Whirlwind (22 page)

“Ain’t nothin’ compared to what you’ve done to me.”

Schmidt’s voice was level, neutral, carefully modulated to communicate no emotion whatsoever. “You have annoyed me by playing a wicked little prank. You have annoyed me by wasting a considerable amount of my valuable time. You have annoyed me by making sarcastic remarks “

“That’s just my way of speakin’. It don’t mean nothin’, and there’s no insult intended.”

“And you have annoyed me by interrupting me. Please do so no longer.” Schmidt put his hands on his hips, examining Mitch from behind smoky eyeglasses.

Mitch swallowed hard. “Yes, sir. But can I say something, Mr. Cobra?”

“Certainly.” Schmidt waved his hand in a gesture worthy of a king granting a petition to a commoner.

“T’wasn’t a prank or a joke or nothin’. Weren’t no malice in it at all. Like I said, that McKenzie fellah, he paid me good money to drive his truck. It was just a job that come my way when I needed one bad.”

(The seamstress and the playwright stand in a chilly garret, dumbstruck by love at first sight. Their impassioned voices soar as they are drawn into one another’s arms.)

“And rewarding employment it was. Twenty-five thousand in cash. A brand-new BMW I am sorry that it’s no longer in pristine condition, but I trust you have insurance yes? Well, Charles is a generous soul. Suspiciously so. That is my second concern second to the annoyance you have caused me. My third concern is a wholly understandable apprehension that you have omitted something from your tale, some small and seemingly irrelevant fact that could shed light on the whereabouts of Irina Kolodenkova.”

“Sir, I honest-to-god don’t know. Last time I saw her was in my house. You say she was in that Marriott with Mr. McKenzie. Well, I guess I gotta believe you, but I sure didn’t know it. I didn’t see her, I didn’t hear her, I figured she was long gone by then. Everythin’ I know about her, I’ve told you. Told you three or four times now. I just can’t think of anythin’ else to say.”

“Perhaps if I prod your memory something fresh will come to mind, eh? A little something to jolt your system might open up fresh channels of thought, and, behold!” you will recollect some few other facts.”

“Mr. Cobra-“

“Ah, listen.” Schmidt cupped his hand to his ear. “That sound you hear is an approaching helicopter. It will dust down above this gully in just a few short moments. The pilot’s bringing someone quite singular with him, one of those exceptionally few specialists whose skills exceed my own. My most sincere counsel to you, Mr. Conroy, is to tell me everything now. You really and truly do not want this gentleman interrogating you.”

“If I could think of one other thing to tell you, I surely would. Let me start over at the beginnin’ “

Pressing a finger to his chin, Schmidt tilted his head. “No, no. That won’t do. I shall ask a question or two instead. Minor matters. Small sources of perplexity. Question the first, what kind of a vehicle is Ms. Kolodenkova driving?”

“Can’t rightly say. She was tryin’ to steal one of them suburban utility buggies when I bumped into her. After she left my house … well, hell, I just don’t know. I suppose she stole one of the neighbor’s cars.”

“And your pickup truck? We’ve checked the DMV computer. You own a black Dodge. Where might that Dodge be at the present time?”

“Probably out at the airport. Like I told you, that Mr. McKenzie and I traded cars. He said he was headin’ for the airport, and I’m pretty sure he was ‘cause I’m the one who chartered a jet for him.”

Behind Mitch, out of his limited field of vision, a helicopter thundered in descent. A gale of dust whipped down the slope of the arroyo. The engine revved then fell silent. Mitch heard the sound of boots sliding down a dry river bank.

And a lilting Irish voice, thickly accented. “Cobra. Good to see ya. And this wee shite all wrapped up beneath the tree, this would be my party favor?”

The voice’s owner sidled into view. He was short and paunchy with dark, greased-back hair. Despite the desert heat, he wore a black leather jacket, and his bandy legs were ill disguised by loose blue jeans.

Schmidt glanced from one man to the other. “Mr. Conroy, let me introduce Mr. Keough. He hails from Belfast, and his former employer was the Irish Republican Army.”

“Sinn Fein, actually,” said the Irishman, bending at the waist and placing a tool chest on the ground.

“A trifling distinction at best. Now understand, Mr. Conroy, that men enlist in the IRA either because they wish an excuse to steal, or because they enjoy hurting people. There are no other reasons. The brotherhood’s kitchen serves only those two flavors of soup. I’m sure you can guess which flavor Mr. Keough represents.”

(Their duet complete, the orchestra falls to a hush, sweet notes of love, gently played. Mimi and Rodolfo have found their destiny: each was meant only for the other.)

“Ain’t gonna serve no purpose to hurt me more.”

“Ah, but it will. It will serve to make me happy although Mr. Keough will be happier still. Unless, of course, you can convince me that you’ve told me everything you know. Do that, Mr. Conroy, and you are free to go, and will be none the wiser about Mr. Keough’s arts.”

“I don’t reckon. You and all your boys been callin’ each other by snake names. Only this fellah you call by his real name. I figure that means once he’s through with me, I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Schmidt pressed his lips together. It might have been a smile, if he were capable of that. “How unfortunately observant you are.” He walked to the left, out of Mitch’s sight. “It appears I need to administer a small object lesson in being less attentive to my subordinates, and more attentive to my questions.”

Schmidt’s hand appeared in front of Mitch’s face. It held something. Mitch blinked. Sweat dripped off his forehead and into his one good eye. His vision was blurred and he couldn’t quite see… but could begin to feel… growing, mounting, rising… pain that defied belief… and the horrifying agony of it jolted up his arm like an electric shock.

Johan Schmidt put Mitch’s little finger between the cowboy’s lips. “Bite down hard. I’m told it helps with the pain.”

Mitch screamed.

“Zippo,” said Schmidt, lifting a hand. One of his men tossed him a lighter. He snapped its cover open, spun its wheel, and held the open flame to Mitch’s severed joint. “This will cauterize the wound. We can’t have you bleeding to death, can we?”

Head turned to the sky, Mitch howled a cry he had not known he had in him.

“You may think the removal of your finger painful. In this you err. You do not know what genuine pain is. The severing of a single digit is not even metaphorically an overture. It is merely the orchestra tuning up. The real symphony, Mr. Conroy, begins when Mr. Keough steps to the podium.”

(Outside the garret, Rodolfo’s friends summon him to the Cafe Momus. It is Christmas Eve, and he has promised to join them in celebration. With Mimi hugged to his side, he calls out that they should go, that he will catch up later.)

Keough squatted by his toolbox, the lid open. He removed a car battery, a power cord, and an electric drill. Smiling like a child, he said, “Back when

I was a young ‘un, the provos shot Protestant bastards in the kneecaps. Primitive, would you not say? Bang, and it’s over and done, and where’s the fun in it? Now we use Black and Decker, and the advantages are numerous, numerous. No wasting valuable ammunition. A man can take his time. And the boyo at the receiving end of the business always finds he has more information in him than he thought he did.”

Mitch whimpered.

“A quarter-inch bit, I think. Now where’s me Allen spanner, I’ve got to open up this chuck a bit.”

“Sir!” Another voice, a man who called himself Boa. He stood at the top of the arroyo, calling down to Schmidt.

“Not now. I’m busy.” Schmidt’s tongue whisked across his lips.

“Sir, it’s important. I have Cottonmouth on the radio. She says she’s found her, found Kolodenkova!”

Schmidt spun. “Where?”

“About ninety miles northeast, sir. The chopper can get you there in thirty minutes.”

Leaning forward into Mitch’s face, Schmidt showed his teeth. “Well, well, well. It appears that fate has intervened on your behalf, Mr. Conroy. I see no need to squander any more of my time talking to you.” He turned toward Keough. “Sorry, old friend, you’ll have to put your toys away. But don’t feel badly. I’m sure that in roughly half an hour’s time you’ll be able to put them to good use.”

(Singing “Amor, amor,” two young lovers leave the stage, their fading voices hanging in the air as they depart for dinner on a Christmas Eve.)

Schmidt stepped behind the juniper tree to which his prisoner was tied. A single slice of a damascened blade severed the jugular. Mitch watched his blood fountain out from beneath his chin, a wide red geyser that splashed maroon on desert sand. He felt nothing, and was dead before he understood what the caress of Schmidt’s knife had done.

Someone asked, “What about the body, sir?”

“Leave it for the coyotes.” Schmidt climbed toward the helicopter. “But I’ll want the finger for a souvenir.”

(Upon one final “Amor,” the curtain falls.)

I’M NOT IN YOUR HURRY

read the bumper sticker on a wheezing Winnebago camper. Agonizingly slow, it sluggishly climbed a twisting back road. Immediately behind, a spa-toned couple in a Porsche Boxster fretted and fumed, the driver darting into the left lane to see if there was room to pass, darting back because there never was.

Irina inched along behind the Boxster.

A cream-colored Silverado pickup truck followed her.

Schmidt’s people, she was sure of it. A husky, broad-shouldered man sat at the Silverado’s wheel. Irina could see the bulge of his biceps in her rearview mirror. His passenger was a woman, sharp-faced with straight blonde hair. When she moved, her pale green jacket revealed shadowed metal holstered beneath her armpit.

When the Silverado had first pulled behind her, Irina’s heart almost stopped. Still shaken by the deaths she’d left behind two hours earlier, she nearly pulled off the road.

If she had, they would have known instantly.

Controlling her fear hadn’t been easy. Doing the right thing the thing she’d rehearsed over and over was harder still.

Crawling uphill at twenty miles an hour, she’d let her dashboard clock tick off three minutes. Then she’d turned her head slowly so that the two mercenaries could see her profile. She’d smiled at the Silverado’s driver and had given him a hopeless shrug, as if to say: these old fogies in the Winnebago are slowing me down too, but what can I do about it?

The driver nodded at her. She’d gotten away with it.

The trick wouldn’t have worked in open sunshine. Shadowed inside Mitch’s Dodge, she was eight meters from the hunters. If they’d been closer, they would have seen the shape of her nose had been clumsily disguised by a wad of chewing gum across its bridge. However, from a distance and observed through tinted glass, she bore the beaky profile of an English aristocrat.

Now the mercenaries had been behind her for a half hour. The Winnebago had painfully breasted a mountain pass. The road had straightened enough on the downhill run for three cars to pass the lumbering yellow elephant. Out on the flats, another three had managed to speed by.

Then another climb, an endless climb, and there were only four vehicles left in the slow-moving convoy: a Winnebago, a Boxster, Irina’s black Dodge pickup truck, and a Silverado the color of vanilla ice cream.

Again the Boxster shot out to pass. The next blind curve was too close. It pulled back in front of Irina.

She kept her eye on the rearview mirror. The Silverado’s driver and his passenger exchanged a few words. A water bottle passed hands. The woman stretched. The man rolled his shoulders. And every fifteen minutes, the woman lifted a microphone from its cradle.

Status reports she was calling in at quarter-hour intervals. The web Schmidt wove was fine indeed.

The road ahead seemed endless. Hairpin curves, less than thirty meters of straightaway, then another switchback. To her right, a narrow shoulder bordered empty air. A hundred vertiginous meters below lay a valley pocked with boulders and tawny hummocks of wild grass. To her left: the chiseled rust orange of a mountain whose slope had been dynamited and jack hammered to make room for a preposterously narrow two-lane blacktop.

No exit. Nothing but curve after endless curve.

Hazy streamers of sand spit across the road. The wind was stiffening, evidence that they were nearing the top.

How far was the summit? A mile at most. Then the road would go downhill. The Boxster would rocket around the Winnebago, and she finally would be able to pass the ponderous camper. If she timed it right, she might be able to leave the Silverado stranded behind, he trapped at twenty miles an hour, while she sped away.

She’d pick the place carefully. She was sure she could do it.

More wind. Her truck rocked in a gust bursting over the ridge.

Something flickered in her rearview mirror. Green. Cloth. The tarpaulin.

The wind lofted its corner. She heard it snap, saw an unfastened rope whip into the air.

The woman in the Silverado turned to the driver, spoke a few terse words, then snatched the microphone from its cradle, pressing it close to her mouth.

It wasn’t time for her checkin report. Only minutes had passed since she’d made her last call.

Irina sweated. The sweat was ice.

They’d seen Whirlwind. When the wind lifted its tarpaulin cover, they’d seen it clear as day. A matte-brown ingot a meter wide, a half meter deep. They knew what it looked like. They knew they’d found it.

She twisted her steering wheel left, accelerating into the passing lane. No hope. The next curve was too near. The Boxster’s driver moussed hair, aviator glasses, tailored shirt looked angrily over his shoulder. She slipped back behind him.

The man in the Silverado fumbled one hand over his head. He was reaching for something … for what?

A rifle. He took it from its rack, and laid it across the dashboard.

Turning to him, the woman said something. The man’s sole answer was a hard-eyed nod.