Protocol for a Kidnapping

by Ross Thomas

  He had a long, slender head that he nodded at me now, almost eagerly, as if trying to show how anxious he was to cooperate. “We’ve been told to give you what you need,” he said, “but if you could talk to the press and explain why the negotiations have to be kept under wraps, it would certainly be a relief to me.”

  “Fine, then set it up for twelve thirty and I’ll give them what I can.”

  “I’ll get right on it.”

  “There’s another thing,” I told him and after he asked what, I said, “When the kidnappers sent their original ransom demand, how’d they do it?”

  “It was a phone call to the embassy.”

  “Not to Killingsworth’s wife?”

  “No, she’s been pretty much kept out of it.”

  “Good.”

  “Is that what you’re expecting, a phone call?” Lehmann asked.

  “I don’t care what it is as long as I hear from them.”

  “When do you think that’ll be?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you set any deadline?”

  “Yes.”

  “When is it?”

  I smiled at him. “It’s when I start worrying because I haven’t heard from them.”

  After calling Knight and asking him and Wisdom to monitor the press conference, I let Arrie Tonzi watch me eat a skimpy breakfast in the hotel dining room while she had some more coffee. The Yugoslavs, I found, aren’t at all keen about breakfast.

  “You’re different this morning,” she said.

  “How?”

  “You seem to know what you’re doing.”

  “You mean I didn’t yesterday?”

  She reached over and took one of my cigarettes and lit it before I thought to do anything about it. “All you had yesterday were a lot of smart-ass cracks that weren’t as funny as they could have been.”

  “It was a long flight,” I said.

  “See?”

  “See what?”

  “You’re starting that funny-funny stuff again. You were different when you were handling Lehmann. You’re good at it, aren’t you?”

  “At what?”

  “At handling nice guys like Lehmann so they don’t know that they’re being handled.”

  “It’s all part of the job.”

  “Can I sit in when you talk to Bartak?”

  “Do you want to?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to see how you handle someone who’s not so nice. From what I hear, Bartak’s a real prick.”

  We drew the same driver and as far as I could tell the same Ford as the day before. Arrie Tonzi sat in back with me and pointed out the sights as we drove down the wide Bulevar Revolucije which I shrewdly translated into Boulevard of the Revolution without too much difficulty.

  “That’s the main post office,” Arrie said and I gave it a dutiful glance. “And on your right for the next block or so is what they used to call the Parliament, but which is now known as the Federal Assembly.”

  “A little architectural influence from the Hapsburgs, I’d say.”

  She nodded. “If they didn’t have to put up with the Austrians, it was the Hungarians or the Venetians, and as if that weren’t bad enough, then came the Germans and way before that, the Turks and the Romans, and the Huns. There’s always been somebody tramping through Yugoslavia and telling them how to live. I don’t blame Tito for telling the Russians to bug off.”

  “It wasn’t quite like that,” I said.

  “I like to think it was.” She poked me in the arm. “Look to your left, across the park, and you can see the Royal Palace. The park used to be the Royal Gardens but they just call it the park now.”

  I looked and decided that it was more Viennese whipped cream. I remembered that King Peter had lived there just before the war and I wondered where he lived now and if he really had any hope of living in the Palace again.

  We turned left on Brankova Prizrenska and approached a bridge that crossed the Sava River. “Over there is Novi Beograd, or New Belgrade,” Arrie said. “Before the war, it was nothing but swamp, but now it’s got skyscrapers and museums and blocks of flats and lots of culture.”

  “I don’t mind swamps,” I said.

  “That tall thing is the Communist Presidium and Conference headquarters. Twenty-six stories high. The Presidium runs things but it’s supervised by the annual Conference.”

  “It’s a nice building,” I said. “This is on the way to the airport, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I could have pointed it all out to you yesterday, but you didn’t seem too interested.”

  “That’s probably because they’re all beginning to look alike,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Cities and towns. The European towns that were destroyed by the war didn’t just lose some buildings, they lost the flavor that made Zagreb different from Aachen, if you like to alphabetize things. When they design buildings now, they avoid the baroque and the rococo because it’s expensive and it’s not really needed and that’s fine. But they also avoid giving buildings any distinctive character of their own and so an office building in Moscow looks pretty much like an office building in Manhattan.”

  “And you don’t like that?”

  “Not much.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. A little Tabasco in the plans, I guess. Even some whimsy. What’s wrong with a dash of fey in the design for the Ministry for Cultural Affairs as long as it lets in the light and keeps out the weather?”

  “What do you think of that one?” she asked. “Got enough fey in it for you?”

  It was a sweeping, graceful building which rose just the other side of the bridge.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “The Museum of Modern Art,” she said. “What do you think?”

  “I like it.”

  “You won’t like the Ministry of Interior,” she said. “No Tabasco.”

  She was right. It was a plain, ugly building, seven stories high and perhaps six years old, that was built conveniently close to the Presidium skyscraper. Inside there was the usual fuss about whom we wanted to see and where we wanted to go and while one of the uniformed guards was on the telephone, I examined a mural done in harsh yellows and reds and blues and unhappy browns that tried to portray the accomplishments of one of Tito’s five-year plans. I assumed that the plan had been more successful than the mural, but then I’ve seldom liked murals.

  I never did get a satisfactory translation for Slobodan Bartak’s title (he was either deputy assistant minister or deputy to the assistant minister), but from the size of his office I could tell that he was a comer and from the ambition on his youthful face, I expected him to go a far way.

  He was still in his early thirties, but when Arrie Tonzi displayed an unconsciously generous portion of both crotch and thigh as she sat down, it drew only a quick glance from Bartak and if there was any reaction other than a flicker of prudish disapproval, I failed to detect it.

  Bartak hadn’t risen when we were ushered in, and we hadn’t shaken hands, and he hadn’t done much of anything other than to nod that he was aware of our existence, if not thrilled by it, and that if we liked, we could sit down. There were two files on his desk, a thin green one and a fat blue one. He flipped through the fat blue one for a while and when he got tired of that he opened the thin green one and pressed its spine down so that it would lie flat on his desk. On the page that he turned to there was a picture, about three by five inches, and even upside down, I didn’t think it did me justice.

  He looked up from the photo at me and then back at the photo again. “This is your first visit to our country, Mr. St. Ives.” It was no question so I made no answer. “I hope you enjoy your stay, what little there will be of it.”

  “I hope so, too,” I said because he seemed to be waiting for something—maybe to decide whether he liked the tone of my voice.

  He shifted his glance to Arrie Tonz
i and then back again to me. “Will Miss Tonzi serve as your translator throughout the negotiations?” he said.

  “I don’t know yet. I don’t even know if a translator will be required.”

  “It may be too much to hope that our criminals are bilingual.” I smiled at that, assuming it was a joke.

  “We are extremely interested in capturing the kidnappers.” He paused. “Once the ambassador is safe, of course.”

  I nodded and wondered how long it would take him to get around to it. It had once taken a Chicago detective bureau lieutenant forty-six minutes, but the detective had been so thick-witted that it took him a quarter of an hour to order breakfast. I’d timed him.

  In criminal negotiations that make use of a go-between, it is to be expected that the law will offer him a proposal while the crook will make him a proposition. The proposition will fatten the go-between’s wallet as well as the crook’s while the proposal will benefit only the law, unless the go-between is unusual in his need of warm praise from such persons as assistant district attorneys, police precinct captains, and county sheriffs. But both underworld proposition and civic proposal are based on some variance of the double cross and I was interested in what Bartak’s version would be. He got right to it.

  “It has occurred to me, Mr. St. Ives, that with a little skillful planning and some cooperation from you, it might be possible to apprehend the kidnappers without endangering the ambassador. Have you given this any thought?”

  “None,” I said.

  “My country regards kidnapping as a most reprehensible crime.”

  “Most countries do.”

  “If the kidnappers were caught and brought to swift justice, it would serve as a strong deterrent to any similar attempts in the future.”

  “I might argue that,” I said, “but I wouldn’t argue that whoever caught them would increase his chances for promotion.”

  Bartak closed the thin green folder carefully. He locked his hands together and rested them on top of it. He frowned to show that he was displeased with my remark. He then pulled his chin back toward his Adam’s apple to indicate that despite his displeasure he was going to make his proposal anyway. I waited.

  “For many reasons, Mr. St. Ives, not the least of them being the simple, humanitarian ones, we have offered our full cooperation in securing the release of your ambassador. At the same time we cannot afford to appear indifferent toward the perpetration of the crime. Our chief interest lies in the safe return of Mr. Killingsworth. But we are vitally concerned with punishing the kidnappers. We believe that we have a plan which, with only a small measure of cooperation from you, will enable us to do both. It will also serve—”

  I decided to cut him short. “If you have such a plan, Mr. Bartak, I’m sure it’s a good one, but I don’t want to hear it.”

  He had a young face, one not yet old enough to conceal surprise, especially at something unpleasant, and for a moment he looked like a four-year-old who’s just learned the hard way that old Ruff can bite.

  The frown returned to his sloping forehead, his stubby nose wrinkled as if it smelled gas, and his wide, thick mouth screwed itself up into something that lay between a pout and a snarl. The calm was gone from his voice, too, and when he spoke the words came tumbling out over each other as if in frantic haste to leave so that they could jump up and down on me.

  “I must regard your remark as an insult directed at my government and myself!” he said, almost sputtering. “Your discourtesy endangers all chances for cooperation and, furthermore, it could endanger the life of your ambassador. This is no simple matter, Mr. St. Ives. I must point out that your refusal to cooperate with us in so important an undertaking may well cause my government to review its arrangements with the United States in other—”

  I decided to break in again before I started World War III. “I’m deeply sorry if you interpreted my refusal to listen to your proposal as an insult, Mr. Bartak. It wasn’t meant to be and I apologize if it created such a misunderstanding. However, you must understand that as the private intermediary in this transaction I have certain obligations to the kidnappers as well as to the victim.”

  I was going to continue but he interrupted, still excited. “You admit your obligation to criminals!” It seemed like a good point and he grabbed it and would have been off down the sidelines unless I pushed him out of bounds.

  “Ambassador Killingsworth’s life, Mr. Bartak, may well depend on whether I fulfill my obligations to the criminals.” That got his attention, so I gave him the rest of it. “They didn’t hesitate to kidnap him. They won’t hesitate to kill the only witness to their crime if they suspect even the slightest trickery. So yes, you might say I have an obligation to the kidnappers and that obligation is to keep them happy and content.”

  Bartak shook his head. He was a stubborn one. “The plan that you so rudely rejected, even before you knew its content, was designed with Mr. Killingsworth’s safety foremost in mind. We have cooperated fully with your government in this entire matter, even to the point of releasing Anton Pernik. I assure you that we would not advance a plan that would endanger the life of the ambassador.”

  “No, I’m sure you wouldn’t,” I said. “But if I were a party to it, and something did happen, then it would be my responsibility. I won’t take that chance, not only because I’m concerned with Ambassador Killingsworth’s safety, but because I’m also very much concerned with mine.”

  Telling them that you are a coward is always the easiest way out. They can understand that whether they are a Chicago detective bureau lieutenant or a high official in the Ministry of Interior. It also makes them feel superior. It made Bartak feel that way and he leaped at the chance to show me just how much.

  “There is the distinct possibility, Mr. St. Ives, that the plan I spoke of does not depend entirely upon your cooperation.”

  “I didn’t think that it would,” I said, “but I still don’t want to know what it is. This way I go into negotiations with what the lawyers call clean hands. If something goes wrong with your plan, neither you nor the kidnappers can blame me, because I know nothing about it. Is that satisfactory?”

  Bartak thought about it for a moment. To help him do it, he drummed his fingers on the surface of his nicely polished desk. “Yes,” he said finally. “We have not entirely lost the element of surprise because you are certainly in no position to warn the kidnappers.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “I’m not.”

  He nodded his head, well satisfied with himself and with the way the morning had gone, and for all I knew, with his prospects for rapid advancement.

  “Can I be of any further service to you, Mr. St. Ives?”

  “I need the papers that will allow Anton Pernik and his granddaughter to leave Yugoslavia.”

  “Of course,” he said and drew the fat blue file toward him, opened it, and took out a thick brown envelope. Before handing it to me, he said, “You understand, of course, that these papers are only exit permits. They are not passports. Once Pernik and his granddaughter have crossed its border, Yugoslavia is no longer responsible for their safety and well-being. They forfeit their rights to citizenship.”

  “I understand,” I said and accepted the envelope.

  Bartak rose. He was shorter than I’d thought, not more than five-foot-two or three. It may have been why he hadn’t risen when we came in. Or it may have been that his height didn’t concern him at all, but I doubted that, preferring to believe that he was the Ministry’s resident authority on Napoleon.

  “I hope you also understand something else, Mr. St. Ives,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I hope you understand that while our concern for the safety of Ambassador Killingsworth is tremendously grave, that same degree of concern cannot be extended to Anton Pernik and his granddaughter.” I was about to tell him that I understood that fully, but he hurried on. Smoothly. “Or, for that matter, to you.”

  11

  IT WAS MY SECOND press conf
erence within five days and it was pointless to argue about which of them had been the better farce. The one about the rats in New York probably had contained more substance while the one in Belgrade seemed to have more style, perhaps because of the international press corps. There weren’t three paragraphs of hard news in either of them.

  But the one at the Metropol hotel did serve to help establish my bona fides as a private citizen who was what he said he was: an industrious, hardworking go-between and not what the press wished that I was: a tool—unwitting or otherwise—of the CIA or the State Department or something equally flamboyant.

  They asked me some questions and I told them some lies when I had to and the truth when there was no point in lying. We traded a few remarks and, upon request, I gave them a couple of brief, overly lurid accounts of two other kidnappings that I’d been called in on. The Italians like those. Or perhaps they just liked Arrie Tonzi’s translation which she rendered in a melodramatic tone accompanied by appropriate gestures.

  “We’ll take care of the cost of the meeting room,” Gordon Lehmann said when the conference was over. It was something that he thought I might be worrying about. It wasn’t but I thanked him anyway and asked him to join us for lunch. He shook his head and said that he should get back to the embassy.

  “What’s that address?” I said.

  “Kneza Milosa fifty,” he said and spelled it for me. “The phone’s 645-655. Extension seventeen.”

  While I was writing it down on the back of my airline ticket he said, “Were you ever in PR, Phil?”

  I told him no, that I’d never had the pleasure, that I’d always worked for newspapers, and mentioned the name of the one that I’d worked for in New York and he said he remembered my column and then asked, “Do you think it would be helpful if I got some actual newspaper experience? I came right to State from school.”

  It would take more than that, I thought, but said, “I don’t think it’s really necessary, Gordon.” And then, because he very much seemed to need something more, I added, “You’re doing a hell of a fine job here.” It was a lie, but since I had been lying all morning, to almost anyone who would listen, one more couldn’t hurt anything and it might even keep him from brooding the rest of the afternoon away.