The Other Son (18 page)

Artificial reassurance forced its way through.

Emotional vacuum…

Miles stretched out on the bed, his breathing becoming deeper and steadier.

The phone rang solemnly beyond walls of tiredness and emotional numbness. His eyelids closed.

The ringing phone was far away. Miles slipped into a black, medicinal torpor.

The phone rang again.

Sophie opened her eyes. Everything was black; there was cloth over her face. She was lying on the floor, her hands taped together behind her back. Something in her mouth…the handkerchief. She managed to spit it out. A headache was cutting through her head.

“Albert!” she cried.

A phone rang some distance away in the apartment.

“Albert!”

The phone rang again. She recognized it now. Jens's phone.

Sophie struggled and tugged, but her arms were held tight by the tape. She screamed in frustration and pushed herself back across the floor with her feet until she hit a wall, then pressed upward until she was standing.

She felt her way toward the hall with her back-tied hands. She managed to get ahold of the strap of her handbag on the chair, and pulled it behind her as she hurried blindly toward Albert's room.

Beside his bed she sank to her knees and leaned forward, but could feel nothing but sheets; the bed was empty.

“Albert,” she said, even though she knew he wasn't there.
Abbe
…

She had to get the phone out in case it rang again, and she managed to stick her taped hands inside the bag. She rummaged around with her fingers. There it was. Sophie took it out carefully and put it behind her so she could reach it with her fingers.

Then she sat there on her knees, tied up and blind. There wasn't anything else she could do.

Time passed; there were no sounds at all, she guessed it was night. Tears came, she was frightened.

The cell phone rang again.

Sophie managed to press the Answer button. A muffled voice in the distance.

“Jens, I can't hear you. You've got to come!”

Her voice was loud, almost a shout. She gave him the address and code for the door.

“They've taken Albert! I'm tied up!” she went on.

She could hear his voice but not what he was saying.

“Don't hang up!” she cried, terrified of being alone.

He didn't, and his voice kept her company for twenty minutes until she heard the heavy white wooden door open and Jens came rushing into the apartment.

“I'm in here!” she called.

He entered the room and first untied the cloth sack from around her neck and helped take it off. Then he sat down behind her and cut the tape from her wrists. She glanced around Albert's room. His things were still there, but the wheelchair was gone.

“Look for Albert,” she said as she got up. She went from room to room, leaning against the walls for support. The substance on the handkerchief that had drugged her was still in her system; she was having trouble keeping her balance, her headache cutting through her forehead and into her eyes. She searched manically through the apartment.

“There's no one here, Sophie.”

Jens was behind her.

She stopped in the living room.

“You need to sit down, Sophie.”

She turned toward him.

“Why did you call me?” she said.

Her suspicion was obvious.

“In the middle of the night, Jens?”

“I'm still on Mexican time, I couldn't sleep.”

“So you called me several times?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Why?”

“Why are you so suspicious?”

“Why, Jens?”

Jens tried to read her.

“Your friend Hasani drove me into the city after you freed me. His phone rang; suddenly he was in a hurry, and he let me out. I thought it was odd. I made my way home but couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong, so I called you. But that doesn't matter right now. Sophie, tell me what happened.”

She did, as best she could. From start to finish.

How she had been working for Aron since she and Jens last saw each other. How she had recently contacted the Hankes after she found out that they and the Colombians were working together against Hector. The fact that she was doing it in secret, without Aron or anyone else knowing what she was trying to achieve. That her meeting had resulted in Daphne and Thierry being murdered. She told Jens about the phone call Leszek had received in the car, how she had made her way up to the apartment and found only Albert there, then how she was attacked and Albert taken.

“Hector?” Jens asked.

“Still in a coma.”

“Aron?”

“He's in charge.”

“What does that mean?”

“He makes sure things keep working.”

“And are they?” Jens asked.

“No.”

He tried to understand.

“Why didn't you go to him first? You went to the Hankes? What were you thinking?”

“Aron isn't himself. He's stressed and edgy, impossible to reason with. I knew he'd start a small war if I told him what I knew. And he would have lost, everyone would have lost.”

“How much did you know?” he asked.

“The Hankes and Ignacio Ramirez are working together to get rid of Hector and take everything he's got. They murdered Hector's brother Eduardo and tried to get Aron in Istanbul at the same time. That was how they started.”

“But how did you know that?”

“I was in Colombia shortly after Istanbul. It was supposed to be a routine meeting with Ignacio and Alfonse Ramirez. But it turned out to be their way of communicating with the organization, through me.”

“What did they say?”

“That we should lie down and give up, give the Hankes everything, Hector included.”

Jens thought for a while.

“And you went home and said nothing?”

“There would have been a bloodbath….”

They looked at each other. Only now did she really see him. He was the same as before, a bit older, maybe, but it suited him. She could see empathy in him; he radiated it as if he really did understand her position, her dilemma.

“Do you regret it?” he asked quietly.

She knew he didn't mean any criticism. As usual, he was straightforward and undaunted when things got serious.

“I can't think like that. You can see that, can't you?” she replied.

“Yes, I understand. And it was wrong of me to ask,” he said. “You made a decision that felt right at the time. And it was, in spite of everything. Because there was no alternative. I would have made the same decision, Sophie.”

His words were some comfort to her.

“I think Aron knows about Munich,” she said.

“So he moved everyone, afraid for their security now that you've been to see the devil incarnate?”

She let him continue.

“And now he's taken Albert as a bargaining tool,” Jens said. “As long as Aron has him, you can't do anything. Does that sound plausible?”

“It sounds plausible,” she said.

“But why didn't they take him at the same time as they must have taken the others, Angela and the children, before you got home?”

She had no answer to that.

“And why didn't they just kill you?” Jens said.

She thought about it. Perhaps he was right, perhaps he wasn't. It didn't matter anymore. Albert was all that mattered, getting him back as soon as possible.

“The man who took Albert, the one who drugged you, did you get a good look at him?”

“Yes…”

“Did you recognize him?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? Think about it, have you ever seen him before anywhere? With Hector, with Aron, in the background? Is he one of theirs?”

She searched her memory. Trying to identify anyone next to Hector. No, she was sure she'd never seen the man before. But a different face came into her mind. A woman she had first met at Hector's birthday celebrations. The woman stayed close to Hector. She was extremely beautiful, and Sophie had felt oddly jealous. Then they had met in the house in Marbella, where Adalberto was killed…when Hector was shot.

“Sonya…?” she said out loud to herself.

Sophie quickly dug out the number, got up, and paced around the room, waiting impatiently for her to pick up.

A woman's voice answered.

“Sonya!”

A brief silence.

“
Sophie?
” Sonya replied in surprise.

“Where's Albert?”

“
We're not to talk. Hang up and don't call me again.
”

“Where's Albert?”

“
I'm hanging up now.
”

“Wait, please, Sonya.”

She waited, and Sophie breathed out.

“Just explain what's happened, and where Albert is. Tell me what you want me to do.”

“
No, I'm not going to explain, and we're not to talk anymore.
” Sonya paused before going on in a low voice: “
But I swear to you that I don't know where Albert is. I hope nothing's happened to him. Don't call again.
”

The call ended. Sophie stood there with her back to Jens, with the cell phone in her hand.

“She didn't know where he was?”

“No, that's what she said.”

“Do you believe her?”

She turned to him. “Yes.”

“So who's taken Albert?”

“The Hankes,” she said.

“Can you be certain?”

“No.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“They'll be in touch.”

“Why would they be in touch?”

“They want something. That's why they've taken him.”

She tried to sound convincing, not least to make herself believe it.

“You're not that naïve, Sophie,” he said, then went on: “This is Ralph Hanke we're talking about. If he's taken Albert, he's not going to make you an offer and then hand Albert back.”

She looked at him.

“Ralph Hanke takes,” Jens continued. “That's his skill. He knows how people who haven't got anything work. It's all about pressing people down and shaping them, nothing else….Look at the murders. Eduardo—why him? Daphne and Thierry? A brother, a married couple. None of them belong to Hector's inner circle. Hanke just wants to show he can do whatever he wants. It's a form of language, Sophie. Otherwise they'd have killed you in Munich….They want something by taking Albert.”

“They want Hector,” she said.

“And if you give him Hector? Which I doubt that you could actually do. What happens then?”

She didn't answer.

“Is he going to give Albert back? No, Ralph Hanke doesn't give anything back.”

It was blunt, and chilling.

“We have to go and get him,” she said.

Jens nodded.

“We do,” he said.

“Just you and me?” she asked.

“It'll be difficult,” Jens said.

“Have you got anyone else who can help us?”

“Not off the top of my head. You?”

Sophie thought. Her eyes grew bigger.

“Yes, I think so,” she said.