Good As Gone (16 page)

“Dear God,” he said.

For the first time since arriving in Poland, I wondered whether the lawyer Dabrowski was more than just a middleman, a broker. Hundreds of images of child pornography were buried in organized fashion under innocuous file names on Dabrowski’s hard drive. All of them depicted children between the ages of four and fourteen. Both boys and girls. Made to pose either alone or with one another, frequently with a faceless adult man, or men.

None of the images were of Lindsay Sorkin, of course. It didn’t make sense that she’d have been caught up in this net. She’d been specifically targeted. Why her when there were any number of kids from the West who could have been snatched up just as easily, if not more so?

Still, I couldn’t help but feel that time had just become even more paramount than it had been before. As sure I was that Lindsay Sorkin hadn’t been taken to be sexually exploited, I was sure that these were the type of people we were dealing with. There was a network in place and Lindsay’s kidnappers would have used it, regardless of their ultimate purpose for taking her. Like it or not, this was the trail of bread crumbs we’d have to follow if we hoped to find her.

Next to me, Marek shook his head in disgust. “My sister has worked in this office for ten years. How could she not know this man was a monster?”

“Monsters can be clever,” I said softly. “A good deal of evil can be hidden behind a human face.”

“This monster was her mentor,” Marek conceded. “Her lover. To Ana, he must have been beyond reproach.”

I glanced at my watch. “We’ll need to be leaving,” I said. “The firefighters will reach us soon.”

“There were no addresses in Chudzik’s files,” Marek said.

“No,” I agreed. “But I did see something in Dabrowski’s discovery files that may lead us to him.”

“What?” he said as footfalls sounded from the hallway.

There wasn’t time enough for me to answer.

Chapter 29

We hid in Ana’s private office, lowering the blinds and locking the door behind us. As we waited for the firemen to pass, I looked around the room at Ana’s framed photographs. Many of the pictures were of her and Marek at various ages and in different cities around Europe. There they were in London as teenagers, then Dublin and Edinburgh around the same age. Here they were in Milan in their early twenties, a trip that apparently took them north to Switzerland. More recently they’d traveled to Finland and St. Petersburg, Barcelona and Madrid.

Studying the photos, I couldn’t help but think of my sister, Tuesday, and what kind of relationship we might have had as adults. Hell, what kind of relationship we might have had as kids.

“People are beginning to return to the building,” Marek said from his spot at the window. “The firefighters may be leaving but they will be calling in law enforcement about that glass door we smashed in, so we had better be on our way.”

I nodded, tearing my eyes from a photo of Ana and Marek as children on the beach by the Mediterranean Sea.

We hurried out into the hallway, then bounded down the stairs to the first floor.

Once we were safely away from the building, I stopped him so that we could catch our breath.

“The witness list for the prosecution,” I said, after a few moments. “One of the men who testified against Kazmer Chudzik is a former member of a rival syndicate, the Wołomin mob. In the file there was an English summary of his testimony that stated that he’d had dealings with Chudzik under the guise of a general contractor seeking protection in exchange for a piece of his action. Sounds to me like a guy who might be willing to talk.”

“Know where to find him?” Marek said.

The witness was a convict-turned-informant named Piotr Denys and he was employed by a construction company based in Warsaw. Marek called the company and was told that Denys could be found at a renovation project in the vicinity of Lodz, a large city eighty-four miles southwest of our location. It was a hell of a long ride that would eat up at least another two hours, but we had no choice. We mounted the BMW and drove off.

When we arrived, we discovered that the address was an old Catholic church undergoing massive reconstruction. The beauty of the ancient exterior was evident even with two stories of scaffolding obscuring our view. On one side of the church stood a mammoth excavator, its bucket lifting heavy pipes from the earth. On the other side, a cemetery overgrown with grass and weeds remained untouched, undoubtedly out of respect for the long-dead who resided there.

I parked the bike across the street and Marek and I moved swiftly toward the site.

“This church is at least seven centuries old,” Marek said.

Having spent most of my life in the United States, its oldest structures built no earlier than the seventeenth century, it always amazed me to see edifices built during the Middle Ages. At times it felt almost as though the Old World existed in an alternate universe.

At the edge of the site stood a fence, its gate open, a foreman standing at its maw. He adjusted his hard hat, held up a hand, and spoke directly to Marek in Polish. When Marek responded, I caught the name Piotr Denys and watched the foreman nod his head. He then barked something to another man, who appeared moments later with a pair of well-worn orange hard hats. The foreman handed the hard hats to us, and we placed them on our heads.

We walked past other workers without a word, the foreman as our personal escort.

I turned to Marek as we stepped over the threshold into the church. “Kind, isn’t he?”

“He’s a working man,” Marek said. “These are the men I fight for, the working poor and middle class.”

Inside, the church looked as though it had been rocked by an explosion. Large chunks of cement—what I assumed was the old foundation—lay haphazardly over an earthen floor. We stepped cautiously three feet above it all on shaky wooden planks, connected to one another in the shape of a tic-tac-toe board. Hoses from a compressor and cords from a generator snaked through two of the ornate stained-glass windows, the hum of the outdoor machinery flowing upward, echoing against the vaulted ceiling. As we walked, my gaze settled on a colossal out-of-place crucifix situated on the rear wall, and remained on the oversize cross until we reached a group of men, their pale skin slick with soot and sweat.

The foreman motioned one of the men aside and introduced him to Marek as Piotr Denys.

Denys was a rough-looking fellow, short and stocky, rock-hard arms colored with plenty of ink. His head rested directly on his broad shoulders, exhibiting no sign of a neck. He regarded us suspiciously as we led him away from the group.

Marek spoke a few words with him, then turned to me and said, “He doesn’t speak English.”

“No worries,” I said. “Just ask him where Chudzik might hold an important meeting. One he’d value as particularly private.”

Marek translated. As Denys spoke, the politician’s face grew red.

“Pan Denys wants to know what’s in it for him if he talks,” Marek said. “Shall I tell him his bones will remain intact?”

“No, no,” I said, staggered at how much Marek reminded me of his sister. “We don’t have time for that.” I reached into my pocket and plucked out a wad of euros, handed them to Marek. “Here. Negotiate instead.”

Marek peeled off several bills, held them tight in his fist as he repeated the question to Denys. Denys leaned in and quietly supplied an answer.

Marek said, “Chudzik owns a lake house in eastern Pomerania near the Gulf of Gdansk. Every private meeting Denys had with him was held there.”

“Ask him about security,” I said.

A few moments later Marek said, “The lake house is set off from its neighbors. Lots of land surrounding it. Pan Denys suggests that if we are hoping to gain the element of surprise, we go at night. Otherwise, we’ll be spotted a mile away.”

“All right, then,” I said. “If you’re satisfied.”

Marek handed him the bills and Denys quickly stalked off.

“I am confident he is telling the truth,” Marek said to me.

“That’s all well and good,” I told him. “But what if he sells the information back to Chudzik and we step right into an ambush?”

“Doubtful,” Marek said.

“Oh?”

“Denys told me that if we are successful at killing Chudzik, he will pay us five times what I just handed him.”

“Is that so?”

Marek nodded. “He testified against one of the most dangerous men in Poland. Unless Chudzik is dead, Piotr Denys will be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his natural life.”

Chapter 30

Marek proved he had even more in common with his sister by insisting he accompany me to Chudzik’s lake house in Pomerania. I didn’t put up much of a fight. I anticipated that, after what had happened in the warehouse in Pruszkow, Chudzik would be prepared with even more men, and they’d be looking for me, specifically. Undoubtedly, I would require a distraction at some point in time. The operation was dodgy to say the least. Normally, under such circumstances, you can finally rely on the police. But not now, not here in Poland. There was no way to know which cops were connected to Chief Inspector Gasowski—or to the network that had recruited him—and which were clean. And there was certainly no time to find out.

By the time we reached Gdansk, it was night, so the cover of darkness was a given. One of the few advantages we could count on. The layout of the great house, however, would present a distinct disadvantage. Though it was secluded, nestled among towering trees, the house rested high on a hill, making it impossible to gain higher ground. In addition, the roof was as flat as ancient cultures once thought the world. The perfect watching post. On the roof stood four men, one in each corner, looking out over the grounds.

There was really only a single approach, from the west. On the east side of the house lay a large deck, perched over a six-hundred-foot drop into a canyon. Directly behind the house lay a body of water. In the front of the house, two more men stood guard in front of a garage, large rifles hanging from their shoulders. These men didn’t look like gangsters. Chudzik had hired professional security. This wouldn’t be anything like stepping into a single room and threatening three men used to sitting on their fat asses, drinking coffee.

“I see six of them,” I said to Marek, lowering the field glasses he’d been gifted by a Polish soldier, one of the original two hundred who had joined the United States, the UK, and Australia in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

“What’s the plan?”

“To eliminate them,” I said. “Quietly.”

Each of the men wore a walkie-talkie on his belt, so the two downstairs had to be taken out together or at least out of each other’s sight. If they were able to communicate a problem to the men upstairs, it would make things decidedly more difficult.

“Do you want me to create a diversion?” Marek said.

I shook my head. “There are too many of them,” I said. “Any diversion would only put the remaining men on high alert. But I think an opportunity is about to present itself.”

We watched as one of the guards on the ground tapped a box of cigarettes. As he did, he began walking down the long gravel driveway away from the house. If he stayed on course, he’d be out of his partner’s line of vision in less than a minute.

“Wait here,” I told Marek.

Quickly and quietly, I moved through the trees to intercept the smoker. He stood only ten feet from the woods as he dug into his pocket, presumably for a lighter. From where I stood, it looked like a cheap yellow Bic, and he had trouble getting it started. He flicked the flint wheel again and again, but no flame presented itself. He turned and started back up the driveway.

I had only a few seconds to catch him before his partner would be able to see him again. Boots on gravel would give me away in a heartbeat, so I kicked them off and shot toward him quick as I could in socks.

He was about to round the corner when I caught up with him. From behind, I wrapped my right arm around his neck, making sure the crook of my elbow was positioned directly over the midline. Assisting with my free hand, I pinched my arm together, successfully compressing the carotid arteries and jugular veins on both sides of his neck. This would cut off the blood flow to his head and render him unconscious without the risk of strangling him. He struggled for mere seconds before his body went limp. I waited until I was certain he was out cold, then laid his body gently on the ground and dragged it back toward the woods and out of sight.

One down. The second should be easier.

Now I had something to lure the gunman away. I removed the walkie-talkie from the unconscious man’s belt. Motioned to Marek to join me.

As Marek crept to me I slipped back into my boots. When he reached me, I handed him the walkie-talkie.

“When I’m in position,” I said, “I want you to switch this on, but don’t say anything into it.”

Marek nodded. “Make like the guard switched it on accidentally?”

“Exactly.” I pointed to the garage. “I’ll be in position once you see me flush up against the garage, smoking a cigarette.”

I took the Bic off the unconscious guard and shook it. There was plenty of lighter fluid left in it. The guard must have been having trouble with the wind, which was picking up and turning wicked.

Cigarette hanging from my lips I made for the garage, careful to stay out of the downstairs guard’s line of sight. When I reached the garage, I leaned my back against it, cupped my hands, and tried the lighter. Lit the cigarette on the first try.

I nodded to Marek, who turned on the walkie-talkie. I heard the wind blowing through it from the other guard’s handheld. He shouted something in exasperation, then I heard his footfalls on the gravel, coming toward me. I blew smoke out the side of my mouth, hoping he’d catch sight of it.

When his footsteps were just a few yards away, I took a deep breath and braced myself. I tossed the cigarette in exchange for my Glock.

The guard rounded the corner. His eyes went wide when he saw the gun aimed point-blank at his forehead. I held my finger to my lips and he complied.