Prime Target u-10

by Hugh Miller

  ‘This is no time to talk about death-dreams,’ Sabrina said.

  ‘Are there good and bad times?’

  ‘It’s what my friend Pratash believes.’

  ‘Pratash. I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.’

  ‘He’s a mystic. Or I think he is. I met him in Calcutta. He told me he was drawn to my emanations.’

  ‘Which always look nice when you wear light clothing.’

  ‘He wasn’t coming on to me, he was serious. A little, old, deeply serious man. He believes the world is a great big mistake and that the Creator will one day realize this and start it all over again from scratch. In the meantime, we should keep our heads below the parapet. One way of doing that, he told me, is never to think of danger, or dwell on dreams of jeopardy or death, at a time when real danger is likely to occur. He says such behaviour stimulates disaster.’

  ‘I suppose we all have our spiritual authority,’ Mike said. ‘I haven’t settled on mine yet, but Ralph Waldo Emerson might just fit the throne. Here’s an example. You know I love speed.’

  ‘Real speed. Not chemical speed.’

  ‘Real speed. I use speed as recreation, but I also use it to tune myself for challenges that come up in the job. I believe that life rewards those who move fastest, and that speed is sometimes a kind of magical cloak. Emerson said, “In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.” Now how’s that for a guru tuned to my own needs, huh?’

  ‘I’m sure he’ll serve you well.’ Sabrina held up her glass. ‘To Ralph Waldo.’

  Mike picked up his. ‘And to Pratash.’

  They drank, watching each other over the rims of their glasses. Sabrina was caught by the moment’s warmth, the clarity of good feeling between them.

  ‘Tell me something honestly,’ she said. ‘Are we really friends? At heart, beneath all the top show?’

  ‘I would say so, yes.’

  Sabrina could not bring herself to ask any more.

  ‘And I’ll tell you something else,’ Mike said. ‘Just this one time. The past hasn’t finished with me yet. But one day it will. I’ll be liberated, if that’s the word. And when that happens, maybe you’ll detect a change or two.’

  ‘You mean that one day we won’t automatically bunch our fists at the sight of each other?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Mike said.

  They smiled again. So did the woman behind the counter.

  * * *

  In theatrical terms, the on-stage act performed by Magda Schaeffer contained plenty of conflict and a good measure of tension, but it was entirely lacking in imagination.

  Magda swayed and splayed to electronic music on a tiny area of spotlit floor. At appropriate intervals, with apparent reluctance, she lost parts of her costume. As each item fell away from her body, her own excitement seemed to increase. As the minutes passed, however, her timing deteriorated and the pretence of sensuality gave way to vulgar posturing. In the end, what began as an apparent attempt at improvisational, sensual dance, ended up as old-fashioned downmarket striptease, with the audience roaring for her to take off the final wisp of material. When she did, it was to a scattering of applause from a crowd already losing interest.

  Mike saw no need to waste time on niceties. Ten dollars bought him the complete co-operation of the bar-tender who promised that as soon as Magda was decent, he would arrange for her to join Mike at his table in the corner.

  Less than five minutes after her act concluded she slid into the chair opposite Mike’s. She was wearing a white T-shirt and jeans and carried a small grab-bag which he assumed contained her costume.

  ‘I hope you liked the show, Mister — ’ She fluttered heavily darkened eyelashes at him. ‘What should I call you? My name is Magda, by the way.’

  ‘And I’m Mike.’ He tried to guess her age. Twenty at most, he decided, but already raddled and weary-looking. ‘And, yes, I enjoyed the show. You have a very lovely body.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He watched her lower her eyes. It amused him how women in the skin trade always came on so fluffy and demure, as if anything indelicate might cause them to blow away on a wave of affronted modesty.

  ‘Was that your only performance for the evening?’

  ‘My only one here,’ she said. ‘Two nights out of six I do a speciality act at the Saucy Sailor, across the road.’

  ‘Speciality act?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Again, she lowered her eyes demurely. ‘It’s different to what I do here, and it costs more to see. But customers say it is worth the extra.’

  ‘So you’ll be going there now?’

  ‘As soon as I’ve had a drink.’

  Mike took the cue and waggled a finger at the barman, who had been waiting for a sign. He had the drink poured ready. When he brought it across Mike saw him wink at Magda — a sign of confirmation, Mike assumed, that here was another soft mark.

  ‘Cheers, Mike,’ she said, and swallowed the whisky as if it was a thirst quencher. She leaned across the table. ‘If you want, I can see you after I finish across the road.’

  ‘That would be nice. But I’m an impatient person, Magda. What if I made it worth your while to cancel your show at the Saucy Sailor, just for tonight?’

  She frowned at that, but the frown looked as counterfeit as her smile. ‘I would lose my pay for the evening…’

  ‘As I said, I would make it worth your while.’

  ‘I would also have to provide a substitute act. Otherwise I would no longer be a friend of the management, you understand?’

  ‘How much for your stand-in?’

  ‘Dollars?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Fifty.’

  He produced a wad, peeled off five twenties and put them on the table. ‘That takes care of you both.’ He pushed the notes towards her. ‘For the moment,’ he added, making her flutter her eyes again.

  Arrangements for Magda’s deputy were made through the barman, who did not appear to find the transaction unusual. Magda had another drink, then coyly suggested they go upstairs to her place, where it was quieter.

  It was certainly quiet, Mike observed as he followed her into the tiny room. It was also airless and incredibly shabby. He had been in poorly furnished rooms that nevertheless said something good about their occupants; this room, with its litter of empty food containers, grubby glasses and full ashtrays, simply said that Magda Schaeffer was precisely the charmless slut she had appeared to be the moment the spotlight came on.

  ‘Sit down,’ she told Mike. ‘I won’t be a minute.’

  He sank into a dusty old armchair that creaked under his weight. Magda disappeared behind a curtain hung across one end of the room. When she emerged she had two drinks in her hand.

  ‘I hope you don’t think I do this often. I only let you come up here because I like you.’

  ‘I’m flattered.’

  She drew a nail-bitten fingertip along the rim of his ear. ‘What would you like me to do?’

  He smiled. ‘Stand up,’ he whispered.

  She eased away from him and stood back, watching him from behind lowered eyelids. Mike got to his feet. He reached under his jacket and pulled out his revolver. He pointed it at Magda’s throat. She gasped and backed away.

  ‘I don’t do sick stuff,’ she said.

  ‘But I do.’

  ‘I’ll scream!’

  ‘Do that, and a second later you’re dead.’

  ‘Please, don’t hurt me.’

  ‘I have to say I’m shocked, Magda.’ Mike backed off a little, keeping the gun levelled on her. ‘This is no way to treat your boyfriend, is it? Entertaining strange men for money.’

  ‘I have no boyfriend.’

  ‘He’s called Einar. Einar Ahlin.’

  She stared at him, her mouth moving uncertainly. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m Mike, remember? I was asking you how you square this kind of behaviour with your boyfriend.’

  ‘Einar doesn’t mind.’

  ‘Hard to
believe, Magda.’

  ‘I’m his girl, but we don’t…’ She shrugged.

  ‘I hold him in my arms sometimes. When he cries. That’s all. We are not physical.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘I don’t know that.’

  ‘Tell me where he is.’ Mike wagged the gun at her.

  ‘I swear I don’t know. He tells nobody. He comes here a lot, but I don’t know where he goes.’

  ‘Do you know what he does?’

  She swallowed.

  ‘Magda?’

  ‘He kills people.’

  ‘He told you?’

  ‘He always tells me.’

  ‘You must have some idea where he is when he isn’t here.’

  ‘I don’t know where he goes. All I know for now is that he is away on work. Professional work.’

  Magda glanced at the tiny fireplace. ‘He has a safe, in there.’ She pointed to a metal plate with a small door at its centre, set into the firebricks at the back. ‘He put that there, he keeps the key for it on a chain round his neck.’

  ‘What’s in it?’

  ‘His schedule, he calls it. He likes to take one week for each job. He puts a single name on each week of the diary.’

  ‘A week for each killing?’

  She nodded. ‘He has a diary with seven days printed on every page, and on each page he writes a name from a list he keeps.’

  ‘Why does he keep the diary in the safe?’

  ‘It’s his only private space in Berlin. That’s what he said. He said he’d make a private space, and he did, and when it was made he put his diary in it. He says it is something orderly. The pages are his life’s schedule, he said. They are sacred to him, so he keeps them apart from the world.’

  Mike knelt before the empty fireplace. He picked up the small steel poker by the hearth and pushed it under the lower edge of the metal plate. He jerked the poker backwards and particles of brick fell away from the edges. Two more hard tugs on the poker and the plate sprang loose. He reached up under the edge and felt a book. He pulled it out and took it to the coffee table.

  ‘This is the schedule?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mike riffled through the pages, looking for the one for the current week. When he found it he saw a single name written diagonally across the page. It confirmed what he had feared.

  The name was Andreas Wolff.

  26

  ‘The big companies are all turning to outsourcing,’ Don Chadwick said. ‘The little outfits are fast becoming the well-head for new jobs and opportunities.’

  His luncheon guest, a plastic-casings manufacturer called George Winship, was nodding steadily, but his attention was elsewhere. They were at a table on the roof restaurant at Don Giorgio’s, a mile south of Waxahachie.

  ‘The small man like yourself has a lot to offer in terms of employment and direct creation of cash. It’s just a pity you’re so vulnerable.’

  ‘Mr Chadwick, forgive me interrupting, but I’ve been looking out over the parking lot there, and I’m sure somebody is paying uncommon attention to your car.’

  Chadwick stood up, shielding his eyes against the sun. He had come in his classic MGB, one of his extensive collection of British cars.

  ‘It’s a fraction to the right of the ticket machine over there,’ Winship said, pointing.

  ‘Oh, yeah.’

  Two men were standing in front of the car. One was writing in a notebook. Chadwick reached into his inside jacket pocket and took out his mini-scope.

  ‘You always carry one of those?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘I heard of people being arrested with things like that on them,’ Winship said.

  Chadwick put the scope to his eye and turned the focus ring. He saw the two men looking into his car. He could clearly see their faces, their frowning expressions. He moved the scope down. They wore good shiny shoes and they had briefcases standing beside them. They didn’t look at all like thieves.

  ‘Want to call the law?’ Winship said. ‘I got my mobile.’

  ‘No, I think we’ll just hold on a second before we do anything.’

  ‘Looks like they’re coming across,’ Winship said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Those guys that were nosing into your car. They’re coming this way.’

  Chadwick watched as they approached the restaurant. They stopped a short distance in front of the awning and spoke to a waiter. He nodded several times and pointed to the roof without looking up. The men disappeared under the awning.

  ‘We’ll soon see what this is all about,’ Chadwick said.

  He tried to smile at Winship but found he couldn’t. Anxiety had gripped him so quickly he hadn’t gauged how severe it was. He cleared his throat, took out his handkerchief and dabbed his brow just as the two men appeared. They spoke to the waiter at the desk and he pointed to Chadwick. They came across. Up close they seemed very tall. They had the kind of serious, no-nonsense faces that appeared never to have been touched by smiles.

  ‘Donald Chadwick?’ the taller one said.

  ‘That’s me. How can I help you, gentlemen?’

  The tall one produced a small black leather folder and flipped it open. On one side was an ID card with his picture; on the other side a badge glittered.

  ‘I’m FBI Special Agent Louis Cole. This is Agent Hubert Mullins. Could we speak privately, Mr Chadwick?’

  ‘I’ll be down in the bar,’ Winship said, out of his chair already. ‘If anybody wants me, just call.’

  When he had gone the FBI men sat down. Agent Mullins was obviously used to being silent. He sat back, visibly withdrawing from the confrontation, becoming atmosphere.

  Louis Cole folded his hands on the table and looked squarely at Chadwick. He was blond and broad-shouldered, not at all the kind of wimp Chadwick had heard the FBI recruited.

  ‘Do you have any idea why we want to talk to you, Mr Chadwick?’

  ‘None at all.’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you straight off. Two days ago certain documents came into the possession of the FBI. They paint a detailed picture of your involvement in the financial affairs of the late Harold Gibson of Dallas.’

  ‘Harold was a dear friend,’ Chadwick said, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘We did business together over a period of years, and Harold was a board member of several companies within which I have executive standing.’

  ‘The financial matters detailed in the documents refer to money raised in this country and gifted to an illegal organization in Germany.’

  ‘I know nothing about that.’

  ‘I have to tell you, Mr Chadwick, that as a result of other matters raised in the documents, we have already impounded files, ledgers and diaries relevant to the company trading as Lone Star Realties and another called Chadwick, Pearce Associates.’

  Chadwick looked astonished. ‘How did you get those papers? They’re private, they’re locked away.’

  ‘We have special powers under the Constitution, Mr Chadwick. The three banks and the firm of accountants involved were all very co-operative, as the law requires them to be.’

  Chadwick’s mouth had gone terribly dry. ‘What — what about my associate, Mr Pearce…’

  ‘He is already co-operating with us, as of ten o’clock this morning.’

  Chadwick wet his lips. ‘I think I want to have my lawyer with me before I say anything more.’

  ‘That is your right. Now we’d like you to accompany us to the Bolton Rooms Hotel in Dallas. You can call your lawyer from there. We have an operations room set up in the hotel and a couple of my superiors would like to ask you some questions.’

  Superiors. His superiors. There were men on the case loftier and more nerve-rattling than this one.

  They stood up. Chadwick took a wad of bills from his pocket and peeled off three. He put them under a water glass. ‘Off the record, Agent Cole, would you say my position is serious, at all?’

  ‘I would say so, yes.’

  As they went dow
n the stairs Agent Mullins spoke. His voice was soft and so close that Chadwick felt its warmth on his ear.

  ‘You’re looking at a real long stretch,’ he said.

  * * *

  Philpott sounded rattled. The call had brought him awake too suddenly. As a result of that, he informed Mike Graham, he would probably never get back to sleep.

  ‘The position with Andreas Wolff is critical,’ Mike said. ‘He’s due to turn up here in Berlin at ten o’clock this morning as a celebrity guest at a computer games fair. That’s in two hours time, and the minute he shows he’s going to be a wide open target for Juli Zwanzig’s hit man.’

  ‘You haven’t been able to trace this Einar Ahlin?’

  ‘We’ve nothing to go on. Apart from his dippy girlfriend, nobody knows him. He has no buddies, there are no places he hangs out — we don’t even have an address where he puts down his head at night. The girlfriend doesn’t expect him to show up at her place for at least another two days. We’re clueless.’

  ‘Then Andreas Wolff must not be allowed to appear in public. He must be made aware he is this lunatic’s prime target.’

  Mike ran his gaze around the hotel room, breathing steadily, holding down the temptation to start shouting.

  ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘that issue is what prompted this call in the first place. It’s the very matter I raised when you picked up your phone. Wolff won’t play ball. I just spent ten minutes on the phone trying to convince him of the risk he’d be taking. When I spoke to him the time before, he got the picture, he could see the kind of danger he was in. But now he’s had time to sit and think about it and he believes as long as he’s surrounded by people, he’ll be safe.’

  ‘What makes him think that?’

  ‘He believes the assassin is a fastidious type. He only harms his targets, he won’t risk other people’s lives.’

  ‘That’s rubbish.’

  ‘I told him about the car bomb, but he said that had been timed to go off when no one else was around. I said I knew different, but he wouldn’t listen. The fact is, Wolff just won’t duck down out of view. Especially when ducking down means cancelling a public appearance at a computer fair. Events like that are his idea of the big time.’