Protocol for a Kidnapping

25

We had stopped. My pony jerked his head and snorted again. The flashlight bobbed its way back toward me and the Italian caught the bridle of my pony.

“This is it,” he said.

“What?”

“You walk from here.”

I slid down from the horse into a couple of feet of snow. My feet were numb.

“I don’t see a hell of a lot,” I said.

The Italian shined his flashlight ahead and it revealed a large gray boulder. “You go around that rock and up about fifty feet and you’re there.”

“The castle?”

He sighed as if he were sick of the whole mess. I was ready to agree with him. “It’s not a castle. It’s just part of what’s left of a castle, one of the main halls. They turned it into a kind of a hunting lodge and there’re a lot of rooms upstairs that they taught the kids in when it was a school. We just used the main hall.”

“Where’s Killingsworth?” I said.

“By the fire.”

“Just sitting there?”

“You can untie him.”

“What about the horses?”

“What about them?”

“I was wondering how we’d get back.”

The Italian shined his light in my face. Then he flicked it off. I was blinded — or might as well have been. “How you get back is your problem,” he said.

“My problem is making sure that you don’t get back too soon. The horses go with us.” He said something then in Serbo-Croatian and he got a guttural answer from a voice I hadn’t heard before.

“This is my partner,” the Italian said. “You don’t have to see what he looks like, do you?”

“I’ll just imagine something,” I said.

“Okay. You get the women off and I’ll get the rest of them.”

I waded through the snow to Gordana’s pony. “We walk from here,” I said and reached up and helped her down. She seemed weak. “Just stand here by your horse.”

Arrie was already down from hers. “What’s going on?” she said.

“We walk the rest of the way,” I said. “It’s not far.”

“Who was the man who came by?” she said.

“The Italian’s partner,” I said. “Did you get a good look at him?”

“No,” she said. “Should I’ve?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

I could hear the rest of them talking as they dismounted. Then the Italian came up to us and took the reins of Arrie’s horse. He handed me the flashlight. “We got another one,” he said.

I started to shine the flashlight around but he forced it down. “You don’t really wanta get a look at him, do you?” the Italian said.

“I don’t give a damn about him. I just want to see if you’ve collected them all.”

“They’re right behind me,” he said.

I raised my voice. “All right. We have to walk about fifty feet. I’ll go first. Then the women. Knight, you come last. Okay?”

“Fine,” Knight said. “I’m freezing.”

“Everybody is,” I said.

“There’re some tins of stuff to eat up there and there should be enough wood to last you till morning,” the Italian said.

“When we walk back,” I said.

“I need the edge,” he said. “You object?”

“Would it do any good?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t object.”

I shined the light in the Italian’s face. He slapped his hand over his eyes. “Christ,” he said.

“Wait here until I take a look around that boulder,” I said. “I just want to make sure that there’s really something up there.”

I waded through the snow and went around the boulder. The beam of the flashlight didn’t carry far, but the trail widened through the trees and up ahead there was a large dark mass of something. It could have been a castle or a silent herd of elephants. I turned and made my way back.

“There’s something up there,” I said.

“It’s what I said it was,” the Italian said, his voice edged with exasperation. “You just go around that boulder and on about fifty feet and there’s a big wooden door. It’s not locked. You go through that and you’re home. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay,” he said and led the two horses around me down the trail. He didn’t bother to say good-bye.

“Let’s go,” I said.

We rounded the boulder and waded through the snow for fifty feet until we came to a wall built of wide blocks of gray stone. I shined the flashlight over it and the wall curved slightly. I shined it up and the wall seemed to go up forever. The wooden door that the Italian had promised was there and it was large enough to drive a school bus through. I tugged at the door, but nothing happened. I pushed and it opened easily. I went through followed by Arrie and Gordana, then Wisdom, Tavro, and Knight.

The flashlight revealed an immense bare room with no windows. The walls were coated with a thick gray plaster that looked as if it had been slapped on by hand and smoothed with a stiff brush. A flight of stone stairs with no railing curved up. A dim flickering light came from the top of the stairs. I started up them.

“Look at St. Ives,” Wisdom whispered hoarsely, “not a nerve in his body.”

“You could follow a man like that through hell itself,” Knight said in a deep, reverent voice that almost had me wishing that he wasn’t such a good actor.

At the top of the stairs was another large wooden door built of thick planks that was half open. I pushed it all the way open. Across from me, not more than forty feet or so, was a fireplace — the kind that you could walk into and give the steer a couple of turns if it needed it. It made the five-foot logs that burned in it look like a campfire. I glanced up and the ceiling was there all right, not more than twenty-five feet away. The floor was made of slate slabs. I guessed the room itself to be almost sixty feet long and to my right was another stone staircase without railings that ran up the wall and ended at a landing. To my left were tall narrow windows that reached almost from floor to ceiling. They were leaded, but some of the panes were broken. In front of the fireplace was a rough wooden table with benches on either side. Next to the table was an ordinary straight-backed wooden chair. A man sat in it with his hands tied to its arms. He stared at me and I stared back at Amfred Killingsworth, United States Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

I nodded at Killingsworth who only continued to stare at me as I turned and called down the stairs. “Come on up, there’s nobody here but the ambassador.” It wasn’t a bad line.

I walked across the room. “Hello, Killingsworth,” I said.

His mouth worked a little before the words came out. I was sure that there would be plenty of them. “You’re Phil... Phil St. — uh—”

“Ives,” I said. “St. Ives.”

“You used to work for me.”

“Until you fired me.”

“Did I?” he said.

“In Chicago.”

“I remember now.”

I examined the ropes that bound him to the chair. “I’ll get you out of these as soon as I get something to cut them with. They been treating you all right?”

“It’s been a terrible ordeal,” he said and I knew that he was feeling fine.

“Rough, huh?”

Before he could answer the rest of them trooped into the room and headed for the fireplace with only a glance at Killingsworth. If his eyes had popped when they saw me, they bulged at the sight of Tavro and Gordana. Tavro nodded vaguely at Killingsworth as he warmed his hands before the fire. Gordana tried to smile at him but she seemed too worn and cold. I moved over to Arrie.

“Have you got that safety razor?” I said. She nodded and fished around in her large bag with numb hands. She held it out to me. I removed the blade, went back to Killingsworth, and sliced through the ropes that bound his arms and feet. He massaged his hands and then said, “I don’t understand. I don’t understand what all these people are doing here — what you’re doing here. Where’re those two men — those two that kidnapped me? They did kidnap me, didn’t they? This hasn’t been somebody’s idea of a wretched joke?”

“No joke,” I said. “I’ll tell you about it after I get warmed up.”

Killingsworth rose and said in a stern voice, “I think you’d better tell me about it now, St. Ives.”

“Fuck off, Killingsworth,” I said, “I’ll tell you about it when I’m goddamned good and ready.”

I turned my back on him and walked over to the fire. They were all crowded around it, their hands and feet extended to the blaze. Arrie and Cordana had their shoes off. I looked around for something and finally found a large iron pot. I picked it up and walked across the room, down the stairs, and through the door that led outside. I dipped up a large pot of snow and took it back upstairs.

“Here,” I said to the two women, “rub your feet with this. You could have frostbite.”

“Well, by God, if any man alive could get us through it,” Wisdom said, “I knew St. Ives could.”

“What’s your name, young man?” Killingsworth said, putting his hand on Wisdom’s shoulder.

Wisdom popped to attention in his bare feet. “Wisdom, sir. I’m one of the St. Ives Irregulars. He brought us through hell, sir.”

“Jesus,” I said and tugged off my soaked shoes.

“At the pass, Mr. Ambassador,” Knight said in a rich voice full of respect and wonder. “Well, back at the pass I thought for a moment that we were all done for. If it hadn’t been for Colonel St. Ives, sir, well you could have written finis to this expedition.”

“What are they talking about?” Tavro asked me in a hoarse whisper.

“They’re full of frozen shit,” I said. “Some of it’s just beginning to thaw.”

“What’re you doing here, Tavro?” Killingsworth said, his big voice booming the question out.

Tavro looked at me and I took a handful of snow and rubbed it on my bare feet. “He’s with me, Killingsworth,” I said. I looked up at him. He hadn’t changed much in thirteen years. His hair was gray now and he wore it the way he always had, so that a thick lock of it fell down across his forehead. He was still handsome except for his blue eyes that were just a little pale and maybe just a little stupid, but then I was prejudiced. It was a big, wide face with a lot of chin and right now the big face looked puzzled and uncertain and I decided it was time to set him straight.

“Near Sarajevo,” he said. “They forced my car off the road. It was a new car.”

“Then what?”

“They brought me here and made me chop wood. There were two of them, an Italian and another one, a Croat, I think. They threatened to kill me.”

“Didn’t they tell you anything?”

“They told me I was being held for ransom, but they wouldn’t tell me how much or how long I’d have to wait. They didn’t tell me anything. I kept asking about my car, but they wouldn’t even tell me about that.”

“Your car’s okay,” I said. “The ransom was a million dollars. The government paid it. The kidnappers also demanded the release of Anton Pernik from house arrest and his safe conduct to the border. Gordana was to have gone with Pernik but he died. Tavro took his place. The kidnappers didn’t seem to care who came along. Anyway, I was tapped by the State Department to act as go-between in the deal. Mr. Wisdom and Mr. Knight came along to help out. You know Miss Tonzi here. She works for the CIA. I’m not sure why she’s along.”

“You don’t make any sense, St. Ives,” Killingsworth said.

“You’re not tied to a chair anymore, are you?”

“No.”

“Be grateful.” I turned back to the fireplace. “Anybody bring any booze?” I said.

“It just so happens that I have a pint of fair bourbon,” Wisdom said, handing it over to me.

“You’re a treasure, you are,” I said and took a long gulp.

“What now?” Arrie said.

“Now?”

“Yes.”

I looked at my watch. It was nearly three o’clock. “I’m not planning on walking down any mountain tonight, are you?”

“No.”

“Then we’ll just sprawl around the fireplace and sing songs till it gets light.”

“And then?”

I shrugged. “Then you, Killingsworth, Wisdom and Knight can start back for Sarajevo.”

“What about Tavro?”

“He and Gordana go with me.”

“Where?” she asked.

I grinned at her. “I still don’t know.”

I looked up and saw that Killingsworth was now talking to Gordana, his big face worked up into an expression of sadness. She was nodding, as if only half listening to what he had to say. Then she shook her head sharply and moved away. Killingsworth looked around as if bewildered, but then I remembered that he’d often looked that way. He saw me and came over to where I sat

“I have to talk you privately,” he said. “It’s important.”

I sighed and rose. We went over to the rough wooden table. Killingsworth sat down and hunched over it in what he may have hoped was a conspiratorial manner. “This man Tavro,” he said.

“What about him?”

“He’s dangerous.”

“So?”

“He approached me with information. He wanted me to help him get out of the country.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“But you took the information.”

Killingsworth looked around. “You have no idea how vital it is, St. Ives.”

“Hot stuff, huh?”

“It could well determine the future leaders of this country.”

“What’ve you done with it?” I said.

“That’s confidential, of course.”

“But it’s the real thing?”

“There’s no doubt about it,” he said.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Can you get him out of the country?”

“Maybe.”

“I can’t be involved, of course.”

“Of course.”

“But I did more or less promise him.”

“In exchange for the information?” I said.

“That’s right.”

“Well, I can try,” I said and started to rise. He used his right hand to pull me back down. “There’s one other thing.”

“What?”

“I’ve had a lot of time to think during the past week.”

“Uh-huh.”

“We’ve known each other for a long time.”

“A half hour ago you couldn’t remember my name.”

“A man sometimes does foolish things.”

“Such as?”

“This girl, Gordana Panić. We were, well, close and I made some promises, some foolish ones, I’m afraid, but now that I’ve had a chance to think it all through it would be far better if this entire affair didn’t involve her. Am I making myself clear?”

“Perfectly,” I said. “You want to give her the brush.”

Killingsworth frowned. “There’s my family to think of.”

“What about her?”

He ignored the question. “And as ambassador I should avoid any hint of scandal that could damage our relations with Belgrade.”

“You want me to fix things, right?”

“Could you?”

“Why should I?”

Maybe I wanted him to crawl a little. Or maybe it was because I thought I’d owed him something for thirteen years and now was my chance to pay it all back with compound interest. His face fell. Crumpled would be better. He was no longer Ambassador Amfred Killingsworth, millionaire publisher. He was only a fifty-year-old man who’d just about wrecked things because of a twenty-two-year-old girl and now he was trying to scramble back, trying to salvage it all, trying to make it as it had been before he fell in love too late in life. And that was probably what hurt most of all, that he couldn’t fall in love at fifty with someone who was twenty-two because he didn’t have the stomach for the sacrifices that it called for.

“Oh, hell, Killingsworth. I’ll see what I can do.”

His face brightened. It not only brightened, it shone. “You mean it?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll remember it, Phil. We’ve had a few differences, but that’s all water under the bridge. Wait till you see my report on how you’ve handled this. I’ll see that you get full credit.” He was babbling now, not saying anything really and I only half listened. Then he said, “Who brought you in?”

“Hamilton Coors,” I said. “You know him?”

“Of course I know him. Damned fine man. He’s a personal friend of mine, the best I’ve got in the Department.”

I nodded. It was all that I felt like doing. “Coors speaks well of you, too,” I said.

I was dozing by the fireplace about an hour later when I got my first night visitor. It was Tavro. I glanced about and the rest of them were sprawled out or huddled up near the warmth of the flames.

“I must speak with you,” Tavro said in his whispering rasp.

“Go ahead.”

He looked around, his sad fish face covered with a black and white stubble that made him look mean all the way through. “When will Killingsworth get back to Belgrade?”

“Tomorrow, I think.”

“He has information, papers, documents that are mine.”

“I thought you gave them to him.”

Tavro frowned. “It was a foolish mistake. I must have them back.”

“I don’t think there’s much chance.”

“Then I must leave immediately.” He started to rise. I caught his arm and pulled him back down.

“You don’t have a chance,” I said. “We’ll try it tomorrow with the girl. You can be her grandfather.”

He shook his head. “Mr. St. Ives, if the information that is contained in those documents that I gave your ambassador is revealed to anyone else, I will be dead before night.” I looked at him. His face was still grumpy and mean, but it was also serious.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Your ambassador, Mr. Killingsworth, does not have the background to assess their true significance.”

“He told me that it was hot stuff.”

“He was speaking as a newspaperman, not as a diplomat. The information that he possesses could destroy this government.”

“Isn’t that what you want?”

Tavro looked away and then returned his gaze to me. It contained as much sincerity as he was capable of displaying, perhaps more. “Not if it would take Russian tanks, Mr. St. Ives.”

“Like Czechoslovakia, huh?”

“You do not believe me?”

“No.”

Tavro shook his head and then smiled as if he felt sorry for my stupidity — which he may have. “Think about this, Mr. St. Ives. If I were not telling the truth, I certainly would not be here.”

I nodded as he rose. “Okay,” I said. “We’ll go first tomorrow. The others can come out later.”

“Tomorrow,” he said, as if he were not at all sure that there would be such a thing. Then he rose and walked to the far end of the fireplace where he stood and looked into the flames for a long time. I watched him for a while and then I tried to go to sleep, and almost succeeded until something warm and wet started licking my ear.

“What’re you doing?” It was Arrie, of course.

“Trying to sleep,” I said. “Doesn’t the sandman stop by your place anymore?”

“I was cold.”

I put my arm around her. She snuggled against my chest. “I bet they have rooms upstairs,” she said.

“We’d freeze before we got there.”

“What did Tavro want?”

“Out.”

“You still going to help him?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

“Probably.”

“None of it’s gone right, has it?”

I looked down at her, but she had turned her face away from me. “None of what?” I said.

“None of what you thought you were supposed to do.”

“No, it’s all gone wrong.”

“It could get worse,” she said.

“I don’t see how.”

She sighed and snuggled closer. “You will if you try to get him out.”