Dark Dreams

by Michael Genelin

  Jarov had not answered his cell phone; Seges was out of the question. But she had been too eager to confront Kamin to wait. It was an emotion that every young police officer has to get over in order to survive, she warned herself.

  She began to prowl the first floor of the two-story house. She saw nothing unusual until she got to the kitchen. There was a smell of garbage. Jana examined the kitchen garbage pail, pulling out two cans of half-eaten food. She then checked the counters in the kitchen. The one near the garbage didn’t have the same coat of dust on its surface. Somebody was using the house.

  Jana went to the door, then used her cell phone again. Jarov answered at last. Jana gave him the house’s address, telling him to pick up another man, even Seges, and come there as quickly as he could: she needed assistance in making an arrest.

  She hung up and tried to decide whether to wait. Again, her eagerness to arrest Kamin propelled her out of the kitchen and brought her to the stairway that led to the second floor. The nap on the stairway runner did not show any footprints until she was halfway to the landing. A very large impression of a sole and heel marked the rug. A man was upstairs. Jana cautioned herself once more: he might have heard her prowling around the lower floor.

  Jana had a choice: she could back down the stairs with her gun at the ready, or she could continue up to confront whoever she might find. She was already halfway up. Having come this far, she decided to go all the way.

  The carpeting helped, but she could not stop the stairs from squeaking. She had almost reached the landing when an arm snaked over the top of the stairs, a gun pointed at her. Guzak’s head appeared. She froze. The man had lain prone at the top of the stairs in wait for someone. He looked surprised to see that it was her.

  “No, I’m not Kamin,” Jana said.

  His surprise began to fade.

  “From the greeting you gave me, I suppose you were going to shoot him. You should be having second thoughts by now. I don’t think you want to kill a police officer, Mr. Guzak.”

  The gun continued to point at Jana’s head. She was developing a cramp from standing still, her weight on one foot. But if she moved, Guzak might misconstrue her intention and shoot her. Sweat was beginning to drip down her back.

  “I came to arrest Kamin. Perhaps you and I are on the same side.”

  The gun did not waver.

  “I talked to a prisoner in the hospital. He said Kamin had arranged to kill your brother and your mother. I think he was also responsible for your uncle’s death in Hungary. I’m after them, Mr. Guzak. We can help each other.”

  The barrel of the gun wavered for a moment, then steadied, centered on her forehead.

  “I tried to get word out on the street that I wanted to talk to you. It would be mutually beneficial. I hope you heard it.”

  He nodded slightly.

  The cramp in Jana’s leg was becoming unbearable. She willed herself not to move.

  “Think about it, Mr. Guzak. I arrested you; you escaped. You didn’t harm anyone during your escape. Not a huge crime.” The pain had become excruciating. “Think about it: you shoot me, the neighbors hear it, they call the police. The police come, that ends your hunt for Kamin.” She did not tell him that Jarov would arrive soon.

  “I can offer you a fresh chance to get Kamin. I propose a partnership with the police. If the police are on your side, and you’re on theirs, there’s no way for him to evade us. We’ll have him in a box. The man who murdered your mother and brother will be taken down.”

  The pain had become unbearable. She had to change position.

  “I’m going to sit on the steps while we talk, Mr. Guzak. My back will be to you. You’ll still be able to shoot me if you wish. However, before you do, I’d like to tell you about my plans, so please listen.” She slowly began to shift position. The relief was enormous. She kneaded her calves and thighs.

  “I’ll describe the evidence I already have, and how you fit into it. If I am wrong, I want you to correct me. At the end of our conversation, I’ll tell you how you can help. Is that understood, and acceptable to you?”

  She waited a few seconds to let him digest the proposal.

  “If my mother and brother had been murdered, I’d do anything to avenge myself on the people who killed them. Think. You’ll never have a chance like this again. You and I can do it.”

  Guzak grunted. Jana took it for a “yes.”

  Twenty minutes later, Jana walked out of the house with Guzak, just as Jarov and Seges drove up. They put Guzak in their car, Jana got into hers, and they drove away.

  There had been too many police officers at the scene for Soros and Eva to go after their prey. They could only watch them drive off, untouched.

  They were not happy.

  Chapter 48

  Jana called Andras in Hungary and gave him the address for Solti she’d obtained from the hotel in Kathmandu. She asked Andras to check it out. If Solti had any personal belongings there, she asked Andras to forward them to her as quickly as possible.

  The connection between Kamin and the two Borydas was tenuous at best. Their link had to be money, dirty money. The rule in all corruption cases is to follow the money. Sofia had told Jana that the Party needed financing, and that Kamin was going to provide it. Jana needed to talk to Sofia again, to persuade Sofia to tell her where the linkages were between Kamin and the Borydas.

  Sofia’s love affair had gone bad, had clouded her judgment and her honesty. But if anyone could sway Sofia, Jana could. She drove to Sofia’s house, then walked around to the side where Sofia’s office was, once again climbing the stairs, hoping that this time she would be more successful.

  She knocked on the door to the office, then walked in without waiting for a reply. Sofia was at her desk, working on papers, tears silently streaming down her face. Something had happened.

  Sofia looked up and put the papers aside, waiting for Jana.

  “As one of your constituents, I’ve decided to come to you as a legislator, a reputable member of parliament, and state my grievance.”

  Sofia’s tears continued to flow. Jana went on.

  “I’ve knocked on doors all over the city, and nobody wants to talk to a woman whose best friend refuses to talk to her.”

  Sofia almost smiled.

  “It’s lonely not having a best friend any more.”

  “Aren’t we best friends any more, Jana?” There was regret in Sofia’s voice.

  “Best friends can argue, can give and take, without being apprehensive. I’m talking to a woman who I used to call my closest friend. Do you think, if we try again, that it’s possible we can regain what we once had?”

  Sofia thought, then shook her head. “I no longer have any friends. Politicians, I’ve found out, don’t have them.”

  “Real people have them. A few politicians are real people.”

  “I haven’t met them.”

  “I have. I think you’re one of them.”

  Sofia proffered a tremulous smile.

  “Can you take off your politician’s hat? We have to think together. We have to have an honest give-and-take.”

  There was a wistful note in Sofia’s voice. “There’s good in politics; you just have to find it.”

  “Sofia, when politicians do the things that they feel are necessary to be successful, nothing is beyond them. They become bottom-feeders, or worse.”

  The tears began to slow down. “Are you being honest, Jana?”

  “I’m trying to be.”

  “You’re not.”

  “How so?”

  “If you were being honest, you’d acknowledge that you’ve come here only to get information about Ivan Boryda. You’re here as a policeman, not as a friend.”

  “I’m here, at this moment, as a friend so I don’t have to come back later as a police officer.”

  “You haven’t come to get information from me that would help in a police investigation?”

  “I’m here to get information on people who have taken mone
y they shouldn’t have, and, in turn, have dragged down a friend of mine. But she may no longer be the reformer, the woman who wants to help the people of this country. She may no longer be the people’s servant. She may have joined the predators.”

  “I hope not.” Sofia’s voice became stronger. “I don’t want to be.”

  “Are you the same woman who ran Transparency? ‘A person’s ideals are the person,’ you used to say. Do you still believe that?”

  “ . . . Yes.”

  “Are you still serving the people, or yourself? Or the Borydas? Or Kamin? What ideals can anyone have who serves them?”

  The tears had stopped. Sofia’s face had taken on a faraway look, as if she were remembering herself at another time.

  “Ivan Boryda is gone, Sofia. He won’t come back. He can’t leave Klaudia. She won’t leave him, not voluntarily. And both are tied up with Kamin.”

  Jana pulled out the diamond, letting it hang from the chain. Their eyes followed the sway of the diamond.

  “This is one of the keys.”

  Sofia’s eyes focused even more closely on the diamond.

  “Explain.”

  “Kamin has been financing Boryda for a long time. Long before you arrived on the political and personal scene. Long before I saw him in your office.”

  “He said Kamin would make him prime minister.”

  “Boryda needed money; the money had to be funneled from Kamin to Boryda. You became the go-between. Boryda remained untouched. You took the risk.”

  Jana studied Sofia, trying to read her. It was very important not to make a mistake now. “You arrived late in the game. There was another person who had received the money before you. It was Klaudia Boryda, wasn’t it?”

  Sofia nodded.

  “Was there a lot of money involved, Sofia?”

  Sofia hesitated. “Hundreds of thousands.”

  “A huge amount.”

  “Enormous.”

  Jana thought about the sums of money that had been flowing into Boryda’s hands. “It comes down to a question of control. The more money involved, the more people want to manage it, to possess it. You were sucked in because Ivan Boryda wanted to escape Klaudia’s domination. You were the tool he needed to transport the money from Kamin. Klaudia knew that if she lost control of the money, she would be unnecessary. She had to get rid of you.”

  The beginning of comprehension dawned on Sofia’s face.

  Jana twirled the diamond around on the chain. “We know that Klaudia sent you the diamond and you walked right into that trap. There’s still the question of where Kamin got the money to finance Boryda. There’s also another question, perhaps even larger: Why did he want to finance Boryda? What could Boryda do for him? And why all the killings?”

  “I don’t know, Jana.”

  Sofia’s face was open. She was telling the truth.

  “Boryda and his wife are no longer in Vienna. They’re not in Bratislava. Do you know where they are?”

  “At the schloss.”

  “They have a castle?”

  “In Austria, near our border. I tried to call him.” She shook her head. “One last attempt to get him back. He told me we were through. Then he called me Kamin’s whore, and hung up. That’s why I’m crying, Jana.”

  “He wanted to hurt you, Sofia.”

  “He succeeded.”

  Jana had one more account to settle with these people.

  Chapter 49

  The schloss was located in Austria near the small town of Rohrau, close to both the Slovak and Hungarian borders. It had taken a full day of persuasion by Jana and her associates in Hungary and Austria to prod the Austrian police into action. The Austrians never did anything that was not according to the letter of the law, and for an operation of this type they needed permissions and approvals from Vienna and, it seemed to Jana, everyone else in the Austrian government. However, when the last of the permissions came, the operation was carried out without a flaw.

  The police officers were spaced out around the castle’s outer wall, the largest group focused on the rear, backed by woods. They had brought scaling ladders so they could mount the wall. Jana and most of the police were at the front. Jarov and Seges were delegated to watch over Guzak until the operation began. The Austrians had even brought a tank-like vehicle that could punch a hole through the wall and provide cover for them if they needed to assault the main building.

  When the deployment was complete, Jana signaled Jarov and Seges. The four of them, along with Jana’s Austrian counterpart, a man named Linden, walked to the large entry gate. Linden’s men had the gate off its hinges and on the ground within minutes.

  They followed the long, curving path through immaculately tended lawns toward the twin-turreted eighteenth-century building known as Schloss Bruckner. The police in the rear scaled the walls and advanced toward the rear of the huge mansion, ready to break in when the signal came. Jana picked up the pace, hoping to get inside before any violent confrontation could happen.

  As they progressed, Jana took in the grounds and the schloss itself. The building was stately, beautiful, ivy-covered. There were plantings everywhere which would, in the summer, make this a green paradise. The perfect condition of the estate testified to the care that had been taken. It was an Eden for the wealthy, and the Borydas were now wealthy.

  Before they had come to the schloss, Jana had asked that the Austrian police go through the land records for the last century. The locals confirmed that the building and grounds had been in terrible condition for decades, until it had been purchased three years earlier. The new owners had spent enormous amounts of money to re-landscape, restore, and redecorate the castle, inside and out.

  The new owner was a woman who claimed an aristocratic lineage that nobody believed. However, as long as she paid her bills, the locals were only too happy to feed her fantasy.

  Jana, too, had done her research. Klaudia was using her maiden name, to keep Boryda off the land records.

  They walked up to the huge front door. Jana rang the anachronistic contemporary doorbell. A few moments later, a nondescript man dressed in a suit and tie opened the door, gazed at the police officers with some surprise, pointed them in the general direction of the interior of the building, and informed them that the Borydas were in conference.

  Jana had a vague impression of familiarity, but she went with the group, through the massively chandeliered reception area, into a large hall at the end of which were the carved doors the butler had pointed to. As Jana grasped one of the ornate metal door handles, Linden held a hand up for her to stop.

  “They’ll be out in a moment.”

  Jana wondered if it was Austrian courtesy, or the respect for authority the massive schloss engendered, that made Linden ask that they wait. Jana’s patience lasted for all of thirty seconds. She pulled the doors open and stalked inside. The others quickly followed her.

  They plunged into a chamber that could have served as a ballroom. Klaudia and Ivan Boryda were seated as far away from each other as they could get. Klaudia Boryda appeared stiff and uncomfortable, because she was quite dead. She had been shot twice in the chest. Ivan Boryda looked stiff and uncomfortable, but he had only been shot in the shoulder.

  As soon as Jana saw Klaudia Boryda’s body, she remembered the identity of the man who had greeted them at the front door. Jana had only glimpsed him previously when he had been part of a murder team, beating a man to death on a sunny day in Vienna. Jana whirled, yelling for Jarov to follow her, then ran through the outer room to the front door.

  “Stop the man who let us in!” she commanded.

  Jana raced for the front gate. She saw a car appear around the corner of the house and accelerate toward the front entrance. Jana shouted to the police at the front gate. No one seemed to pay any attention. The grounds were so extensive, they were so far away, that they could not hear her.

  She took an extreme measure to get their attention: she pulled out her pistol and fired several shots in t
he air. The men at the gate took notice and tried to block the car. At the last moment several of them were forced to leap out of the way as the car rammed through. A fusillade of shots by the police ensued.

  As soon as the car was out of Jana’s sight, she heard the thump of metal against stone. Jana sprinted, arriving at the gate to see a cluster of police, their guns drawn, surrounding the car, which had slammed into the schloss’s outer wall. The man who had killed Klaudia Boryda was dead.

  They got Ivan Boryda to a clinic in Hainburg, a small town close to the Danube. The clinic was surprisingly large and well equipped. The medical personnel wheeled Boryda into surgery, and within forty-five minutes they wheeled him out again and put him into a room, which the police secured. The wound was superficial, the doctors told them, so Jana could interview him.

  Jana walked in, accompanied by Officer Jarov and Guzak. Boryda visibly winced when he saw Guzak.

  “You know Mr. Guzak, I see.”

  “I’ve never seen him before,” Boryda mumbled, very deliberately keeping his eyes averted.

  “Mr. Guzak says he has seen you on several prior occasions.”

  “That would not be unusual, considering that I’ve made so many public appearances.”

  Jana turned to Guzak. “Where did you meet Mr. Boryda?”

  “At his home in Bratislava.”

  “Many times?”

  “Lots of times.”

  Jana turned back to Boryda, inquisitively.

  “He’s lying.” Boryda’s tone was not convincing. He was trying to look wan and in pain, but could not quite pull off the role of the invalid.

  “Your wife is dead.”

  “The doctors told me. I’m devastated,” Boryda claimed. His tone was not convincing. “She was a great human being.” He went into a rote summary of all the wonderful characteristics his wife had had, what a personal bereavement her death was and what a great loss to the Slovak people. “She will be missed,” he concluded his speech, giving them a preview of what he would say to the media.