Vienna, Austria
Thursday, 11 June
2:00 p.m.
he rented black Mercedes Benz S500 was parked in front of the Stadtpark U-Bahn subway entrance. The driver kept the engine running while he and Madu waited for Wolfgang Broderman to return from lunch. The location provided advantages for them to target their prey when he would exit the station or step out of a car across the street on Johannes Gasse in front of the Central Bank of Austria, Wolfgang’s bank where the money waited for EARTH to swell its coffers. Today was the day of days: the last time using this method for funding everything that really mattered in Madu’s life. It was going to be easier in the months ahead to capture money without having to deal with sick asthmatics and diabetic targets, and not to have to deal with people at all. Madu’s planned use of the latest computer hacking technology was far beyond any prevention software available today to financial institutions. He sat in the back of the Mercedes on the curbside waiting, staring through the black-tinted windows and focusing on every man that came out of the ground. More than an hour passed beyond Wolfgang’s habitual and expected return time, time that made it difficult for Madu to stop his mind from drifting into his worst fright.
To Madu, subways represented pre-burial places in the ground without a casket, places where people wait and by chance fall off the platform in front of oncoming tons of iron riding on wheels capable of turning them into a potpourri of flesh, bone fragments and gummy entrails. The same that had happened to Leonelle Bouvier, Dominique Fontaine’s psychotherapist. He had not pushed her and could not have saved her. He was only able to grab the folder containing reports about years of Dominique’s deepest inner pains. If he had prevented Bouvier’s drunkenness at their all-night soirée, if he had insisted she stand back from the platform’s edge, she might not have tumbled onto the tracks and blended into sticky train-track slop. Moreover, he would not have won possession of the file, the tool to support his bid to destroy Ms Fontaine. Bouvier, a psychotherapist with years of experience, should have known how to resist her temptation to take flight from her own depression by hiding it in liters of alcohol, unless suicide was the latest prescription that her profession delivered to the emotionally stricken, including them. She had willingly offered Madu the folder for a sum of money, enough to let her retire from the gut-wrenching daily cries of her patients. The folder’s inner darkness played out the weekly sessions that unveiled Dominique’s secrets. He had studied the cardboard chamber’s many hundreds of paper notes and felt close to being able to defeat the world’s most notorious hostage negotiator. This time though he would win it all: escape, get the ransom and have time to gather all the tools to propel EARTH into world supremacy. He harbored no guilt, because he saw that what he did was considered wrong. In fact, whatever he did that others portrayed as wrong was of no concern to him. He did not murder Bouvier, he did not consider his accidental striking of her teetering drunken body as pushing her into the path of the oncoming train. He had moved forward in his quest unhampered by cries of wrongdoing, and his values ironically bolstered by what he feared the most: death in a subway where he might meet Allah without a sound explanation for what he did.
Madu’s eye sockets ached from repeatedly looking up and down at the photograph he clenched so tight as though Wolfgang was already his hostage and unable to escape.
“Kaseem,” he shouted, “is this a recent picture of our benefactor?”
“Two weeks old. I captured it myself from right there.” Kaseem pointed toward the U-4 subway sign.
Madu, having trouble controlling his excitement of what was ahead, felt his pulse relentlessly hammering up to his temples. His chest tightened and he breathed rapidly and strained. Impatience filled him with irritation.
“This is the longest I have waited for a target,” he said.
“We waited longer in New York,” Kaseem said.
“I am freezing cold. Turn the heater on.”
“A minute ago you said you were hot.”
“Waiting for a capture always makes my body thermometer go wacky.”
“But you always win, calm down.”
“Maybe we missed him. Maybe you were not watching. Maybe you fucked up,” Madu said.
“Maybe you should trust me.”
Madu had to trust Kaseem in the past to deposit all the millions earned from ransom payoffs, while keeping himself out of roving security cameras’ eyes.
“Damn you, Kaseem, don’t turn around when you talk to me. You looked away from your zone.”
By design, neither Wolfgang nor they would recognize each other in a restaurant or standing next to each other in a public urinal. Madu and Kaseem had studied photographs and videos of Wolfgang, and when the time was right and the opportunity presented itself, the leader of EARTH would be comfortable presenting himself face-to-face with this massive income source. The time was now and this was the place for it to be executed out in the open with his cunningness as the tool instead of a black bag over the head. Moreover, the place was two short blocks from where Wolfgang would waste the last hours of his life. However, trusting Kaseem to not turn on him and steal the last millions was as painful to his psyche as his loss to Dominique had been a few days ago in London. Madu’s hands started trembling when the photograph he choked came to life across the street.
“I was right,” Madu said, “Good thing I looked where you were supposed to. That is he getting out of his wife’s car. Stay ready.”
Madu jumped out of the car and dashed across the street. He approached and hesitated when he and Sybille, Wolfgang’s wife, made eye contact. She finished the obligatory spousal hug and got into her car. Her Rolls Royce Silver Shadow sped away as though escaping from the tabloid paparazzi, a constant issue that she faced having to get away from those who recognized her reconstructed face.
Wolfgang removed his white linen suit-jacket and slung it over his shoulder, as he did in many of the videos that showed him returning from his midday meal—or tryst. Instantly, Madu was there and snagged the jacket’s collar sending it to the sidewalk. Wolfgang turned to retrieve it as did Madu and they bumped heads.
“Oops. Just trying to help,” Madu said.
“Thank you.”
“You … you are Wolfgang Broderman,” Madu said with as much surprise as he could conjure up.
Come into my lair.
“Yes. Who are you?”
“I am … Mahfouz Malawi,” Madu said, pleased for conjuring a fake name on the spot.
“I am here to deposit several million dollars more into your bank, and to meet you in person.”
“So you are the Egyptian man who insisted all his money must stay in the vault.”
“You never know when an emergency will occur.”
“The wealthy should always help one another,” Wolfgang said.
“Was that your wife hugging you?”
“Yes. Why do you ask?”
“There are rumors she wants a divorce because you go with other women.”
“Tabloids print that crap to fill space.”
“I heard it from someone inside the circle of supporters of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.”
“How do you know them?”
“I am one of them. I have donated millions of dollars.”
“There is a prenuptial; she cannot be awarded more than a million dollars a year. Let’s go inside and discuss your business.”
“There is too much at stake, both personally and business related, if anyone hears our conversation. Somewhere more private would be better. I have an associate that can help you defeat your wife’s attempt to bankrupt you. Come, my chauffer is waiting.”
Madu opened the street side back door and motioned for Wolfgang to enter. He could have kicked himself for such a courtesy. He got in on the other side and sat next to the easiest capture of his life.
“Are you comfortable?” Madu asked and offered his prey a cigarette.
“I’m comfor—”
Madu pulled a length of hemp rope out from the driver-seat back pocket and looped it around Wolfgang’s neck. Wolfgang reached, about to grab the rope with both hands. Madu, prepared for that automatic response, took the other end of the rope formed with a hangman’s loop and tightened it around the wrists of his newest patron of EARTH. He tied the other end to the center headrest.
“There we go, now you will be more comfortable and will not fall over when we turn sharp corners.”
Wolfgang screamed, “Help.”
“Scream all you want. No one outside can hear you, or see inside. In fact, screaming annoys me.”
At the next cry, “Who are you?”, Madu shoved a handball into Wolfgang’s false-tooth-filled chamber. He sacrificed his official headdress, a black and white checkered Agal headband and wrapped it around Wolfgang’s mouth, neck, eyes and ears. Madu lit a cigarette and took a long drag. He moved his puckered lips beneath his captive’s hairy nostrils and blew the smoke in.
“You can not see speak or hear, and taste nothing other than the bitterness of that one-pound hard rubber ball, and feel only the rope’s needle-like threads, but you can smell. Did you like that? Oh, how thoughtless of me. You want to answer, but you cannot speak. You do look nice in black and white. I wonder if your wife, what is her name, likes black and white. Oh, I keep forgetting you are speechless. Sybille, I believe is her name. Would she pay a handsome amount to have your body delivered to your estate? Just nod or shake your head, but be careful I would not want you to scratch your neck on the rope’s prickly threads. That’s right, sit still, rest your head, but you may keep trembling if you would like to.”
Madu looked into the park and decided on an approximate ransom drop point. He could see the flowerbeds with every color of the rainbow and imagined the bees buzzing sounds and the feel of rose petals and pleasant fragrances all around. Much had to be explored to choose the exact spot, but not now. This one had to be flawless. In order to insure the threat of maximum collateral damage, he needed to be very careful when selecting the exact day and the precise time and spot. He hoped and prayed beyond Allah’s force, that the FBI, Dominique’s combined allies and archenemies, would show up in their black suits and spill out from their bullet riddled black Suburbans armed with M-4 Carbines fitted with 100 round ammunition drums. He could see them now with their toys aimlessly pointed at anything or anyone in sight, and crying like babies because ‘do not fire’ orders from headquarters might have paralyzed their trigger fingers. They would not have their multiple orgasms, one for each shot, as they would fire bullets from their guns’ barrels pounding the steel penises stock against their shoulders. Repulsive as it would be to agree on anything with Dominique, he and she saw eye to eye on one thing: FBI agents’ repulsive personas.
“Drive Ka … chauffeur, you know where to go.”
An hour later, they arrived at the final destination. Madu gave Kaseem some money and watched him go over to a guard at the chosen location’s delivery entrance. Kaseem returned and both men escorted Wolfgang through a storage area and boarded the service elevator. In less than a minute, they were all inside a room with two more EARTH members. Nijad and Sameer carried their human bankroll to a wooden side chair and tied him to it with more hemp rope.
“You two go now,” Madu said, “before the bank closes, and withdraw all our money. Kaseem, stay with me.”
Wolfgang groaned. Madu pulled the handball out with a full set of false teeth embedded in it and warned that he would kill him immediately if he screamed out.
“There’s a diabetes kit in my jacket,” Wolfgang said. “I should have taken an injection when I returned to the bank.”
Madu said, “I will do it.”
I need you alive when the negotiator asks the cliché question whether you are being well treated.
“Hurry, please use only one-third of what’s in the syringe, I could die if I get too much, too late.”
“What if I accidentally give you more than a third?”
“I could faint from insulin shock, or die. Hurry please.”
No more fucking sick people, just high technology after this one.
Madu started the injection.
“That’s enough, remove the needle,” Wolfgang said.
Madu continued injecting.
“Take it out—please,” Wolfgang said and passed out.
At 5:30 p.m., Nijad and Sameer returned with the money. Madu checked the withdrawal documents and counted the money, it was all there.
“Is he dead?” Sameer asked.
“Not yet. You two stay here and take care of his needs as far as bathroom trips and ordering special diabetic food. Here is a number for a doctor. Call him, and only him, and he will deliver insulin and needles. He is a member of EARTH and knows where. We need him alive, for a few more days. I need to take the money back to Alexandria and lock it in the vault. I will come back to Vienna in a day.” Madu was finished with his speech.
He and Kaseem took the baggage full of money out the back of the building and paid the security guard enough to live well for twenty years, until he was 85.
“Kaseem, to the airport. Wait for me to call with new instructions. Get another car, but this time buy it and use your British I D.”
Madu was certain they would call in Dominique. He planned this abduction to fit the most severe M-1. No one in the world would demand any other hostage negotiator than her.
“Open your eyes Madu; we are here, at the airport.”
“Kaseem, what do you think Ms. Fontaine will be engaged in that will piss her off when she is called to this task?”
“It will be Saturday night in Paris when she gets the call. I am sure a beautiful sexy woman like her would have those long legs wrapped around some lucky fucker.”
Madu rejoiced in his power to control when they would summon her. His heart felt like a drummer leading a parade of ego inflated law enforcement officers marching toward failure.
Paris, France
Dominique Fontaine’s Apartment
t was Saturday night in Paris, the city of romance and lights. Outside, warm pinhead size raindrops drifted down as quiet as cotton puffs falling on her vanity. Dominique gazed out her bedroom window at the droplets. They sparkled like tiny diamonds reflecting the thousands of decorative lights that adorned Paris’s architecture across the Seine on the right-bank.
The sixth-floor apartment’s windows framed unobstructed views of the Seine. It was a big apartment with rooms generous enough to provide the needed space for the mostly Italian antique furniture that she had brought to Paris from her deceased parent’s villa in Grasse. The Louis XIV roll top desk had been her homework table and its cubbyholes were where she had hidden her poems. It was right at home here. The lace curtains she and her mother had made were now hanging on the floor to ceiling multi-paned window in the great-room that framed a romantic live painting of the river’s quays. But it was still not as awesome as the view of the Mediterranean through those same curtains in her birthplace’s hilltop villa.
*
Dominique had remained in Grasse through completion of high school and left for the first time to attend University—soon after her brother Daniel was kidnapped. At the University of Law, in Aix-en-Provence, she completed simultaneous studies and received degrees in law and criminology. Her insatiable pledge to erase kidnappers clung to every oxygen atom that flowed through her brain. During her last year, she studied crime scene investigation in Paris while serving an internship at the Prefecture. She impressed the staff with her logic and tenacity to such a level that the Prefect himself attended her graduation ceremony and stood at the base of the stage for the entire three-hour event. Only seconds after the chancellor had handed her two diplomas and she had stepped off the stage, the Prefect had handed her an envelope.
“Put this into your other hand and call me later,” he said with an anxious smile and ambled away.
Dominique immediately opened the envelope. The job offer, although in the Homicide Division, thrilled her. Without hesitation, she raced after Pierre Mignon and shrieked: “I’ll take it.”
Twelve years later the gut wrenching murder scene in the Solferino Metro station had triggered her tenacity to either quit or get approval to establish a hostage negotiation team. She had conceived SART, and was commissioned its director.
*
Every Saturday night cars rushed along the Quay d’Orsay in front of her apartment. Drivers leaned on their horns making constant ear piercing sounds as they frolicked and signaled to others to greet them, or to move over, or just go faster so they could get first in line at their favorite clubs and discos. Dominique often dreamed of taking part again in the fun and romance of those nights. She opened the great-room and bedroom windows. A gentle breeze drifted through the mist and cooled her apartment. She relaxed and drifted into a deep sleep, alone on Saturday night in the city of lights and romance.
Sunday morning, barely.
ominique wished the partygoers would stop beeping their horns, but suddenly realized that the loud trilling was not a car horn, but the unique wailing sound of her hot line. Half asleep, she shined her flashlight and squinted at the nightstand clock. Its ugly face stared back at her displaying 2:05 a.m. The rain had stopped, but she tasted the moisture that lingered in the air.
She rolled over, pushed the speakerphone button and got up to close the window.
“This better be a wrong number or an M-1.”
“It’s a right number. And it’s the true significance of M-1,” Pierre Mignon said.
“That’s your canned speech when you call at an ungodly hour,” she shot back.
“You’ll see, you’ll agree.” Pierre gulped, as he does when talking with a mouth full of food.
“Can you stop eating for once while you are talking to me? How high a profile?”
“The highest.”
“Who?”
“Wolfgang Broderman, the Governor of the Central Bank of Austria.”
“The notorious philanderer?”
“Him.” Pierre said.
“You placed him in an M-1? How could you?”
“Just because he screws around doesn’t make him any less important.”
“Yeah, convince me Pierre.”
“I’ll explain details later.”
Dominique reported to Pierre, and without restraint showed respect to him during group sessions, but whenever they were one on one, she took charge and he followed. He had admitted to her that his recognition for the past few years was partly because of her successes.
“Explain—now.”
“You need to come in,” Pierre said.
“It’s 2:00 a.m. and it is Sunday. Please just explain why M-1.”
“We need to decide if—”
Dominique yawned long and loud like a disinterested audience.
“I’ll decide needs when I’m awake enough. So wake me up, give me an M-1 argument. What is his International involvement? Give it your best shot.”
She would not give up. With the title of Director of SART came the rights to accept or refuse a hostage situation call. Dominique had made sure of that before she accepted the directorship of the department she had founded.
“Your tenacity—” Pierre started to say.
“I consider my tenacity an asset, which is reflected in my hostage release record. It will help me decide the true classification of this incident. So one more time, his international involvement is …. Fill in the blanks please.”
“If you were here at the Prefecture, you would see.”
“Now you are being stubborn. I’m still waiting Pierre, M-1 clarification or I go back to sleep.”
“He’s associated with the International Monetary Fund.”
“So was Wilkes and it didn’t pose a threat to any nation’s security.”
“His bank focuses on the European countries of the former Eastern Bloc.”
“Closer, but that’s far from a full M-1profile.”
“Okay, he’s a United Nations hired overseer for those countries.”
“Damn!”
“Damn what?”
“Why didn’t you tell me that right up front? Never mind. That means FBI, U.S. State Department, and five or six other countries and a slew of agencies could get involved, that’s what’s damned.”
Pierre did not respond. He never could understand the stress Dominique faced when she was in the field.
“Okay, so it does look like an M-1.” She switched on the nightstand lamp and fumbled for a pen and paper. “When was he abducted?”
“Two days ago, but—”
“Why wasn’t I told of this during my last two boring days?”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing. Just tell me why the two day delay.”
“Dominique, you trained us to do our homework before calling you. I did that, and when I believed that it could be an M-1, I paged Yvonne to come in right away for some prep work. Then I called you, in less than ten minutes after they notified me.”
“Go on.”
“Sybille didn’t report him missing until an hour ago.”
“Sybille?”
“Broderman, Wolfgang’s wife.”
“I’m surprised the scoundrel still has a wife. I might have to save this lecher’s butt?”
As soon as she had said that, she realized that men don’t comment on stuff like that.
Pierre kept quiet.
“I fell asleep last night looking forward to a quiet Sunday,” Dominique said.
“I understand,” Pierre sputtered with a mouth full.
“No you don’t. My Sunday is just about screwed. I’m awake now.”
“Yvonne was on her way home with Henri. My wife and I were seconds away from…. So you’re not the only one who was just about screwed,” Pierre said and sighed.
“Who notified you?”
“Interpol.”
“Hmm.”
“Hmm what?”
“Interpol,” Dominique said, “the outsiders are starting early.”
“My thought too. By the way, the caller spoke with great regard for you. She also told me that the FBI is involved.”
“Damn, the FBI is in. I hope it is someone other than their Eastern Europe agent, Ralph Preston. He would make it a sickening challenge. Who notified the FBI?”
“Interpol.”
“I assumed as much,” Dominique said. “Who from Interpol called the FBI?”
“Let’s see.”
Papers rustled.
“Susan is her name, I didn’t write the last name.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
“You know her?”
“She sat in on the Ian Wilkes case. I guess she enjoyed my kick-butt play. Can’t blame her for calling them, she did get a taste of rare FBI cooperation in London.”
Silence. Pierre always shut down like a scared turtle when he had to dive into icy water.
“They … the FBI proclaimed jurisdiction.”
“I’m not surprised,” Dominique said, “and as usual nothing’s in order. Does the UN Security Council know yet?”
“They must by now. And I would guess from the media.”
“Ah, media, we need to implement a gag order.”
“Yvonne’s on it right now.”
“This isn’t a momentous risk to U.S. National security yet, but better safe than sorry. Damn, I hate it when others jump to jurisdictional edicts and muddy the waters—especially the FBI.”
“Dominique, you said yourself to expect—”
“I know what I said. I still hate it.”
Dominique wanted clarity and she wanted it now. She fired off a barrage of questions.
“Is there a strain in Sybille and Wolfgang’s relationship? Are they separated? Why did Sybille wait so long to call the authorities?”
Pierre fired back.
“One can assume a strain. I don’t know if they are separated. Sybille told local authorities that she suspected he had gone off on one of his midweek trysts with a courtesan.”
“Could she in fact care after all his trysts?” Dominique asked.
“The society pages show her enjoying a good life surrounded by yachts, jewelry, mansions, luxury automobiles—”
“I get the point. Divorce is probably not an option.”
Dominique started a mini storyboard. She wrote some notes: question Sybille, trysts, divorce, life insurance, prenuptial—SUSPECT in bold letters.
Pierre filled in the details. So far, the only contact was a phone call demanding the equivalent of 70 million U.S. dollars. They also said they know that Wolfgang and the Vienna police chief are friends, but that it would only cause a bigger problem if Klaus got involved. They said that if it became a negotiation scene, there would be no compromise. Wolfgang’s life for the money, a trade—nothing more.
Déjà vu London.
“Seventy million, the price is going up. What is Wolfgang’s worth?”
“It’s estimated at 150 million.”
“That’s the icing on the cake. M-1 it is,” Dominique declared.
“Glad you agree.”
“Only because the ransom suggests something big is being planned.”
“Like terrorist weapons funding,” Pierre said.
“Yeah, that kind of money should buy some sophisticated stuff.”
“Unless the large amount is the effect of inflation.”
“Not funny Pierre. Start the coffee and send a car. I’ll be ready in 15 minutes.”
“Fifteen minutes it is. Do you still have your emergency short notice baggage packed?”
“How about no notice?”
“At least you get to travel.”
Dominique recalled working with Vienna’s Chief of Police, Klaus Esslinger, at a seminar where she had presented the latest rule bending techniques for negotiating with kidnappers. They had first met at the European police conventions two years earlier and shared the same philosophies on handling hostage cases. He too found the stereotypical rules to be obsolete. She had no doubt that he would give her the necessary support and with the strength of the Vienna police force helping, but hiding out of view, they would free Wolfgang and catch the kidnappers too.