by Ward Larsen
And then, finally, Slaton got a death grip on a handful of cotton fabric.
* * *
His hand became a vise. He leveraged his superior strength and weight, pinning the man to the ground.
There Slaton paused.
Both he and his captive were breathing in ragged gasps. The man started to say something, but before the first word came Slaton shoved his face into a pile of wet leaves. “Not … a … word! Do I make myself clear?”
Slaton said it in English, figuring that was his best chance of being understood. He felt the scalp in his hand nod. He continued in a low voice, words delivered with deliberate slowness. “We are going to get up now. If you do not cooperate completely, you will die. If you try to break away, same outcome. Do you understand?”
Another nod.
Slaton hauled the man to his feet and frog-marched him through the glade. He paused at the edge while they were still in cover. His rental was a mere fifty yards away, but they would have to cross open ground to reach it. He checked in every direction.
Night had taken a firm grip, the gloom punctuated by no more than a few pole-mounted globes of white above the parking area. The only pedestrians he saw were on the distant bridge. His captive was conveniently wearing a belt, and Slaton grabbed it near the rear waistband. It was an unbreakable grip, yet from a distance might appear collegial—a sober man guiding a friend who was three sheets to the wind. With a shove they set out in unison toward the car.
When they reached it, Slaton popped the trunk and turned the man around. For the first time the two stood face-to-face under a wash of light. Slaton was more certain than ever that he knew this man, but he still couldn’t place it. With their faces only inches apart, it was the prisoner who seemed to have the revelation.
“I knew you would come!” he exclaimed. The words perplexed Slaton. Even more bewildering—they had come in Hebrew.
There was no time for questions. Not here, not now. Without responding, Slaton turned the man and put his hip against the bumper. He performed a rapid one-handed frisk—an acquired talent—and found no weapons, one phone, one wallet. He took the phone, then reasserted his grip on the man’s belt.
Sensing what was coming, he protested. “No, wait! You don’t have to—”
Slaton cut off the complaint with a knee to his prisoner’s stomach. He doubled over, gasping for breath. The move actually filled two squares—he folded his captive into the trunk in that very position. Then, like a cowboy tying a calf at a rodeo, he bound the man’s wrists and ankles in seconds using the heavy zip ties he’d purchased. A makeshift gag came next, duct tape and a rag, leaving space to breathe through the nose. Finally, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the drawstring canvas bag that had a few hours ago contained bocce balls. The last thing Slaton saw before putting the hood over his prisoner’s head was a pair of frightened, wide-open eyes.
He thumped the trunk shut and made one last survey of the area. He saw no one watching. Slaton casually walked to the driver’s door and got behind the wheel.
He steered onto the Reichsbrücke Bridge and blended into light traffic. It took all the self-control he could muster to drive at a sedate pace. He was desperate to talk to this man, uncover what he knew. Yet such dialogues had to be handled correctly. Had to be managed for optimum productivity. Which, unfortunately, required time. It was a level of patience Slaton wasn’t sure he possessed.
He guided the Renault northbound on the route he’d mapped out that afternoon, keeping well under the speed limit and checking his mirrors regularly.
Not a single sound emanated from the trunk behind him.
TWENTY
Harbors across the world hold certain commonalities. They give shelter from high seas and heavy weather. They serve as hubs for crew and commerce. Within these constraints, however—as any skipper would tell you—ports across the globe are infinitely divergent. Monaco’s harbor burgeons with megayachts, an unending competition between business titans and oligarchs and the odd royal family. Remote coves on the shores of Africa and Indochina are little more than white-sand beaches from which bronze-skinned boys push prams into the sea. The vast majority, of course, fall into a serviceable middle ground—places modified to the point of usefulness, but which retain a time-honed local character.
And that was exactly what Kasim Boutros saw in the light of an extended winter dawn.
The bay was shaped like a shell, a riprap breakwater added to enhance the calm. Three piers lay inside the mole, which on that hard winter morning was more than enough. Not counting a handful of launches, Boutros counted eight boats in the village fleet. Seven were of similar lineage—broad-beamed fishing trawlers that looked seaworthy, but only just. Their wooden hulls were scarred and pockmarked, their rigging conspicuously slack. Moored along the piers, weary and still, they had the aura of long-tenured employees resting in a break room.
The docks and surrounding sheds were a fitting backdrop—worn and beaten, gray from the elements, they looked in a state of functional disrepair. Wooden racks for sun-drying the catch lined every shore, empty until spring and tipped in snow. Even in midwinter the air was one with the sea, something between low tide and last month’s catch—as if the essence of the wharf’s mission had been infused into its planks and pilings.
Park was leading the way, a few steps in front of Boutros and Choe. At Park’s side was a new man who’d been introduced only as “the technician.” Boutros saw no need to inquire as to his specialty. The rest of his squad brought up the rear, trailing like a pack of disorderly schoolboys.
The boat that stood out from the crowd was at the end of the seaward pier, isolated and distinctive like a lone lost traveler.
“Name is Albatross,” said Choe.
“I’ll take your word for it,” Boutros replied.
There was a name on her bow, and it might have been Albatross, but Boutros really couldn’t say—scribed by hand, in black paint that had dripped badly, was a cluster of unfamiliar characters. Not Korean Hangul, he thought, but something farther south.
“Where is she from?” Boutros asked, the dock’s worn planks complaining under his feet.
It was Park who answered over his shoulder. “Choe brought her here from Thailand.”
“Why Thailand?” Boutros asked.
“Why not?” said the ever-sullen Park. “The important thing is that it is not a North Korean boat.”
“I understand. It just wasn’t what I was expecting.”
“There is a bucket of paint and brush on board. Change the name to whatever you like, but only after you are at sea. And make sure it is not a Korean name.”
Boutros wanted to say he couldn’t create a Korean character if he tried, and that the undecipherable translation of Albatross was as good a name as any.
Halfway up the pier, a kneeling old man was applying putty to the hull of an overturned dinghy. Strangely, he never looked up as Boutros and the others passed. Boutros looked across the harbor and saw a woman with arthritic hands mending a net, two unsmiling boys hauling straw baskets from one shed to another. Like the man with the putty knife, every set of eyes remained averted. As if no one had noticed that a procession of Middle Easterners and North Korean intelligence officers were walking across the community pier. Boutros guessed aliens from outer nebulas would have gotten the same reaction.
Many years ago he’d witnessed Saddam Hussein’s repression in Iraq, and more recently the Islamic State’s occupation in quarters of Syria. Both had ruled through fear, but with a measure of targeted benevolence. What he saw here was something else. This was nothing short of subjugation, a populace not bent but broken, molded by generations of brutality and starvation.
As they made the turn to the final dock, Boutros addressed Choe. “Are there always so few boats here?”
“No. Others out working. In the winter most go south, to China Sea and Indian Ocean.”
“In this village, one boat more or less will not be noticed,” said Par
k, as if reading Boutros’ thoughts.
Boutros looked skyward. Somewhere, he supposed, a few hundred miles up, there had to be satellites. Yet unlike Syria and Iraq, he doubted there were drones here—the North Koreans had an air force, after all, and they would relish the chance to shoot down anything that strayed into their airspace. He decided Park was right. The departure of one fishing boat from a quiet village might be recorded somewhere, but it would hardly draw notice.
When they reached the boat, Park said, “Keep your team here for a moment.” Boutros didn’t argue, and he watched the three Koreans cross a gangway onto the boat.
Rafiq came to his side. “I thought she would be bigger,” he said.
“Be happy she’s not. Smaller boats are easier to manage.”
“But you will have our help.”
“I know,” Boutros said, thinking, That’s what worries me.
The nautical challenge before him would be like nothing he’d experienced. To begin, he would be tackling open ocean without a single experienced hand. Boutros had schooled his men in some basics back in Turkey, during the days in the refugee camp while they awaited the final go-ahead. It had been little more than a safety briefing: how to not fall overboard, how to don a life jacket, the importance of keeping a clear deck. He hoped to teach them simple navigation, and was committed to assigning a watch detail—even if it was no more than keeping their eyes open for four hours at a stretch.
Anything beyond that, Boutros knew, was fantasy. The success of this voyage rested on his shoulders.
“She looks better than the rest,” said Sami.
“A gift from God,” seconded Saleem.
Notwithstanding the layman’s nature of their opinions, Boutros had to agree. Albatross was sixty feet along the water line, he guessed, and her general condition was notably above that of the other boats in the harbor. Her rigging and fittings were not new, but less frayed than what he saw elsewhere. There were enough antennas to promise a decent electronics suite. If there was a shortcoming, it might be her fishing gear. She was rigged for purse seining, evidenced by the boom poised high over a brine-blanched working deck. The net was folded and stowed against the transom, yet it appeared dry and calcified, as if it hadn’t been used in months. To the skipper of a naval patrol boat, which Boutros had once been, it seemed an obvious discrepancy in what otherwise looked like a reliable vessel.
“Let us hope the engine is as solid as the rest,” he said to his men.
Park came out of the wheelhouse and crossed back to the dock. “Our technicians have gone over everything,” he said. “You will have no problems. Long-range fuel tanks have been installed, so you can easily reach your destination.” He pointed to an open stowage compartment along the port side. Roughly twenty jerry cans of fuel had been secured inside. “Those contain aviation fuel. They will be needed at your technical stop.”
Boutros nodded to say he understood. He took in everything around him, and was satisfied with the logistics. The most important element, however, was beyond his expertise. “And the rest?” he asked.
“That,” said Park, “is below deck.”
Boutros exchanged a look with Rafiq, who nodded. “All right then, let’s have a look.”
TWENTY-ONE
Slaton repeated the course he’d taken earlier that day, driving northeast out of Vienna. The city’s ring of hamlets began to fall away, and in the deepening night the Renault’s headlights began cutting through heavy woodland. Gentle as the hills were, he was glad the weather was cooperating—even moderate snow might have forced him to a less isolated backdrop. Using the map on his phone he easily located the offshoot he’d scouted earlier—a well-maintained forest road.
The silence from the trunk was oddly insistent. Like a silent cry for help. Had he not been trained in the art of kidnapping—there was really no other word for it—Slaton might have wondered if his subject was suffocating or had gone unconscious. The cold truth was far more simple: the man in the trunk was scared to death. Bound, gagged, and confined in a pitch-black space, the lack of principal sensory inputs heighten others that were typically secondary. The air inside the trunk would become stale, infused with sweat and fear. He would feel the car bend through turns, and register the engine vibration with every acceleration and slowdown. He’d note the tires humming over asphalt and grinding over gravel. All of it would wreak havoc in his mind, spur questions about where they were going—and what would happen when they got there.
Slaton did nothing to minimize the effect. He even made a few unnecessary stops—silent pauses followed by rapid acceleration. At one point, on a section of wide-open road, he threw the wheel hard and began slaloming from shoulder to shoulder. If it was cruel, he felt no remorse—not with what was at stake.
The map on his phone became useless—forest roads were not displayed to begin with, and his mobile signal had gone intermittent. Slaton drove on methodically, times and distances to each turn noted, a handful of landmarks recorded. He found the intersection of two prominent fences, and soon after that spotted a unique section of guardrail—carefully selected points that stood out at night as well as they did in the day. He was still on course.
Inevitably, however, the clock in his head seemed to quicken.
I knew you would come.
His prisoner’s words kept playing in his mind. It was as if the man had been expecting Slaton all along. Like he was greeting a guest at a cocktail party. Not an executioner.
Until Slaton had heard that one phrase, his assumptions had seemed on target. Three thugs had been brought in to eliminate him once he’d taken out the man in the trunk. That much was clear, and he’d dealt with it cleanly. Yet something about his target’s reaction felt wrong.
I knew you would come.
For reasons he couldn’t quantify, those words threatened everything. Made the clock run faster.
Whoever had abducted his family wasn’t going to get a “mission accomplished” report from the killers. Had the controller of this twisted plot discovered how things in Vienna had played out? Perhaps. Either way, in the coming hours one fact would become clear. The three amateurs had met a bad end. The fate of the man in the trunk, however, along with his own, would remain an open question.
He decided he had a window in which to operate. A few hours at least. No more than a day. In that time, he had to get answers. He needed to find out who he was up against. Needed to make sure they understood the kind of war they’d be declaring if Christine and Davy were harmed.
Slaton had originally thought his prisoner would be useful in one of two ways—he would either divulge actionable information, or he himself would serve as negotiating capital. Now Slaton wasn’t so sure.
He was expecting me …
He drove deeper into the forest, searching for his final landmark—a brown wooden sign at the head of a hiking trail. Just when he thought he might have gone too far—his troubled thoughts distorting the passage of minutes—the board with the painted hiker came into view.
After two quick turns, Slaton pulled onto a siding. He maneuvered carefully to cast the headlights on the base of a midsize oak tree. He turned the engine off, but left the headlights on with the high beams engaged. He got out, closed the door decisively, and walked with heavy footfalls to the trunk. He waited in silence for thirty seconds. Letting the imagination beneath the lid run amok. Trying to keep his own from doing the same.
The air was clean and cool, a departure from the city. The only sounds were those of the forest—a gentle breeze brushing the high canopy, a few insects buzzing. Still he heard nothing from inside.
He lifted the lid abruptly. The light snapped on and in the tight confines he saw his charge curled into a semi-fetal position. Slaton had not rented a full-size car for precisely that reason—to promote claustrophobia. A consideration, he was sure, few renters imagined.
The man was trying to say something, but the words were unintelligible through the gag.
“Quiet,” S
laton ordered in English. He was sure the man understood, and it ignored his previous use of Hebrew. One more degree of control.
Slaton pulled him out roughly, then dragged his prisoner to the tree in front of the car. He backed the man up against the trunk, zip ties still binding his wrists and ankles. The stubs of a few old, broken-off branches jabbed him in the back like the spikes of some medieval torture device. Slaton used the wire cutters to briefly free his wrists, then wrapped them behind the tree and resecured them with new ties. He made sure it was uncomfortable, the shoulders trussed back severely. As a final indignity, Slaton used two more plastic ties to secure his belt to the tree. He doubted the man would wear one again for the rest of his life—however long that proved to be.
Finally, Slaton yanked away the hood.
Staring at the high beams, the man blinked and squinted. Slaton removed the gag, ripping the tape free like the world’s worst wax job. One side of his captive’s face was marked with red splotches, probably where it had been pressed to the floor of the trunk. His shoulder-length hair was mussed and tangled.
Slaton walked behind the tree, out of the man’s line of sight. He waited for a full minute.
Completely silent.
Completely still.
* * *
When it came to interrogations, Slaton was well versed in standard practices. He recognized the importance of forethought and planning, and knew that an insulated working area was essential. Employing multiple interrogators was always the preferred method. Most critically of all—the best results required both time and patience.
