Helsinki Blood

18

After so much effort, peril and death, the night is an utter failure. Loviise was in dire straits and terrible danger before I set out to save her. Now powerful people who hate me and know that I want to give her life back to her own her again. Surely, whatever ravages they intended to heap upon her before my interference will be increased tenfold as a way of getting back at me. I’m angry, dispirited and awash in the self-pity of failure.

We arrive at Filippov Construction at a quarter after seven a.m. I’m so tired I can barely hold my head up. We destroyed the locks the first time we broke into this place, months ago. I had new ones installed and have my own key. The bodyguard in the back of the Wrangler has yet to make a sound. Saukko has the best of everything. I’m certain his personal security is no exception, and the man we took prisoner is viper dangerous. Sweetness pulls away the tarp he lies under and blindfolds him. I keep my gun ready. Sweetness cuts the zip-lock shackles from around his ankles so he can walk inside. We have to wait. His legs have gone numb in the cramped position and he can’t manage it for a few minutes.

We take him inside a garage where tools are stored and maintenance on vehicles pulled. Sweetness sets a chair in the middle of the room, then zip-lock-shackles him to it. The chair is wooden. His strength is obvious. His forearms are as thick as sturdy oak tree limbs. He could burst the chair to splinters if he wished. I whisper to Sweetness, ask him to add shackles up and down his arms and legs so he can’t get leverage for a powerful muscle contraction. We keep silent, work by way of motioning to each other, to build fright. Scary things happen in the dark, in the silence.

I fill the two syringes with Stolichnaya and set out some props. A vehicle battery and cables. A chain saw. Bolt cutters. A burlap bag. Sweetness dumps a bucket of water over his head, refills it and sets it on the floor. The garage has a hydraulic lift for vehicle repairs. We chain his chair to it and lift him off the floor. I would cut his clothes off him-people are so much more vulnerable naked-but I intend to return him later, have nothing against him and don’t want to humiliate him by dumping him naked on the street. My knee throbs like hell. I drag a comfortable chair with wheels out of the office and sit down. Sweetness takes off his blindfold.

He looks around, takes everything in. He remembers me from the times I visited Saukko at his home. “Inspector Vaara,” he says, “that’s an interesting collection of toys you’ve assembled for my interrogation. Your crime-fighting techniques are unusual.”

I lean forward with my hands one atop the other on the handle of my cane. “You’re the second person tonight to comment on that. What’s your name?”

“Phillip Moore.”

“I have no desire to hurt you. I want information. To what lengths I go to get it is up to you. But I’ll warn you, I’m in a really fucking bad mood and my temper is short.”

“I see two needles there,” he says. “What’s in them?”

“One is sodium pentothal. The other is LSD.”

“So, by the looks of it, you’ll start by running me up with jungle juice and begin torturing me with waterboarding. .”

I cut him off. “Get with the times. It’s now called enhanced interrogation.”

He ignores me. “And if that doesn’t work, you’ll use the LSD to drive me out of my mind, then start with electric shocks-tongue and probably genitals-and then finally, if all else fails, start removing parts of my body.”

I have no stomach for anything like that. I doubt even Sweetness has that in him. “Something along those lines.”

“May I tell you a little bit about myself?” he asks.

Sweetness stands behind and to the left of him, just behind his peripheral vision, to keep him nervous. “Please do,” I say.

If he’s frightened, he doesn’t betray it. His voice is steady, his demeanor businesslike, almost friendly. “I’m retired from the SAS, elite British forces. I know a bit about interrogation, even took a course in how to bear up under it. I could take whatever you have to dish out for a while, but everybody talks in the end. The purpose of enduring torture, usually, is to protect secrets and/or to give your team time to escape. I have no secrets to keep from you and no comrades to protect. As such, you have no need to hurt me, unless you derive pleasure from it. I’ll tell you anything you would like to know. Since it saves you time, and my life, it’s a bargain that benefits all of us. What do you think?”

I see no reason for him to dissemble. His job is to protect Veikko Saukko, and Saukko is safe. It makes sense. “It does indeed sound like the most expedient route for me,” I say, “and the benefits for you are obvious. But if I catch even a whiff of a lie, I’ll make you sorry.”

“Agreed,” he says. “All these zip-locks are chafing, cutting into my skin and cutting off my circulation. Could you let me down and take them off?”

It’s stupid to un-cuff such a dangerous man, but I’ve always been foolish that way. I nod to Sweetness. We take out our Colts. Sweetness lowers the hydraulic lift to the floor and cuts Moore’s bonds loose with his Spyderco. Moore thanks us.

“Stay seated and keep your distance,” I say.

He rubs his wrists, tries to get his blood flowing. “What do you want to know?” he asks.

I ask a few basic questions to get a feel if he’s lying to me or not. “You’re Saukko’s head bodyguard, correct?”

He switches languages, to Finnish. “Correct.”

“What does that entail?”

“I also serve as his personal assistant, in a sense. I keep track of all his appointments, so I know who’s coming and going. I run background checks on people I’m unfamiliar with before letting them see Veikko. He has six bodyguards total. I make out the duty rosters, make sure the security cameras are working and monitored, make sure the others are doing their jobs to my satisfaction. In short, do everything possible to keep a man with as many enemies as Veikko has alive.”

I light a cigarette and offer him one. He declines. “He’s a grade-A prick,” I say. “Why would you want to?”

He chuckles. “That he is. But as I’m entrusted with his life, he doesn’t treat me like he does the rest of the world. He pays me a king’s ransom, and he treats me with courtesy and respect.”

“That’s hard to imagine.”

“Veikko is motivated by a morbid fear of death. He’s a strange man. Afraid to die, but stays drunk from the time he wakes up until he goes to bed-which is saying a lot, since he sleeps very little-and smokes at least three packs a day. He’s been doing both for fifty years. He must have the constitution of a rat.”

His language skill makes me question the truth of his background. “Your Finnish is excellent. How did you learn it?”

“If I can’t speak the language of the country my client lives in, I can’t do my job to the best of my ability. Therefore, I learned the language.”

Phillip Moore is a formidable man on many levels. “I brought you here because I want to know about his Shit List. Apparently, I and my family are on it, and after tonight,” I motion toward Sweetness, “I believe my colleague is, too.”

Now he laughs. “Then you, my friend, are in some serious fucking trouble.”

“Forgive me if I don’t share your sense of humor. Explain.”

“Since Veikko has such a terrible fear of death, he assumes everyone else does, too. So some years ago, he started a list of people he wanted dead or otherwise destroyed. He enjoys telling his would-be victims their fates to come. He’s had people killed a week after issuing his edict. Some people have been on the list for better than a decade, which he considers worse, since it gives them all that time to contemplate their demises, and just when so much time has passed that they’ve decided the threat must have been empty, bang! He lowers the boom. As you can imagine, many people try to murder him first. It adds a bit of challenge to my job.”

“Who does the killing? You?”

He takes umbrage. “Inspector, I’m a professional soldier and protector of lives, not a murderer.”

“Then who does? Just tell me how his fucking Shit List works.”

He stretches some kinks out and folds his arms. “Two of the bodyguards that work for him are from the Corsican Mafia. A father and son. The family has been in the assassination business for decades or maybe even centuries, and the son is learning the trade from the father. They have a very formal system. Veikko discusses the punishments he’s devised with them. They agree on a price. That money is placed in a safe-deposit box in Nordea Bank, in the branch downtown on Aleksanterinkatu. The father and son have a key. Veikko has a key. He goes with one of them to put money in when a contract is agreed upon, and when a hit is carried out, the money for payment withdrawn. In the event of Veikko’s death, they are to complete the list and empty the box. This, of course, is on an honor system, which is why Veikko chose them for the task. He trusts them.”

A well-thought-out system designed by an evil fuck. He must have lain awake many nights dreaming it up. I suspect he enjoys pulling the wings off of flies. “How much money do you think is in that box right now?”

“In fact, I heard them discussing the addition of you and yours to The Shit List. Since you’re a cop, the price was in six figures. And most of the hits are against high-profile people in other countries, and so expensive to set up. There are at present nine names and nine hundred seventy-five thousand euros in the box.”

That’s a great deal of money. It makes me wonder about the monetary value of human life. “How much does a murder usually cost?”

“Interestingly enough, most hits are against intimates, jilted lovers and such. A normal hit, the run-of-the-mill murder for hire, killing someone of little or no importance located in the same vicinity as the hit man and so incurring no expenses, runs an average of about twelve thousand U.S. dollars. That’s pretty much standard here in the Western countries.”

Damn, life really is cheap. “How would you suggest I deal with this problem?”

He shrugs. “Fucked if I know.”

I ask Sweetness to bring a pen and paper from the office, tell Phillip to write down the names of the Corsicans and their passport numbers, and his own as well.

“You think I memorized their passport numbers?”

“I’m certain of it.”

He laughs aloud. “You’re right.” He writes them down.

“Would you be interested, Phillip, in helping me fix this? You said you’re in the business of saving lives. My infant daughter is on that list. I can’t even bring myself to talk about his plans for her.”

“You needn’t. I already know them. The obvious way is to empty the safe-deposit box at Nordea. The Corsicans won’t carry out the murders for free. But Veikko is a billionaire many, many times over. The money in that box is pocket change to him, and even if you could figure out a way to get through the bank’s security, Veikko could just put the money back. So he would have to be dead, and thus unable to replenish the fund. That would mean dealing with me, as I keep him alive, and I hope you’ll excuse me for saying so, but I don’t think you two are up to the task.”

I point out the obvious, sarcastic. “A bold statement for somebody who let two shit-for-brains pimps zap him with a Taser.”

He smiles and shakes his head at the irony. “True enough. They’ve been to games before and had cash to play, and I made the mistake of letting them get within arm’s reach of me.” He chuckles. “Plus, I never would have thought those idiots would have balls that big.”

“The choice of being executed with bullets in the backs of their heads or taking their chances with you made their balls grow.”

He smirks. “You, a Finnish policeman, intended to execute them? I find that a little hard to believe. When was the last time you killed a man?”

“Since we abducted you earlier, I’ve shot and killed two.”

He senses the truth of it and pauses. “You’re thinking, then, that you should kill me now. I’m replaceable and it wouldn’t change anything. Veikko would hire another elite soldier with my skill sets to protect him before my corpse is even cold.”

I can’t think of anything else to say.

“You’re not giving my iPad back, I suppose.”

I shake my head. “No.”

“No matter, I’ll get another today.”

“What would you want for helping me, if we were to come to an arrangement?” I ask.

He smiles. “Retirement. The contents of that safe-deposit box, of course. However, given the circumstances of my employment, we can’t come to an arrangement.”

A sudden weariness comes over me. I’m too tired for more of this. I look at Sweetness. “Do you have anything to say about all this?”

He bends over in front of Phillip Moore so their faces are inches apart. “You got one thing wrong. If anything happens to someone I care about-I mean anything-I’ll kill you. I’m up to the task.”

Moore says nothing, probably because he senses any response at all might result in a bullet in his head, then and there.

“If you play hardball with us,” I say, “you’ll discover we have skill sets of our own. Skills that you don’t possess. I’m not a police inspector for nothing and,” I nod toward Sweetness, “I believe his are self-evident.”

We cuff his hands behind his back and drive to downtown Helsinki in silence. It gives me time to think. “What are you going to tell Veikko Saukko?” I ask him.

“The absolute truth. I find it really is the best policy, as I never have to lie my way out of it later.”

“I’ve come to a decision,” I say. “You work for me now.”

He smiles, indulgent. “And how do you figure that?”

“I’m starting a Shit List of my own. Your position allows you access to prior knowledge of actions against me. Knowledge is tantamount to culpability. Should something happen to any of us, I’ll consider it a blood debt and I’ll collect. I suggest that you ensure the safety of me and mine. And I’m searching for an Estonian girl named Loviise. She was kidnapped for the purpose of forcing her into prostitution. If you gain knowledge of her whereabouts, I expect you to call me.” I toss a business card into his lap. “I’ll also consider failure to do so as grounds for punishing you. Are we clear on everything?”

“You got a pair on you. I’ll give you that.”

I cite the SAS motto. “Who dares, wins.”

He looks thoughtful, says nothing. I’ve made another dangerous enemy.

Sweetness cuts him loose, he gets out of the Jeep and ambles away in damp clothing. I hear him whistling a tune, as if none of this had ever happened. Sweetness squirts the vodka from the syringes into his mouth.