The Rendition (15 page)

But what had really grabbed my attention was a picture of her taken with a bunch of ragtag characters who were all dressed like soldiers and were holding automatic weapons—one of whom looked familiar. It was Ramush Nadaj.

Silently, Sylvia reached across the table and picked up the photograph.

“How did Ramush Nadaj and the Vogt woman become friends?”

She looked at the picture, then began gazing at the other pictures
in the collection. Finally, she said, “Is this the only one of him?” She looked thoughtful, then began toying absentmindedly with the top button of her blouse.

I said, “I haven't looked through all of them.” After a second, I said, “You still haven't answered the question. How did they become friends?”

“It was in Afghanistan. Up in the mountains.” As she began going through the photos, Sylvia said, “It certainly looks as if they were friends. Maybe more than friends.” She paused. “We assumed they knew one another.”

“We did?”

“We assumed they'd met one another once or twice, maybe more. I figure she interviewed Nadaj.”

“Is that important?”

“It could be. One of the things we're trying to do is trace the Vogt woman's movements.”

I said, “Nadaj kept asking me if I knew what happened in Afghanistan. What did happen in Afghanistan?”

Sylvia ignored the question. “You've been told what you need to know.”

I stood up.

“You told me that this assignment connects to the Nadaj rendition. I'd like to know how it connects.”

Acting as though she hadn't heard me, Sylvia said, “I wonder when this was taken. She made a number of trips out there. She got to know Nadaj and Brinkman, both of whom she met in Afghanistan.”

“I'm still wondering what happened in Afghanistan—and to be honest, I'm wondering about a few other things as well.”

“What kind of things?”

The truth was, I'd been thinking about what Buck had said at the airport. Considering the way I'd screwed up the rendition down in Kosovo, it just wasn't logical that Sylvia and Shenlee would select me for this assignment. More logical was the thought that I was expendable. Buck had been blunt, saying it looked as if I had a death wish. I
was also bothered by the fact that Sylvia was withholding information that I felt I should know.

“I still feel—”

“Alex, you're becoming very tedious.”

Still standing next to the table, I said, “I feel I'm being sensible. I was dumb to let myself be talked into this operation. I should know better than to—”

Sylvia stood up, and we were only a foot apart. “What do you mean?”

“I should know better than to trust you people.”

“Which people?”

“You and Shenlee. And the whole gang at the National Security Council, or whoever it is you work for.”

“Cool off, Alex.”

“Not to mention the deputy secretary. Even worse is the fact that you're pretending that nothing's wrong.”

“You'll have to do a better job of explaining yourself.”

“What's wrong is you haven't told me what this operation is all about.” I took a deep breath. “From the way you described it, I assumed this was a straightforward murder investigation. You said that Brinkman was getting a raw deal. The idea was, I was supposed to use my contacts with the Munich police, assuming I still have any, to see what's going on.”

“You're overreacting.”

“Something else I've never been told: Why it is that everyone's so interested in Nadaj? Why did we make him the target of a rendition?”

“Is that all that's bothering you?”

“What's bothering me is that I haven't been told why I'm over here. That's why I'm leaving.”

“Do you know what I think, Alex?” When I didn't respond, she said, “I think the same things I did at Floyd Bennett. You're afraid. You're afraid of Nadaj because of what happened in Kosovo. Maybe Jerry's right. You're afraid Nadaj'll capture you and throw you back into that hole you told me about.” She turned, headed toward the kitchen. “I'm going to make myself a cup of tea. Would you like one?”

“That's ridiculous.”

“I think I'm right.”

I said, “No, Sylvia, you're wrong. Nadaj has nothing to do with it.” I followed her into the small kitchen, where she retrieved a box of tea from the pantry. “What I don't like is that you and Shenlee haven't leveled with me.” I watched as she measured out the tea and poured in the boiling water into a teapot and pulled cups and saucers down from the cabinet. From a drawer, she took out a small strainer. She'd all at once become very prim and was clearly making a point of ignoring me.

If she'd again said that I was afraid of Nadaj, I would have thrown her out the window. Fortunately, she didn't.

“It's very simple. I'm leaving because you haven't been honest with me.”

“Oh, really?” The top button of her blouse was undone, and I couldn't help noticing that her jeans were very tight. Sylvia had not only nice legs but a nice rear end. She poured the tea from the teapot out into two cups, gave me one of the cups.

Back in the living room, I said, “Yes, really.”

“You have a contract. You break it and leave me stranded here, I'll see you never work again.”

“I have my own business. I'm independent.”

“I'll get laws passed in that town—what's the name again?”

“Saranac.”

“Right. Saranac. You'll be in violation of every local ordinance. Your ice business will go under.”

“The iceman cometh—and goeth.”

“You're an idiot. You're going to go bankrupt, and all you can do is crack unfunny jokes.”

“I never let my ice melt.”

“Your ice will melt and you'll be bankrupt.”

“You'll freeze my assets.”

“You won't have any assets to freeze.”

Sylvia was right, of course. There was no way I could break the contract at this point. But when I saw alarm in Sylvia's hooded blue
eyes, I had the feeling she thought I was about to go out and buy a plane ticket.

But there was a serious side to this little squabble. I like to think I can depend on the people I'm working with, and I wasn't at all sure I could depend on Sylvia or Shenlee, both of whom were super ambitious and had their own personal agendas. In the pressure-filled environment in which they worked, you needed ambition and toughness to survive.

“You know,” I said finally, “I think I'd like to see Nadaj again.”

“Good. You may have the opportunity.”

Badly in need of some time to do some thinking, I grabbed my jacket. “I feel like some fresh air.” Standing with her hands on her hips, Sylvia watched with an uncertain look on her face. “I've decided to go for a walk.”

Out on the sidewalk, I felt the effect of the fresh air and began to relax. As I walked, I tried to figure out what was going on. If this case connected to Nadaj or led us back to Nadaj, I'd have an opportunity to pay back a few people for what happened last March. According to Sylvia, she was actually doing me a big favor by getting me over here, but Buck laughed when I mentioned that to him.

I enjoy walking, and once I got started, I didn't feel like stopping. In at least one way, it was good being back. As I thought about Irmie, I had the feeling someone had turned the clock back eight or nine years. I stopped at a café for a cup of coffee, then angled over to the Nymphenburgerstrasse, a wide street with a lot of apartment buildings and the courthouse at the far end. I lived for a couple of weeks in an apartment in one of the buildings, but I no longer remembered which one. Back then, I had a lot on my mind.

When I got back to the building two hours later, I said hello to a young married couple who were leaving.

Inside the apartment, I could smell chicken frying. Standing at the counter in her stocking feet and wearing an orange apron, Sylvia was cutting up a tomato and making a salad. I hadn't known she was domestic.

“While you were gone, I went food shopping. Are you hungry?”

“I'm starved.”

“Would you mind taking a look in the pantry? I need some salt.”

I said, “We've had our first argument.”

She fixed me with a stern expression. “Uh-uh. You're forgetting the hospital. That was our first argument. This was our second. And I've won them both. That's something you should keep in mind. You might also want to keep in mind that I'm running this operation, and you don't so much as take a shit without asking my permission. Understood?”

“Understood.”

“And when I give you permission, then you squat and ask, ‘What color?' ”

“If you say so.” I was impressed by Sylvia's familiarity with the vernacular of the U.S. Army's drill instructors.

“I say so,” she said quietly. “Now would you mind bringing me the salt?”

Douglas Brinkman eyed me suspiciously, then asked, “Just who are you anyway?”

We were sitting opposite one another in one of the small interview rooms of Munich's Stadelheim Prison, a thick plate of glass between us. There were two other inmates in the room, both of them talking guardedly to people who could have been family members or lawyers. A guard was stationed at the door, and another was seated on a chair at a point against the wall that gave him a view of everybody's hands.

It was two days after the break-in, a cloudy Thursday. I'd called the prison the previous day, and Sylvia had spoken with someone at the consulate. She'd arranged for an attaché to provide me with a letter on consulate letterhead that said I was speaking to Brinkman on behalf of the American government in connection with his legal representation.

Even at that, getting into Stadelheim had taken time. I'd had to jawbone with guards at the entrance, fill out forms, submit to a search, then spend a half hour in a waiting room with a bunch of other visitors, all of whom were women. Before leaving, when I'd asked Sylvia what I should be looking for, she said that she'd lost contact with Brinkman after his arrest and wanted me to see how he was holding up.

When Brinkman asked who I was, I didn't see I had any choice but to keep my answer vague. I said, “I'm here at the request of someone in our government.”

“Who in our government?”

Brinkman was over six feet, had a square face, a broad mouth, and
thin lips. Despite his size, he seemed to move gracefully, almost like a big cat. Like the other inmates, he was wearing a blue shirt with an open collar and blue work pants. He had brown hair cut short. In German prisons, everything is regulated—from the size of your calorie in-take to the length of your hair.

Something else about German lockups—no weight rooms or TV. In German jails you only do hard time. Although they don't have capital punishment, prisoners have been known to die from boredom.

“Someone who wants to get you out of here.”

“Well, tell them they sure as hell better get me out of here,” Douglas Brinkman said. “Tell your boss that.”

I nodded. The overall game plan called for me to find out what was happening in Brinkman's life—and if possible keep him from ever having to appear in a German court. Exactly how I was going to manage all that was anybody's guess, and I was, as usual, flying by the seat of my pants.

“How are you handling all this?”

“I'm fine. It's just that I don't want to spend the next twenty-five years in this place.”

“How's the food?”

“Lousy, and they don't give you enough. I've lost weight in here. I'd rather eat MREs.” MREs are Meals Ready to Eat, which soldiers are issued on maneuvers and in battle. At Fort Bragg we gave them the politically incorrect name of “Meals Rejected by Ethiopians.”

Brinkman paused briefly as one of the guards ambled over, gazed at us curiously, then strolled away. I said, “We intend to get you out of this mess, one way or the other.” I hoped I sounded more confident than I felt. The walls to this room were awfully thick, and beyond the building there was a forty-foot-high wall with guard posts every few yards. A jailbreak was out of the question.

“Yeah, yeah. Of course you will. You're here to help me, is that it?” When I nodded, he took a deep breath, then ran his fingers over the edge of the table.

“How are you gonna do that?”

“I'll need some information first.”

“Like what?”

“You could maybe begin by telling me how you got into this situation.”

“I got into it because I knew Ursula.” He paused. “I've told Owen, the guy from the consulate, all this stuff.”

“You knew Miss Vogt pretty well?” When he nodded, I asked, “How well?” Now that I knew what he looked like, I knew that there weren't any pictures of Brinkman in the photo collection of Ursula Vogt. It seemed she'd mostly hung out with the Taliban people. “How did you come to meet her?”

“I'm not sure I should be answering these questions.”

“Why? What do you have to hide? If you're innocent—”

“I'm still not sure who you are.”

“I can't help you otherwise.”

“How's this all going to help? I'm tired of telling the story. Your people should know all this.”

“I don't know how it will help. We'll see.”

After a brief pause, he said, “I met her in Afghanistan. Have you ever heard of Mazar-e-Sharif? It's northwest of Tora Bora. We had a prison there, and there had been an attempted breakout. She got wind of it and turned up, had a photographer with her.”

“Then what?”

“She told me she was a correspondent for
Welt-Bericht
. I thought she was pretty gutsy. She spoke good English. I know some German. I was stationed over here for a while, down in Tölz.”

“Flint Kaserne?”