by Layton Green
Sofia began to reveal herself as Grey walked to the Boyana bus stop. Grey’s first impression was of ridiculously wide Soviet boulevards, absurd monuments and block-long concrete buildings. But just off the boulevards another Sofia appeared, a labyrinth of leafy cobblestone streets and hidden squares, where dour old men sat on benches, sipping syrupy Bulgarian coffee and taking world-weary drags on cigarettes while they engaged in lively discussions.
He saw dirt-encrusted farmers at produce stands, begging gypsies, pop music blaring out of shops, shockingly beautiful women dressed to the nines, scowling men impersonating gangster clichés, people dressed in clothes cobbled together from five different decades, broken Communist statues littering half-mowed parks, weeds and trash, an entire city in need of a trim.
But he also saw spired mosques with their onion-shaped cupolas, flower stands and bright new businesses, a city of trams and cafes cradled by the wooded mountain range called the Lungs of Sofia, all of it topped by the magnificent snow cone of Mount Vitosha. He saw a fascinating, mature culture bubbling to the surface from every shop and street corner.
Grey made his way to Batenberg Square, where the stern Presidential Palace shared building space with a casino and a hotel.
Bus thirty-four took him to Boyana.
• • •
He rode far outside the city proper, past the miles and miles of high-rise apartments, most of them arranged in a circle around a weed-filled courtyard where youths stared with hooded eyes at passing traffic. Stray dogs roamed the nether lands, men burned unidentifiable objects in trashcans.
After the apartments, at the foothills of the mountains, a wooded suburb appeared. The bus climbed above the grime and into the fattened arms of privilege. Though he still saw a few vacant lots and shanties, parks and attractive glass office buildings defined Boyana.
Somax headquarters was a large stucco building with sharp blue windows and a well-kept lawn. Grey spotted a café across the street, took a seat on the terrace and had a coffee and a pastry.
He watched a taxi pull up to the curb. A woman exited and walked to the Somax entrance. The door slid open and two armed guards frisked her before allowing her to enter.
A diplomatic sweep ploy wasn’t going to work here. Diplomatic Security underwent language training just like Foreign Service Officers, and anyone conducting a security sweep here would speak at least passable Bulgarian.
He stared at the building for a long time, turning the case over in his head. He had doubts about Al-Miri nudging the back of his mind, but if there was any question concerning the legitimate owner of the test tube, the courts could sort that out. He was being paid to figure out where it was.
He pushed away his coffee. He needed the inside scoop on Somax. He needed local help.
• • •
At an Internet café he did a Google search for private investigators in Sofia. Anyone who advertised in English should speak English. He found a pay phone and called the first name on the list. A man with a smoker’s cough answered on the third ring and said yes he might help, if Grey could come see him at seven that evening.
Grey agreed, then tried a few more numbers. No one else answered.
• • •
Grey returned to the streets. A drizzle enhanced the bleaker aspects of the city, merging with the grey buildings to form a vast and monotonous shroud. He hunched and walked. A pimp dressed as a businessman approached him and thrust photos of his wares under Grey’s nose. Grey shoved him away, and a begging gypsy with her child replaced him. Grey pressed leva into her dirty palm before taking refuge from the rain in another café.
At six the rain sputtered, the sun cast a shy glance towards the city, and Grey started again towards the address the investigator had given him. He walked down Avenue Vitosha, the tree-lined heart of Sofia. Couples and families emerged for their evening stroll, and Sofia emerged from her grim cocoon.
Sidewalk cafes, cobblestones, trams and gas-lit lamps transformed the crumbling architecture on Vitosha into an aged but charming suitor. Women strolled arm-in-arm, hips swaying and curved eyes dancing, men in gold jewelry and open-collared shirts ogling as they passed.
Grey found the home of Lyuben Stoyanov on a ragged side street off Vitosha. He tapped the door. A balding, sweaty middle-aged man appeared.
“Dominic Grey? Please please, come in.” He motioned for Grey to follow and shuffled his pear-shaped body into what looked like the waiting room of a small hotel.
“My mother, she rents rooms. I use lobby as office. I lived in your country for brief time, you know. I like it very much, but I had to come back for my mother. Sometimes we must do things we do not want to do, you see? I apologize for my English.”
“You should hear my Bulgarian.” Grey pushed an envelope towards him, filled with the retainer Lyuben had requested on the phone.
He moved his head side to side with a curved, bouncy motion that in Bulgaria indicated agreement. It was disconcerting. “Yes of course.” He motioned for Grey to sit, and lit a cigarette. “How I can help?”
“I’m an investigator myself. I’m pursuing a lead in Sofia, and I need help gathering information. As I’m sure you’ve guessed, I don’t speak Bulgarian.”
Lyuben removed his wire-framed glasses while he mopped his brow. “That is problem in my country. But you have come to right place. Information is my specialty, and I excel with computers. I was computer programmer in Wisconsin.”
Now that, Grey thought, explained a lot. “Then you’d be able to gather, for example, phone logs, email trails, expense account records?”
Lyuban reached into his desk for a pen and began to write. “These things are possible. We will need money for pod-koop—bribe, I think is the word. Let us see about your case. You try to find missing person in Sofia?”
“It’s a corporate matter. I need information on Somax, a biomedical company headquartered here in Sofia. To start I’ll need a translated corporate organizational chart, and expense account records for anyone from management who traveled to Africa in the past three years-”
Grey broke off. He had looked away as he ticked off what he needed, and when he looked back, Lyuban had set his pen down. He was wiping his forehead again, and his other hand was tapping his pen against his thigh.
Grey said, “Something wrong?”
“This company, Somax.” Lyuban had stopped tapping, and wouldn’t meet Grey’s gaze. “Perhaps better if you find different investigator. I am sorry. Usually I don’t work corporate investigations.”
“Level with me, Lyuben.”
“Pardon?”
“Why don’t you want to investigate Somax?”
“Ah, it is you see, they are not someone I wish to be found investigating. Large corporations, you know, have very tight security. I don’t think I could succeed.”
“Are they connected?”
“Connected?”
“Organized crime.”
“Ah. Mutra.” Another apologetic expression, this time raised palms and a prolonged shrug.
“That’s just lovely.”
Lyuben pushed the envelope back to Grey. “I am sorry. Maybe someone else can help you. I am small man, nothing. I help find people, things, I trace phone calls and emails for lovers, I check history for bosses. It is better if… I apologize.”
Grey ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I understand.”
Lyuben scribbled something on a piece of paper and passed it to Grey. “Perhaps one of these men will help you. I think they will not, but you can try. And, if you please—not to tell them I have sent you.”
“Not a problem, Lyuben,” he said softly. “I was never here.”
Lyuben gave a grateful swing of his head.
• • •
Grey tried to walk off his frustration. Corporate intrigue was not his strong suit. And Viktor had been right, he might be looking at organized crime involvement.
Maybe Somax needed someone to clean the floors at night. No, daytime was bett
er—he assumed they’d be using the test tube during the day, and locking it up at night.
Migrant American labor, now that was a stupendous plan.
Whoever had taken the test tube might not transfer the contents, but they could easily re-label it. He needed to do more than peek at the lab. If he could pinpoint the personnel involved in the Sudan debacle, that would help. He’d have to try the two numbers Lyuben had given him, and brainstorm other ideas.
Tomorrow. Right now he needed food and a beer.
He went to the bar across the street from his hotel, a seedy little joint with a few men in overalls at the bar smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. Grey asked for a Kamenitza, the local brew. Before his beer arrived someone addressed him in English from behind.
“Buy a girl a drink, stranger?”
He turned and saw Veronica, grinning at him like she’d just let all the animals out of the cages.
– 16 –
Jax woke to a face full of carpet and a mouthful of blood and drool. His head felt like someone had attached a vice grip to it. After a few seconds of disorientation, he remembered what had happened. He pushed to his knees and realized he was in the bedroom of his hotel suite. The drapes had been pulled.
The bodyguard from the cafe, the swarthy short man, was sitting in a chair in the corner. Jax reached for his own gun, and then for his boot knife. Both gone. He lunged for the lamp next to the bed, and the bodyguard sprang from his chair, faster than Jax thought possible for such a bulky man, and rushed him.
Jax’s forte was not hand-to-hand combat. Jax considered unarmed combat archaic; as far as he was concerned, street fights were for kids. Unfortunately the middle-aged Olympic power lifter rushing him seemed to think otherwise.
Fighting was not his forte, but he could, without a doubt, take care of himself. He had military training and fifteen years of mercenary work under his belt. Jax had mixed it up.
The bodyguard was steps away, and Jax threw a vicious roundhouse kick into his ribs. His foot sank into a morass of fat and muscle, and the man didn’t even flinch. Jax tried to spring away and onto the bed, but the bodyguard grabbed him from behind. Jax missed with a back elbow, and then was enclosed by a pair of massive arms, smothered in a foul flesh cloud of testosterone-drenched sweat.
Jax had never felt such a grip. His arms were pinned at his sides, and he couldn’t budge. He swung his head back, trying to catch the man in the face, but he was more than a foot shorter than Jax. Jax tried stomping on his feet and raking his shins, but neither affected him.
Then the man began to squeeze. Jax gasped at the pressure. His body became a deflated toy as the air seeped out of him. Just before Jax thought he would pass out, the man released his grip and punched Jax three times in his ribs.
Jax crumpled with the blows. The man lifted him in the air as he would a toddler, slammed him to the floor, then kicked him in the side and stood with a foot on Jax’s chest.
Jax knew when he was outmatched. His survival instinct took over, and he stopped squirming and gulped in air. One of his ribs might be cracked, because it hurt like hell to breathe. Whatever control issues this psychopath had, Jax would let him get it out. It’s all yours, man: go and tell your friends, or those little voices in your head, how you had your way with me.
Just don’t ever fall asleep again without locking your door.
The door opened, and Al-Miri entered, this time dressed in an iridescent green robe. His aspect had changed, become more serene. I’ve been kidnapped by a psychotic dwarf and a wizard, Jax thought.
The bodyguard dragged Jax to a chair. Jax knew if he tried to move the man would punish him again. Jax knew he thrived on the power.
Al-Miri approached the chair. “Let us renew our discussion. I am sorry it has come to this.”
“If you were sorry you’d let me go. Don’t waste my time trying to convince me of your humanity. I’ve got places to be tonight.”
Al-Miri called the bodyguard by name, and Nomti stepped in front of Jax and rammed a hairy, grapefruit-sized fist into his midsection. Jax collapsed into the chair, and his breath came in wheezes. “A few more of those,” Jax said, holding his left side, “and you won’t have anyone left to interrogate.”
Nomti reached back again, and Jax put a hand out. “Simmer down, brother. I’m no hero. Let’s talk.”
Al-Miri gestured, and Nomti folded his arms. Al-Miri reached into his robe and withdrew a gold medallion, grasping it with habitual familiarity. “And I am not a villain. Let us not forget that you have stolen from me.”
“Sorry about that.”
“There is an easy solution. Tell me what you’ve done with my property, and I will free you.”
Jax started to chuckle, then stopped and grabbed his side. “Gents, I’m going to let you in on a secret. Please keep it to yourselves. Thing is, I’m a coward when it comes to this sort of thing. I have absolutely no interest in not telling you what you want to know, and even less interest in being tortured.”
“Excellent news,” Al-Miri said.
“But there’s a problem. I’ve been in this business a long time, and I see no reason for you not to kill me after I’ve told you.” Al-Miri started to speak, and Jax held up a hand. “Nothing you say’s going to change my mind about this.”
Al-Miri flicked a hand, and Nomti struck Jax across the face.
“Listen, damn you! I’m just trying to make you see it from my point of view. You need to figure out how you can let me go, and also extract my information. For instance, I can make a call and have one of my associates pay off the new owner and deliver your property right to this room. I leave with my associate, and you keep your property.”
Nomti struck him again, and Jax’s mouth filled with blood. He spit out the blood, then shook his head to clear it. “As much as I hate to do it, I’ll have to take my chances with torture and keep my bargaining chip. I’ve been tortured before, and I know the score. You’ll eventually break me, because everyone breaks.”
Jax’s voice firmed. “But you’re going to have to finish before someone from the hotel decides to come in here. I can last that long. You won’t kill me before I talk, because you’ll never find your property. And I don’t think you want to deal with getting me out of this hotel. So why don’t you start figuring out how we can do business, and this’ll all be behind us. You’ll get your property back, and you’ll never see me again.”
Al-Miri said nothing for a moment, then spoke to the bodyguard in his native tongue. Jax recognized the Arabic. Nomti grunted his responses.
If Jax were in Al-Miri’s shoes, he’d say to himself, “you can tell us and we can kill you quickly, or we can start taking digits and limbs off with your own boot knife until you tell us.” Then he’d gag himself, call the front desk in front of himself and pay for the room for a few more nights, and stay in this room and torture himself until he told himself what he wanted to know.
Which was very well what Al-Miri might decide to do. Jax knew that if he didn’t get out of this hotel room very soon, he’d never get out. Jax also knew that his bargaining chip was a bluff. He’d picked up the package in Cairo and delivered it halfway across the world to a warehouse in Bulgaria. He had no idea what had happened to the package after that.
But Nomti and Al-Miri were still conversing, and thus the first part of Jax’s two-pronged escape plan had succeeded: he’d caused Al-Miri to divert Nomti’s attention from Jax, however briefly. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
Now it was time for part two.
– 17 –
Viktor tipped the taxi driver, feeling quite silly giving two Euros to someone driving a Mercedes who could hold his own with Viktor discussing Kant and Hegel in both English and German. If Berlin didn’t have the most educated taxi drivers in the world, he didn’t know which city did.
He decided to go across the street to the inestimable Café Kranzler before returning to the Swissotel. Viktor came from money, old money, and despite his obsession with the meta
physical, he was extraordinarily adept at enjoying the finest this world had to offer. The thought brought a smile to his lips: when he did unearth the eternal mysteries for which he had spent his entire life searching, he hoped they promoted his extravagant standard of living.
Viktor pondered what he had learned over his cappuccino. That golden medallion. A representation of a green figure with the bearded face of a man, a palm frond staff and a mummified lower half. Depictions of mummification typically related to Osiris in some manner. Osiris, god of the dead and the afterlife, was one of the older Egyptian gods, part of the Great Ennead. A variation of his name had been found on the Palermo Stone, circa 2500 B.C.E. Discussions concerning ancient Egyptian concepts of immortality typically focused on Osiris.
But there were older gods still. Viktor’s research had uncovered that the upper half of the figure was a representation of Nu, an ancient god of the Ogdoad. The Ogdoad was a group of eight deities that represented the primeval forces of chaos. Nu was the deification of the primordial waters that preceded creation. Viktor didn’t know much more about Nu, except that he was sometimes depicted as a bearded man with a greenish body. As far as Viktor was aware, no one knew much more about Nu.
Viktor took another look at the notes he had made from Grey’s description. Shimmering green robes, odd mannerisms, nothing characteristic of either Muslim or Coptic Christian origin in the hotel suite. Why was Al-Miri carrying an amulet adorned with the image of an Egyptian god that to Viktor’s knowledge hadn’t been worshipped in thousands of years?
Perhaps the medallion and the attendant oddities were the toys of an eccentric businessman, but Viktor thought not. Viktor had developed a sixth sense for his profession. Grey’s description of Al-Miri, combined with the specific religious symbolism, likely meant one thing.
Al-Miri was part of a cult.
Cults ranged from the serious to the ridiculous, from dangerous collections of sexual predators and religious fanatics to misguided teens in a basement pretending to be vampires. They numbered in the tens of thousands. He’d seen more examples of cult behavior, both base and profound, ridiculous and deadly, than perhaps anyone alive. It was his profession and his passion.
