R. Ellory - A Quiet Vendetta

‘What the fuck is that all about?’ Woodroffe asked. ‘You’re a fully qualified criminal profiler all of a sudden?’

‘It’s a gut feeling,’ Hartmann said. ‘I’ve sat in there for God only knows how many hours listening to this man tell the story of his life, and there is a great deal we don’t know, that is for sure, but there is a great deal we can surmise. What I can see, what I have read in what he has told us so far, is that he has come to realize he has been the pawn of more powerful men, and now he is in a position, for what reason we don’t know, where perhaps he has needed something and they have not been willing to help him.’

‘Hypothesize all you like,’ Woodroffe said, ‘but the truth of the matter is that we follow protocol, and protocol is established by senior authority, and that senior authority is directing us to put forward a proposal and see if a deal can be struck.’

Hartmann didn’t reply.

‘We need you to get behind this, Hartmann,’ Schaeffer said. ‘We need you to be on the same team as us. We got something to do here-’

‘So do it yourself,’ Hartmann interjected.

Schaeffer sighed audibly. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. He spoke again without moving his head and Hartmann could tell how utterly and completely frustrated he was. ‘We need you to do this,’ he said slowly. ‘We need you to handle whatever doubts and reservations you might have about this and go over there and talk to this whacko. We need you to give it your best shot, and who the hell knows… it might not come to anything, but right now everything you’re saying, everything any of us are saying, is merely supposition and assumption. Perez might go for the deal, he might not-’

‘He won’t be interested,’ Hartmann said.

‘And why the fuck are you so sure of that?’ Woodroffe asked.

‘Because he’s a murderer and a psychopath. He’s an old man who’s spent the whole of his life killing people, right from his teens. We didn’t know anything about him. He could have stayed wherever he was and never made a sound, and none of us would have been any the wiser. He’s kidnapped the girl for a reason. He hasn’t just turned himself in to confess all these things to make himself feel better. This isn’t an exercise in conscience, it’s a calculated method of accomplishing something that we know nothing about. He has an agenda, a rationale, and however fucking crazy that might be, it’s still a reason, right? The man has a reason for doing this and it ain’t because he likes the sound of his own voice, and it sure as fuck ain’t because he wants to barter for a lesser jail sentence. These are things we would have never known anything about. He never had a jail sentence to begin with… why on earth would he go about creating one?’

Woodroffe shook his head and looked at Schaeffer. ‘He’s right. Why has he turned himself in at all? Why didn’t he just stay wherever the hell he was and die quietly?’

‘Because he’s fucking crazy, and crazy people do crazy things all the time,’ Schaeffer said. ‘You cannot apply reason to an unreasonable action.’

Hartmann raised his eyebrows. He remembered having that exact same thought himself.

‘So what the fuck do you propose?’ Woodroffe asked Schaeffer.

Schaeffer shook his head. ‘We don’t have a choice. We have been asked to put a proposal to this man, and that’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna give it our best shot. Hartmann is gonna go over to the Royal Sonesta Hotel, and with a hundred federal agents present, he’s gonna sit in a room with Ernesto Perez and ask him if he wants to make a trade for the life of the girl. We’ll see what Perez has to say, and if he tells us to go fuck ourselves then we’re in no worse a situation than we are right now.’

‘Good point,’ Woodroffe said. ‘Mr Hartmann?’

Hartmann shrugged his shoulders. ‘You guys are in charge here… I’m just the ex-alcoholic who drove a twelve-wheeler through his life and then got dragged down here against his will and wants nothing more than to go home. But don’t blame me if he gets so pissed off he decides he’s never gonna tell us where the girl is.’

‘That’s a risk we’ll have to take,’ Woodroffe said.

‘Agreed,’ Schaeffer said. ‘I ain’t gonna be the one to call the FBI director and tell him go shove his proposal up his ass.’

‘It’s your call, boys,’ Hartmann said, and he rose to his feet. ‘But I ain’t doing it tonight.’

Schaeffer frowned. ‘Whaddya mean, you ain’t doing it tonight?’

‘I have a migraine the size of most of Louisiana and then some. I didn’t sleep good last night. I am not in the best frame of mind to negotiate a trade for Catherine Ducane’s life. You want me to do this then you gotta cut me some slack on how it’s done. I need some time to think about this, to work out how I should best speak to him. I think it’s a fucking waste of everybody’s time, but I also understand that if he says no then we haven’t really lost anything either. I have more reasons not to be here right now than you guys could ever imagine, and the last thing I wanna do is blow my only chance of leaving here as soon as possible by going at this in completely the wrong frame of mind.’

‘I agree with Hartmann,’ Woodroffe said.

‘You wanna call Bob Dohring and tell him we ain’t doing this right now? If we ain’t doing it now then when the fuck are we gonna do it?’

‘Tomorrow,’ Hartmann said.

‘Every twenty-four hours is another twenty-four hours of Catherine Ducane’s life. You understand that, right?’

Hartmann nodded. ‘I understand that… of course I understand that, but if she’s dead then another twenty-four hours ain’t gonna make the slightest bit of difference, and if she’s alive then she’s alive because Perez wants her alive, and if that’s the case then she’ll stay alive until he’s got to the end of whatever the fuck it is he’s decided to tell us.’

‘So what do we tell Dohring?’ Schaeffer asked. ‘You have any bright ideas for that one?’

‘Tell him Perez refused to speak to us ’til tomorrow. Tell them that he wants to tell us all about New York before he discusses anything else. Tell him whatever the fuck you like. I’m getting out of here. This place is driving me fucking nuts, and the last thing I’m gonna do right now is go over to the Royal freakin’ Sonesta and barter with Ernesto Perez. And if whatever you tell Dohring doesn’t work, tell him I’ll quit unless he gives us some flexibility on this… and he can come down and work his charm on Perez and see what the fuck happens then, okay?’

‘Have you been drinking?’ Woodroffe asked. ‘Is this getting to you so much that you’ve fallen off the wagon, Mr Hartmann?’

Hartmann closed his eyes and clenched his fists. It took everything he possessed to restrain himself from lunging across the table and belting Woodroffe.

‘No, Mr Woodroffe, I have not been drinking… apart from the poisonous fucking coffee that you people have somehow managed to concoct.’

‘It’s okay,’ Schaeffer said, ‘I’ll handle Dohring. There’s a good deal of sense to what you’re saying. You go back to the Marriott. Get some rest. We’ll hear Perez out tomorrow, and then we’ll put our proposal to him. We’re all agreed, right?’

Hartmann nodded. Woodroffe grunted noncommittally.

Schaeffer rose from his chair. ‘Then it’s settled. Tomorrow we listen to what the man has to say, and when he’s done Mr Hartmann will go to the Sonesta and speak with him alone.’

Hartmann nodded his thanks to Schaeffer and walked across the office to the exit. He glanced back when he reached the door and saw both Woodroffe and Schaeffer standing silently, neither of them looking anywhere in particular, each of them lost somewhere within their own thoughts. Perhaps they had families too, Hartmann thought, and for a second he realized that he had paid no mind at all to what either of them might be going through as a result of this. But the fact of the matter was that they had chosen this life, this line of work, and he – Ray Hartmann – had seemed to wind up here by nothing but default.