Nano

CHAPTER 58

George Wilson sat at the back of the Roy Rogers restaurant. It reminded him of long family trips he had taken as a child, and of sitting in places like this. His family had always bought their own food, buying only beverages, and George used to sit eating homemade egg sandwiches while other kids gorged on hamburgers. He guessed that was why he’d ordered a hamburger today, but he’d taken one bite and couldn’t eat any more. He nursed his jumbo Diet Coke and waited.

Twenty minutes later, and thirty-five minutes late, his meeting arrived.

“You’re still here,” said Burim Graziani, née Grazdani, surprising George, who hadn’t noticed him walk in. He was accompanied by another man with whom he could have been related. Burim was just as George remembered him. A slight man of medium height, seemingly in his fifties, dark-complected in all respects, with piercing eyes as black as coal. His mouth pulled up slightly in the left corner in a kind of sneer from a scar. In George’s eyes he was the stereotypical hoodlum with a demeanor that suggested he was incapable of remorse. He was dressed in an ill-fitting black leather jacket and black turtleneck. He sat down, keeping both hands under the table. George imagined he was armed. The other, larger man stood where he was with his arms folded, eyeing George like a cat might eye a motionless mouse.

“Of course, I’m still here,” George croaked. He cleared his throat. “I wanted to see you.”

“I can’t say the same. We met before but it was a waste of my time. I asked for you to help me, but you fucked up and made it worse. I saved my daughter’s ass almost two years ago and all I asked for my trouble was some kind of…” He struggled for the right word.

“Détente?” George suggested.

“Don’t be a smart-ass,” Burim snapped and regarded George for a moment with narrowed eyes. “But, yeah, something like that. All I wanted to do was get to know her a little bit, but she’s too high and mighty to have anything to do with me, being a doctor and all.”

“She’s in terrible danger.”

“That’s how it’s to be, huh? Every time she’s in danger I have to see you?”

“Listen, her boss in Colorado—”

Burim held up his hand.

“Stop right there. You need to go with my guy here. He has to search you.”

“Search me why?”

“You don’t like it, our conversation is over. You understand what I’m saying?”

George did as he was told. The thuggish-looking man with Burim took George outside and into the back of a blue panel van. Another man patted George down roughly and very thoroughly. As he ran his fingers through George’s hair for some reason, he winked. Was this the uncle Pia had told him about? When he got back to the table, George didn’t ask. Burim had finished his soda.

“Okay, college boy. Tell me the story.” He pointed to the chair George had vacated.

George laid out the whole tale, as much as he knew, emphasizing that Pia’s boss, Zachary Berman, had come on to Pia sexually. He explained that Pia had become convinced that something weird was going on where she worked at a research company called Nano, and had put herself in danger by trying to find out what it was. The only thing she knew was that it somehow involved the Chinese because she, and the other doctor friend, had had a run-in with a stricken Chinese jogger who was also associated with Nano. Then when she apparently found out what it was, she had disappeared. “She texted a friend to say she was on her way to his apartment to explain what she learned, but never showed up. Since then no one has seen her. Myself and this other doctor friend are convinced she’d been kidnapped by her boss.”

“When did all this take place?”

“A few days ago. Monday morning to be precise.”

Burim glanced up at his colleague. “Sounds like the same thing as two years ago. Jesus Christ, the girl is impossible.” The colleague nodded. Burim looked back at George. “My daughter reminds me of my wife. She was a firebrand, too. And that is not a good thing. She pissed me off big time when I was struggling to get started. Neither of them showed me no respect.”

“Pia’s had a hard life. She was in those foster homes…”

“Careful, college boy.”

George swallowed hard but continued. “Those places made it very hard for her to connect with people. She doesn’t trust anyone, including me. She doesn’t have many friends; in fact I only know of two, myself and this other gay doctor.”

“Oh, please!” Burim said, raising his hands above the table. “I don’t want to hear about that.”

“The point that I’m trying to make is that besides myself and this other doctor, there is no one else to sound the alarm about Pia disappearing. Listen, if you are truly interested in getting to know her, it’s going to take years. If that’s what you want, it’s not going to be easy. It was never going to happen overnight like you wanted. You’ll have to be patient.”

“Why should I bother?”

“Because she’s your flesh and blood. She’s family. That’s why you went to save her last time. That was a pain in the ass, too, I expect, but you did it. Pia’s not the kind of person to bow down and say thank you in a situation like that. She has a lot of pride; that must mean something to you. She wouldn’t speak to me or see me for almost two years after I tried to help you.”

“Is that right?”

“Absolutely.”

Burim nodded. “Flesh and blood. She looks just like her mother, you know.”

“Your wife must have been a very beautiful woman when you met her.”

Burim looked at George and narrowed his eyes.

“You still in medical training?”

“Yes.”

“You becoming a shrink?”

“Hardly. No, I’m becoming a radiologist.”

“Then how do you know all this crap about Pia?”

“You don’t have to be a professional to appreciate what she had gone through growing up. The fact of the matter is she’s had a hard life, but she’s a remarkable person: intelligent to beat the band and beautiful. A lot of men are attracted to her, including myself, if you want to know. I’m really worried about her. I and this other doctor tried to get the Boulder police involved, but they are content to sit on their asses. There is no specific evidence that Pia was kidnapped. In fact they think they have evidence that Pia drove away, heading east, perhaps in a nonrequited funk, which is ridiculous. But the bottom line is that they are content to wait it out, saying that in most instances like this, the woman reappears. But I’m telling you, she is not going to reappear. This guy Berman took advantage of her, I’m convinced. I’m sure he kidnapped her. He may have molested her. Raped her. He may have killed her. This is Pia we’re talking about. Your daughter.”

George paused — he hoped to hell he wasn’t pushing too hard.

“If this Berman guy did kidnap her, where would he take her? Do you have any idea?”

“Not specifically. But the other doctor I mentioned has a friend who works out at the Boulder airport. Through him we found out that the Nano jet, presumably with Berman aboard, took off the morning Pia disappeared.”

“Where did it go?”

“The flight plan was to Italy. One of Milan’s airports.”

Burim stared out of the window a good minute.

“Flesh and blood,” Burim said quietly. “You wait here.”

Ten minutes passed, and George started to think Burim had walked out on him. Then he was back.

“What makes you think she has been killed?” he asked. “Or put another way, what do you think are the chances she’s already been killed?”

“I don’t think she has been killed. I think she is being held prisoner someplace, I guess in Italy.”

“The trouble is there are no Albanian clans in Denver. But that’s not a major problem.”

“What about in Italy?” George asked.

“No problem in Italy. I even lived there for a time on my way here to the States. It’s where I met and married my wife. We have a lot of people in Italy. Hell, it’s only fifty miles between Italy and Albania.”

“I hope to God you can find her and quick enough to save her.”

“Shit! I already did this once,” Burim said. “I guess I’m gonna have to do it again. But she better show a bit more gratitude this time, because there is not going to be a third.” His thin-lipped mouth managed a ragged smile.

At 11:10 that evening, Burim Grazdani sat in his premium economy seat in a British Airways Airbus bound for London Heathrow and looked at his watch again. His flight had been scheduled to leave five minutes before, but the flight attendants were still walking around checking passengers’ safety belts. Next to his house and car, this plane ticket was the most expensive item he had ever purchased legitimately, or semi-legitimately, since the name on the passport was not his own. Despite the price, he had been told by the booking agent he was very lucky to get even this ticket at three hours’ notice. There had just been a cancellation of a group booking and stand-by passengers had taken every spare seat but one. Burim booked the flight without even listening to the price.

George Wilson had sat with him in the restaurant at the Vince Lombardi Service Area on the New Jersey Turnpike for another half hour. Burim told George he had done the right thing. The police weren’t going to help; and George couldn’t. He needed professional assistance with the resources of the Albanian mafia. Burim hadn’t used the word mafia. Instead he had said family, but George knew what he meant.

Burim asked George to relay the story to him a second time to be sure of the details. He took no notes, but absorbed the information easily — there really wasn’t much to go on. Burim asked George more about this Berman guy. George said he knew he was truly rich — he had a yacht, or access to a yacht, and, of course, the plane.

That was enough information for Burim. He dropped George at the railway station in Paramus, as George said he wanted to go into Manhattan to check on the condition of Will McKinley. Burim Grazdani made no more comments about the events from two years before in which he had been intimately involved, and which had led to McKinley’s injury. He had rescued Pia once, and he was prepared to try to do it again.

Burim drove back to his boss Berti Ristani’s place in Weehawken. Burim’s value as a trusted lieutenant to Berti had only increased over the years, and Berti was happy to help his friend. This was family, after all. On Burim’s behalf, Berti had made a call. In the world of organized crime, Albanian style, it always made Berti proud when he realized how far the tentacles of the beast now extended. As usual on a strictly business call, making even one phone call meant an elaborate charade. The Albanians had been burned by the FBI one too many times. Berti used a burner phone to call another one-use cell phone, which eventually led to a call back to a third phone, which Berti would use once, then throw, along with the first phone, into the nearby Hudson River.

Berti told Burim that he learned from his contact at a friendly family in L.A. that another family had numerous aviation interests around the country, particularly in general aviation at municipal airports and at the FAA. If you wanted to get something or someone into or out of the United States quickly, you could try to use a major hub, or go through a smaller link, like Teterboro in New Jersey, or Boulder Airport.

This was another area where civilians like George Wilson were fatally limited. They were incapable of thinking like a criminal. Burim had no doubt this rich creep had taken Pia out of the country. As Pia had done before, she’d stumbled across someone doing something he shouldn’t, and made a nuisance of herself. This guy Berman fancied himself as some kind of playboy, or so Burim quickly learned. Burim could imagine Pia resisting him, and the guy taking her away somewhere. He felt that familiar rage. When that happened, someone was always going to have to pay.

Then Berti had made another call, to someone outside the Albanian family, but with a connection, and with a favor to repay. Burim sat in Berti Ristani’s office for an hour, waiting for another disposable phone to ring. Berti constantly drank water and chewed gum. After a health scare six months before, Ristani had announced he was going to lose weight, and to his crew’s astonishment he had dropped fifty pounds and he was loving life.

“You know, if we was the police, the jails would be full,” said Berti. “We can find out shit fifty times faster than the cops can or the FBI.”

“Because we know all the criminals,” said Burim.

“That’s right! Perhaps I should go straight and run the CIA. Serve my country.” Berti smiled. “Having said that, I hope these assholes aren’t gonna let me down.”

“Berti, if I need to take some time over this…”

“Burim, don’t worry ’bout nothing. Anything you need. Hold on. This must be them.”

Berti took the call. It had to be the contact out west — no one else in the world had the number to this phone. Berti said nothing to the caller, but he spoke to Burim with his hand over the bottom of the phone.

“Yes, the plane belonging to Berman left Boulder that night, it’s confirmed. He was heading for Milan, Italy. That was the flight plan.”

Burim stood up.

“Wait, there’s more.” Berti listened.

“They know from a contact who was sitting in the tower when they were leaving. The pilot asked about another flight plan, for Stansted, wherever that is. Okay,” said Berti into the phone. “And thanks.” Berti ended the call.

“The pilot talked about a second flight plan they were going to file. He said they were going to turn right around and fly from Italy to Stansted, which is near London, England. That was the final destination.”

“Thanks, Berti,” said Burim. “Listen, I owe you.”

“Hey, it’s nothing,” said Berti. “We know people in London. There’s lots of family in London, and they can help you when you get there. I’ll make another call. I’ll have someone meet your plane with a sign that you’ll recognize. Just come back here safe, you’re valuable to me, you know that. And sort out the scumbag who took your daughter.”

Finally the jetway retracted from Burim’s plane and the plane was pushed off from the concourse at Newark, with Berti’s helpful words resonating in his head.