“Did he get away?”
“No. I got him down and tied him up. Send your men over. He may also need some medical attention.”
“Done,” said Blecher.
Ten minutes later, the man on the floor was showing signs of returning to reality from the temporary blackout I'd imposed on him. I checked his pockets, searching for a gun. I found only some cash. No weapons or ID.
“Water,” he said faintly. I rolled him over and looked at him. Blood was smeared on his face and neck. His nose was already swollen.
I went to my bathroom, brought back a glass of tap water, and held it to his lips. He drank and sighed.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
He didn't answer. I grabbed him by the hair again and asked him whether he wanted an encore. “Julio.”
“What is your last name?”
“Rodriguez,” he whispered, and asked for more water.
“What is your nationality?”
“Please, water.” he repeated.
“Where are you from?”
He didn't answer.
I grabbed his hair again. “I'm going to blow your fucking brains out if I don't start getting some answers!” I was not armed, but my visitor had already experienced what my bare hands could do to him.
“Colombia,” he almost shouted.
“What were you looking for?”
“Nothing,” he begged. “Money, jewelry.”
“How did you get in?”
“The door was open.”
“I don't believe you, you son of a bitch.” I yanked his head up to where I could look him directly in the eyes. “Have I given you any indication that I give a shit about what happens to your pathetic life? Give me the truth or I start messing up other body parts.”
He didn't answer, and I heard steps at the door. It was Blecher and a few of his hounds.
“He's all yours,” I said, and gave Blecher a brief account of the events, then went to the bathroom to wash Julio's blood off my hands.
“I don't think he was looking for money,” I said when I came out of the bathroom.
“What do you mean?”
“He gave me his name – Julio Rodriguez – and told me he's Colombian. My room was ransacked earlier today. It may have been this jerk. He could be one of the gang that's after the papers DeLouise gave Ariel. I guess he thought I had them.”
“We'll try to find out if Rodriguez is connected to Ariel's kidnapping,” Blecher assured me. “I have just heard from the Israeli Consulate that Mina Bernstein has returned to her home in Israel. That's too bad, because I wanted to ask her a few more questions.”
“I'm sure the consulate could arrange that,” I said. “Anyway, I expect to have developments concerning Ariel as well. Have you made any progress?”
“Yes, we have,” said Blecher, giving me a cold look. “It is most unfortunate that you have been keeping information from the German police on the Ariel matter.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, sensing the grievance complaint against me rapidly approaching. “I gave you everything I had.”
“Not all of it,” said Blecher. “It was highly irresponsible not to alert the police that the kidnappers were waiting for a phone call at a certain location. We might have caught them.”
“You know that it was the mother's decision not to call the police. But more important, I found out about the note only five or six minutes before the time she had to make the call. There was no time to call the police.”
Blecher gave me a long look, trying to decide whether to believe me. “I have also just heard from the Israeli Consulate that the second call was made by another woman from the consulate,” he said.
“So, what have I got to do with it? I gave you the audio and the videotapes. Didn't I mention that the caller wasn't Mina?”
“No,” said Blecher.
“I had nothing to do with it, I'm sure you know that. If that was another woman who called, it must have been because they hoisted Mina back to Israel. Remember I work for the U.S. government, not the Israeli government.”
“Yes,” said Blecher. I didn't understand what he meant, but I wasn't interested in pressing the issue any further.
Alarm bells were ringing inside my head. Was it a residual thrill from the fight I'd just had or the intuition that I'd just made another step forward in my investigation? Obviously, I'd become somebody's target. Although Rodriguez said he was Colombian, it didn't necessarily mean he was telling me the truth or that he was from the same team that had pursued DeLouise or kidnapped Ariel. He could be working for somebody else.
By this time, two plainclothes detectives had Rodriguez up and moving.
“We're taking him downtown for questioning. We'll let our doctor see him. What did you use on him, a hammer?”
“Wait,” I said, and gave the man's knife to Blecher. “It looked like he was going to stab me with this, so I had no alternative but to reshape his face.” Blecher asked me to come to the station to give my testimony.
“Later,” I said, stretching the leeway I had received thus far from Blecher, since I was working for the U.S. government.
I called Eric from a pay phone outside and told him about the incident. “What do the German police think?” he asked.
“I don't know yet. Blecher wants to see me in the station later. Anyway, I'm checking out of the hotel; it's getting too hot here. I'll call you from my new location.”
I packed my luggage, checked it into storage, and left the hotel through the employees’ exit. I took a bus for a few blocks, got off, and went into the lobby of a residential building. I looked through a window for a few minutes, checking to see if I'd been followed. The place was quiet. I took a cab to Rosenheimerstrasse in the center of town and got off near the German Museum, took another cab to the Sheraton Hotel, and checked in using the Peter Wooten name. I called from a pay phone and left messages for Eric and Ron asking them to arrange for my bags to be brought over from the Omni. Two hours later my bags showed up and I could relax. I decided to stay in my room and watch CNN and old American movies on the only English-speaking German channel. Although I understood enough conversational German to watch the German-dubbed English-speaking movies, it was still strange to hear Gene Hackman or Harrison Ford speak German. I ordered room service and ventured out only once to call my children in New York.
The following morning the phone rang. It was Eric. Yes, my theory concerning DeLouise's travel ploys had some truth in it. When he said “some truth” I knew all of it was true. He just couldn't admit that I'd been right.
“What did you find out?” I asked.
“DeLouise used his Romanian passport under the name Bruno Popescu and left on a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Moscow on September 17th. In Moscow he checked into the Hotel Intercontinental. Three days later he returned to Frankfurt and probably drove back to Munich. We don't know at this point whom he met in Moscow or where he went.”
“Well,” I said, “it seems that you can do without me for a few days. I'm going to Moscow.” I wasn't asking Eric's permission to go; I was simply informing him of my plans.
“I need you back here in four or five days. I expect to hear from Benny by then. Also, do you plan to notify Guttmacher and the Iranians about your forthcoming trip?”
“No, I have no intention of doing that. I made it clear that I owe them nothing. Although they were intimidating at times, I think they got the message.”
“All right. When you're in Moscow, just in case, go to the embassy and make contact with a Charles Hart.
