The Kidnapping of Paul McCartney

by Richard Dorrance

  Most of the NNs were bona fide idiots, but not all of them. The guy who recruited him introduced him to an older guy, to whom the new recruit recounted the death of his grandfather. The older guy introduced him to other older guys, until one of them said, “I know some people who know about stuff that happened in Argentina a long time ago, and maybe you should talk to them.” To make a long story short, the Israelis weren’t the only ones who collected intelligence about their foes. The NNs also had intelligence networks, and it was through one of these that Stirg had been identified as the mastermind of the assassination of that particular expatriate Nazi, the best tomato grower in all of Argentina. The name of Pmirhs Stirg came to be burned in his neural network, which in turn fostered the growth of lesions in his brain which resulted in a growing obsession with revenge. Over the last ten years, slowly but surely, he had gathered his own intelligence, which identified Anna and her location, and from which eventually came the plan to kidnap her. And here he was, executing that plan. The fact that it had been sidelined by an English butler and his well-dressed flunky of an aristocratic master, a woman, of all things, was not a deal breaker. In fact, it might just turn out to be a blessing in disguise, because now he might get a double ransom, for the Beatles guy, and what’s not to like about that? All he had to do was to be patient and be smart. He could try to be those. Right?

  Stirg and Nev walked down the sidewalk to their car, while the BMIBC walked up the other side of the street past the June’s house. When they were seated in the car and had pulled out of the parking space, Nev turned his head and said, “Three guys, black clothes, one on the sidewalk and two in a parked truck. Truck’s behind us now.” Stirg looked at Nev, thought for a minute, pulled out his cell, and dialed Gwenny June’s number.

  “Yes, Stirg.”

  “We got company. Both of us. Guy in black clothes is hanging out on the sidewalk near your house. We got two on our tail. They aren’t tourists.”

  Gwen looked at the phone for a few seconds, wondering first how her arch enemy had gotten her personal number, and second about his message. Then she said, “Ok, thanks for the tip. If you need any help with your two, I’ll send Jinny.” And hung up. She couldn’t resist the temptation to needle Stirg. Back in the kitchen, Roger, Constantine and Jinny were washing dishes and putting away the food. The four women had started talking about what it would take to create a world class production of a Paul McCartney rock opera. Gwen said, “That was Stirg. Said we have company outside. And he has people following him, so they were waiting outside for him to leave. Why don’t you three go have a chat with this guy, see what’s up. Stirg said he was dressed in black clothes.”

  Jinny rinsed the dish detergent off his hands, Roger stacked the last of the dishes in the rosewood cabinets, and Constantine opened the toaster and emptied the crumbs from the catch tray in the bottom. All seven of the other people in the room watched him do this, then looked at each other. Gale, of course, spoke up, “Constantine, I’ve never seen anyone actually do that before. Empty the crumb tray. Does he do that often,” she asked Slev.

  Slev rolled her eyes, said, “He does it every time he uses the toaster. Every time.”

  Gale said, “What’s up with that, Constantine? I’ve never emptied the crumb tray from my toaster in my entire life. Never.”

  As he fitted the tray back into the toaster he said, “I grew up on the Saint Petersburg waterfront. Somehow the roaches survive our winter up there. We don’t have them nine months of the year like here, but the other three months, they’re all over. Where I lived as a kid, you had to be clean, or you had them all over. You didn’t clean out your toaster, next time you used it, you had toasted roaches.”

  Gale said, “Sorry I asked.”

  Roger led the way out of the kitchen into the hallway, and asked Jinny and Constantine if they had their guns. They shook their heads, no. So he took them into the study, unlocked the gun cabinet, and took out three handguns: his own Beretta 40 cal, a Glock nine millimeter, and a Sig Sauer nine, plus magazines.”

  Jinny teased him saying, “What, you got no Russian guns? You got Italian, Austrian, and Swiss. Where’s the Russian gun?”

  Roger stuck his gun into a holster and clipped it onto his belt under his shirt. The other two waved away the holsters and stuck theirs in their belts in the small of their backs. He led them back into the kitchen, where Gwen and Slev noticed the new bulges under their clothes, and then out the back door. At the bottom of the steps he said, “We can cut through the neighbor’s yard to the other side of the block. Then you two can go around the block one way, and I’ll go the other.” Looking at Jinny he said, “Try not to look too suspicious to the neighbors. Don’t wave the gun around, ok?” The only thing Jinny liked better than being teased by Roger was being teased by Guignard and Gwen.

  Seven minutes later Roger came from one direction towards a man dressed in black, and Jinny and Constantine came towards him from the other. The guy had just finished telling the third group of tourists that he had no idea where to get good shrimp and grits, and was wishing he had given this duty to his buddies and that he had followed Stirg. He didn’t do well with tourists. He noticed Roger walking towards him, giving off an unusual vibe. Something about the look of intensity on Roger’s face; a look of anticipation. Then he noticed the other two guys coming from the other direction, and got a similar feeling from them. One thing he was sure about, and that was that these three guys were not tourists. He knew he wasn’t going to have to tell them about restaurants or where to catch the tour boat out to Fort Sumter. As they got closer and the vibes got stronger, he felt angry that Scotilly had walked off that night with his gun in her purse. Five guns in her purse. That was something.

  Roger said, “You lost? You looking for the Daughters of the Confederacy Museum? I understand they have an exhibit up right now about Civil War soldier’s underwear. That what you looking for?”

  The BMIBC processed Roger’s questions, then looked at Jinny and Constantine. He’d never met any Russians before, but he had a feeling these were some kind of foreigners. And not Germans. Germans were the only kind of foreigners he thought were ok, and, despite his grandfather’s heritage, he wasn’t crazy about them, either. In Russian Jinny said to Constantine, “This boy is trouble. All these black clothes, and the tattoos. Not the June’s type, at all.”

  The BMIBC wasn’t the June’s type, that was true, but neither was he a sissy or stupid. He’d learned a little bit of German from his uncle, and now he said in rudimentary German, looking at Jinny, “Fuck you, you short Russian fireplug. You stand there very long, some big dog is gonna come along and piss on your head.”

  It’s quite amazing how much in the way of intent can be conveyed outside of language. None of the three of them understood the German words, but they knew an insult when they heard one. Roger saw he might as well leave off the jokes about underwear and get down to business with this guy. “What’s your name?”

  “Adolf. Adolf fucking Hitler.”

  “Ok, Adolf. That suits me. We’re not here to make friends. We’re here to tell you if we see you again, it’s game on. And the end of the game is taking you out in the harbor on a boat and dumping you off the rocks around Fort Sumter. You and your friends. That’s all we have to say.” He looked up and down the street, then pulled his gun and held in down near his thigh, pointed at the sidewalk. “Frisk him.”

  Constantine pulled his gun and stepped off the sidewalk into the street, triangulating on the target. Jinny stepped behind him, running his hands up and down the man’s body. Finding no weapon, he pulled his wallet from his hip pocket. “Idaho driver’s license. Cash. That’s it. No credit card. Where’s Idaho?”

  Roger didn’t answer the question, but said, “I’ll tell you later. Remember the name on the license.” To the man he said, “If I see you again near my house, I’ll invite you in, and we’ll have a tal
k. Then, most likely, it’ll be out to the fort with you. Understand?”

  The guy grabbed his crotch and said, “Piss on all three of you.”

  Roger and Constantine hid their guns, gave the guy one last look, and walked down the street toward the Junes house. At the foot of the porch steps Roger looked back up the street where he saw the guy leaning casually up against a garden wall, defiance on his face. He said, “Jinny, I agree with you. That guy is trouble.”

  Jinny said, “Since when do you understand Russian?”

  “I don’t, but I understand you, my friend, when you say something important.”

  Jinny smiled.

  Chapter 29 – All the Players are in Place

  Stirg and Nev drove the five minutes back to their garage, put away the Mercedes, and walked the fifty yards out the dock to the mansion. Inside, Nev got out binoculars and focused on the two tails who now sat on the same park bench they had sat on earlier in the day. In five minutes Nev had a change of clothes and his own Glock in a waterproof pouch. He went out of the house on the water side, with the house blocking the view of the two guys on the bench. He jumped off the dock, swam two hundred yards up the shoreline where he climbed out of the water, opened the pouch, took out a towel, the clothes and gun, dried off, dressed, stuck the gun in his belt, left his swim suit, towel and pouch on the narrow sand and rock shore, and walked up onto the street. He circled around a block, and in ten minutes stood behind the bench.

  He looked up and down the park, then walked around the bench and sat down between the MSMIBC and the NSSMIBC. Nev was a big boy, and took up all the space between the two guys. They both looked at him like he was crazy, and simultaneously said, “What the fuck?”

  In a flash, Nev rocked one guy hard with an elbow to face. He pulled his gun and stuck it in the side of the other. He didn’t say anything, his actions speaking louder than words. When he knew he commanded the two guys, he stood up and motioned to them to move down the park walkway towards his property. When they were in front of him, he hid the gun under the front of his shirt. None of them spoke, and after a minute the one guy took his hand away from his face, where his lip had begun to swell. They reached the ornamental iron fence that marked Stirg’s property and protected against sightseers, where Nev entered a code into the security pad, and the gate opened. He said, “Down the dock," took them around the house to the water side, and into the sunroom, where Stirg waited.

  It had been a long time since Stirg had interrogated anyone, but when you learn a specialized skill like that, you don’t forget it. An hour later Nev took the guys out the door they had entered through, marched them back down the dock, and again entered the code that buzzed open the electronic lock on the gate. With them through it and the gate back in closed position, he said, “Personally, I hope you don’t follow his orders, and I run into you two again.” And he turned and walked back out to the house.

  While Nev escorted the guests off the property, Stirg again dialed Gwen’s number. She was alone with Roger, sitting in the downstairs study, relaxing. The others had gone home to do the same. “Hello.”

  “It’s me. Did you have a talk with the guy out in the street?”

  She hit the speaker button, and said, “Yes.”

  “Did he tell you who he was and what he’s doing here in Charleston?”

  “Not exactly. Roger just told him if we saw him again, we’d take him out in the harbor, and come back without him.”

  “I had a different kind of talk with the two that tailed us home. They blabbed right away; I only had to persuade them a little. You’re not going to believe this, but they’re neo-nazies. At least that’s what they call themselves. They’re here because of me and Anna. They want to kidnap Anna, to get to me. Said something about some guy I killed a long time ago, and his relative wants revenge. And money, ransom money for Anna.”

  Roger leaned forward, thinking, then said, “You mean these are the people who kidnapped Paul, Stella, and Anna? But you said they want to kidnap Anna. I don’t get it.”

  “If they were the ones who kidnapped Anna, you think I’d let them go? Here’s the second thing you’re not going to believe. They're not the ones who kidnapped the others, but they saw the kidnapping. Said they were trying to kidnap Anna, and this man and woman stopped them. Said these two had guns, and walked away with the three of them, the Beatle guy and his daughter and Anna.”

  “Why’d you let them go?”

  “These two were idiots. The third neo-guy is the brains, the one who wants to get Anna to get to me. He’s the guy who’s related to some guy they think I killed a long time ago. So I let them go to tell the guy if he fucks with Anna, it’ll be the last thing he ever does. Those two couldn’t kidnap a hamburger at McDonalds. You were the ones who had the neo-leader. The Nazi.”

  Gwen said, “Are you saying there are two groups in town, both of which have tried to kidnap our friends, and one group succeeded, and the other group failed, but this other group that failed, still wants to kidnap Anna, from the ones that succeeded?”

  Stirg hadn’t put all that together quite so neatly, but now that Gwen had, he said, “Yeah, I guess so. These neo-nazis are trying to kidnap Anna from the kidnappers. We’re trying to rescue her, and they’re trying to kidnap her.”

  Roger said, “And, Paul, Stella, and Anna don’t really want to be rescued, because they want to do what their kidnappers want them to do, which is write a great rock opera. And have us produce it. And do all that in two months. And now we have to worry about some neo-nazis, which we just had in our hands, and could have taken the lot of them out into the harbor, but we let them go.”

  Gwen thought for a minute, then said, “Maybe Gale’s right. Maybe we should stop getting involved in stuff like this.”

  Chapter 30 – The Musical Concept

  Everyone was reasonably comfy in the bunker and the big house. Stella and Anna were sleeping in real beds, and Scotilly had her sofa cushions back, which allowed her to take her usual afternoon nap in peace. The bunker kitchen was well stocked with canned goods, and Jools had promised to bring more fresh fruit, vegetables, books, and magazines. The recording equipment and synthesizer were working, though the studio hardly was fully functional. It was a mess, with wires running across the floor and hanging from hooks in the ceiling. Bolts of Stella’s rejected fabrics sat at the bases of the walls, waiting to be hung as sound dampening material. Paul liked seeing his guitars hanging from wall hooks in his studios, but the first time he tried driving a nail into the concrete wall of the bunker, the nail bent like a horseshoe, so he had to be content to set the Rickenbacker on the floor and lean it against a the wall. It would be several days before Stella’s new materials arrived via Fedex, so she set up tables with markers and oversized tablets of paper, and began to sketch. This was premature, her not knowing the themes of the opera, but she had to do something, and she had to keep her hand in the drawing game. Her first design would be the clothes her father would wear on opening night at the opera. Her challenge was to do something that befitted his age, that was an ode to the formality of traditional opera, and yet oozed the whole world of rock n roll. Mature rock n roll.

  They heard the steel doors open, and hoped it was Jools with a tray of breakfast, say French toast with butter and bananastrawberry puree on top. “Good morning, good morning,” came the lilting Cotswold accent. “How are the music makers today? Anything new to report to the boss?” he said looking around cheerily.

  “Where’s breakfast?” asked Anna.

  “Now, dear, the eggs benedict was the exception, not the rule. I told you that. Don’t want you to get spoiled, do we? Not good for your karma.”

  “We’re locked in a concrete bunker with no windows, Jools. How are we going to get spoiled? And it’s not like we’re getting paid for this gig. We’re paying you to be here. So cut the crap.” Anna was feeling good, was not feeling as ornery as her words se
emed to indicate. She just wanted to jibe Jools a bit, keep his perspective real.

  “Good news, the piano tuner’s coming this morning. Soon sweet melodies will emanate from the Steinway in fine form. So it’s up to the house with you when he comes. Give you a chance to chat with Scotilly. There’ve been developments on the ransom front, and she’ll tell you about them.”

  When he left Paul said, “Can we talk for a few minutes? Until the tuner comes and we have to leave. We’re going to be working very hard together on this thing, so you have to buy into my basic idea for the opera. You’re not just going to be doing costumes, dear,” he said to Stella. “You’re going to have to be studio assistant, writing assistant, producer. You too,” looking at Anna. “If I was doing this project out in the real world, there would be a cast of hundreds. Well, dozens. We’re going to have to do it all. So, you have to believe in what I’m writing, the songs, or it’s never going to work. You have to be committed, and believe. This can’t be just me. It has to be us. Ok?”

  Paul had a serious look on his face, and Anna and Stella felt reality setting it. The reality of writing two dozen songs linked by an overriding concept, and then divided into two or three themes that the listener could grasp and use as guides to understand and follow the meaning of the work. Both of the women felt the same dueling emotions: a sobering seriousness, and a deep thrill at the prospect of being part of an artistic endeavor. “I told you this is going to be about relationships; about why some relationships endure, and why some come and go. I have my opinion about this, and that is what I want to express in the songs. It’s a universal and serious subject, but it has to be expressed in music that people will find enjoyable. Otherwise people won’t be interested. The music is the vessel for the content, and the music has to carry and sustain the meaning and the ideas. It has to be great music, and it has to be played greatly to capture the feelings of the listeners. Then, maybe, a few of the ideas will seep out and into people. I can hope. We can hope. Another time we can talk about the singers. I can play all the instruments on the synthesizer, and I can sing a lot of the lyrics, but for this to be great opera, I have to have another great singer or two, for the sake of diversity. I have an idea about that, and we’ll work on it later. But now, can we talk about my relationship ideas?”