The Einstein Pursuit

48

Yannick Holcher was the kind of source that Interpol agents dreamed of. Someone who could shed light on countless criminal organizations around the world. Someone who could crack dozens of cases and give them the upper hand in future investigations as well. Someone who could give them insight into the bombing in Stockholm and the abduction attempt in Pittsburgh.

In Dial’s mind, it was a once-in-a-decade opportunity.

One that required a delicate touch.

His delicate touch.

Dial left Sweden in the middle of the night and arrived at Wiltz Noertrange airfield well before dawn. Two men greeted him when he stepped off the plane: Benoit Faber, an officer from the Grand Ducal Police, the main law enforcement agency in Luxembourg; and Pierre Blanc, an NCB agent from Luxembourg City, which was an hour to the south.

To avoid unwanted attention, they climbed into Blanc’s unmarked sedan and made the short trip to Holcher’s house under cover of darkness. Dial wasn’t much of a historian, but he knew that this stretch of land was the site of the largest and bloodiest battle of World War II, known to many as the Battle of the Bulge. More than 100,000 people had been killed, injured or captured in the German offensive that lasted more than a month and extended into the mountains of Belgium and France. It was too early in the morning for irony, but Dial couldn’t help but think that it was an interesting spot for a gunsmith to call home.

Was that the reason Holcher chose to live here?

If so, he was one sick bastard.

Dial didn’t know what to expect as they approached the property. During the flight from Sweden, he’d imagined a prison-style compound with high walls, barbed wire and hostile guard dogs foaming at the mouth. Not rabid, just really hungry. So he was stunned — and a little disappointed — when Blanc turned down a long, wooded path leading to a scenic farmhouse that looked like it belonged in a fairy tale.

He glanced at Blanc. ‘Are you sure this is right?’

‘Oui.’

‘Yannick Holcher lives here?’

‘Oui.’

‘Come on. This looks … peaceful.’

Faber, a local officer, cleared his throat in the back seat. ‘Pierre is right. This is the Holcher farm. We are in the right place.’

Dial grunted his surprise. Maybe the police were right and Payne was wrong. Maybe he’d been given some bad information from his black-ops connection.

‘How do you want to play this, sir?’ Blanc asked.

Dial answered. ‘You guys stay out here. I’m heading in alone. I think he’ll be more receptive if he’s dealing with me and only me.’

‘What should we do out here?’ Faber asked.

Dial shrugged. ‘Beats the hell out of me. I brought you here as backup. Nothing more. If my life is in danger, you have my permission to come inside and save the day. Otherwise, I honestly don’t care what you do. Play with the cows or something.’

Blanc laughed, but Faber didn’t.

And Dial couldn’t have cared less.

He left the car and approached the front porch with extreme caution. Not because he was worried about being shot, but because there was an untethered goat eyeballing him from twenty feet away. He knew those creatures would eat anything, including the credentials he held in his hand. Paranoid, he stared at the goat while he knocked on the door.

The first round was soft.

The second round was louder.

The third was loud enough to wake the chickens.

Finally, a middle-aged woman cracked open the door.

‘Bonjour?’ she said through the gap.

Dial’s French wasn’t perfect, but it was passable after years of working in Lyon. ‘I’m sorry to bother you at this hour,’ he said as he held up his credentials, ‘but I must speak with Yannick Holcher. It is an urgent matter.’

Given Holcher’s profession, Dial could only imagine what sort of weapon was currently aimed at him from behind the door.

‘Can this wait until later?’ the woman asked in French.

‘It cannot,’ he stressed as he held his identification even higher.

She strained to read it. ‘Interpol?’

‘Yes — I mean, oui.’

‘You would prefer English?’ the woman asked as she opened the door. Dressed in a bathrobe and slippers, she was the only person in sight.

‘If that’s okay with you. I’m not always sure about my French.’

‘Your French seems good with me.’ She nodded toward the kitchen. ‘Coffee?’

‘Please,’ Dial answered. She led him to a spacious kitchen and offered him a seat at the sturdy, weathered table. He thought it was decidedly humble for a family whose weapons demanded staggering prices on the open market.

‘What is it that you need with my father?’ she asked as she set the kettle on the stove.

‘Yannick is your father?’

‘He is,’ she replied. ‘I am Josephine.’

‘Nick.’

‘Nick from Interpol — who has come to ask questions at four in the morning. So what are your questions?’

‘Your father has made some interesting weapons.’

‘That isn’t a question.’

‘And the people who bought those weapons used them to attack a colleague of mine in cold blood. He’s lucky to still be alive.’

She folded her arms in front of her. ‘Still not a question.’

He forced a smile. ‘Have you ever been arrested?’

‘Pardon?’

‘See, that time I asked a question, yet your response didn’t improve. That leads me to believe that I need to have a conversation with your father instead of you.’

She shook her head. ‘Not going to happen.’

‘Josephine,’ he said calmly, ‘this isn’t a hard decision for you to make. I came here quietly, in the dead of night, hoping to reach an agreement with your father. I’m not looking to cause problems, I’m truly not. But with one phone call, I can have a thousand agents descend upon your farm like locusts. It will be loud, and it will be messy. We will tear apart every inch of this property and interrogate everyone for miles. If only half of what I hear is correct, your father will spend the rest of his life in prison and your neighbors will never treat you the same. Or …’

‘Or what?’

‘Or you can wake your father for a short conversation.’

She took a deep breath before settling into the chair at the head of the table. ‘I’m afraid that’s impossible. I tried to wake my father two years ago from his afternoon nap. It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now. You’re welcome to try, though. He’s buried out back in the flower garden. Shall I show you the grave, or do you want your agents to find it on their own?’

Dial furrowed his brow. ‘He’s dead?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yannick Holcher is dead?’

‘You can ask me a thousand times — my answer will not change.’

‘We have no record of his death at Interpol.’

‘That’s because I didn’t tell Interpol, or anyone, for that matter.’

From the tone of her voice and the look in her eyes, Dial knew she was telling the truth. ‘How’d he die?’

‘Parkinson’s,’ she said, bitterly. ‘First it took his hands. Then it took his legs. Then it took his life. Toward the end, he wanted to die.’

Dial wondered how a gunsmith could work with a crippling disease like Parkinson’s. Even with the best drugs and therapy, it would be impossible to build world-class weapons without an extra set of hands. And then it hit him — the reason Josephine never reported the death of her father. The reason no one knew he had even been sick. And most importantly, the reason they were making guns so far away from the public eye.

He leaned back in his chair and nodded. ‘I’ll be damned. You’re the craftsman. Not your father. You.’

‘I am now,’ she admitted with a shrug, ‘but it wasn’t always that way. My father was the best gunsmith in the world. He could take a hunk of metal and turn it into a work of art. But when his hands started to go, he had nowhere else to turn. Thankfully, I was shooting before I could walk, studying his designs before I could read. Over the years, he taught me everything he knew. All the tricks, the nuances that made his guns such prized possessions.’

‘Illegal possessions, I might add.’

She waved off his comment. ‘What is legal in our country may be prohibited in the next. We cannot be held accountable for that. Technically, by the laws of our land, we have done nothing wrong. Our facility is registered. We have the requisite manufacturer’s license, and we do not sell to the citizens of Luxembourg. Besides, many of our weapons are sold as collectibles. In many parts of the world, they qualify as art.’

‘Full auto pistols? Suppression barrels? You call that art? You know there’s no legitimate reason to request such modifications. You think these guys were hunters? Let me tell you, the only places you hunt with something like that are city streets.’

‘Like I said, we have no interest in what becomes of our products.’

‘Well I do,’ Dial countered. ‘If you’d like, I can dedicate my life to shutting you down, or you can help me find some of the criminals you’ve sold to. In exchange, I swear to keep your name out of things. No one will ever know the information came from you. Furthermore, you can keep pretending that your father is still running things — which I assume is important to some of your Middle Eastern customers. After all, who would want to buy a gun from a girl?’

She knew he was right. ‘Which criminals?’

He smiled. ‘Let’s start with the bastard who attacked my friend. His men were armed with Beretta knockoffs with biometric palm scanners.’

‘Biometric palm scanners?’ she asked, confused. ‘You’re joking, are you not? We have never dealt in such things. You must be mistaken.’

‘Josephine,’ he said with a laugh, ‘I thought we were finally beginning to understand each other. You do me a favor, and I do you a favor. Unfortunately, that only works if you hold up your end of the bargain. Remember, one phone call from me and your business disappears.’

‘Do not move,’ ordered a voice from behind him. The demand was followed by the unmistakable click of a pistol being cocked.

‘Natalia!’ Josephine shouted. ‘What are you doing?’

Dial turned slowly to see a younger version of Josephine standing behind him. It was obvious that Natalia was Josephine’s daughter. It was also obvious that she knew how to handle a gun, based on her steady aim and perfect stance. Of course, that made sense, given that her mother was one of the best gunsmiths in the world.

‘Lower your weapon,’ Dial insisted.

‘Why are you here?’ Natalia demanded.

‘Natalia, he is from Interpol,’ Josephine explained in French. ‘He has only come to talk. We have done nothing wrong. Please put down the pistol.’

After a few more seconds of posturing, Natalia uncocked the hammer and holstered the weapon. As she did, Dial caught a glimpse of the same biometric palm scanner that Payne had discovered on the gun in Pittsburgh.

‘I must apologize for my daughter,’ Josephine said. ‘You came to our farm in the middle of the night. A stranger she did not know. She was merely trying to protect me.’

‘Heir to the family business?’ he guessed.

Josephine nodded. ‘She has been studying the craft since she was a child.’

‘Oh, I’d say she’s been doing a little more than studying, haven’t you, Natalia?’ He pointed at her holstered weapon. ‘That grip sure looks familiar.’

Natalia looked down at her weapon.

‘Natalia, what does he mean by that?’ Josephine asked.

Natalia tried pulling her sweater over the holster, but the gun was simply too big to be concealed.

Josephine stepped forward, pulled back the sweater, and drew the gun from its holster. She examined the grip, immediately recognizing the palm-scanning technology that Dial had just mentioned. ‘Natalia … what have you done?’

‘It is nothing. A custom order. I do them on my own.’

‘Your job is to take orders and see they have been shipped,’ Josephine argued. ‘You are not ready to design your own line, and you have no right to alter my creations!’

‘They aren’t buying your creations! They are buying my modifications!’

Dial reached under his jacket and unholstered his own gun. Then he slid his hands under the table, just in case Natalia panicked. ‘Let me see if I got this straight. Your mom makes the guns, but you make the changes before you box them and send them off?’

Natalia answered his question with a subtle nod.

Dial laughed at the absurdity of the situation. He couldn’t believe that one of the most respected arms dealers in the world was a defiant teenager.

‘Why are you laughing?’ Natalia demanded.

‘Natalia, be quiet,’ Josephine said.

He continued to laugh. ‘Your customers are going to love this. So will your competitors. And so will my friend. I forgot about him. He’s gonna be pissed when he finds out her custom order almost got him killed.’

‘She is only a girl. She stays out of this!’

‘Of course,’ Dial said as he nodded to the empty chair to his right, ‘but only if she sits down and tells me everything I want to know. In fact, that statement applies to you, too. By the time this conversation is over, the three of us are going to be the best of friends. But before we get started, I need you to do two things for me. First, I want you to hand me that gun …’

Josephine, who was riding a crest of emotions, glanced down and realized she was holding her daughter’s gun so tightly that her hand was turning white. She apologized for the oversight and placed the weapon on the table in front of Dial.

‘Thank you. You were making me nervous,’ he said.

She nodded. ‘What’s number two?’

He smiled at her. ‘Where’s that coffee you promised me?’