by Ellis Shuman
“Straight where?”
“To the print shop. We cannot afford to delay. If the printer gets word we are on the way to check his books, he could destroy crucial evidence connecting him to the case.”
“Relax,” he said, putting a hand on her arm. “The printer does not know we are coming. No one knows what we have come to investigate.”
“I thought you made some phone calls.”
“I left a message for Kamen, one of the officers with the Bulgarian police. My colleagues know what I’m up to, of course, but the printer—he doesn’t have a clue. Do not worry, Ayala. We’ll get to the bottom of this the minute we visit the print shop.”
A trickle of doubt formed in Ayala’s mind. How could Boyko be so certain that the owner of the print shop wasn’t feeding documents into a paper shredder even now? If they delayed their visit, it could turn out to be too late. Another avenue of discovery would be closed at a very critical stage of their investigation and it would be because she had not insisted they go there directly upon their arrival in Sofia.
Boyko couldn’t be persuaded to change his mind. He was her host in this country, after all, so she didn’t raise further arguments regarding their agenda. The taxi parked on a side street just off Vitosha Boulevard. Boyko paid the bill and they walked to the small hotel where their rooms were booked.
This will be a short stay, Ayala was sure. She handed her passport to the front desk clerk and signed the registration form. I will be home by the end of the week, enjoying my mother’s cooking, she told herself. Spicy Yemenite chicken and potatoes. Her mouth watered at the thought.
After dropping her bag in the scantily furnished room on the third floor, Ayala returned to the lobby to wait for Boyko. She took out her mobile phone to check if she had reception in Bulgaria. Who would call her now? No one. She decided to touch base with Boaz, who was working with his team on the other side of the country, hundreds of kilometers away.
“Arrived in Sofia, checking new direction, back to Israel soon,” Ayala typed. She clicked the “send” button, wondering if Boaz knew about the latest lead in the case. As per protocol, she couldn’t mention her current activities on an open line. Best to be careful, she told herself, recalling Menachem’s strict instructions.
“Okay, are we ready?” Boyko said, joining her in the lobby.
“You look refreshed.”
“I took a quick shower.”
“That must have been the quickest shower in history.”
“It was. I couldn’t get the hot water to work! Let’s go.”
The address they had for the print shop was not far from the hotel; a taxi delivered them to the destination in less than ten minutes. It was on a narrow side street. Cars were parked along one curb, barely leaving room for the one-way traffic to get past. On one side of the street was what appeared to be a travel agency, with colorful posters of ancient Greek ruins posted in its window. Nearby was a small bakery; a cluster of hungry patrons waited in line at its entrance. The print shop was next door.
“Are you sure this is it? It doesn’t seem at all suspicious.”
“This is it.”
Inside, they immediately saw the place was not the print operation they were seeking, but rather an advertising agency where publishing jobs were ordered. An elderly woman sat at the office’s lone desk, speaking quietly into a phone with one hand while she clicked through a game of solitaire on her computer with the other. She barely looked up at Boyko and Ayala standing impatiently in front of her. Finally, she put the phone down.
“Dobre den,” she greeted them.
Boyko pulled out his card to identify himself as an officer in the State Agency for National Security. This caused the woman to sit up straight in her chair and look directly at him, her game of virtual cards totally forgotten.
“The boss is not here,” she said, her breath short.
“Maybe you can help us,” Boyko said, his words enunciated slowly for Ayala’s benefit. “We need to check your records, to see the print orders you have handled in the past few months.”
“The boss is not here,” the woman repeated, wheeling her chair backwards to distance herself from the unexpected visitors.
“We need to talk to your boss. Where can we find him?”
“He is at the print shop, managing operations. This is our office, where we meet clients and take their calls. There are no records here,” she said, pleading forgiveness for some unspoken crime.
“And where is this print shop of yours?”
As they left the office, Ayala was sure she saw the woman pick up the phone. No doubt she was warning someone that they were coming to the print shop. What chance did they have of finding useful evidence now?
For Ayala, the fact that they hadn’t accomplished anything productive on their first stop in Sofia was a worrying start to her visit. She had imagined they would find out everything they needed to know at the office, and now they were being sent to some other location. She hoped this wasn’t a sign of what was in store for them. With all this running around the city, they wouldn’t get to the bottom of their investigation as quickly as she had hoped. And that could potentially delay her return to Israel.
There’s something sinister about this print operation, she thought. She couldn’t explain it, but she sensed a foreboding of danger. She should warn Boyko, tell him they needed to proceed with utmost caution. She opened her mouth to speak but noticed that Boyko was staring out the window, a smug look on his face. He appeared so confident, so sure of himself as they rode in the taxi, that she didn’t want to disturb his thoughts. Didn’t he feel as apprehensive as she did about what awaited them? Couldn’t he see how menacing the print shop was? She drew her jacket tight to fight off the sudden chill.
And then Boyko’s phone rang and his face went white.
44
“He is out.”
“Who is out? What the fuck are you talking about?” Boyko shouted into the phone, turning away from the Israeli woman sitting next to him in the back of the taxi cab.
“You know who I am talking about. Your biggest nightmare—he is out of prison.”
“No, that cannot be. You must be mistaken.”
But Milen, calling from Burgas, was clearly not mistaken. Boyko’s former colleague gave details of what had transpired while Boyko was in Israel.
“He was released last week,” Milen said. “Some legal technicality. His lawyers implored the judge to overturn the original verdict and he accepted their argument. Your arch enemy is no longer in jail.”
Boyko felt a heaviness form in his gut and he almost become sick to his stomach. A legal technicality? No, impossible! The Hunter had been locked away on a very long sentence. There was no way a judge would so easily dismiss the charges, overturn the verdict, and release that criminal from prison. What kind of judge would do that?
“I find this hard to believe,” Boyko said, breathing heavily. “But I cannot deal with this. Not now.”
“Damian knows where you are,” Milen warned him. “He knows of your arrival in Sofia.”
“What? The only person I told about my trip was Kamen.”
“Well, Kamen cannot keep things to himself. You know how he is. He told me you had flown in from Tel Aviv. That is why I called to inform you about Damian’s release from prison.”
“Why didn’t you call me earlier, when I was in Israel? I needed to know that Damian was on the loose! Kamen, that bastard! Who else did he tell?”
“Never mind him,” Milen said. “Keep your head down, Boyko. Zhekov wants you to return to Burgas as soon as possible. You know the commander. He sends someone out on a mission and later has second thoughts. Forget about the Hunter for now and finish your assignment.”
Forget about the Hunter? Not likely.
“What is it?” Ayala asked when he shut his phone and slipped it into his pocket. “You look like you have just seen a ghost,” she said.
“A ghost? What?”
“It’s an expr
ession. What was that all about?”
He didn’t reply. Instead, he stared straight ahead, his eyes focusing neither on the road nor on anything in the cab.
* * *
Things were becoming clearer now, but in a very disturbing way. Incidents that happened in his past were coming together with new meaning. As Boyko began to understand these connections, the fact that the Hunter had been released from prison introduced a very real, and imminent threat into the picture.
The raid on the cigarette shipment from Turkey—Boyko had long wondered if the deliverymen had been tipped off about the police ambush waiting for them in the Strandzha. The failed sting at the Sunny Beach resort—the Hunter had skipped the rendezvous at the last possible moment, indicating he had known the planned drug deal was actually a setup. During Boyko’s recent travels with Ayala, the gunfire directed at their border hotel room suggested someone knew of his movements and was relaying this information to the Hunter’s network.
Damian knows where you are. He knows of your arrival in Sofia.
Milen’s warning was the final straw, the conclusive proof there was an insider on the Burgas police force working on the Hunter’s behalf. Who was it? And was that double agent—that turncoat traitor—connected to the judge’s strange ruling of a technicality, which had resulted in Damian’s release from prison?
These were all very worrisome things to think about. The danger was very real. Boyko failed to come up with a plan to combat this threat, or to determine who among his police colleagues was actively working against him.
The Hunter was out of prison. This changes everything, Boyko thought.
* * *
“Boyko? Talk to me.”
“What?” He looked at her in a daze. He seemed surprised to find her sitting next to him in the taxi.
“Who was that on the phone?”
“One of my colleagues,” he replied, his voice barely louder than a whisper.
“What has happened? Is it something connected to our investigation?”
“No, of course not.”
“But your colleague said something to you, something that has clearly upset you.”
“It is nothing. Do not ask me about this.”
“Boyko?”
The Israeli woman at his side was familiar with some of the aspects of this case from his past. He needed to protect her, but how? Learning of the Hunter’s release was a shock, totally unexpected. The less he said about that, the better.
“Is it connected to the printer? To Hezbollah?” she prompted.
“Hezbollah?” He let out a nervous laugh, but it did nothing to relieve the tension that clearly had control over what he was feeling.
“Something has happened, and it is affecting you, really bothering you,” Ayala pressed. “Please include me. You can’t work effectively alongside me without relating what you just heard on the phone.”
“The Hunter.” The words spurted out, almost of their own accord. “He is out and hunting again.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I told you about him.”
“That criminal from Bulgaria’s south—the one you put away in jail after pursuing him for many years?”
“He is no longer in jail.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was released from prison last week, while I was in Israel. Some legal technicality. His lawyers called for a mistrial and the judge accepted their argument. The Hunter is free.”
“And . . .?”
“And he’s bound to seek revenge.”
“Boyko, I don’t understand.”
“I told you how I sent the Hunter to prison, based on the fabricated evidence I planted at his hunting lodge. It was correct to put that criminal behind bars, but I did not employ the legal way of handling it. All the time the Hunter was in jail, he kept sending me warnings, demanding that I recant my testimony, to go back on my statements before the court. After all, it was the evidence I produced that led to his conviction. Now the Hunter is no longer in prison. He will issue no further warnings.”
“That’s a good thing, no?”
He stared out the window at the gray tenement buildings they were passing. He and Galina had lived in a concrete apartment block very similar to these. It had not been a happy place. It was cold and uninviting, little more than a roof over their heads. He had hated that despicable place! He had hated the sham of their marriage!
“Boyko?”
He shook his head, wiping out memories of his loveless marriage. There were more serious matters at hand. Ayala was staring at him, waiting. At last he spoke.
“Until now, the Hunter needed me alive. He was desperate for my confession; now he no longer needs it. He is a free man, released from jail on whatever legal nonsense. The consequences for me are grave.”
“No, of course not!”
“Ayala, this is serious stuff. The Hunter will never forgive my actions. He seeks retribution for what I did to him, for putting him behind bars. He will stop at nothing less than killing me.”
45
A cloud dark with the threat of looming rain blocked the Balkan sun, leading Ayala to pull her jacket tight as they emerged from the taxi. They stood outside a long, low-roofed warehouse seemingly at the edge of city limits. In the distance was a line of tall, leafless trees bordering an expanse of weed-filled fields and pastures. Except for a few cars parked in the lot next to the building, the entire area appeared neglected. Unperturbed by the desolate surroundings, Boyko led the way around the structure.
They heard mechanical noises inside. Shrill repetitions and rhythmic progressions. The steady clanking and whirling of machinery. The roar of industrial size printers in motion. Turning the corner, they came to the main entrance. Over the door was an ostentatious sign, its letters printed in colorful English and Bulgarian. Imperial Printers.
“I will do the talking,” Boyko said, the despairing, defeatist tone she had previously noticed in his voice no longer apparent.
“Of course,” Ayala said, following him into the building.
They were in a large hall, with printing presses spinning round with a deafening drone. A crew of men in light-blue overalls fed paper into the printers; glossy pages emerged from the other side and piled up, one atop another. A forklift transporting bales of newsprint reversed with a noisy warning beep. The resonant clanging of a bell signaled the start of a new operation elsewhere. Everywhere employees were busy, absorbed in various jobs being handled simultaneously.
“Can I help you?”
Facing them was a middle-aged, balding man with a thin mustache. “We’d like to speak to the manager,” Boyko said, his voice barely audible over the incessant racket.
“I am the manager. What do you want? Orders are taken on the phone at our main bureau.”
“We need to talk privately, and quietly.” Boyko presented his SANS credentials.
The manager reacted calmly to the official card, almost as if he had been expecting their visit. “Follow me,” he said, leading them up a set of stairs to an enclosed office overlooking the production floor.
Inside the much quieter room, Boyko launched into his spiel immediately, without further words of introduction and disregarding the manager’s offer of a seat. “We are here to check records pertaining to a certain order you handled for overseas customers.”
“What overseas customers? This is a Bulgarian print shop. I do jobs only for Bulgarians.”
Boyko produced a facsimile of the forged driver’s license, the one found on the body of the Burgas bomber. “Do you recognize this? Is this your handiwork?”
“No, of course not.”
“You produced it!” Boyko charged, his voice rising. “Admit it. You have formed an association with international terrorists, with their ground operations. You are working with terrorists!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” the manager retorted. “How dare you suggest such a thing! I do not work with terrorists, or any othe
r such clients. I told you. This is a legitimate operation. I have licenses. I pay taxes.”
“But you are willing to take any job if the price is right,” Boyko continued. “Someone hired you to produce counterfeit documents. Your operations are far from legitimate!”
For a moment, it seemed to Ayala that Boyko was about to strike the manager. This was Boyko’s typical head-on approach, she knew. He was always very aggressive when interrogating witnesses he considered hostile. He sought to intimidate them until they confessed their alleged crimes. But this verbal assault on the manager would hardly bring results.
“Calm down,” Ayala said to Boyko in English, putting her hand his shoulder. “We won’t get anything out of this man if you continue to shout at him.”
“Oh, and you think you can do a better job?” Boyko replied, his words unexpectedly loud and angry. He returned his attention to the manager and launched into a new line of threats. “I could haul you in to the police station, confine you in solitude until you give me the answers I seek. You will cooperate with me or I will bring down your entire business, legitimate or not.”
What had gotten into him? Ayala wondered. Something had changed, but she wasn’t certain what it was. She didn’t think it was the manager’s denials that had triggered Boyko’s anger. Something else had caused him to lose his composure.
The phone call in the car. The fact that the Hunter was now a free man. The threat of the Hunter’s revenge!
She couldn’t let Boyko’s personal worries affect their handling of the investigation. She gently tried to pull him back from the manager’s desk. “We need to check his records, to look at the orders listed in his books. You’ll never get answers with this sort of attitude.”
“You are very naïve,” he said, startling her. “Do you think this guy is going to record an order done on the sly, an illegitimate job like handling the fake IDs? He is a stupid man, but not that stupid. Being nice to him will not produce the desired results.”
Ayala stared at Boyko for a moment, at a loss for words and unable to calm him down. His mindset was off-kilter; he wasn’t acting normally, or responsibly. Their visit to the print shop was compromised.
