The Magician's Accomplice

by Michael Genelin

  “I don’t know Amsterdam. So, yeah.”

  Paola nodded, a warm smile on her face. They shook hands on it.

  “I might suggest that we bring another body along.”

  “Who?”

  “Aidan. He’s got the bulk. If we need a persuader, he fits the physical profile of an arm-breaker.”

  “You trust him?”

  “He’s been here the longest of any of us. He would probably love the action. As to anything else about him, I don’t have answers. So, your case, your call.”

  Jana thought about bringing Aidan Walsh into the process. Walsh could provide a modicum of protection. He was big enough. And she was in danger. Except, she told herself, they would assume that she would make an attempt to locate the Slovak officer. And, if Kroslak hadn’t been captured and was hiding out, they might want Jana to find him for them. They might let her alone … up to that point. That would be the time to look for danger. Meanwhile, she hadn’t much to lose using Walsh.

  “I think bringing in Walsh might be a good idea,” Jana informed Paola.

  Paola used her cell phone. This triggered Jana’s recollection of an item that had been nagging at her. There had been a Europol cell phone listed for Kroslak on the reports she had been given by Trokan. They had not found this cell phone in his personal property after he disappeared. He had also left Slovakia with his own cell phone, which had roving capabilities; he could call all over Europe. That phone had also not been accounted for. Both might still be active. If they were, they might be tracked to the users.

  “Do we have tracking capability on cell phones at Europol?”

  “Sure. Our system isn’t bad. We can also go to the cell-phone providers, or the Germans and the British. Or the Americans. They all want to show how good they are.” Paola began talking to Aidan, explaining what she and Jana had decided to do. Paola nodded, looking at Jana, making a thumbs-up gesture. Aidan had come aboard.

  Jana gave Paola a victory fist. She was beginning to get excited. It was a start.

  By the time they had finished their coffee, the Europol building was open again. As a simple check, to see if the fire had been a deliberate attempt to destroy information, Jana started up her computer and looked for Kroslak in the central database. He was not there. All references to Kroslak, even his personnel files, had been deleted. As far as their mainframe was concerned, the investigator who had come to Europol from Slovakia was a nonperson who had never existed.

  Jana signed off, staring at her screen. She was beginning to get an idea just how big, efficient, and lethal the people who had killed Peter and the student were. Jana didn’t think she’d ever encountered a group like this before. It was frightening. She shook off her fear. It distorted everything. It was time for her to start looking for them, and fear would not help her think efficiently.

  Jana used her computer to type up the test problem she would use to “teach” the other investigators. It was a hypothetical, a fictitious series of events that would present a group of murders in several countries somehow connected together by a massive conspiracy. The students would be required to pool their various talents and the investigative resources of Europol to solve the crimes.

  Jana’s argument to Mazur would be that this form of on-the-job training rather than classroom instruction was the best way to learn.

  Jana used other countries and other names for the people involved, disguising the fact that the basis of the problem was the murders in Bratislava and the subsequent events that had occurred. The exercise would give Jana the room to operate, to do the things that were necessary to get the answers she needed here in The Hague, and any place else she needed to go, without arousing Mazur’s suspicions.

  She took the exercise to Mazur, who was too busy writing up his perceptions of the illegal immigration conference he had keynoted to pay much attention when she put the test problem she’d developed in front of him. She had also typed up an authorization giving her, and the other investigators, permission to pursue the project. Jana didn’t have to use any of the arguments she had prepared to convince him that this was the way to go with her assignment.

  He simply skim-read what she had prepared, signed it without thinking, then casually dismissed Jana.

  Jana, Paola, and Aidan Walsh went to work.

  Europol had set up a cell-phone multi-tracking program through the multiplicity of European servers in their treaty countries. All of the server companies had been forced to subscribe to the system since the war on terror had been initiated. It cut across Europe, encompassing every country up to the Russian border. The first thing Jana did was to have the service run traces on both of Kroslak’s cell phones. The answers came in very quickly. One of the numbers, the Europol phone he had been issued, had not been used since Kroslak had disappeared. It had probably been discarded or destroyed by Kroslak, or by whoever had made him disappear. The roving cell phone that Kroslak had brought from Slovakia showed that three calls had been made on the first day of his disappearance. Two of them correlated to clubs in Amsterdam. The other was to a number that Jana vaguely recognized.

  She dialed it.

  The man who answered the phone was Jan Leiden, the Dutch police officer who had followed her on the day she had gone to Kroslak’s house. Jana hung up without identifying herself.

  Leiden had to know that he’d received a call from Kroslak after he had disappeared. Jana corrected herself. No, someone other than Kroslak using Kroslak’s phone might have called him. Only Leiden would know if it was Kroslak who had actually spoken to him. There was also another possibility: if Leiden had received a call from someone, not knowing it had come from Kroslak’s cell phone, Leiden still might remember who had called him at the time listed. If he did, that information might be invaluable in assessing what had happened to Kroslak. Of course, it was all dependent on Leiden not being a part of this criminal conspiracy.

  Before they began searching the clubs in Amsterdam, Jana had to talk to Leiden.

  Chapter 16

  Leiden insisted on meeting her on the south side of the Hofvijver, the lakelet in the city center of The Hague near the Binnenhof, the country’s old parliament building. Jana walked to the site, then sat on a bench looking across the pond at the building, half-expecting women wearing the white caps and wooden shoes that she had seen in travel posters to come clicking along the walkway, carrying their milk pails. Instead, she saw civil servants walking by with the look of self-importance that characterizes the breed all over the world, the tourists with their children running over to the water to splash each other, and a particularly obnoxious derelict who insisted on peeing on the flowers near her. Jana moved to the next bench, then watched as Leiden came pedaling up, looking much the same as he had the other day.

  He braked to a stop, pulling the back-carrier straps off his briefcase, and sauntered over to her. He opened the briefcase and pulled papers out of it before he spoke.

  “I hope you are enjoying our sweet but very dull city.”

  “Not so dull a city.”

  “Yes, for you. I know what happened.” He looked her over. “No scrapes or bruises.”

  “I was very lucky.”

  “Maybe you should bet on the lottery.” He riffled through his papers, changing their order. “I prefer to meet in the open air rather than in my office. I use every opportunity to get out.” He indicated the little lake. “Nicer to be here by the water, even if it’s so small and placid.” After a moment he handed her the papers he’d brought. “I thought you might like these. It’s a summary of what we have done to date to locate your countryman, Kroslak.”

  Jana took the report without looking at it.

  “Aren’t you going to review the marvelous effort we’ve put forth? Comment on our great investigative skills?” Leiden asked.

  “Is there anything of immediate interest that I should study?”

  “Nothing that I can think of.”

  “I’ll check it later, then.”

 
They sat in silence, looking at the water and the building on the other side.

  “Lots of history in that place.”

  “I’m sure of it,” Jana agreed.

  “You asked me if I kept a phone diary.”

  “Lots of cops do. Some police forces require phone registries.”

  “Sorry, we have no registry of calls.”

  “Would you remember a call you received last Thursday at 1400 hours?”

  “Only if there was a reason to remember it.”

  “Is your answer ‘no’?”

  “I had a reason to remember it.”

  The answer took Jana by surprise, Leiden looking at her with a sly grin. He seemed to enjoy the effect his reply had on her. Jana didn’t like being played with.

  “Who called you, then?”

  “A man who identified himself as Kroslak.”

  Jana held up the papers she had just been given by Leiden. “Is that phone conversation written up in here?”

  “No.”

  “Why did you omit it?”

  “He asked me not to put it in the report.”

  “So you informed no one?”

  “I honored his request.”

  Jana tried to digest what Leiden was telling her. He’d been in touch with Kroslak but let them all believe that the Slovak detective was still missing. There had to be a reason for a policeman to take that risk. Both Slovakia and Europol would call for Leiden’s head if they discovered the omission. If his supervisors found out, they would suspend him, if not dismiss him outright.

  “He told you something that you considered so important that you suppressed the fact that you’d received the call?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why, then, are you taking the chance of telling me?”

  “I need someone outside my own police department to help me. I checked on you. Your reputation as an investigator is superb. You’ve always done what’s right, not what’s politic. You’ve not been afraid to take chances to get the correct result. You’re also new to this arena, which is a plus. You’re not corruptible, as far as I can tell. So, I put myself in your hands, Commander Matinova.”

  She thought about what he’d said. It was clear that if she were to step forward and inform on him for suppressing information, he would be in trouble. It was also apparent that he wanted her to keep Kroslak’s call secret. She might be at risk if she joined him. However, she liked the idea of Leiden taking the chance on her.

  “I think you made the right decision, Investigator Leiden.”

  Leiden relaxed, leaning back on the bench, stretching his legs out to get comfortable. Jana joined him in stretching. They looked like a pair of close acquaintances quietly taking the afternoon sun, basking in its warmth.

  “Are you sure it was Kroslak?”

  “Reasonably sure. His speech was very fluent. There was no sign of rehearsal, no sign of preparation before calling me. He gave me stuff that there would be no reason to tell me about unless he truly was Kroslak.”

  “Have you talked to him since?”

  “No. That’s the reason I need you to share the problem. We were supposed to make a second contact. It never happened.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “That he’d discovered an international crime. It was so large that it involved national governments and international corporations and, of course, international criminals. Huge amounts of money were involved. There already had been killings involved, a number of them. He didn’t tell me how many individuals he suspected had been killed, but I got the impression there were more than just a few. He said that he thought the people responsible had discovered that he had proof that would send them to prison. This was the reason he had chosen to disappear. I thought he’d gone slightly south of insane. Then he said something to make me change my mind.”

  “What?”

  “He told me he was prepared to take his chances, but his ‘partner,’ meaning his current life partner, was now in danger. He told me of the killing of the prosecutor in Slovakia. I hadn’t known about that. Kroslak said he’d been working with the man. That convinced me, at least for the moment, not to write him off as a madman. Kroslak wanted both his partner and himself to be given protection. He also said there was one other person involved who would probably need protection. He said he had yet to contact the person, and when he did, and received the person’s consent to receive protection, he would call me back for the arrangements that would have to be made.”

  “There were no other phone calls?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Why didn’t you make another effort to find him?”

  “If I tried to get the resources from my department to go after Kroslak, then I’d have to tell them about the call. I’d stir up more interest with the bad guys, create a more pressing motive for them to get Kroslak. That’s when I started thinking about you. Are you the person Kroslak was talking about consulting?”

  “I don’t know anything about Kroslak’s activity in Holland. Kroslak had to be talking about someone else.” She thought about what had happened to Peter. Then about Trokan’s phone call, and his telling her that both of them were in danger. Someone had to know what was going on. “You have no information about Kroslak’s partner?”

  “None.”

  “Kroslak gave you no information as to where he was?”

  “He said he was in Amsterdam.”

  “That would appear, then, to be the place I should begin to look.”

  “Where are you going to start?”

  “I can’t say.”

  Jana stood; Leiden joined her.

  “You must have some idea what you’re going to do. Or you don’t want to tell me?”

  “I’m taking Kroslak’s plea for secrecy one step further. There’s no reason to tell you anything at this moment. I’d be telling one more person, who might tell one more person, which might be one person too many.”

  She began walking away.

  “I’m not sure I deserve this,” he called after her.

  Jana didn’t respond.

  “Keep me informed,” he called after her again.

  “Only if Mr. Kroslak doesn’t object.”

  Jana’s voice was loud and firm enough to leave no room for doubt: if Kroslak was alive, Jana was going to find him, and ask him.

  Chapter 17

  Jana had spent the rest of the day going over the reports that Leiden had given her in a fruitless attempt to track Kroslak. Nothing pointed to what Kroslak had been working on or where he could possibly have gone. Jana had a quick supper, then went over the reports once again just to assure herself that she hadn’t overlooked some small item that might be significant. One question kept coming up: who was Kroslak working with for whom he’d asked Leiden about protection?

  Jana tried to watch some television in her hotel room, but Peter’s face, recollection of the times that they’d spent together in each other’s arms, prevented her from focusing on the screen. She decided to go to bed. Surprisingly, she fell asleep almost immediately.

  The desk clerk telephoned, waking Jana from a sound sleep, to warn her that smoke alarms had been activated in the hotel and a number of guests had reported heavy smoke in the halls. As a precaution, the management was evacuating the guests. Jana promised she would use the stairs and not the elevators, then swung out of bed. She was just putting on her shoes when the stray thought of “smoke and mirrors” popped into her head. Set up the mirrors correctly and the audience can’t see that the illusion is unreal. Use the smoke and the audience believes in the magical moment.

  Jana tucked her gun into the back of her waistband under her jacket. She began to unlock the door to her room; then stopped. If she walked out through the door, would there be someone waiting to kill her? She decided to call the desk to verify that a general alarm had been issued by the hotel staff. The line was busy. Jana counted off a full minute before the phone was answered. The voice reaffirmed the evacuation. Jana hung up, again going to the
door. Once more, she thought of the magic arts: do the obvious; help the audience think linearly, so its belief in an expected reality aids you in achieving your purpose. The public doesn’t see the trick because of its preconceptions.

  Jana checked the windows. There was no ledge, no fire escape, nothing that would get her down to the street level. She thought of tying the bed sheets to the radiator, but there was nothing there to anchor the sheets to, no guarantee the sheets wouldn’t tear if she did find a way to secure them.

  Jana finally decided that she was being paranoid. The smoke was real enough. When she looked out the windows, she saw at least one suite where windows seemed to be leaking smoke. If the fire was real, then it was already below her, which was not a comforting thought. Her path to safety could already be blocked. Jana unlocked the door, pulled out her gun, chambered a shell, and then opened the door, at the same time stepping into the bathroom which was immediately adjacent to the door. Smoke began to billow into her room. Jana instantly went down on her knees to take advantage of the clear air near the floor. It saved her life.

  Bullets from the hall began to stitch through the wall, punching a series of irregular holes through the lathe and plaster, zinging over her head. Then a second automatic weapon opened up, shredding the door. Jana went down on her belly, edging back farther into the bathroom, then pulled the shower curtain half off its rod, propping it up so it presented a barrier that would not stop a bullet in the least but which would, at least, partially hide her. She needed just a moment of hesitation in the actions of the men who had come to kill her, a moment in which to perform her own trick.

  What remained of the door to the room was kicked off its hinges. A man darted from the hall into the room; a second man, directly behind him, turned toward the bathroom, firing the assault rifle he was carrying, spraying bullets at chest level. Jana fired four slugs into the man, smashing him back against the wall. She angled her line of fire at the wall, targeting the area she could not see but where she estimated the first man would be standing. Jana emptied the gun, realizing that she had no more cartridges. If she had missed, there was nothing left to defend herself with.