The Chopin Manuscript: A Serial Thriller

Chapter Six John Ramsey Miller

In the Dulles parking lot, FBI Agent In Charge M.T. Connolly watched homicide detectives process a policeman’s corpse. A deep ligature mark around the murdered cop’s neck and blossoms of red in the white of his eyes made cause of death obvious, the same way the security videos made just as obvious the identity of the man who killed him, stole his uniform and stuffed him into the back of a Jeep, where he now lay.

The detectives had arrived in response to the shooting of a state trooper in the concourse. Despite early reports to the contrary, Trooper George was still alive, but in grave condition. Three bullets had deformed against his bulletproof vest and one had gone high and deflected against the collar and severed an artery. He wasn’t expected to live. If he did, he could have serious brain damage from blood loss.

Accompanied by homicide detectives, Connolly had gone from the parking deck to the security offices to view the video surveillance. She got a good look at the fake cop who’d fired at the passenger identified by customs as Harold Middleton. Middleton had taken away the assailant’s gun and subsequently fired in self-defense. Trooper George assumed the cop was in the right and his target a felon — an understandable mistake. Initially, she had jumped to the same conclusion in the melee, but she had been shackled to her idiot prisoner and couldn’t give pursuit until it was too late. She’d assumed that the fake cop had chased Middleton to capture him, but it was now clear he’d run away from her and other security officers who’d come rushing at the sound of gunfire on the concourse. It was also apparent that the fake cop had drawn his gun on Middleton right after Middleton seemed to recognize him.

After Middleton captured the Beretta and used it to defend himself from the trooper’s gunfire, he’d fled through an emergency door. The fake cop, wearing the purloined and somewhat ill-fitting uniform, had vanished as had Middleton.

Her next reaction had been to use Bureau resources to find out all she could about Middleton and the cop killer. She and the detectives had agreed that Middleton would be identified only as a material witness who had to be picked up immediately for his own protection. Unless the uniformed cop-killer got to him first. His description was circulated immediately to area law enforcement — picture to follow as soon as it could be printed from the surveillance video — and he was identified as a wanted cop killer, which meant he’d only live through his apprehension if they found him naked and lying face down on the pavement in front of live TV film crews.

The airport terminal and parking deck teemed with angry cops, crime-scene evidence staff and passenger witnesses. State troopers with dogs were beginning a search of the airport, hoping to find the killer and Middleton, but Connolly doubted they were still in the area. While the cops were reacting like disturbed fire ants, Connolly was working the steps calmly — something that came naturally to her.

She had found a business card lying on the concourse floor, which the detectives had taken as evidence. They didn’t know where the card had come from, or if it had meaning to the case, until in watching the video of the struggle between Middleton and the fake cop in slow motion, the card was seen falling to the floor after Middleton’s shirt pocket ripped. It read “Jozef Padlo, Deputy Inspector of the Polish National Police.”

It caught her like a hammer blow, and, if she hadn’t believed in coincidences before, she was a devotee now. Mere minutes later, certainly hours before the detectives would get around to it, Connolly called the phone number and, since it was six hours later in Poland, left the inspector a message on his office voice mail to call her ASAP. Next she tried a number that wasn’t on the card, but was in her cell phone, but again Padlo didn’t answer. When the inspector’s voice mail kicked in, she left the same message. This time she gave Harold Middleton’s name figuring that if hearing her voice wasn’t enough to get him to respond immediately, Middleton’s name would.

When Padlo returned the call 25 minutes later, Connolly had already learned about retired Colonel Harold Middleton from the FBI’s Intel group, and decided she was going to work the case come flood or tall cotton. Middleton had located the butcher, KLA’s Colonel Agim Rugova, and brought him to trial at The Hague. Rugova had been murdered, so the possibility that the two events were connected thrilled her. Aside from terrorism, there was nothing sexier or better for a career than an international case. And she knew Padlo would cooperate fully with her.

Connolly met Padlo at Quantico three years earlier when he was a guest at the Bureau’s law-enforcement classes offered to leading European investigators. As fortune would have it, Connolly had been one of the instructors, and she and Padlo had become close — very close. An image of a naked Padlo sitting cross-legged on her bed — a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other — as he told her in depth about a cold case he couldn’t solve brought a warm smile to her lips.

Jozef Padlo wasn’t especially handsome, but there was something about the lanky Pole that strengthened his appearance and negated his well-worn clothes. Connolly knew she wasn’t a beauty either, but Padlo saw her as one. He was quick-witted, honest, intelligent, dedicated to his work, spoke fluent English, had big sad eyes, delicate hands and was an attentive lover. For the first time in her life, she hadn’t minded the clouds of cigarette smoke. In the intervening years, they spent a few days vacationing together and spoke by telephone two or three times a week. Since both were dedicated to their careers, being together full time was impossible.

Connolly knew she was going to run the case — a cap-feather generator, probably an international one — and if the detectives got in her way, she’d sweep them aside. After all, she’d witnessed the shootout, connected Middleton to the ICCY, and kept the cops from misinterpreting Middleton’s actions and, possibly, killing him. And she had a working relationship with the foreign authorities. Plus it didn’t hurt that she was the southern belle apple of the her boss’ eye — they were both from Mississippi and, more important, she had a high-profile case closure rate second to none. It also helped that she never failed to give her superiors as much of the credit as possible.

Connolly looked across the security room at her annoying prisoner, whose wrist was now cuffed to a pipe. EMS had bandaged his nose and cleaned the blood from his face. To turn him over for processing, she’d been calling the U.S. Marshals Service every 10 minutes for an hour. Finally, she thought, as her phone rang. A callback.

“This is Connolly,” she said. “Where the hell are my Marshals?”

“When and where did you last see them?” the Polish inspector asked.

“Well, hello, Inspector Padlo,” she answered, softening her voice as she stepped outside.

“Hello, FBI Special Agent Buttercup,” Padlo said. “Have you found Middleton?”

“Here’s the deal,” she said — and told him everything she knew. Padlo listened without interrupting.

When she was finished, he said, “Harold Middleton was the last person to meet with Henryk Jedynak, a collector of old music manuscripts who, along with two witnesses, was murdered here. I had Colonel Middleton picked up and I questioned him. From your description of his assailant, he could be Dragan Stefanovic. I made the Rugova connection to Middleton and showed him an array of photographs of men known to have associated with Rugova in the old days, displaced mercenaries who are now thugs for hire. Stefanovic’s picture was among them, as was a man we know only as The Slav. Middleton said he saw The Slav at the airport — apparently waiting for the same flight to Paris that he was taking. The Slav made it out of Paris before we could get French authorities there. As you know, the French authorities generate more red tape than red wine.”

“You don’t think Middleton may have been somehow involved with Jedynak’s death, do you?”

“No. Harold Middleton is one of the good guys, a devoted family man with firm moral fiber, and a man who has made sacrifices so he could right terrible wrongs. Now we have the death of Jedynak, the attempt on Middleton in public and the disappearance of Jedynak’s niece.”

“His niece. Is it related to his murder?”

“She is a talented violinist so I suspect all of this might be connected to something all three have in common — music. For Middleton and Jedynak, the link runs through rare music manuscripts, which may connect them to Rugova as well.”

“Rare music manuscripts…”

“As you know, Rugova spent part of the war in Bosnia securing looted treasures from World War II. At St. Sophia, he stole forty-something crates the Nazi had hidden in a sealed chamber: paintings, drawings, golden figures, a few small but valuable bronzes, jewelry — and musical scores. The deaths of almost two hundred civilians got the attention at the time, rightfully so, but Rugova moved those crates. In time, he was eager to trade information on who received the looted art — in exchange for leniency.”

“Middleton knew this,” Connolly said.

“Middleton had a Chopin manuscript he said might be a fraud, but maybe it is part of this missing collection and he doesn’t know it. Or maybe he does. I believed him when I interviewed him and I can tell you that he was suddenly very afraid for his family’s welfare. This, I believe, is a valid fear.”

Connolly said, “I hope the cop killer hasn’t found him.”

“You can be sure that if it’s Stefanovic, he isn’t working alone,” Padlo said. “I can send you photos of the men who served with Rugova. If one of them has killed Middleton, it is to keep the location of the hidden treasure a secret. We’re talking millions, maybe even billions of euros here.”

“Send the pictures to my e-mail address at the Bureau and I’ll sent the cop killer’s to you.”

“Of course, Buttercup.”

She smiled. “You know, Jozef, maybe I can get clearances and have a ticket for you at the airport. I mean, you know these people better than we do, and your assistance could be invaluable.”

“Amazingly, I’ve already told my commissioner that by helping you we can quite possibly help solve Jedynak’s murder and bring the killer back here to justice. Maybe you can arrange to have someone meet me at Dulles?”

“I think I can arrange that, Inspector Padlo.”

The Slav’s name was Vukasin, which meant Wolf, and he was not pleased with how badly things were going. Waiting in a car outside the St. Regis for two of his men, he stiffened at the sight of the elegant woman who had climbed from a cab across the street. She approached his vehicle, opened the door and slid inside.

“Eleana,” he said in their native tongue, “your timing is perfect.”

“How could I pass up an opportunity to work with dear old friends? And it’s Jessica, please.”

“Jessica. Very American. Good.”

The woman seated beside Vukasin was a Serbian national named Eleana Soberski who was now, thanks to forged documents, a U.S. citizen. Soberski had been a child psychologist before serving as an Intel gatherer assigned to Rugova’s forces. The real Jessica Harris had been a volunteer nurse at the central hospital in Belgrade, a woman without close family in the States. She had become eel food in the Danube compliments of the woman aspiring to steal her identity.

Soberski’s primary duty with the KLA during the cleansing action had been interrogating captured enemy soldiers and civilians collected by Rugova’s unit. Vukasin, one of Rugova’s lieutenants, had seen her work and admired her interrogation methods and enthusiasm. A beauty without a sympathy gene, she rejected the soldiers’ overtures and Vukasin came to believe she derived sexual pleasure only when she had utterly terrified people lashed to a table, a chair or hanging from the rafters in excruciating pain.

“Your target is here at this hotel?” she asked.

Vukasin took a picture of two men at a table in a restaurant out of his pocket and handed it to her. “The target is this one — Harold Middleton, who led the Volunteers that tracked Agim and found him.”

Her expression hardened. “This is Harold Middleton? I thought he would be more impressive. Where is he?”

“We’re not yet sure.”

“And you believe he will come here. To a bar. In public.”

Vukasin nodded. His ex-wife had been persuaded by his men to list places were Middleton might flee. The St. Regis was one.

“Do you have men inside there?” Harris asked.

“They’re on the way.” Vukasin smiled. “They’re disguised as FBI agents. It will be effective: Middleton is wanted for shooting a policeman at the airport.”

“A policeman?”

Vukasin explained.

“A fiasco,” Harris said. “Where is Dragan now?”

“Deceased. What choice did I have? He put everything at risk.”

“And why do we care about Middleton?”

Vukasin took the picture from her. “This other man is Henryk Jedynak, a collector and expert in rare music documents. Jedynak is no longer with us either. You can ask Middleton why.”

“I will gladly do so,” Harris replied. “But surely there is more to this than the death of music collector…”

Vukasin was tired, but it was the true she needed to know what the mission was. Now was a good time to tell her.

“Middleton was at St. Sophia with the peace keepers and he was among those given the task of cataloguing the musical manuscripts — the ones that remained at the church before we could remove them. Three years ago, Jedynak was asked to authenticate a few of the manuscripts Middletown left behind. When they were to be sold to a private collector, it was discovered that Jedynak replaced the manuscripts with fakes.

“The seller was Rugova,” Vukasin added.

“And he expected a price sufficient to cover his costs of buying his freedom,” Harris said.

“When I interrogated Jedynak, he admitted to his crime, but I could not persuade him to tell me where the original manuscripts were.”

Harris smiled wryly. Vukasin knew only violence, and not the more subtle and sophisticated methods that were needed when interrogating true believers.

“He did tell me that Middleton was in possession of something he doesn’t know he has, but would discover it soon enough.”

“You squandered a valuable resource.”

“I hardly need you to tell me what I have or haven’t done.”

But it was so. Jedynak had taken knowledge to the grave, and now his niece was gone too — stolen from under the noses of his men in Rome. What she knows remained a mystery.

Vukasin said, “I believe the key is somehow in a Chopin manuscript Jedynak gave to Middleton.”

“Real or fake?” Harris asked.

Vukasin looked at her and raised an eyebrow. There was no reason to believe Jedynak could’ve known the real manuscript needed to be moved now. Vukasin had waited three years to seek its return.

Harris saw Vukasin bristle. “It was you who got to Rugova and his wife, wasn’t it?” she asked, her voice rich with flattery.

Vukasin nodded. He was glad to tell her about how he’d accomplished the seemingly impossible.

“Colonel Rugova was desperate,” he said. “Guards were bribed ahead of my visit, and I went in disguised as a lawyer from the Tribunal needing Rugova’s signature on some documents. My fountain pen leaked, and the poisoned ink on the colonel’s fingers did its job in seven or eight hours.”

Vukasin smiled. “You know, the colonel was glad to see me. He was amused by my disguise, and very pleased when I told him we had a plan to get him to safety. He was unaware, of course, his wife had surrendered his journals — we had everything he was going to use for leverage. He even named the men who paid him for the treasures — his benefactors. In the end, the great Colonel Rugova was a simple coward without loyalty or honor.”

“I wish I could have been there.”

Vukasin lit a small cigar and watched as a car pulled up. His two men exited and entered the hotel side by side.

“Now we’ll see if Middleton is inside,” he said.

“And if he’s not….?”

“His daughter,” he replied. “Charlotte. Pregnant, by the way.”

“Once I have Charlotte in the same room with him…” She smiled at the thought and rubbed her long delicate hands together vigorously. “Does he love anybody else?”

“A woman he worked with named Tesla. Leonora Tesla.”

“If we had the Tesla woman, that might almost be as effective — if he still cares about her. But a pregnant daughter is preferable.”