The Magician's Accomplice

by Michael Genelin

“I’m Commander Jana Matinova. I worked with your wife at The Hague.”

  He looked even more perplexed. “I’m afraid I have no recollection of your name. She didn’t speak of you. Perhaps you were part of her secret life.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “She kept her life as a police officer to herself for the last year.”

  “Perhaps I can tell you something that you’d like to have clarified.”

  He reflected on the possibility. “She didn’t want me to know. She specifically said that I had to distance myself from her. And she was right; look at what happened to her. They killed her.”

  “Did she give you any idea who ‘they’ were or what she was working on that might affect both your lives?”

  “That was the point. She separated herself from me. It was her way of keeping me safe.”

  “From who? She had to have given you some indication.”

  Tuma’s face took on the look of a frightened deer. He backed away from Jana, his expression reflecting his increasing apprehension. Jana watched him back away knowing that very soon they would have answers to some of their questions. Then she went to the professor, who had taken up a position in the center of the room, uneasily standing to the side of a group that he had nothing in common with, and with no clear picture of what Jana was planning.

  “Why are we still here?” he muttered.

  “Professor, there is going to be a commotion in a moment.”

  “What do you mean, a commotion?”

  “People with guns are going to come out of every corner of the house.”

  There was the sound of a siren approaching.

  “They’re not going to do anything to you as long as you keep your hands in sight and don’t fight.”

  “Why would I fight?”

  “Just keep what I’ve just said in mind.”

  “You said they would have guns?”

  The room suddenly erupted with “mourners” who created a constricting circle around Jana and the professor. A number of them had guns in their hands, all of them pointing at Jana or the professor, ready to use their weapons if they were given the slightest reason. One of the uniformed officers came up to them. His collar insignia was that of a full colonel in the Czech police.

  “You are Jana Matinova?”

  Jana nodded, knowing what was coming next.

  “You and you accomplice are under arrest as complicit in the crime of murder.”

  Other officers moved in quickly to handcuff them.

  “What have I done to deserve this?” the professor yelped.

  “Professor, they’re doing the right thing.”

  “Why is arresting me the right thing?”

  “Because I said so, Professor.”

  “This is unbelievable.”

  “Believe it, Professor. Believe it.”

  The circle of police officers began walking them out the front door. A police van was just pulling up, its siren sound tailing off as it stopped. Men jumped out of the van at the ready, taking them both into custody. The professor’s protestations to the men that he’d done nothing were ignored.

  Chapter 28

  The hoods blinding them were very uncomfortable. They had come as a surprise, their use far from usual when prisoners are taken into custody. The two sat in silence until they felt the vehicle come to a stop. Seconds later, they were taken out of the van and walked into a building, down a long corridor, then into a room. The echoes of their footsteps on the wood floor suggested a larger room than one would normally expect in an office building or home. Jana and the professor were placed in cushioned seats, their handcuffs taken off one wrist and fixed to their chairs. The footsteps of their police escorts receded, the door to the room closing with a reverberating finality. The subsequent silence became much more apparent and threatening than the sounds had been.

  “Is there anyone here?” Jana finally asked.

  She waited, then used her free hand to remove the black hood over her head. A man was seated at the other end of the huge conference table at which she and the professor now sat. He was an older man in civilian clothes, his white hair crew cut. He stared at her silently. Jana waited for him to break the quiet, then turned to the professor.

  “Professor, take your hood off.”

  “Are you sure it’s okay to remove it?” His voice quavered. “I don’t want to offend anyone.”

  Jana glanced back at the man at the end of the table. He had not moved, merely waiting for her to take action.

  “I assure you, Professor, you can pull it off.”

  The professor gingerly removed the black hood, his eyes narrowing when he saw the man seated at the other end of the table. The professor nodded at the man, who did not respond. The professor turned to Jana, whispering.

  “Is he angry at us?”

  Jana answered in her normal speaking voice.

  “He’ll tell us if he is.”

  “You knew we were going to be arrested at the house. How did you know?” he asked.

  “There were too many people gathered together that quickly for a wake. It takes a few days to get that kind of an affair organized. The murder of Gizela Dinova only took place yesterday. She’s still in the Hague morgue. The police were there to protect her ex-husband, just in case someone came after him because of what he might have learned from her. In other words, it was a sting to catch any stray murderers who happened to wander into the net. I think they were also there for the two of us in case we promenaded by.”

  “Why did we go in, then?” he hissed.

  “I wanted them to arrest us.”

  “What for?”

  “If I had asked the Czech police about Gizela Dinova’s secret life at The Hague they would never have told me. Outsiders aren’t welcome when it comes to giving away secrets. This way, the right people have found us, and maybe I can talk them into taking us into their confidence.”

  “It doesn’t look like he wants to talk to us.” The professor indicated the man in the crew cut. “Maybe he’s a mute?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  The professor surveyed the room. It was quite large; the ornate ceiling had several baroque scenes painted on it, the sections of the painting separated by gold-leafed interstices which extended to the edge of the walls, giving the room a golden glow. There were a number of paintings around the room, all of them suggesting a seventeenth or eighteenth-century provenance. And the very long table they were seated at was topped with a mahogany surface that was so polished, it could have served any lady-in-waiting as a mirror.

  “This doesn’t look like a prison,” the professor observed.

  “We’re not in prison, Professor. My guess is that we’re sitting in a palace located somewhere around Prague, an out-of-the-way former noble’s residence. Our friend at the end of the table felt he could talk to us here with comparative security. I don’t think the gentleman wanted to take us to one of the usual haunts for prisoners.” She looked down the table at the man. “I’ve always liked coming to Prague. There are always beautiful buildings to see. Of course,” she shook the arm handcuffed to the chair, “when I visited before, it was under more agreeable circumstances.”

  “Who is he?” The professor’s voice had strengthened.

  “He’s either from the Ministry of the Interior, or he’s the head of the police. From the haircut, I think the police.”

  “Why are we here?”

  “I told you: he thinks it’s safe to talk to us here.”

  “Why not at the police station?”

  “Because it’s not safe for us there. Or private. Maybe it’s also not safe for him.” She looked at the man at the end of the table. “You’re the general who is the head of the police?”

  He nodded. “Jana Matinova?” His voice was a scratchy baritone. “I thought you might come to Prague.”

  “Now you can tell everyone how right you were.”

  “You’ve become a suspect in a number of k
illings: in the Netherlands, Slovakia, Ukraine, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Finland….” His voice trailed off. “Actually, there are twenty-some-odd killings you might be associated with, and probably a number of others that we haven’t been able to connect up yet, maybe a lot more.”

  “I don’t think you believe I’m guilty of murder. If you did, you wouldn’t have brought us here.”

  The professor shifted uneasily in his seat, glancing at Jana, whispering again. “The man at the end of the table is crazy.”

  “He’s not crazy, Professor.”

  The man responded by tossing a handcuff key the length of the table. The key bounced once, leaving a small scratch on the table’s pristine top, before it reached Jana. She used the key to unlock her handcuffs, then handed it over to the professor, who had to work at it a little but finally got his handcuffs unlocked.

  “Can we go now?” the professor asked.

  “He’s not ready to let us go just yet.”

  “He doesn’t really believe you’re a murderer if he gave you the key. We should be able to walk out of the door.”

  “There are police officers standing outside the door to stop us if we leave without his permission.”

  “I see.” He settled back into his seat. “He wants something from us before we can go?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes,” the man at the end of the table echoed.

  “I hope it’s not money. I have very little money,” the professor declared.

  The man at the end of the table almost smiled. “I think, from what I’ve been told about your reputation, Matinova, that you are not likely to have committed murder. Please convince me that I’m right.”

  “I assume you’ve checked on my whereabouts during the course of all these killings, not just the ones in Slovakia and in Amsterdam?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know the times or places of most of these murders. However, I’m reasonably sure that if you checked Slovak employment records, I was almost assuredly working in Slovakia at the times of most of the killings that occurred out of my country. I suppose you could object that I planned them from Slovakia and had someone else carry them out. Except there would have to be some kind of links, phone calls, e-mails, connections through intermediaries. I have to believe that you’ve also found none of these. You haven’t unearthed any of them, because they’re nonexistent.”

  “There are none that we can find.”

  “Which brings us to the two murders in Slovakia. The times, events, and facts that you know of surrounding those murders have to tell you that I did not commit them. I was investigating another crime. There will be reports verifying what I’ve suggested to you.”

  “Now suggest what I should look at to show that you had nothing to do with the Dinova and Kroslak killings.”

  “I was with other police officers when Dinova was killed. As to Kroslak, I don’t think he’s dead.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Perhaps in Prague.”

  The man at the other end of the table studied her.

  “If Kroslak is alive, why would he come here?”

  “Don’t you mean: if Kroslak is alive, why hasn’t he contacted you?”

  The man nodded.

  “I assume Kroslak has been working on a joint investigation, which includes you in some capacity. During the course of that investigation, Kroslak and Dinova began to work together. Peter Saris, the prosecutor killed in Slovakia, was their designated contact.” She analyzed her facts, going over the rest of her suppositions, fitting them in with what she had learned from the man at the end of the table.

  “There have been a number of murders in various locations throughout Europe. They appear to be professional killings. From the nature of the killings, there are connecting links, perhaps through the victims themselves, the method of the killings, or events surrounding the deaths which indicate that whoever has committed these murders has some inside knowledge of investigative activities both before, during, and after their acts. That points to insider involvement. And from where Kroslak and Dinova were placed, at Europol, you think that someone in Europol is guilty. Who that person or persons are, I don’t think you know, or we wouldn’t be here sitting in a gilded room which used to belong to some long-dead member of the aristocracy.”

  The corners of the man’s mouth twitched in the semblance of a smile.

  “I had heard you could do extraordinary deductive work. Perhaps they’re right.” He nodded his appreciation. “Please go on.”

  “The prosecutor who was killed in Slovakia was the designated receiver of all information because you have leaks in your own department in Prague. Leaks that you haven’t been able to trace. The investigation necessitated absolute confidentiality. The fewer people who knew about it, the better. So, you selected a Slovak prosecutor, someone trustworthy, but outside of Prague and even outside of your country. You’re so concerned about leaks that you decided it was not safe for us to talk at your office, or even in the jail, so you selected a location that you hoped would be private. Here, in this room.”

  Jana reflected on what she had said, coming to one more conclusion.

  “And you want me to do something for you that you don’t want anyone else to know about. Otherwise you wouldn’t have brought me here.”

  “Also true.”

  “I’m not used to having the police handcuff me.” She flicked the handcuff which was still attached to the arm of her chair.

  He nodded. “I understand. However, I would ask you to listen to me despite that.”

  Jana acquiesced with a slight nod. He went on.

  “We have agreed, your government and mine, that we have to keep this information within as tight a group of people as possible. Law enforcement, in a number of countries, has developed into a data spigot that we can’t turn off. We tried to alert Europol. They said they would investigate. Soon after that, the man charged with heading up the inquiry died from a heart attack while out in his boat. He had never had any health problems and had just had an uneventful medical examination. The next man appointed by Europol is now in South America. We think he fled to avoid being killed. Of course, he could have just decided to suddenly retire. Except he is now living exceptionally well in Brazil, living much better than one would have thought possible, given his prior salary as a civil servant. Our belief is he was both paid off and scared off, a wonderfully effective approach to silencing an individual.”

  “How did you become aware of this problem?”

  “Rumors. We got the same rumor from several countries: large corporate frauds were being committed; contracts involving large corporations were laden with graft, major corruption existed in a number of governments involving government procurement fraud, with the culprits obtaining tens of millions in illicit funds. Every time there was the hint of an investigation, or an individual tried to bring the matter to public attention, he was silenced. Some were bought off. Most of the time, they were killed.”

  “Were the people who were involved in the frauds or corruption the actual killers?”

  The man finally sat back in his chair, his ramrod posture easing slightly.

  “People who commit the illegal frauds or acts of corruption in all these countries seem to be totally unrelated to each other. But the killings seem to be related, by technique if nothing else. We think that there is a group of people out there who become aware of ongoing investigations, for example, of government fraud. Those people then contact the criminals and offer to stop the investigations, if necessary, by murder.”

  Jana reflected on the geographic scope of the crimes, what it would take in the way of resources to carry them out, then escape without leaving traces of themselves.

  “You indicated the killings have gone on all over Europe. I presume that would require a centralized group with ties to law enforcement and access to their files, and investigations. Considering everything that has gone on, that does suggest it is coming from Europol.”

&nb
sp; “Yes.”

  “A catastrophe,” suggested Jana.

  “Worse, if that’s possible.” The man sighed.

  “And you can’t identify the individuals involved?”

  “That’s what our people, yours and ours, were trying to do.”

  “I see. What do you want from me?”

  He held up his hands, palms up, shrugging as if it were all very simple.

  “Not a great deal: to keep on investigating. To make lots of noise while you’re doing it. While you are looking for them, we’ll try to catch them as they look for you.”

  “You want them to come after me?”

  “They’re doing that anyway, aren’t they?”

  “It would appear so.”

  “Consider this: how can we do anything unless we know who the players are? There has to be a desirable piece of bait dangling out there just waiting for them to reach for it. Once they reach for you, we’ll know who they are. You have to entice them into the open for us.”

  “Dangle?”

  “Dangle,” he agreed.

  “Dangle in the air, look helpless, and hope they miss their first shot at me.”

  “Yes.”

  The professor looked from Jana to the man at the end of the table.

  “I’m not at all sure I want to do this.”

  Jana smiled at him.

  “No one ever is, Professor.”

  Two police officers came into the room, each carrying a small box. The man at the end of the table nodded at the two officers, who set the boxes in front of Jana and the professor. “Your personal effects,” said the man.

  The professor shuddered.

  “Personal effects. It sounds like we’re about to go to a funeral.”

  The man at the end of the table made a face.

  “I hope not,” said the man. “Funerals are such sad events.”

  Chapter 29

  The phone rang for a long while before Trokan answered it.

  “I’m harried, overworked, and ready to shoot the prime minister,” he explained when he finally answered it. “He has nationalized the new oil field and kicked the foreign oil company out. The opposition is using the opportunity to call for new elections. The students have taken to the streets to complain about the dictatorial methods of the prime minister and his party. So the entire police department is out following the strikers around the town to make sure that they only commit noise and littering violations.”