Manzak’s smile widened. ‘I wasn’t so sure until I read about your trip to Cuba. Very impressive. In my mind, anyone who could do
Payne and Jones looked at each other, confused. No one except the top brass at the Pentagon was supposed to know about Cuba. Not the CIA, the FBI, or even the president. As it stood, the Cubans didn’t even know about Cuba, because the moment they found out, they were going to be pissed. Anyhow, the fact that Manzak knew about their trip told them a lot. It meant he was a heavy hitter with some serious connections. Someone who could cut a deal.
‘Great,’ Payne said. ‘You’ve done your homework. Unfortunately, there’s still one question you haven’t answered. Why are you here?’
Manzak leaned back in his chair, quiet. Watching them squirm. Most people would’ve answered right away, but not this guy. He was cooler than that. Much cooler. The definition of self-control. Finally, when he sensed that they were about to lose their patience, he gave them an answer. ‘I’m here to buy your freedom.’
A single name appeared on the cover:
‘Gentlemen, I’ve been authorized by the Spanish government to make a once-in-a-lifetime offer. If you’re willing to accept my terms, they won’t keep you in jail for your lifetime.’
Jones grimaced at the pun. ‘Great. Who do they want us to kill?’
Manzak glared at him. ‘I’m not sure what you were used to doing for the MANIACs, but I can assure you that the CIA would never broker an assassination.’
Jones rolled his eyes. ‘Please! I can name at least twenty cases where the CIA was involved in the death of a key political figure — and that’s not even counting the Kennedys.’
‘Whether you believe me or not is irrelevant. What is important is this: My proposal doesn’t involve murder or illegal activities of any kind.’
Payne remained skeptical. ‘Then what does it involve?’
‘A missing person.’
‘Excuse me? They want us to find a missing person? And if we agree, they’ll what? Let us walk?’ Payne read the name on the manila folder. ‘Let me guess, Dr Charles Boyd?’
Manzak nodded. ‘That’s affirmative. We’d like you to find Dr Boyd.’
Payne sat there, waiting for more information. When it didn’t come, he said, ‘And out of curiosity, who the hell is Dr Boyd?’
His question was intended for Manzak. But Jones stunned everyone by supplying the answer. ‘If I’m not mistaken, he’s an archaeologist from England.’
Manzak glanced at Jones. ‘How did you know that?’
‘How? Because I’m smart. What, a black man can’t be intelligent?’
Payne rolled his eyes at the mock outrage. ‘Just answer him.’
‘Fine,’ he sneered. ‘I saw Boyd on the History Channel. Seems to me he’s a professor at Oxford or one of those fancy-pants English schools. It might’ve been Hogwarts for all I know. Anyway, he was talking about the Roman Empire and how it influenced modern society.’
Manzak wrote a note to himself. ‘What else did you learn?’
‘I never knew the Romans had indoor plumbing. I always thought — ’
He cut him off. ‘I meant about Boyd.’
‘Not much. They used his voice but he rarely appeared on-screen. He was just the narrator.’
Payne rubbed his eyes, trying to play catch-up. ‘Let me get this straight. Dr Boyd is an English archaeologist, someone with enough credibility to teach at a world-famous university and narrate a special on the History Channel?’
Manzak nodded, refusing to give additional information.
‘OK, here’s what I don’t understand. What’s the big emergency here? I mean, why does the Spanish government want this guy so badly that they’re willing to cut a deal with two prisoners? Furthermore, where does the CIA fit into this? Something just doesn’t add up here.’
Manzak gave him a cold, hard stare, one that suggested he wasn’t ready to lay his cards on the table. Nevertheless, Payne stared back, unwilling to back down. He’d been locked up for seventy-two hours and was sick of being jerked around. His aggressiveness paid off moments later when Manzak leaned back in his chair and sighed. A long, drawn-out sigh. A sound that told Payne he had backed his prey into a corner, and he was about to surrender.
Manzak stayed like that for a moment, like he was still trying to decide if it was the right thing to do. Finally, with reluctance on his face, he pushed the folder forward.
‘Dr Charles Boyd is the most wanted criminal in Europe.’
14
Every crime has a command center. Whether it’s a major case or not, there has to be a place for the investigating officers to go to write their reports. Sometimes it’s just a tiny cubicle at headquarters, but there’s always a spot that becomes the heart of an investigation.
But rarely was it this luxurious.
Kronborg’s superintendent wanted to keep Nick Dial happy, so he put him in the Royal Chambers, a series of rooms that served as the royal residence for nearly a hundred years. The suite was built for Frederick II in the 1570s and was filled with the original furnishings. A gold chandelier hung from the ceiling, dangling over the banquet table that served as his desk.
Dial rarely had any privacy when he worked a case so he viewed this as the ultimate luxury, a chance to be alone with his thoughts, if only until someone came looking for one of the files he ‘borrowed’ from the Danish police when they weren’t looking.
Every investigator had a different technique for sorting through evidence, his or her personal way to get a grip on things. Some talked into a tape recorder. Others typed the info into their computer. But neither of those techniques worked for Dial. He was old-school when it came to evidence, eschewing the lure of technology for the simplicity of a bulletin board. To him there was no better way to organize a case. He could move things whenever he wanted until everything fit into place — like a giant jigsaw puzzle that revealed the secret identity of the killer.
The first thing he put on the Kronborg board were photographs of the crime scene. They were taken at a variety of angles and revealed all the little horrors that he would like to forget. The way two of the victim’s ribs had been forced through his skin like broken chopsticks that had been plunged into a pound of raw meat. The way his jaw hung at an impossible angle. The way blood looks when it mixes with urine and feces. That’s the reality of the average homicide, the type of stuff that Dial had to wade through to find the answers he was looking for.
Like finding more information about Erik Jansen. That would be the best way to determine why he was chosen to die. Learn about the victim to learn about the killer. That meant starting with the people who knew Jansen best: his friends, family, and coworkers. Of course, that was more difficult than it sounded since they were scattered all over Europe. Throw in the language barrier and the secrecy of the Vatican, and the degree of difficulty went through the roof.
It would take a team of professionals to get the information he needed.
The first person he phoned was his secretary at Interpol. She was in charge of calling the National Central Bureaus in Oslo and Rome and telling them what Dial needed, then they would contact the local police departments and get the information for him.
Unfortunately, Vatican City wasn’t one of Interpol’s member countries. That meant there wasn’t an NCB office at the pope’s palace. No local contacts meant no insiders. And no insiders meant no information. Agent Nielson had tried to circumvent the problem by calling the Vatican directly, but as Dial had anticipated, no one returned her message.
So Dial decided to call the Vatican himself, hoping his fancy title would get someone on the line. He’d received a long list of phone numbers from Nielson and asked her to break things down according to nationality,
