Оливер Блик - Protocol for a Kidnapping

“No,” I said, “I don’t.”

Arrie was kneeling by him now. She was weeping.

“Not your fault, kid,” Wisdom said and tried to smile at her and almost made it before the pain hit. He shuddered and closed his eyes tightly and then looked up once more at Knight. This time he did smile, broadly. “Goddamn it, Carstairs,” he said, “get back to your post.” Then he died.

Knight kept the handkerchiefs pressed to the dead man’s chest, even when the metallic words boomed out from the bullhorn. “What’s it say?” I asked Arrie, but she was sobbing now. I turned to Gordana who stood, staring blankly down at the dead Wisdom. “The loud-speaker,” I said, “what’s it saying?”

She didn’t look at me. She kept on staring at Wisdom. “It is saying,” she said, “that we should come outside with our hands above our heads. It is saying it over and over.”

“Listen,” I said. “Tavro’s been killed. He was shot. Do you all understand?” I looked around. Killingsworth nodded dully. So did Gordana. “You understand, Arrie?” I said. This time she nodded.

“It was a submachine gun,” I said. “The same burst that killed Tavro also killed Wisdom. Is that understood?”

Knight raised his head and stared at me. There were tears streaming down his cheeks. They were not the tears of an actor.

“What the fuck are you doing, St. Ives?” he said. “Park’s hardly dead, the crap’s not even cold in his pants yet, and you’re already hustling one of your phony deals. He was a friend of yours, wasn’t he? Can’t you even let the poor bastard die right? There’s something wrong with you, St. Ives. You need something fixed. Now get away from us, goddamnit! Just get the fuck away!”

I moved back and watched Knight as he knelt by Wisdom, his head bent his shoulders shaking now as he sobbed unashamedly. Arrie touched my arm. I turned and she shook her head slightly. “Don’t say it,” she said, softly. “Don’t try to say anything. Not now. Later.”

I turned and took her arm and motioned to Killingsworth and Gordana. The four of us went down the stairs and out into the snow with our hands above our heads. Down in the meadow where Tavro had fallen I could see a group of men clad in gray uniforms. There were two other men with them dressed in civilian clothes. One of the civilians turned and pointed at us. The men in uniforms started moving across the meadow in our direction. Other men in uniforms came out of the forest and took up places around the body of Tavro.

The men in uniforms reached us first. They looked at us curiously, their submachine guns aimed in our general direction. When Arrie asked a question, one of them nodded a little shamefacedly.

“He says we can take our hands down,” she said.

I watched the two men in civilian clothes come closer. They were both short and they had a hard time making it through the deep snow. The nearest one saw me and waved cheerfully, as if I were liege of the manor and he an invited guest. I didn’t wave back at Slobodan Bartak of the Ministry of Interior. I had been expecting him. The man behind Bartak didn’t wave at me. He gave me a stony look instead.

It was all I should have expected from Hamilton Coors and the U.S. Department of State.

They headed for Killingsworth first, of course. He was after all the ambassador and there was protocol to be considered, even at a kidnapping.

I don’t know what lies Killingsworth told them. I didn’t try to listen. Instead I looked out across the meadow at the mountain peak whose name I would like to have known. Finally, I turned and said to anyone who cared to listen, “I’m going inside. I’m cold.”

Bartak turned from Killingsworth. He wore a broad, pleased smile on his face. “Well, Mr. St. Ives, it worked out much as I hoped it would.”

“Sure,” I said.

“The ambassador is safe and the kidnapper has been apprehended.”

“Tavro?” I said.

“Did you suspect that he was the one who engineered the kidnapping?”

I looked at Hamilton Coors. He stared back at me, not blinking, probably not even giving a damn. “No,” I said, “I didn’t suspect that.”

Bartak looked even more pleased, and the glint of early promotion was in his eyes. “Tavro had accomplices, of course. We’ll round them up soon enough.”

“An Italian,” I said, stubbornly keeping my end of the bargain. “One of them was an Italian, about thirty-five. I didn’t get a good look at the other one, but I think he was a Croat.”

Bartak nodded again, nothing but good humor. “You led us quite a chase,” he said.

I nodded. A blind man might have had some difficulty in following the trail I’d blazed across a good section of Yugoslavia. A four-year-old child would have had no trouble at all. The only thing I hadn’t down was to drop bread crumbs in the snow.

“It’s the way I had to operate,” I said and looked again at Hamilton Coors who returned my gaze, a slight smile on his face now. It could have meant anything or nothing at all.

“I was wondering if you heard the news of your death?” Bartak said, even chuckling a little.

“I heard it.”

“Yes, it was simply a matter of wrong identification. The person at your embassy, a Mr. Lehmann, identified the body as being yours, but then he said that you two had only met casually. I must say that the dead man did bear you a striking resemblance.”

“Who was he?” I said.

“We’re not yet sure,” Bartak said, “but we suspect that he somehow may have been involved in the kidnapping.”

“Because of where he was found?” I said.

Bartak dropped a little of his early morning good humor. “Yes, because of where he was found, almost directly across the street from Tavro’s house. A cottage really. He grew roses.”

“So he told me,” I said.

Hamilton Coors eased into the conversation, smooth as greased marble. “I really should talk to Mr. St. Ives about several matters, Mr. Bartak,” he said, taking my arm and steering me toward the castle before I blew the whole thing.

“There’s a dead man upstairs,” I said. “A friend of mine.”

“Really?” Hamilton Coors said. “We’ll have to do something about that, won’t we?”

Coors stood at the window of one of the small, bare upstairs rooms and looked out over the meadow. He rocked easily up and down on his toes, his hands clasped behind his back which was turned toward me.

“You didn’t want me to get him out, did you?” I said.

“Tavro?”

“Who else?”

“Your question’s hardly germane,” he said, “since you never had the slightest intention of trying to.” He turned around. “However, it worked out most satisfactorily, don’t you think?”

“What was Tavro’s real pitch.”

“Oh, he had information all right.”

“Was it any good?”

“Why do you ask?”

“He parted with it too easily. He handed it over to Killingsworth and then asked for help. After he handed it over it didn’t leave him any leverage. That’s why I say that he seemed more interested in peddling his information than he was in leaving the country.”

Coors turned away from me and walked over to a wall. He inspected it to see whether it was clean enough to lean against. It was and he leaned against it, his arms folded across his chest. He had on a suit different from the one that I’d seen him in last, a dark green one with pale gray stripes. The search that he had made for a tie had been worth it.

“What did he tell you about his information?” he said.

“That it could bring Russian tanks into Belgrade. Could it?”

Coors frowned and walked back to the window and let me look at his back again. “The CIA thinks so.”