“A red backpack,” said Levon.
I gave him a thumbs-up. “Red backpack, silver reflecting tape, bank papers, heroin, and ten thousand dollars in cash.”
“Oh, my God,” said Barbara.
“I was given a choice. Resign. Or there would be a trial. My trial. I knew that I wasn't going to win in court. It would be 'he said/he said,' and the evidence, some of it, anyway, had been found in my locker. Worse, I suspected that I was getting hung with this because my lieutenant was in on it with Denny Carbone.
“A very bad day, blew up a lot of illusions for me. I turned in my badge, my gun, and some of my self-respect. I could've fought, but I couldn't take a chance I'd go to jail for something I hadn't done.”
“That's a sad story, Ben,” said Levon.
“Yep. And you know how the story turns out. I moved to L.A. Got a job at the Times. And I wrote some books.” “You're being modest,” Barbara said, and patted my arm. “Writing is what I do, but it's not who I am.”
“And who would you say you are?” she asked.
“Right now, I'm working at being the best reporter I can be. I came to Maui to tell your daughter's story, and, at the same time, I want you to have that happy ending. I want to see it, report it, be here for all the good feelings when Kim comes back safe. That's who I am.”
Barbara said, “We believe you, Ben.” And Levon nodded at her side.
Like I said, Nice people.
Chapter 24
Amsterdam. Five twenty in the afternoon. Jan Van der Heuvel was in his office on the fifth floor of the classic, neck-gabled house, gazing out over the treetops at the sightseeing boat on the canal, waiting for time to pass.
The door to his office opened, and Mieke, a pretty girl of twenty with short, dark hair, entered. She wore a small skirt and a fitted jacket, her long legs bare to her little lace-up boots. The girl lowered her eyes, said that if he didn't need her for anything she would leave for the day.
“Have a good evening,” Van der Heuvel said.
He walked her to the office door and locked it behind her, returned to his seat at the long drawing table, and looked down at the street running along the Keizersgracht Canal until he saw Mieke get into her fiancé's Renault and speed away.
Only then did Van der Heuvel attend to his computer. The teleconference wasn't for another forty minutes, but he wanted to establish contact early so that he could record the proceedings. He tapped keys until he made the connection and his friend's face came on the screen.
“Horst,” he said. “I am here.”
At that same time, a brunette woman of forty was on the bridge of her 118-foot yacht anchored in the Mediterranean off the coast of Portofino. The yacht was custom-made, constructed of high-tensile aluminum with six cabins, a master suite, and a video conference center in the saloon, which easily converted to a cinema.
The woman left her young captain and took the stairs down to her suite, where she removed a Versace jacket from the closet and slipped it on over her halter top. Then she crossed the galleyway to the media room and booted up her computer. When the connection was made to the encrypted line, she smiled into the webcam.
“Gina Prazzi checking in, Horst. How are we today?”
Four time zones away, in Dubai, a tall bearded man wearing traditional Middle Eastern clothing passed a mosque and hurried to a hole-in-the-wall restaurant down the street. He greeted the proprietor and continued on through the kitchen, aromatic with garlic and rosemary.
Pushing aside a heavy curtain, he took the stairs down to the basement level and unlocked a heavy wooden door leading to a private room.
In Hong Kong's Victoria Peak section, a young chemist flicked on his computer. He was in his twenties with an IQ in the high 170s. As the software loaded, he looked through his curtains, down the long slope, past the tops of the cylindrical high-rises, and farther below to the brightly lit towers of Hong Kong. It was unusually clear for this time of year, and his gaze had drifted to Victoria Harbour and beyond, to the lights of Kowloon, when the computer signaled and he turned his attention to the emergency meeting of the Alliance.
In Sao Paulo, Raphael dos Santos, a man of fifty, drove to his home at just past three in his new Wiesmann GT MF5 sports coupe. The car cost 250,000 U.S. dollars and went from zero to sixty in under four seconds with a top speed of 193 miles per hour. Rafi, as he was called, loved this car.
He braked at the entrance to the underground garage, tossed the keys to Tomás, and took the elevator that opened inside his apartment.
There he crossed several thousand square feet of Jatoba hardwood floors, passed ultramodern furnishings, and entered his home office with its view of the gleaming facade of the Renaissance Hotel on Alameda Santos.
Rafi pressed a button on his desk, and a thin screen rose vertically up through the center. He wondered again at the purpose of this meeting. Something had gone wrong. But what? He touched the keyboard and pressed his thumb to the ID pad.
Rafi greeted the leader of the Alliance in Portuguese. “Horst, you old bastard. Make this good. You have our undivided attention!”
Chapter 25
In the swiss alps, Horst Werner sat in the upholstered chair in his library. Flames leapt in the fireplace and pin lights illuminated the eight-foot-long scale model of the Bismarck he had made himself. There were bookshelves on every wall but no windows, and behind the cherrywood paneling was a three-inch-thick wall of lead-lined steel.
Horst's safe room was linked to the world by sophisticated Internet circuitry, giving him the feeling that this chamber was the very center of the universe.
The dozen members of the Alliance had all signed on to the encrypted network. They all spoke English to greater and lesser degrees, their live pictures on his screen. After greeting them, Horst moved quickly to the point of the meeting.
“An American friend has sent Jan a film as an amusement. I am very interested in your reaction.”
A white light filled twelve linked computer screens and then clarified as the camera focused on a Jacuzzi-style tub. Inside the tub was a dark-skinned young girl, nude with long black hair, lying on her stomach in about four inches of water. She was tied up in the way that Americans quaintly call “hog-tied,” her hands and feet behind her with a rope that also passed around her throat.
There was a man in the video, his back to the camera, and when he half turned, one of the Alliance members said, “Henri.”
Henri was naked, sitting on the edge of the tub, the clear plastic mask obscuring his features. He spoke to the camera. “You see there is very little water, but enough. I don't know which is more lethal for Rosa. Whether she will choke or if she will drown. Let's watch and see.”
Henri turned and spoke in Spanish to the sobbing child, then translated for the camera. “I told Rosa to keep her legs pulled back toward her head. I said if she could do that for another hour, I would let her live. Maybe.”
Horst smiled at Henri's audacity, the way he stroked the back of the child's head, soothing her, but she cried out, clearly a great effort when she was so tired of trying to live.
“Por favor. Déjame marchar. Eres malvado.”
Henri spoke to the camera. “She says to let her go. That I am evil. Well. I love her anyway. Sweet child.”
The girl continued to sob, gasping for air every time her legs relaxed and the rope tightened around her throat. She wailed, “Mama.” Then her head dropped, her final exhalation causing bubbles to break the surface of the water.
Henri touched the side of her neck and shrugged. “It was the ropes,” he said. “Anyway, she committed suicide. A beautiful tragedy. Just what I promised.”