by Jon Land
“Let it go, Raven.”
“The truth, Ismael,” she said, feeling herself begin to tremble anew. “Now.”
FIFTY-FOUR
BUNĂ ZIUA, ROMANIA
Alexander and Michael waited until several patrons were already inside the bar before entering. It had a simple wood-carved sign over the front door that read Vremuri Bune, or “Good Times” in Romanian.
“Let me help you, shister.”
That was the line that stuck most in Michael’s mind from his desperate exchange with Scarlett, uttered in passable English by someone affected by a speech impediment. A modest number of Romanians spoke English, but only a few could be afflicted by such a clear malady. Of course, that didn’t mean the same person would be in this bar tonight, in which case they’d have to uncover a lead to his identity elsewhere.
Michael and Alexander entered to find Vremuri Bune in surprisingly good condition. The bar was either elegantly maintained or restored to provide a portrait of traditional Transylvania that included plank flooring just slightly more weathered than at the hotel. Iron light fixtures were suspended from the ceiling and faux lanterns of the same black steel composite were strung from hooks. Some sort of ceremonial crossed swords hung on the wall behind the bar itself. The dozen patrons inside already seemed an even mix of locals and tourists.
Transylvania in recent years, after all, had become a rising tourist attraction, its appeal stretching far beyond interest in the fifteenth-century Walachian prince Vlad Tepes, the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula. While that obsession remained to some degree, the world had discovered the sprawling region with a population of almost five million to also be home to some of Europe’s best-preserved medieval towns, most notably Brasov, featuring Old Saxon architecture and citadel ruins, and Sibiu with its cobblestone streets and pastel-colored houses.
The bar continued to fill up with a blend of locals and tourists alike who seemed to mix easily. But that did little to keep Michael and Alexander from standing out inside Vremuri Bune. The longer they sat nursing their drinks, the more stares were cast their way as they watched and listened.
“Too bad Paddy couldn’t teach me how to become invisible,” Michael lamented.
“That would’ve been your next lesson,” Alexander said, never taking his eyes off the various scenes unfolding before them.
“Let me help you, shister.”
The passage of each minute decreased the odds further that the man behind the voice over the phone would magically appear, especially if his presence here yesterday was owed strictly to his pursuit of Scarlett.
“Hey,” a young woman said, approaching their table with her eyes fixed on Michael as if Alexander wasn’t even there. “Hey, mister. You American, right?”
She stopped at the table, smelling of too much perfume. Attractive in an earthy sort of way.
“I’m guessing you’re Romanian,” Michael said, without saying whether he was American or not.
“You want a date, a good time?”
“I’m a little busy right now.”
“You don’t look busy.”
“Appearances can be deceiving.”
She seemed not to grasp his meaning. “I don’t charge you because you so … handsome,” she said, as if searching for a different word. “Come on, what you say?” Her gaze finally fixed on Alexander. Briefly. “I even get your big friend a date, but not free for him.”
“Thank you,” Michael said. “But not tonight.”
“Tomorrow maybe?”
“Maybe.”
“I be here. Same time. I look for you. You look for me, yes?”
Michael nodded, the woman holding her gaze on him as she backpedaled, turning only when she was sucked back into the crowd gathered before the bar.
“Handsome?” Alexander said, shaking his head.
“Don’t be jealous.”
Alexander noticed the commotion at the bar first, a clutter of German tourists lined up to take shots of ţuică, a Romanian spirit milled from plums. The beefy, bearded bartender was pouring up a storm, adding a hefty glass for himself and proposing a toast loud enough for everyone in the bar to hear.
“To Germany!”
The tourists drank.
“To Romania!”
The tourists drank again.
The bartender came out from behind his station to join the tourists with one of the ceremonial swords in one hand and bottle of ţuică in the other, refilling as he moved among them. Light from one of the steel fixtures overhead caught him in its spill, showcasing an upper lip marred by scar tissue that made it look as if a seamstress instead of a doctor had done the stitching.
“To Vremuri Bune!” he said, thrusting the curved sword’s tip into the air. “Good timesh … and my big dick!”
Laughter preceded the drinking this time.
“And to my hometown of Shibiu!”
Michael’s breath caught in his throat.
“Let me help you, shister.”
The bartender was toasting again, flirting with a pair of attractive German women, both blonds.
“To all my new brothersh…” Then, with a squeeze of one woman’s cheek and then the other, “… and shisters!”
* * *
The bartender was drunkenly mumbling through a song in Romanian while cleaning the bar after closing time:
Bun îi vinul ghiurghiuliu
Cules toamna prin târziu
Mai pe brumă, mai pe-omăt
Mult mai beu şi nu mă-mbăt
He felt a cool breeze he recognized from the door opening, but was certain he’d thrown the lock. He moved to check it, passing through the shadows in that section of the bar when he felt an arm close around his throat from behind. His hands flailed desperately, groping for purchase on his assailant, when his air was choked off and the darkness swallowed him.
FIFTY-FIVE
BUNĂ ZIUA, ROMANIA
“Who are you?”
The bartender came awake to the awareness that his bound hands were suspended above him, strung by electrical cord that had been looped through the iron casing of an overhead light fixture in the dingy basement of the bar. His ankles were bound by an identical cord, the angle on which he was perched forcing him to crouch in midair over a heavy wooden desk chair. And he was facing a tall figure cloaked in a mask.
“What do you want?” the bartender resumed.
“Neither of those questions are important,” the hooded Alexander said from the shadows cast by the single bulb that spilled mostly downward, capturing his prisoner in the haze of a dull spotlight. Only Alexander’s eyes were visible and the dull light played tricks with them, shifting their shade from piercing blue to aquamarine depending on how he was positioned in relation to the dangling bulb. “The important questions are the ones I’m going to ask and you’re going to answer. Is that clear?”
“You want to rob me, I have nothing.”
“I’m after answers.”
“About what?”
Instead of responding, Alexander lifted a blade with a sharply curved tip from a nearby table in a gloved hand. “This isn’t a toy, though you wouldn’t know that from the way you were playing with it. It’s called a rhomphaia, a sword native to the ancient Thracians. The warriors wielding it were reputed to have impeded the Roman conquest of your country. Its power was such that it could split Roman helmets and shields, leading Emperor Trajan to order extensive modifications to Roman equipment. Its hilt and blade were of equal length, as long as three feet combined. Its uses varied from a slashing motion to hooking shields and opponents.”
From a darkened corner that smelled of must, mold, and rat turds, hidden from view of the bartender, Michael watched Alexander agilely provide a demonstration of the sword, from which he’d removed the handle.
“You know why I’m telling you this?” he continued to the bartender, the sword back at his side.
The bartender shook his head.
“Let me show you.”
Alexander took a single step forward and jammed the sword’s exposed tang into the wood of the chair seat so the blade was standing straight up, its tip just below the bartender’s buttocks. Then he grabbed hold of the electrical cord strung through the overhead light fixture dangling nearby. Yanked tightly to unlash a simple tie, so his hold was now all that supported the bartender’s weight. Then Alexander let out a slight bit of cord, until the tip of the sword blade grazed the bartender’s trousers even with his sphincter, drawing a wince from him and then a smirk.
“So you’re going to torture me?”
“What’s your name?”
“It’sh been tried before. You shee my face? Shomeone cut my upper lip off onche to get me to talk. Promished he’d do the shame with my lower one and then move on to my tongue. I told him nothing.”
“What’s your name?” Alexander repeated.
“Andrei.”
“I have no interest in your tongue or your lips.” Alexander gave the cord more slack, forcing the bartender upon his toes with a grimace this time. “How long do you think you can stay on your toes, Andrei? Because you’ll be on them for as long as it takes to tell me what I want to know. Is my English clear enough for you?”
“Go to fucking hell!”
“I’ll take that as a yesh,” Alexander said, mimicking the bartender’s lisp as he took a step closer to him, still holding the electrical cord. “It will start with your toes cramping, making it impossible to keep balanced on them. The sword will pierce your flesh and you’ll start to bleed; just a little at first, but much faster very quickly as the blade enters your insides. I’ve seen this before, Andrei. It isn’t pretty.” Now he took the same step backward. “But cooperate and I’ll take up some of the slack. For each question you answer acceptably, there will be less pain. For each one you don’t, there will be more blood. Your choice.”
“You’re an animal!”
“Who do you work for?”
“I work for no one,” Andrei insisted, lower lip trembling as a sign he was already weakening.
“Black Scorpion,” Alexander said, as if in answer to his own question.
Andrei’s eyes started to widen, then stopped suddenly. “What does a bug have to do with anything?”
Alexander sat down in a chair directly in front of the bartender and crossed his legs casually, still holding fast to the cord. “A woman came into your bar yesterday, yes?”
Andrei forced a smile. “Women come into my bar every day.”
“I’m talking about an American woman.”
“Fuck you.”
“An American woman came into your bar yesterday, yes?”
Silence this time.
“I have all night, Andrei, while you only have a few more minutes before you’ll be begging to tell me anything I want to know. Don’t wait for the inevitable. Tell me now.”
“Tell you what?”
“About the young woman.”
“Fuck you.”
“You said that already.”
“Fuck you, asshhole.”
Alexander weighed the bartender’s words calmly. “You know what people do when they’re terrified? They act tough, even when they’re not. Even when they’re cowards. But I don’t think you’re a coward, Andrei, I just think you’re scared.”
“Not of you, shit head!”
“I don’t care. Because if you don’t tell me what I want to know, you’ll die the rat you are, right at home with the others nesting down here. If you talk, you get out of this alive and nobody finds out where I got the answers to my questions.”
The bartender lapsed into silence, seeming to consider Alexander’s offer.
“There’s no third option, Andrei,” Alexander continued. “You need to choose from those two.”
Andrei swallowed hard, seemed to nod. “I received a call before she arrived.”
“From who?”
The bartender’s legs had started to shake. “Pleashe.”
“Answer the question.”
“From shomeone in the shecret police telling me to watch for shuch a young woman.”
“Secret police.”
“The Shecuritate.”
“You’re lying. There’s no such thing anymore.”
The bartender started to smile, but stopped. “Really? A man can hope I shuppose.”
From his darkened corner, Michael watched Alexander take up some of the slack on the electrical cord strung overhead, the bartender’s twisted features relaxing slightly.
“Then we’re making progress. This man from the Securitate who called you, does he work for Black Scorpion?”
Tears had begun rolling down Andrei’s cheeks. “Shtop, pleashe. They won’t just kill me. They’ll kill my family, my children!” He was choking up now, struggling to speak through the sobs. “You don’t know theshe people!”
Alexander rose from his chair and moved closer to the bartender, his black hood swallowing the spill of light that reached it. “You think you’re the first man I’ve tortured? You think I haven’t heard all this before? Believe me when I tell you it’s going to get worse, much worse. Talk. Tell me everything or you’ll wish you were only crying.”
“I can’t!”
“Yes, you can. What happened when the young woman came into the bar?”
The bartender was wailing horribly now, struggling to catch his breath and failing miserably.
“Look at me, Andrei. Look at me!”
Andrei looked up at that, snot leaking from his nose now.
“Do I look like a man who gives a shit?” Alexander asked him from inside his hood. “Do I look like a man who cares about anything but what I want to find out? Answer me!”
Andrei just stared at him.
“Your family’s not safe from me either. Neither are your friends, your customers, the accountant who does your taxes, and the man who shines your shoes. You hear me? You tell me everything now or you die and then they die. Nod if you understand.”
Andrei nodded again.
“The woman came into the bar.”
Nod.
“You recognized her.”
Nod.
“She went to make a phone call and you followed her.”
A nod so demonstrative this time it shook off some of the tears streaming down the bartender’s cheeks.
“Then what?”
“I … took her.”
“Where?”
“To the shtock room here in the bashement and tied her up. Then I called the colonel from the Shecuritate. He musht have come for her or shent his men. I never even shaw him. She was there and then she wasn’t. That’sh all.”
Alexander shook his head, slowly. “No, it isn’t, because you haven’t told us where we can find her now.”
“Becaushe I don’t know, you fuck!” He was spitting saliva, continuing to drool more out between labored breaths.
Alexander let some of the slack back out of the electrical cord and the bartender’s spine snapped erect, his knees quaking horribly now.
“Yes, Andrei, you do.”
“They’ll kill me if I tell you!”
“You’re trying my patience. We’ve already been over this. And they’re not going to kill you.”
“How can you know that?”
“Because I’m going to kill them, after you tell me where to find the young woman.”
The bartender shook his head slowly, beads of sweat starting to dapple his brow and cheeks. “It’sh too late. You have no idea what theshe people are like, how far they’ll go. They’ll kill you and feed your shkin to their dogsh.”
Alexander took a larger step forward, sharing the light now with the bartender, making sure the man met his icy, unblinking stare. “Look into my eyes, Andrei, and tell me if you think anyone will be feeding my skin to their dogs.” He stepped back again, making sure Andrei could see that he held the electrical cord, and the man’s life, in his grasp. “Now, one more time, where is the young woman?”
“Closhe by.”
Andrei took as deep a breath as he could manage.
“Where?”
Andrei began to speak again.
FIFTY-SIX
HOIA-BACIU FOREST, ROMANIA
Dracu entered another code into the keypad set before the entrance to a suite of rooms in the fortress reserved for the man most vital to his coming plans. Niels Taupmann, the German genius Dracu called “Professor,” was under video surveillance within these walls and anywhere else in the fortress. No real concern he’d try to escape and he wasn’t exactly a prisoner per se, except of his own mind and the eccentricities that had helped him survive his years in a Russian gulag when he refused to give that government what he was giving to Black Scorpion.
Because Dracu had asked him nothing, said please, gave him a choice as well as a purpose. Sometimes things really were that simple, especially to a man who despised modern Russia as much as he did the communist regime of the old Soviet Union above all else. Taupmann’s father, also a scientist, had traveled there during the Cold War from East Germany and died in a freakish accident that was never fully explained. When his mother insisted on investigating, she disappeared too, around Moscow. Taupmann was a young man then, a boy really, and was forced to fend for himself as a result. He lived in a communist-backed orphanage for similarly displaced youngsters while devoting himself passionately to his studies. He evolved into one of the greatest minds of his time, at the forefront of building the stratagems meant to secure the original information superhighway. His focus then and in later years was to develop the means to best safeguard the transmission of data across cyberspace.
So nothing could have pleased him more than to be invited to participate in a 2008 Moscow symposium at which he and other scientists would expound on their theories on the future of information technology. Taupmman arrived in Moscow on schedule and was met by a reception committee of prominent officials most interested in his work.
“We would like to retain your services,” the leader, a man wearing the uniform of a general, told him.
“I’m not interested.”
“We are willing to make you a very wealthy man in return for your cooperation.”
