Rogue mission, p.11
Rogue Mission, page 11
But the man was also big. Tall and heavy, he wore a black jumpsuit with sleeves that came to his wrists. He wore black gloves on his hands. He wore heavy black boots on his feet. Lucien didn’t think a centimeter of skin was showing anywhere on the man’s body.
He declined a drink. He declined the offer of food. He declined to shake hands. He declined any hint of common courtesy or welcome.
He didn’t want you to see his face. He didn’t want you to see his hair or lack of hair. He didn’t want you to lift his fingerprints off of any surface. He didn’t want you to somehow obtain his DNA. He wouldn’t put a glass to his lips, or leave behind the butt of a cigarette.
“What should I call you?” Lucien said. “The Bishop seems a bit formal. Mr. Bishop?”
The man shrugged. “Easy enough. Just call me Bishop. Leave off The. Leave off Mister.”
“I can tell you that you’re the first person to come here to discuss a business proposition, or for any reason, who utterly refuses to reveal a single fact about himself.”
“It’s unfortunate,” Bishop said. “But discretion is important in this line of work. It’s for your protection as well as mine. If I were ever caught doing something, anything, by any authority, you can deny ever meeting me. You can say you have no idea who I am. Also, if you were ever caught doing something, you can’t offer to give me to the authorities in exchange for your freedom.”
“Do you know who I am?” Lucien said.
Bishop nodded. “Of course. You claim to be Charles de Klerk, but you’re really Lucien Mebarak. Charles de Klerk is apparently a legitimate financier and investor from the Netherlands. Lucien Mebarak is an arms trader and career criminal who grew up in France—the bastard, wayward son of a family whose wealth goes back to the Middle Ages. You are both men.”
The Bishop had done his homework. He had discovered Lucien’s identity and summed up his life in just a few short sentences. This was not good news.
Lucien gazed out at the darkness. In the day, this patio overlooked the pale blue waters of the Aegean, though everything was black now, with just a few lights in the distance. The house was built on a rocky outcropping high above the water. It was designed to capture a sweeping southern exposure, facing down the coastline, but also out to sea, and to the west, as far as the eye could see.
From this spot, there was a wide staircase down to the pool deck. The pool was an infinity pool, by the light of day made to trick the eye into thinking it was an extension of the sea itself. At night, the pool was lit from underneath by bright blue lights. It was undeniably beautiful.
Lucien picked up his wine glass and took a sip. He sighed. The wine, a hearty Malbec to go with the time of year, was quite good. He made sure his house was stocked with the best of everything, including wine. He would happily share this bottle with The Bishop, and then bring out another, but this Bishop had his rules.
“That’s troubling,” Lucien said. “You have me at the disadvantage.”
Bishop shook his head, just a bit. “I should think it would be reassuring in every way. It demonstrates my organization’s acumen, in that we have pierced the veil you wrap around yourself. We did that weeks ago, and yet we told no one. No police or other agencies have come to visit you here, have they?”
“Not yet,” Lucien said.
“They won’t.”
There was a moment of quiet, no sound but the snapping and crackling of the flames.
“Note that I came alone, unarmed,” Bishop said. “It’s an indication of my faith in you. You have five armed guards here that I’ve counted, who no doubt are also versed in the fighting arts. They don’t even need the weapons they’re carrying. This house is isolated and the ocean is right below us. You could easily have them kill me, weight me down, and dump my body at sea. No one would even find the corpse. I am at your mercy. And yet, I’m unafraid. I know you want to reach agreement on certain tasks, and I do too. I think it will be fruitful for the both of us.”
Lucien nodded. It was true. He could disappear the Bishop and erase him from history, if he chose. But the Bishop was well regarded. Maybe paranoia and suspicion was how this man hoped to achieve longevity in his chosen profession.
“So tell me,” Lucien said. “Tell me everything you’ve found out—everything you know, and everything you think you know.”
Bishop nodded. “Good. We’ll get to the heart of it. That’s what I like. Here’s what I know. You’ve attempted certain actions in recent months. Most recently, you hijacked a train passing through the Austrian Alps in the hopes of convincing its owner, a supposed billionaire from Hungary, to surrender the cryptocurrency he had stolen.”
“He didn’t have it,” Lucien said. “He went to his death…”
Bishop put up a hand. “He did have it. He went to his death a very greedy man. He was willing to die rather than part with any fraction of his holdings, ill-gotten or not.”
Lucien said nothing. That might be true. He had suspected as much.
“You were thwarted in this attempt by a small offshoot cell of the police agency Interpol. The cell goes by the unwieldy name the European Rapid Response Investigation Unit. Informally, they call themselves El Grupo Especial, or even just El Grupo.”
Now Lucien nodded. He still didn’t speak. He made a motion with his hand that invited Bishop to continue.
“The failure cost you a great deal of money, possibly in the millions or tens of millions of euros. The man you hold most responsible for this failure, and other failures, and at least one massacre of your own men, and killings of men allied with you or in your service, is a man named Troy Stark. Stark appears to be in an intimate relationship with your half-sister, a woman who enjoys a legitimacy that you don’t and probably never will.”
Lucien still didn’t speak. Was the man trying to insult him?
“Troy Stark grew up in New York City. He has three brothers, two of whom are New York City policemen, and one who works for the New York Fire Department as a medic. All three have wives and children—two children each, as a matter of fact. Stark’s mother is alive, in her sixties, and lives alone in the same house where the whole lot of them grew up.”
“I have a soft spot for mothers,” Lucien said.
Bishop nodded. “Understood. Stark’s partner at El Grupo is Mariem Dubois, a French national. She is an expert markswoman and martial artist, and has been with Interpol for ten years. Her father was a French paratrooper, and her mother is from Senegal. The father is deceased. The mother lives in a flat in Paris, the 8th Arrondissement. It’s a doorman building, with security cameras and codes necessary for entry. She subsists on her husband’s government pension and some assistance from her daughter. She attends classes at a local gym, and frequents nearby shops and cafes.”
“I have a soft spot for mothers,” Lucien said again. He hoped he would not have to repeat this for every member of the commando team, or whatever they were.
“Dubois has no other close family members. I think Agent Dubois herself is a valid target. Moving along, the data analyst who has repeatedly hacked computer systems to bring you to grief is Jan Bakker. He grew up an orphan in the Netherlands, a ward of the state. There’s no record of who his biological family is or was. As a child, he was preternaturally intelligent. He graduated from the Delft University of Technology, under a full scholarship, at the age of nineteen. He has traveled widely, and appears to have numerous interests, yet no human relationships outside of work. My suspicion is that he is on what they call the Asperger Spectrum. There are few vulnerabilities in his life to exploit.”
“Next,” Lucien said.
“The head of the cell is Miquel Castro-Ruiz. He’s in his early fifties. He is divorced, and has two adult daughters, both in the north country of Spain. He rarely sees them, but speaks with them somewhat frequently by telephone. Both of his daughters are married. One has a toddler.”
“That could be something,” Lucien said. “But please bear in mind that my primary desire is to hurt Troy Stark. I don’t think you can hurt the man himself, even by torturing and killing him. He’s too dense for that.”
“Agreed,” Bishop said.
“Although I do want to kill him.”
“Of course you do.”
“But I want to cut him first, and bait him, by targeting someone close to him.”
“Stark’s family is in New York, and as I indicated, are policemen. They are tight-knit, except for Stark. To target a policeman, or a policeman’s family, in New York City is to invite disaster.”
“What else, then?” Lucien said.
“Your half-sister Aliz Willems,” Bishop said.
Lucien stared at Bishop for a long moment. A man in a bizarre tragedy mask, covered head to toe, had just suggested he hurt his own kin.
“I would say it’s either her or Mariem Dubois. Your sister would be easier, naturally. But with the right personnel in place, which I already have, we can reach either of them, or both.”
Lucien grunted. His sister. She was a terrible person. Her bloodline, and his own, was the worst of humanity. He had taken quiet delight in anonymously harassing her over the years. But what if he did more? And what if he used that to get Troy Stark?
“I need to consider this.”
“It’s up to you,” Bishop said. “There’s no hurry. We are prepared to act at any time. I will await your decision.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
8:45 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time (9:45 p.m. Central European Time)
Phoenix Rising Luxury Apartments
Battersea Power Station
London, England
“Listen, you ever take a rough ride before?” Troy said.
He was in one of the bedrooms with the skinny, bearded guy who had gotten Tasered by Dubois. The guy was sitting on the bed, wrists zip-tied behind his back. He wore a dark gray soccer jersey. The word Emirates appeared in yellow on the front, and under that Fly Better. The shirt had yellow piping on one sleeve and blue piping on the other.
Troy never understood that about soccer. The team was called Arsenal, and they were a big-time team located in London. But they had an advertisement for an airline from the Middle East on their uniforms. It was like Little League baseball teams in the US, where the shirts said things like Joe’s Pizza, or Ray’s Hometown Insurance.
Imagine if the New York Yankees wore uniforms that said United: Fly the Friendly Skies.
Troy shook his head. There was no time to unravel these mysteries now. There were two dead men out in the living room, along with North End Brandon, who had been beaten to a pulp, and the guy who had tried to shoot Troy behind the couch, who had also taken a beating. The guys who were still alive were all zipped. Dubois was out there with the other two. The London Metropolitan Police were going to be here any time to collect these clowns.
The old maintenance man had disappeared. Troy had sent George Goddard back to the hotel. That was problematic. Goddard had asked if he could stay in their hotel room. Because he didn’t have one of his own. He had been sleeping in his rental car the past few days.
“I thought you were Cleveland Police,” Troy had said.
“I am.”
“What, is it a volunteer opportunity? They don’t pay you?”
Goddard had shaken his head. “It’s a long story.”
“Okay,” Troy had said. “Do me a favor and don’t steal anything.”
When Goddard was gone, Troy had turned to Dubois.
Her phone was in her hand. “I’m already on it,” she said. “Calling Jan now. Goddard, George, twenty-nine years old. Cleveland, Ohio. Brother of missing woman Amy Hegel. Military experience?”
“Army,” Troy said. He shook his head. “173rd Airborne. Korengal Valley. He better be who he says he is.”
Now, Troy stared at the bearded man.
“I said, have you ever gone for a rough ride?”
The man shook his head. He didn’t say anything. His eyes were dark, and hard. He had gray in his beard. Troy guessed he was between thirty-five and forty, older than the other guys in the apartment, and more experienced.
Dubois had pointed something out about this guy. On the back of his right hand he had a black tattoo of a two-headed eagle. Under the eagle, there was another tattoo of a raised fist, also in black. She had gone to the big dead bearded guy, who had a hole in his chest (it was going to be fun explaining THAT). He had an identical tattoo on the back of his right hand.
The dead guy who Troy had popped also had one.
North End Brandon did not.
“Albanians,” Dubois had said under her breath. “Gangsters. The Baruti clan. Bad. Kidnapping. Sex trafficking. Cocaine. Heroin.”
She shrugged. Troy got a kick out of things like that. His partners at El Grupo studied international criminal networks and had these little details memorized.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the bearded man said.
Troy nodded. “Good. That’s honest. Let me explain. In America, the cops sometimes take criminals for what’s known as a rough ride.”
“I’m not a criminal.”
Troy smiled. “Your friend Brandon told me something different. He said you guys are Baruti clan, and you’ve been using him as bait to abduct girls. He had no choice. You forced him to do it because he’s good looking. He’s not even really in the gang. Not a full-fledged member, in any case.”
The guy’s eyes came alive. They had been dull before, and almost bored.
“I think he has a chance to get some leniency, and put the whole thing on you.”
Troy waved a hand.
“Never mind all that. So let’s say we’re in America. I’m a cop, and you’re a worthless punk. Sound familiar? So I put you in the back of the police van, with your hands tied behind your back, like they currently are. But I don’t secure you to a seat. Then I drive around town real fast, taking sharp corners, accelerating and slamming on the brakes. You know what happens to you?”
The man shook his head. “You can’t do that here.”
Troy walked over to him and picked him up by the soccer jersey. He spun around in a gentle arc, then let the man go. The guy took several flying steps across the room and crashed into a tall, narrow mirror on the far wall. He hit it face-first, shattering the glass, and he fell to the floor.
“You go for a rough ride,” Troy said.
Dubois stuck her head in the door. “Everything okay in here?”
Troy raised a hand. “Fine. Fine. We’ll be out in a little while.”
The door closed again.
The bearded guy lay on the floor amid the broken glass. His legs were sideways. His face was bleeding now.
“You know?” Troy said. “In retrospect, that whole chest-thumping I’m a man! thing that you did right before she Tased you? And then you’re flat on your back two seconds later? That was one of the funniest bits I’ve seen in a while. I wish someone had videotaped it.”
He picked the guy up by the jersey again. The guy was pretty light, not much to him.
The bed was to their left. They were at the foot of it. The bed and wall formed a little corridor, at the end of which was a tall dresser. Troy put the guy’s head low.
“You can’t do this. If I’m under arrest…”
“It’s a legal gray area,” Troy said. “I don’t actually have the power to arrest you, so you’re not under arrest yet. Matter of fact, I can probably still kill you and call it self-defense. I killed your buddy in there, remember? You see that little pop when a chunk of his head came off? Oh no, you were asleep at that point. Because you’re a man, right? And Tasers can’t hurt you.”
Troy ran with the guy right at the dresser, and let him go.
The man crashed head first into the top drawer. His neck bent at an odd angle when he hit. He crumpled to the floor again.
“Oooh,” Troy said. “That hurt.”
He toed the guy.
“Hey. You alive?”
The man rolled over onto his back. Blood streamed down from a wide cut on his forehead. His cheeks were smeared with it. His beard was like a blood sponge. His eyes rolled, but then found Troy.
“You’re marking yourself for death.”
Troy crouched down next to him. “Oh? Why is that?”
The man swallowed. It looked like his mouth was full of blood. “I am Baruti clan, as you say. You can’t touch us. I’ll be out of jail by morning.” He gestured with his head. “That boy is nobody, the walking dead. We were just waiting for the order.”
He smiled now, showing his bloody teeth. “But I never said that.”
“And the girls that were taken? The ambassador’s daughter?”
The man laughed. “I guess you’ll never know.”
This really was an unlikeable man. Troy had a hunch that if their little interview lasted another ten minutes, he was going to know something. Something more than what he had at the moment. Then the door opened behind them again. Dubois was in the room.
“Metro is here.”
The guy laughed so hard that he started to cough. A spittle of red fluid flew from his mouth.
“Gone,” the guy said. “They’re just gone. Gone away overseas.”
Troy stood, lined the guy up, and kicked him hard in the lower back, like he was kicking a soccer ball across the pitch.
***
“There’s going to be an embarrassing question of human rights,” the voice on the tinny speaker phone said. It was Jan Bakker.
Troy and Dubois stood in the dark on the Battersea walkway along the Thames, the Chelsea Bridge lit up in white in the distance. The traffic noise was loud enough here that it seemed like a reasonable place to talk to Jan and Miquel.
