The Magician's Accomplice

by Michael Genelin

  “I know it hurts, Professor.” Jana’s voice became even gentler. “You have to go on and tell us the rest.”

  “Yes.” He composed himself. “When I was a very young boy, we fought against the Nazis to take back our homeland. Forty thousand Slovaks were killed by them during the revolt.” He moaned. “I told him to send the report, despite the fact that I knew it might be dangerous.” He looked at her, his eyes pleading. “I never supposed it meant that kind of danger; I never thought he might be killed.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t.”

  “So he sent it. We found the name of the prosecutor in charge of the anti-corruption investigations and sent it to him. He read the report.”

  “How do you know he read it?”

  “He contacted my nephew.”

  More surprises, Jana thought.

  “What did your nephew tell Prosecutor Saris?”

  The professor shook his head. “I don’t know. The prosecutor told him to keep their talk to themselves. My nephew honored the request.”

  “Professor, Prosecutor Saris would not have talked about the report to anyone else. He wouldn’t even tell the attorney general about it. He would never have talked about your nephew to anyone. He knew better. It follows that there is no way you can hold yourself responsible for your nephew’s death.”

  The professor bowed his head, then looked directly at Jana. His voice was almost inaudible, Jana having to strain to hear him.

  “I told him to make sure that it was read by a person of authority, not ignored. That he should send it to at least one more person in the upper tier of government. So he sent it to one other person.”

  “Who?” Jana asked, almost afraid to hear the answer. Not another police officer, she hoped. Not Colonel Trokan. She said a silent prayer.

  “The minister of economics.”

  Elias let out an audible gasp.

  “So, you see,” whispered the professor, “I helped kill my nephew.”

  Jana took a second to reply. “No,” she said. “But I suspect that the minister probably did.”

  The train rolled on. Jana finally broke the silence.

  “Professor, when I let you see the report, you didn’t tell me then that your nephew had shown it to you. Why?”

  He looked wretched. “I didn’t want to admit my own guilt in placing him in a position of such danger.” He stuttered to a halt, then started again. “He was my nephew. My advice killed him. I couldn’t say the words that would describe what I had done. I was the one who killed him, just as surely as if I had put the bullets into him.”

  The train began to slow down for a stop.

  Chapter 41

  Just before the last stop, on the outskirts of Bratislava, at the Petr zalka station, Jana saw them. There were six in all on the platform. She recognized them immediately: Gyorgi Ilica, the Romanian; Gabi Laszlo, the Hungarian who had brought Jana “greetings” from her friend on the Hungarian police; Zimmer, the tall Prussian with the bad teeth; Peete, the English cop who kept looking at his shoes during the party; Camille Grosjean, the Belgian who was the assistant director’s favorite in SC 4; and Ryan, the man who had done the bump-and-grind on stage with the phallus. Ryan, Laszlo, and Zimmer headed for the rear of the train, the rest of them toward the engine, evidently planning to sandwich Jana and Elias between them. No more charades. It was now to be a direct frontal assault.

  “They’re here,” Jana said matter-of-factly, pointing them out to Elias. “Time for us to pretend we’re great marksmen.”

  “I had the momentarily pleasant thought that we were in the clear,” Elias said.

  “Too many of them; too much access to information. There are so many ways to track an individual today, even God would have trouble hiding.”

  They both stood. The professor stared first at the Europol men on the platform, then at Jana and Elias, and started to rise. Jana pushed him back into his seat.

  “Not you, Professor. You don’t have a gun. We’ll be better off without you. Stay in your seat. My guess is that they probably won’t even recognize you. They’re here for us.” She turned to Elias. “We go to the front of the train on the double. If we can surprise them, it will raise our odds. Hopefully, we hit them first before they even know we’re there.”

  The professor stayed in his seat, helpless, watching them go.

  Jana and Elias jacked shells into the chambers of their automatics, keeping the weapons tight at their sides to minimize passenger panic. Running through the cars was going to create enough of a stir. They reached the juncture of the first and second cars before spotting the first group of thugs through the window in the upper half of the door. The two paused, readying themselves.

  “Take a breath; be careful and accurate. Not too fast,” Jana cautioned Elias. “And please, don’t kill any civilians.”

  “I’ll try not to,” Elias promised.

  They took deep breaths, then opened the door to the next compartment, aimed and began shooting even as the three men saw them. It was, in fact, brutally quick. The gunmen got off two quick shots that went nowhere near the two detectives before they were hit. First Ilica and Peete; then Grosjean, who took a bullet in his shoulder and tried to run for it. Elias calmly put a last bullet in him just before he made it out of the door.

  The few passengers were as startled as the three dead men had been by the sudden gunfight, cringing in their seats, aghast, cowering away from the two police officers as they quickly checked the bodies.

  “Police officers,” Jana repeated over and over, in both German and Slovak, as they passed through the car trying to calm the shocked travelers.

  Jana kicked the weapons away from the men lying on the train floor. Elias stood at the ready in case one of them was faking.

  “All dead,” Jana announced.

  “Three up; three down,” Elias added.

  “And three to go,” reminded Jana.

  “The odds are better now.”

  They quickly reloaded, then began running toward the rear of the train, Jana yelling for everyone to remain seated, that they were in no immediate danger. As they raced by, the passengers stirred uneasily, already frightened by the sound of the gunfire, now even more disturbed by the sight of two police officers running back through the car with their weapons at the ready.

  “The train doors are open for loading. The Europol people will have heard the shots,” Jana warned Elias. “We no longer have the advantage of surprise.”

  “Maybe they’ll think their friends have killed us,” Elias suggested.

  “In any case, they’ll be coming.”

  As they passed the conductor, Jana barked at him, “There are three dead men in the first car. Get the police!”

  They ran to the next car, passing the professor, who stood and trotted after them.

  “Professor, go back,” Jana shouted at him.

  He stopped for a moment, then began very deliberately walking after them.

  Elias was in the lead now because Jana had paused to warn the professor. Both of them again began urging the passengers to stay in their seats, trying to calm them with the usual “everything is under control” and “none of the passengers have been hurt.” They had reached the middle of the next car when Zimmer began shooting. Elias was struck by the first bullet and dropped like a stone. Jana squeezed off a rapid shot that caught Zimmer in the shoulder, throwing him up against a seat. Her next shot dropped him. She caught sight of Laszlo through the glass partition of the next car. She darted after him, but the distance was too great for accuracy with a pistol.

  A panicked passenger blocked the aisle in front of Laszlo; Laszlo clubbed the man out of the way. This delay allowed Jana to close the distance between them. She took careful aim and squeezed off her shot. It caught Laszlo squarely between the shoulders, propelling him forward, splaying him in a grotesque posture over the back of a train seat. Jana ran back to aid Elias.

  She crouched next to him. It was quickly apparent that the investigato
r was dead. “I’m sorry, Elias,” Jana said. “You did well.”

  Abruptly, Ryan appeared from behind one of the seats, his gun at her head. He had managed to get behind her by simply taking a window seat, his head turned away, letting them run past him.

  “There’s no need to get up, Matinova. Put your gun on the floor.”

  She hesitated, then placed her gun on the center aisle carpet.

  “I truly admire you, Commander. You’re a good cop. With big balls. I’ve always admired good cops.”

  Ryan cocked the hammer of his gun … just as the professor hit him with a suitcase he’d grabbed from the overhead racks, knocking the gunman off balance. Ryan righted himself and fired at the old man. The slug propelled the professor down the aisle. The momentary diversion allowed Jana to pick up her weapon. She emptied it into Ryan. Jana continued trying to shoot the man even after she had run out of ammunition, ultimately stopping herself when she realized her gun was no longer firing.

  She ran to the professor, kneeling down next to him. His eyes were open; he was fighting shock. Eventually, he managed to focus on her.

  “You see, I’m truly invaluable.”

  “Yes, you are, Professor.”

  “Forgive me for not telling you about my nephew’s report?”

  “I forgive you, Professor.”

  “Was that the last of them?”

  “The last of them on the train. Not to worry. We’ll have the others soon.”

  He smiled.

  “I told you that I could help you,” he reminded her.

  “You did, Professor.”

  “I hope I made it up to my nephew.”

  “He would thank you, Professor.”

  A number of Slovak police scrambled onto the train and into their car, their guns at the ready. One of them reached down and took Jana’s gun from her hand.

  “This man needs medical help. Quickly!” she said, in Slovak.

  “One more thing,” the professor managed to get out.

  “Yes, Professor.”

  “That young man will break Marketa’s heart. She should have stayed with me.”

  “There is no question about that, Professor. You are obviously the better man.”

  “Obviously,” he repeated, closing his eyes.

  Chapter 42

  Trokan insisted Jana stay at a safe house while she wrote her report. Then they would decide what their next move should be. The place he chose was her warrant officer’s home. He brought in a number of young officers from the hinterlands who had not been involved in major investigations and, therefore, were less likely to be tainted by contact with the murder group. They were to be bodyguards for Jana. They were also to make sure that the Seges’ apartment was secure.

  Jana sent him a first draft of the report which Trokan immediately took to the minister of the interior. The two of them then took it to the prime minister. The information that Jana had brought back from The Hague and Prague, and the international implications of what had happened, were so large that they had to bring the prime minister in. The three of them then mutually agreed to send out a press release “explaining” the shootings on the train, an explanation that would be vague and obscure enough to confuse even the most astute reader. Everything else was to be stonewalled. The dead had been carted away in body bags, so there were no photographs, and the prime minister had even authorized fostering a rumor that the dead men were rival victims in a Russian mafia war. Everyone was now waiting for the prime minister’s further orders.

  Seges was not happy. It was not that his wife had complained. To the contrary, she had welcomed the opportunity to take her children off to see her mother. It was just that he did not appreciate having his commander sleep in his other bedroom, then waking up in the morning to see her already awake, dressed to go out, and facing her irritation at being housebound. It was all very uncomfortable.

  Jana soon determined that sitting in the Seges’ apartment was not her cup of tea either. After vegetating on the sofa, feeling ineffectual, she’d had enough of staring at he walls, so she swung into action. Jana contacted the courts and was referred to a translator. Despite the colonel’s express order, she decided to go out. Seges did not try to dissuade her, hoping she’d leave him at home, trying to lag behind, only to be told to come with her. She also took an officer, a large man named Vesely who looked like he could take care of himself in a fight. There was some safety in numbers, and she wanted her bodyguards to look formidable.

  They went to an office on Obchodna shared by a number of translators who served the courts. An expert in Romanian was waiting for her. She had a pleasant but neutral smile on her face. It was the same with all translators. They cultivated a nice but neutered quality that would convey objectivity to anyone who utilized their services within the court system.

  Jana pulled out the last copy she had of the report that Peter Saris had hidden in her closet. She told the translator that she wanted it translated immediately. The translator balked. The woman insisted she would require at least a half-day to make sure all the nuances were correct. Jana assured the woman that a quick, reasonably accurate translation was all that was needed, adding that it was a matter of national importance.

  Nervous, but afraid to say no, the translator scanned the report, made a few notes, then proffered a reasonably complete rendition in Slovak.

  The report was a geological analysis of the exploration and testing of an area in Slovakia. The evaluation was based on a search for oil deposits conducted by Romanian geologists and petroleum engineers during the Second World War. The experts, men brought in from the Ploesti oil fields in Romania, had decided, based on the test drilling they had done, along with other studies, that the area of exploration was not a potential oil field of any consequence. They concluded that there was therefore no justification for further exploration and consequent exploitation. The Germans had signed off on this conclusion. Later, so had the Soviets.

  When the translator finished, she looked up with her neutral smile, waiting for any questions. Jana tried to understand the implications of the report. Why was there so much concern over a report that had been written so long ago? Why had so many killings resulted from its being brought to light? Jana added the fatalities up: Peter’s death from a phone bomb, the student’s murder at the hotel, Kroslak’s subsequent murder, as well as those of Dinova and Fico. Then there was the death of Elias and her own near-assassination. Murder after murder, for no apparent reason.

  Break the whole down and examine the parts, Jana told herself. She now knew what the young Denis had done when he’d found the report. She understood the part that Peter had played. Jana also comprehended what Kroslak had been investigating. The only question that remained unanswered was Fico’s role in these events. She needed to know that to complete the picture. No, there was one more question: what part had the minister of economics played in this? The leak had probably come from his department, the leak which led to the student’s death, and Peter’s death, and set this whole series of events into motion.

  The insurance investigator, Fico, was the key.

  Jana asked the translator to identify the area of land in the Tatras which the geologists had described. The woman very carefully printed the land description on a piece of paper giving plat descriptions and longitude and latitude, with two nearby city references to make it even clearer.

  Jana had a vague idea of the area they were talking about, but she would have to go to a map of Slovakia to further clarify it.

  Jana thanked the woman, telling her to write up a full translation and send the bill to her office.

  Seges looked hopeful.

  “Back to the house?” Seges asked, a wistful quality to his voice.

  “The attorney general’s office is next.”

  “The colonel is going to get mad at me for letting you leave the house.”

  “You weren’t designated as my jailer.”

  “He will say that I should have been more vigorous i
n my opposition.”

  “I’ll tell them you put up an argument which was so intense that we almost came to blows.”

  “He won’t believe that,” Seges moaned.

  “Then I’ll tell him I overpowered you.”

  Seges liked that even less.

  They were at the attorney general’s office within ten minutes. This was where Peter had died. She controlled her emotions by focusing on her objective: finding out how the killer had planted the bomb. They went up to the third floor and walked down the corridor to Peter’s work area, where his secretary sat in the outer office. Through the open door, Jana could see that the furniture had been removed and that painters were working on the walls. They were still cleaning up the scars left by the bombing.

  The secretary looked up from her work.

  “Commander Matinova, how are you?”

  “As well as can be expected, Angelika: surviving.”

  “It’s been a hard few weeks,” Angelika looked sympathetic. “I understood that the police had taken you off the case?”

  “I’ve been placed back in charge of the investigation by Colonel Trokan.”

  The secretary looked skeptical. “Oh?”

  Jana decided not to waste any time. She took the desk phone and dialed Trokan, handing the receiver back to Angelika.

  “Ask him.”

  The secretary spoke to Trokan, still trying to be delicate, mentioning that Commander Matinova was in her office and she seemed to be there investigating the explosion. She stayed on the phone for a while longer than seemed necessary, and when she finally put the receiver down she looked slightly shocked.

  “He was angry, and used profanity.” She was annoyed. “He said that, yes, you were back on the case, but to get your….” She hesitated, trying to find a nice word. “You are to get your posterior back to the house. He doesn’t want another murder on his hands. There were other things he said, which are unnecessary to repeat.”