The Beauty of Bucharest Read online

  “It might have to happen a few times for there to be any impact felt,” Viktor speculated.

  “It would have to happen a million times,” Nicole spat. “It would have been a symbolic kill, and I would have taken little satisfaction from it.” She swiped the screen in the opposite direction and brought Ana Albu’s face back into view. “But now, as much of a crappy twist to the job as she presents,” she said, pointing to the flawless woman, “it’s a tiny bit less of a gesture. It’s a little less about show.”

  “Only a little?”

  “Out of 800,000? Yes, one person, even one as poised to take on the world as she, is insignificant. Bogdan alone probably has a hundred other slaves in his sphere of filth at any given time. Maybe a great many more. If I can find Ana, though, to me it will feel less empty.”

  “I hope you do, then,” said Viktor.

  Nicole smiled at him. It was a sad smile. “I think you hoped I would when you added her picture to the briefing material,” she said. “But no matter. She’s in the mix now. So no one’s seen this pig for a year. Any ideas where I might find him?”

  “You’d expect me to laugh and say, ‘If we knew that, he’d already be dead.’ Right?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Well, you’re right. So, ha ha ha. There’s the laugh. We don’t know where he is. But we think our feet on the street have narrowed the list of possible locations to six or so.”

  “Half-dozen, huh? That’s workable.”

  “None of them are going to be easy to surveil, and all are virtually impenetrable.” He spun the tablet around so that it faced him and did some quick tapping on the screen. “The list is in your email; encrypted, of course.”

  “Of course. All right, then. I’ll start working the locations as soon as we take care of the little matter of things that make loud noises.”

  “And devices to make them less loud. Follow me,” Viktor said, closing the tablet’s leather cover and slipping it into a small satchel. He slid out of the booth and Nicole rose as well. They walked toward the restrooms, down a poorly lit hallway at the back of the barroom. Just past the two doors featuring the universal simplified figures of a man and a woman, there was a third, secured with a Masterlock padlock. Viktor pulled a ring of keys from his pocket and slid one into the silver and blue catch. As the door swung open, Nicole was assailed by an overwhelming scent of ancient mustiness. Viktor felt for a wall switch and turned on the single bulb that lit the staircase. He headed down, brushing aside cobwebs as he went, and Nicole stayed close behind him. She was an incredibly brave woman who feared no human being, male or female. But spiders were another matter.

  At the base of the stairs was another bare light, this one controlled by a string, which, as Viktor pulled it, turned out to be composed mostly of dust, as it spread a cloud in its glow. It shone on a large crate, far too clean to have been in the dank basement for any length of time. Viktor selected another key, which opened another padlock, and he swung the lid of the box open. Nicole’s eyes lit up like a little girl unwrapping her first Easy Bake Oven on Christmas morning, although she wasn’t really an Easy Bake sort of girl. These were the kind of presents that made her heart race.

  A veritable armory was crammed into the crate, and she quickly began to make her selections. She took a pair of identical H&K P30s, one with a suppressor and one without. There was something that looked like a briefcase, and she opened it to find a disassembled Accuracy International AX338 sniper rifle. She smiled in a way that made Viktor a little uneasy and closed the case once more, lifting it from the crate. To the extreme left side of the cache was a pile of ammunition and she quickly grabbed several boxes of the caliber and grain count that suited her. She was about to lower the lid when a cache of hand grenades caught her eye. Taking four, she shut the crate and asked Viktor for something to carry her bounty. From a pile of rotten, moldy bags beside the crate, he extracted a pristine medium-sized gym bag, black canvas complete with a Nike logo, and unzipped it. Nicole put the rifle in, then the silenced pistol. Viktor handed her the other handgun, then held two of the grenades in each hand, holding them gingerly. “Seriously, Nicole? Are you going to blow shit up?”

  “Probably not on the way in; possibly on the way out. If these places are as knotted up as you say, a fresh hole may be necessary for a timely exit. Or there may be an angry group of people who need a collective fresh hole themselves. Always ready to oblige,” she answered, tossing one of the metallic death-eggs into the air as if it were a Nerf ball. She made a show of almost dropping it as it came down and grinned as Viktor gasped. She zipped the bag closed, set it atop the wooden crate, and turned to face Viktor. “Thanks for the info, the pea-shooters, and for the tuică.”

  “Especially the tuică.” Viktor smiled, holding his arms open.

  She embraced him warmly. “You’re one of the best, Viktor,” she said.

  He stepped back and looked her in the eyes. “And you are the very best. But I am a little worried this time.”

  “Why? Ileana looks like a tough bitch, but I’ve seen badder.”

  “I know you can handle her, but I’m afraid you’ll be distracted.”

  Nicole knew without asking for an explanation that Viktor knew Dan was with her. “Dan will not impede my work,” she said flatly. “Once he learned the truth, there was no way he was going to let me come on this job alone and I couldn’t delay my departure. I don’t know that he’ll follow me everywhere, but he needed to be here for this one. It’s all new to him, and he still thinks, at some level, that he needs to protect me.”

  “If Bogdan or his people learn of him, it will be he that needs protection.”

  “Don’t worry,” Nicole said with just a trace of testiness. “I’ll make sure he’s secure and out of the picture. And I’m hoping Mr. and Mrs. Pruitt stay off Grigorescu’s radar completely. I’ll get the job done and get our asses back to Colorado.”

  “And my ass back to someplace a little warmer. No wonder vampires like it here. It’s like a tomb everywhere you go.”

  Nicole indicated the basement. “Well, this place certainly feels that way.”

  Viktor pointed into a dark corner. “There is a small door over there that will lead up to the street level. You’ll come out in an alley and will have to push hard on the door. There’s a car tire sitting on it. Replace the tire when you close the door.”

  “Thanks again, Viktor. O treavbă rapidă.”

  “A quick job indeed.” He smiled, already starting back up the staircase.

  Nicole slung the bag over her shoulder. The weight felt good as it pulled down on her. She lit her phone’s flashlight, found the door, and exited into a Bucharest early evening.

  5

  A Steak Not Eaten – A Stakeout Begun

  Nicole returned to the hotel room after a more leisurely walk back from The Pub, and found Dan in a hotel robe, watching TV from the bed. He looked up as she entered, noticing the gym bag at once. He wavered between leading with a witty question about her going for a workout and talking about the television programming. When he heard the clunk the bag made as it landed on the desk, he made up his mind.

  “You were right. The television here is like watching one of those nostalgia networks back home. TV Land, you know.”

  She decided to not deal with the look she saw in his eyes when the weapons thudded down and said, “I told you. That’s why being from the same town as Laverne and Shirley is such a big deal to them.”

  “I suppose being from Denver won’t trigger any Last Man Standing references, huh?”

  “Well, the Pruitts are not from Denver, for one thing. And Last Man Standing won’t mean a thing to them for several years, and by then, the Obama jokes won’t make sense to them anyway.”

  “They don’t make sense to me now.”

  “Liberal whack-job.” Nicole laughed.

  Feeling he’d put it off long enough, Dan pointed to the bag on the desk. His face asked the question for him.

  “
That’s my equipment. The stuff I’ll need for this job.”

  “So you probably shouldn’t leave it on the desk, then?”

  “No, most definitely. Most of it is staying in the bag and going under the bed.”

  “Most of it.”

  “Most.” She unzipped the bag and pulled the unsuppressed P30 from the bag. She made sure it was fully loaded, and then slipped it into her purse. Dan had always felt she carried bags that were a little bigger than necessary, but in another brutal epiphany, he now saw why.

  “Are you getting hungry?” she asked as she closed the purse, refastened the bag, and slid it under her side of the bed.

  Still looking at her purse, now lying on the bed a few inches from his feet, Dan said, “Actually, I am. Time zone-wise, my stomach has no clue what it should want right now, but it wants something.”

  “I was thinking steak.”

  All thoughts of the gun vanished from Dan’s mind as Nicole moved his mind from her weapon to his favorite meal. “Do you suppose there’s a good steakhouse around?”

  “Danny, this is a major metropolitan area. I’m sure there are several. Why don’t you call down to the desk and ask which is the best while I take a quick shower?” She began undressing, and Dan made no move to reach for the phone. She turned and caught his leer.

  “Dinner, Daniel. Keep your mind on the prize.”

  “Oh, it is!” he said, smiling, but picked up the phone receiver anyway. Nicole laughed and walked into the bathroom.

  “Hello, this is Mr. Por... er, Pruitt, in 808?” He was glad the shower was already running and that Nicole had not heard him nearly slip and blow their cover.

  “Yes, Milwaukee. I remember,” the desk clerk said.

  “Milwaukee, right. My wife and I would like to go out for a steak tonight. Can you tell me the best steakhouse?”

  “There are many, but I prefer the Red Angus on Strada Franceză. I can order for you a cab?”

  “Yes, that will be fine. Set it up for a half hour from now, please,” Dan said, but then he thought of Nicole in the shower and said, “Actually, make that an hour.”

  “Of course, sir. It will be waiting.”

  “Thank you,” Dan said, hanging up the phone and slipping out of the plush robe. He walked to the bathroom and found the mirror and the glass walls of the shower already steamed over, but he could make out Nicole’s form through the mist. She was bent down, washing her legs. He slid the shower door open.

  Nicole looked up, a little startled, but quickly recovered and she smiled at him. “I thought you said you were hungry.” She giggled as he wrapped his arms around her soapy body.

  “The cab will be ready for us in an hour.”

  “That’s lots of time to shower,” she said as she kissed him. “You must be very dirty.”

  “You have no idea,” he replied.

  The cab, as promised, was waiting when they came downstairs, and they climbed into it still basking in the afterglow of their shower. Dan looked at his wife in the flickering streetlights as they drove toward the Red Angus, and he thought that, if nothing else, being together in this ancient city seemed to have sparked her libido. Their sex life was active and fulfilling, but twice in one day was certainly not the rule, and he had to admit that he liked it. Very much. There might have been a hint of nagging insecurity in his mind that it was in fact because Nicole was… cleaning that she was more frisky than normal, but he pushed it aside.

  The steakhouse was less than two miles from their hotel, but Nicole asked the driver to take a route that followed the Dâmboviţa River. In the cold evening air, the water shimmered as it flowed, and to Dan, it looked like it was shivering, just as he did sometimes during their intimate moments as Nicole’s soft hands followed the contours of his body.

  “Whatcha thinking ‘bout?” she asked playfully, catching the distance in his eyes.

  “I’m thinking about you, like always.” He laughed. “I’m thinking about how wonderful I feel when I’m with you.”

  “You make me feel pretty fantastic too, for an old retiree.”

  Nicole smiled at his uninhibited laugh in response to her teasing, then turned away from him and looked out her own window. She was well aware of the conflict that had been swirling within him since finding the dead mark in her trunk, and she felt a slight twinge of guilt at how easily she’d manipulated him, for she could call what she’d done nothing else.

  The work that needed to be done couldn’t have been put off, and to waste time arguing with Dan over whether or not he was going to “allow” her to travel to Romania would have been counterproductive on many levels. In asking him to come along, she’d hoped to keep him occupied and off center enough that he didn’t have the inclination, or a lot of time, to stew about this new revelation. She’d allowed him to believe that his presence was in some way for her benefit. He would protect her, he thought. He would somehow keep the evil off her, the way he used to brush away floating embers from the campfire when they came too close to J.J. or Tony.

  But the cold fact was his presence was all about her keeping tabs on him. It was about keeping Dan from becoming what Wally had labeled him: a liability. Because that was exactly what he was. He was a complication, another factor to keep track of while she pursued her main objective. But because she loved him so deeply, she was willing, for his peace of mind and her own, to add that extra flavor to the stew. She’d stir it well. It would, she convinced herself, taste fine in the end.

  “What are you thinking about?” Dan asked, surprising her as she worked through her difficult thoughts.

  Nicole turned and took Dan’s hand in hers, giving it a gentle pat. “You. Like always,” she answered, parroting his words, though with vastly different meaning.

  After a lovely twenty-minute ride, the cab pulled up to the Red Angus, and they were shown to a very nice table without a wait, as the hotel had called and made a reservation for them, pulling a few strings and relying upon professional courtesy, as the hotel and restaurant regularly recommended each other to their patrons.

  Nicole, for her part, was not totally enamored with the positioning of the table, finding it less than perfect from a strategic perspective. It was not against a wall, meaning that she had to remain aware of the activity on all sides, including behind them. There was a decent-sized crowd for late dinner, and everyone was a potential problem. Even an innocent bystander could become a complication. After surveying the tables further from the door than theirs, she felt there probably no threats in that direction, so she sat in a chair that faced the entrance. There was never any telling what might come in from the cold. Still, she thought, we should be fine as long as I stay diligent.

  They ordered. As the young waiter brought their drinks, Dan savored the aromas of the place. He’d long been a connoisseur of an expertly prepared steak, and the scent alone made his mouth water. He looked around at the people already dining and turned to Nicole. “I think this was a good recommendation. The food smells amazing.”

  “It really does,” answered Nicole. Dan could tell she was distracted.

  “Hey, you’re not working yet. Relax and enjoy your dinner.”

  She turned her attention to him. “Sweetie, I’m always working.”

  The simple statement shook Dan. “I suppose you are. I suppose you would have to be.”

  A nod. “Every situation has its potential perils. Our table is not ideal, for example. There is always the possibility, when you’re not near a wall, that someone could come up from behind. We’re a little too well lighted here. I can see the door, but my view is obstructed.”

  “Do you want me to ask if we can move there?” Dan pointed to a table that seemed to him more in line with what Nicole was describing. It was against a side wall, with a clear view of the door, and permitted no way for anyone to approach without being seen. Nicole looked over and realized it would have been the one she’d selected if given the option.

  “You have a good eye.” She smiled.
/>   Dan flagged down the waiter and asked to see the host. A moment later, the man who’d shown them to their table arrived. Dan faltered. “Does he speak English?” he asked Nicole.

  “I suppose you need to ask him that question.”

  “You do not need to ask,” said the man, a gentleman in his fifties, his dark hair showing some gray. “I understand you perfectly,” he said with a smile.

  “I’m sorry,” Dan said to him. “I’m afraid I’m the American everyone talks about. Completely bereft of any social skills outside of my own country.”

  “You are quite forgiven, sir. What can I do for you?”

  “My wife and I were wondering if we might move to that table,” he said, pointing. Dan was surprised to see the stocky fellow stiffen a little.

  “I’m afraid that is not possible. That table is reserved.”

  “I see. And there is no way the people with that reservation would consider our table instead? I’d be willing to compensate you for the trouble,” Dan said, pulling out his wallet.

  “No, no!” the host said, holding his hands out as if to protect himself from the money Dan was about to offer. “I didn’t make myself clear. Another party has not reserved the table. It is always reserved. There is a very important person who dines with us from time to time, and he has purchased that table for his use, or the use of his associates. He has made it clear that it is always to be available. We consider it not to even be there unless he or his people are using it.”

  “That’s fine,” Nicole interjected. “We understand. Thank you... I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

  “I am Szilard, madam, and I thank you for your understanding,” the man said, obviously relieved that the issue was settled. He snapped his fingers and their waiter appeared. “O rundă de băuturi, pe mine.” The waiter gave a quick bow and rushed off. “I’ll hope that you will still enjoy your evening,” Szilard said.