Protocol for a Kidnapping

16

When I got back to the Metropol at seven o’clock I wasn’t surprised to find Slobodan Bartak of the Ministry of Interior waiting for me in the lobby and looking as if he might spit acid.

He approached almost at a lope, his short torso thrust forward, his face screwed up into a twisted advertisement of anger and disapproval. I stopped and waited for him. He halted before me, locked his hands behind his back, teetered up on his toes, and when he spoke his voice was a bitter, petulant charge. “I have been waiting for more than an hour.”

“Did we have an appointment?”

“You have heard from the kidnappers.”

“Ah,” I said.

“Well?”

“Let’s make a deal.”

“Deal?”

“A trade, a transaction.”

“What kind of transaction?”

“I’m sure that there’s some old Yugoslav tradition that calls for a drink during negotiations.”

“I know of no such tradition,” Bartak said. “If one drinks, one drinks after negotiations, not during.”

I took his elbow and turned him toward the bar and toward a drink I did not want. “Let’s fly in the face of tradition,” I said.

“Fly?”

“Where did you learn English?”

He stopped. “What is wrong with it?”

“Nothing,” I said. “You speak it very well.”

“I learned it at the government school,” he said, once more moving toward the bar. “I was first in my class.”

We chose a table in the corner and when the waiter came I ordered vodka. I was tired of plum brandy. Bartak ordered Scotch, probably because I was paying. Neither of us commented on the other’s choice which was just as well because it only would have been something nasty.

Bartak tasted his drink and said, “You have heard from the kidnappers.”

“You said that before.”

“It is true.”

I shrugged. “I may have.”

“What do you mean may?”

“They only said they were the kidnappers.”

Bartak wriggled forward in his chair. He was interested now. “What else did they say?”

“They were primarily concerned about the million dollars.”

“Yes?”

“I told them that it was already on deposit for them in a Swiss bank. The State Department made the arrangements, you know.”

“When do they want to make the exchange?” Bartak said.

“It’s as I said. They only claimed to be the kidnappers.”

“What do you mean?”

“That they could have been anybody. My picture was all over the front page, the story was in all the papers. The call could have been a hoax.”

Bartak pounced on that. “So it was a call?”

“Yes.”

“But not to your phone in the hotel.”

I wagged my head at him sorrowfully. “Now you’ve done it, Mr. Bartak. You’ve gone and tapped my telephone.”

He looked as if he might try bluster at first, but changed his mind in favor of guile. His kind came equipped with a sly look. “Only as a precautionary measure.”

“Of course,” I said. “I understand your concern. But I’m still not sure that the call was from the kidnappers.” It was only the forty-third lie that I’d told in the past few days and I wondered how long it would be before I no longer realized that I was lying.

“Why aren’t you sure?” Bartak asked.

“Because I didn’t talk to Ambassador Killingsworth. Unless I talk to him, there’s no deal. No transaction. No exchange.”

“You received a note,” Bartak said in an almost accusatory tone.

“The note wasn’t from Killingsworth.”

“So,” he said, drumming the fingers of his left hand on the table as if it helped him to think. “You are waiting to hear from Killingsworth himself?”

“Yes.”

“When do you expect him to call?”

“They said tomorrow — late tomorrow.”

“That is Saturday. That means that they will have had the ambassador for an entire week. That is too long.”

“It’s not unusual,” I said. “At least not in the States. I worked one kidnapping case where they kept the victim for an entire month.” I paused to finish my vodka. “Before they killed him.”

Bartak looked up sharply. “Are you suggesting that they might kill the ambassador?”

“I suggested that the last time we met. Look at it from their angle. They’ve had Killingsworth for almost a week. He’s heard them talk even if they’ve kept him blindfolded. He’ll be able to recognize their voices, if nothing else. So once they get Pernik and the money, why shouldn’t they kill him, especially if they think that the go-between has invited the police to hang around?”

“But surely you would not part with Pernik and the Swiss bank information until your ambassador is safe?”

I sighed. “Mr. Bartak, you have just hit upon the most delicate phase of the go-between business. It’s who goes first, the go-between or the criminal? There is no foolproof plan, believe me, because I’ve desperately tried to dream one up. Now it’s obvious that the kidnappers didn’t expect me to bring along a million dollars in currency. So they accepted the promise that the U.S. government would deposit a million dollars in a numbered account. I’ve announced this to the press. But what if the numbered account doesn’t exist? What recourse do the kidnappers have?”

“None,” he said.

“Ah,” I said, “but they do.”

He looked puzzled for the first time since I’d met him. “I do not follow you, Mr. St. Ives.”

“Look at it this way. The exchange has taken place. Mr. Killingsworth is back safe and sound in his embassy. The thieves have the Swiss account number. All they have to do is get to Switzerland and draw their money. But what, they think to themselves, what if the United States gave them a false number? Whom could they sue? Nobody. But they have one more thing to trade.”

“What?” he said, completely absorbed with my tale.

“They have your Nobel poet, Anton Pernik. If the Swiss account turns out to be false, they threaten to kill Pernik — wherever he is — and dump his body in the middle of Trg Republike or Lafayette Park and then both Belgrade and Washington would have a hell of a lot of explaining to do. I think you’d rather spend a million dollars yourself than to have that happen, wouldn’t you?”

Bartak shook his head, not in disagreement, but in seeming admiration. “You say there is no foolproof plan, Mr. St. Ives, but these Yugoslav kidnappers seem to have come up with one.”

“It’s not foolproof,” I said, “because it’s still based on faith. They believe that the U.S. government will deposit a million dollars to their account in a Swiss bank. Washington believes that they will hand over Killingsworth alive and well. Their ace in the hole — do you understand the expression?” He nodded that he did. “Their ace is Anton Pernik. My ace is my ability to cancel the Swiss account on a moment’s notice. But the kidnappers are still risking their lives and they’re betting that you won’t blow the whole thing by barging in at the last moment. If that happens, I think I can promise you one thing: Killingsworth dies.”

For a moment I thought I had him convinced. But he was a stubborn one. “I am not as stupid as you seem to think, Mr. St. Ives. I have no intention of interfering with the negotiations to the point where Mr. Killingsworth’s life would be endangered. His safety, as I’ve said before, is our paramount concern. But it is the only thing more important than the capture of the kidnappers. You said you had a proposition, a deal, you called it. I will now listen to it.”

He folded his hands on the table, cocked his chin up in the air, and looked down his nose at me. He was all set to say no. I decided to hand him the surprise.

“Who do you think kidnapped Killingsworth?”

His nose came down an inch. “Do you mean their names?”

I shook my head. “I mean when the news first broke, who did you think it was? Somebody who was mad at you for keeping Anton Pernik under house arrest, some misguided patriots or poetry lovers perhaps?”

“We did suspect that,” he said stiffly.

“But you now accept my theory that Pernik may be used as a kind of a hostage?”

He nodded. Reluctantly. “It has merit.”

“The press would think so,” I said and sat back to let it sink home.

His face got all scrunched up again to show that he was angry and when the full implications of what I’d said hit home he started turning a deep red, first his ears, then his neck, and finally his cheeks. When he finally spoke, it was a sputter. “That is blackmail!”

I nodded cheerfully. “I know. You might want to check it out with your own press people, but from my experience the headlines should go something like this: ‘Yugoslavs Risk Nobel Poet’s Life to Save U.S. Ambassador.’ Of course, right now the press thinks like you did — that the kidnappers are friends or admirers of Pernik’s.”

The flush subsided in Bartak’s face and when he spoke his tone was low and cold. And mean. “What is it that you want, Mr. St. Ives?”

“My deal, remember? You give me something, and then I give you something in exchange.”

I waited, but he said nothing. He only stared at me and there was nothing in his eyes to indicate that he saw anything he liked.

I continued. “I want the guards taken off Anton Pernik’s apartment within the hour. I want surveillance of me and my two colleagues ended immediately. You can keep the phone taps going because I won’t say anything important anyhow.” I looked at my watch. “I want thirty-six hours to get Ambassador Killingsworth back safely. If I fail to do so within that period of time, then I’ll withdraw from the negotiations and recommend to the American embassy that they be handed over to you.” Bartak brightened a little at that, but not much. He started to say something, but I waved him to silence.

“In addition, once Killingsworth is safe, I’ll immediately furnish you with every detail that I have about the kidnappers. You can ask any kind of questions that you want and I’ll volunteer every scrap of information that I think’s pertinent. That’s the proposition.”

Bartak looked grim and about ten years older than he had when he first sat down at the table. I decided that the experience could only help his professional growth. “My counterproposal,” he said, snapping it out. “I’ll give you the thirty-six hours.” He looked at his own watch. “Until five Sunday morning, correct?” I nodded. “I will not withdraw the guards from Pernik’s apartment. The surveillance of you and your colleagues will have to be left to my discretion.”

“Done,” I said, but I didn’t offer him my hand because I thought he might bite it.

He rose and teetered up on his toes again to give him more height. His face was a study in disdain, but I was almost accustomed to being looked at like that.

“I don’t like to be blackmailed, Mr. St. Ives,” he said and waited for a moment as if expecting a reply. When I said nothing he turned on his heel and marched out of the bar. I sat there, looking at my empty glass, and finally came up with a reply to his last remark. But it wasn’t very clever and it wasn’t even smart. It was only nasty and snide and I was glad that I hadn’t come up with it sooner because I needed to list one good deed for the day and I couldn’t think of any others.