushed open the heavy wooden door and closed it behind me.

I was inside the K Klub, the place Max told me I should stay out of.

Inside, it looked unruly, but I'd been in my share of unruly places before. It didn't look dangerous—at least not if you didn't antagonize the wrong person. From the ceiling hung a bunch of red fixtures through which shone the light, and in between two of the fixtures was an opening in the ceiling, which might have housed a security camera. The red light mixed with the clouds of blue cigarette smoke hanging over everything and caused the room to be bathed in a weird pink-blue glow. A girl with a great rack and wearing a tiny halter was on a small stage doing some bumping and grinding to the accompaniment of music blaring from a loudspeaker. Although it was amateurish, it was amusing to watch—which might have been why most of the males on hand were paying close attention.

The tables were round, made of wood, had cigarette burns all over them, and were pretty well banged up. They were squashed so close together I had to step around them as I crossed the room. Some were
occupied by women in groups of two or three, the others by men—from unpleasant looking Slavic types to unpleasant-looking European types, most of them talking to one another and sizing things up. At one table four heavily made-up women showed off generous amounts of thigh. Maybe I ogled. As I went by, one made a comment.

I said,
“Mirëmbrë'ma!”
Albanian for “Good evening,” one of the greetings I recalled from the course I took in Bosnia. When I smiled and blew her a kiss, she looked away.

All the women seemed to be smoking and staring at nothing in particular, almost as if they were all stoned. Despite their empty expressions, I thought a few of them looked kind of nice. They were probably new to the business—and might have been wondering how they'd landed in this place.

Who could blame them? I'd only been here a couple of minutes and was already wondering how I'd landed in this place.

At the bar, the bartender, who had a chrome dome and probably did double-duty as a bouncer, looked me over, perhaps sizing me up, wondering if I fit the profile of a K Klub customer. If I didn't, I'd take that as a compliment.

“'nen Korn!”
I slurred the whiskey order, staggered against the bar, ran my fingers through my hair, fumbled a roll of euros from my jacket, and tossed down a couple of tens. After pouring me a clear whiskey and removing one of the bills, the bartender, seemingly satisfied that I was just another male desperate for female company, moved off and began talking with two women seated a couple of bar stools away. Next to me two men were speaking quietly in Dutch and eyeing the women at the tables.

When I turned around, I saw him, and when I recognized him, my heart went into double time. My hunch had been on the money, but I hadn't expected it to pan out so quickly.

At the far end of the room and standing with his back partially toward me was Quemal the Assassin himself, my friend from Kosovo, the star performer in my worst nightmares.

He was talking with half a dozen guys seated at one of the corner tables.

There was no question it was Quemal. He had the same hawk nose, hooded eyes, stringy black hair hanging over his ears, and for anyone close enough to notice, probably the same garlicky breath. I hadn't seen him right away because he'd been smart enough to shuck the white do-rag he'd had on his head in Kosovo. And he'd replaced the green jacket and brown pants with a formless gray jacket over a red shirt. In place of the beard, he was sporting a large, slightly droopy mustache.