DARK ROADS & OPEN DOORS
CHAPTER 10
Once she had finished crying, Liz became angry. Seething, she threw some clean clothes into her overnight bag and picked up the platinum ring from the bed, pocketing it before calling a cab. She gave the driver the address from her phone and soon found herself outside Red's apartment building. There was no sign of Dembe. She wiped her eyes and punched the buzzer for the penthouse suite; no response came through the speaker but the front door buzzed to signal she should come through. She strode into the elevator and travelled to the top floor, finding Red waiting for her, leaning casually in the doorway.
"You bastard," she hissed, striding across the tiled lobby, throwing the ring at him as she passed him on her way into the apartment proper. He caught the ring awkwardly and followed her into the softly lit room, closing the door quietly before he turned to find her flying at him wildly. She shrieked and pummelled his chest with closed fists which he caught effortlessly; she collapsed against him then, rage dissolving into wracking sobs. He drew her close and wrapped her in his arms, one hand stroking her hair as she cried into his chest. "Why didn't you dispose of it?" she asked quietly once her sobs had abated enough to allow speech.
"I don't know," he answered honestly, dropping his hand from her head to rub small circles on her back; he really had no idea why – the idea had seemed like a good one at the time, so he'd dropped the ring into her washbag on their last day in Edison. He had expected that she would find it and hide it on her return home; something to remember their time by.
"He fucking found it," she exclaimed. "He found it and he's accused me of-"
"Everything that you've done but are lying about," he finished for her. She sagged against him, the weight of the truth crushing her.
"He's kicked me out," she mumbled sullenly, stepping out of his embrace which had loosened.
"There's more than enough room here," he offered.
She shook her head. "I can't stay here. I'll find a hotel or something."
"You can stay tonight, or until you sort things out at home," he insisted. "There are four bedrooms here, Lizzie; and Dembe is in an apartment on the ground floor. It's quite safe," he assured her.
"Where's Luli?"
"I have no idea where she lives." He chuckled. "She just shows up when she's needed; it's how we've always worked." Silence descended in the apartment and Liz shifted her weight from one foot to the other and back again, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth, looking anywhere by directly at Red. "Do you want something to help you sleep?" he offered, sensing how on-edge she was.
"Like pills?" she asked, brows raised.
He chuckled softly. "No, brandy; I do have sleeping pills if you'd prefer, though I don't recommend that you mix the two."
"Brandy will be fine," she said, standing a little straighter.
"Would you like it warmed?"
"No thanks, I'll just take it as it comes." She moved to sit on the sofa while Red prepared her drink for her. He handed her a tumbler filled with a generous measure of brandy and she gave him a sad smile as she took it from him and sipped at it.
"It will get better."
"No it won't."
"There will come a time for a final resolution to this mess, and after that you will find that whatever will be will be."
Liz snorted into her drink. "You're the Oracle, now?"
"Quite the opposite, I assure you. But I've years of experience on you, Lizzie; trust me on this one."
She downed the remainder of her drink, gasping at the burning of the brandy as it traveled down to her stomach where it warmed her and hummed through her bloodstream. She felt drained from her emotional outpouring and drowsy. She heard Red say something, but wasn't listening for it to make any sense.
"What?" she asked.
"Down the hallway, third door on the left; you should take that room," he repeated. She nodded and rose from her seat on the sofa, batting his hand away from her bag and carrying it to the room herself. Once inside she mechanically undressed and got into her sleepwear, not bothering to find the bathroom to brush her teeth, and sliding between the cool sheets she pushed all thoughts of Tom, Red and the FBI from her mind and welcomed the embrace of slumber.
Liz woke to the scent of something amazing wafting underneath her door. She sloughed off the sheets, grabbed her clothes, and quietly made her way to the bathroom; she heard humming coming from elsewhere in the apartment and allowed herself a small smile at the memory of how happy cooking made Red. She had a quick shower and dressed in skinny jeans and a plain white t-shirt, saving her forest green jumper for later. As she brushed her teeth, a knock sounded on the bathroom door.
"Good morning," he called through the door. "Breakfast is ready."
"O-hay," she called back, mouth full of toothbrush and toothpaste foam. She heard him chuckle and his footsteps fade as he disappeared back down the hall. Quickly, she finished her morning routine and exited the bathroom to deposit her sleepwear back into the bedroom before she made her way down the hallway to find Red beckoning her into the kitchen. There, at the small kitchen table, sat a plate piled with waffles, bacon and sausage; she sat, mumbled her thanks and tucked into the meal, savouring the flavours. Red sat with a plate of toast, sipping at his coffee as he perused the morning papers.
"How did you sleep?" he enquired as she was finishing her breakfast.
"Well, thanks." Silence fell. "Thank you for letting me stay," she said sheepishly.
"Not at all," he said, looking up from his paper.
"You didn't need-"
"Yes, I did; and so did you. Now, I won't hear anymore thanks about it. Have you finished your report on Edison?"
Liz's hand flew to her face and covered her eyes. "My laptop is at the house," she groaned.
"Would you like Dembe to escort you there?"
"If it's not too much trouble?"
"I'll call him up when you're ready." Red finished his toast as Liz sipped at her coffee. "Have you read the file I gave you?" he enquired.
"You know I haven't had the time."
"No time like the present." Red rose from the table to clear their plates, clearly meaning to wash up.
"I'll go get it," she sighed resignedly, making her way back to her room. She returned with the file open in her hands, eyes scanning it as she walked down the hallway. "Why don't you tell me everything in a nutshell?" she probed.
"I'd really rather you read it," he insisted, elbows deep in the washing up. Liz sat herself at the kitchen table and began to read the notes he had scribed in the front of the file, admiring his handwriting. "We're out of sugar," he announced suddenly, breezing past her to the coat stand to grab his jacket and select a hat; "I'll be back shortly." He left her alone in the apartment, quietly closing the door behind himself; she rolled her eyes at his dramatics before relocating to the sofa in the living room, and got down to the serious business of reading the file cover to cover on the three suspects for Blacklister Number Nine.
"What do you think?" Red asked, exiting the kitchen with two steaming mugs of peppermint tea.
"The links between all three are tenuous at best," she sighed. "We'd need more evidence that they might be in league." He seated himself next to her on the sofa and peered at the notes, nodding pensively, mug of tea cradled in his hands. "If it were just one of them, who do you think it would be?" she queried, wanting to get his take on the situation.
"Andrei Balcescu, Romanian." She said nothing in response, just waited for him to elaborate. "He's not one for laying low. In most of the incidents relating to Number Nine he's been in the area."
"Okay, so he's been nearby. And?"
"This is why he can't be working alone; he's a loud character, he is missed if he leaves a party."
"So, of the other two?"
"Izzah Ahmedi; she's got a sadistic streak, which ties to the torture in each of the incidents."
"Torture is common to many offenders," she reasoned.
Red shook his head. "Not this sort."
"What do you mean?"
"She's got a rather sad story, really." He settled himself back into the sofa before beginning his tale. "In Jordan she was sold as a child to a man four times her age and taken to Dubai – her parents needed the money. How were they to know, in their naiveté, that she was used as a sex slave from the moment she arrived in her new home?"
"That's awful," Liz muttered, shaking her head.
Red nodded and continued his story. "She was forcibly addicted to opiates to ensure her servitude, and a string of terminated pregnancies throughout her teens left her barren; all Izzah ever wanted since she was a little girl playing with her brothers was a family of her own, and her captor dashed that one distant hope. She, through some feat or another, managed to incapacitate him – it's likely she drugged him – and she kept him in her cell for weeks, torturing him, violating him in every way possible, before she finally granted him the mercy of death."
"That's horrific," Liz muttered, shaking her head at hearing of such cruelty.
He sniffed dismissively. "Needless to say, it's left lasting damage. She doesn't like men."
"You've met Izzah Ahmedi?"
"Once. She called on me to get her out of a tight spot ten years ago. She was in a bit of a downward spiral with her addictions and far too close to the prostitution rings in Turkey, which were being shut down at an alarming rate. I got her out of the country and to a place she could get clean."
"Let me guess, she didn't fall for your charms?"
"She threatened to hang me by my big toes, hook my testicles up to an electrical current and make a Molotov cocktail out of my ass using my own monogrammed handkerchief, which was tame for her."
"She sounds lovely."
He smiled. "In hindsight it was quite exhilarating."
"So where is she now?" she asked.
"Close to Balcescu. He's got a ready supply of heroin; I've heard she'll do anything for a hit these days, and he's the obvious source."
"How else are they linked?"
"She provides the girls that work in the houses he's operating his business from worldwide."
"So what about suspect number three?"
"An oddball."
"They're all oddballs," she retorted, rolling her eyes.
"No, he's strange even by criminal standards." He sighed. "He's the one I'm not sure about."
"How so?" she asked, surprised that he would tell her he wasn't sure. "What's his business?"
He shrugged. "Nobody knows for sure."
Liz scoffed in disbelief. "How can you be known in the criminal world without anybody knowing what you do?"
"As I said, he's an odd one. He's often around, though never seems to say much."
"You've met him?"
"No. I've seen him. I've enquired after his identity, even a pseudonym, and his business – surreptitiously, you understand – and I've drawn a blank every time."
"So what's tying him to the other two?" Liz pressed.
"He's had an audience with them both on several occasions; that much I do know. I've seen the three of them adjourn to more private quarters for what is surely more than a friendly chat or a sampling of merchandise. That and there have been multiple murders in the past five years, globally, executed in the same manner." He smirked at his own pun.
"Which is?"
"The manner is not important; it points to Andrei Balcescu and Izzah Ahmedi without shadow of a doubt. It's the targets that make no sense without the third man. A drug dealer – global operation or not – does not need to take out the leader of the largest rebel group in Syria."
"How do you know about the murders?"
"Muhammed Khawaja was a client of mine."
Something in the way he said the rebel leader's name led her to press further. "A friend?"
"Close enough," he admitted. "Anyway-"
"So suspect three's an assassin?"
"Haven't you been listening? No, he doesn't get his hands dirty. I'm not convinced he even speaks to his clients personally, but he's doing a lot of business all the same."
"Who are his clients?"
"Governments at risk of being overthrown by their own people, politicians desperate to keep power over their opposing parties – I'm pretty sure Putin's been invoiced at some point." He chuckled at his own dark humour. "Powerful people, Lizzie, people who don't want to give it up."
"And the other two are doing his dirty work?"
"Mostly. Izzah gets off on it. Andrei is more likely to be supplying substances to incapacitate targets, or he's providing weapons – he's into those too."
"And it's just those three?"
Red laughed openly at her question, and she frowned in response. "Good God, no, Lizzie! They can't be all over the world at once. They're prominent members of a larger operation – top dogs, as it were; they are the organising members, pulling the strings to make the world dance to the tune of the highest bidder." He leaned back in his chair. "Impressive, really."
Liz remained silent for several minutes, turning the information over in her mind, working out the plausibility of the links between the three suspects Red had identified.
"You can't go to Cooper with this yet," she told him.
"I know," he agreed. "We have work to do."
"We?"
"Yes, we; I am going to see if I can find out where one or all three of them are at present, and then where they might be going if they're meeting anytime soon." He looked directly into her eyes. "And you, Lizzie, are going to go home, get your laptop, come back here and finish your report on Edison. You might want to pick up some more clothes while you're there."
"What if Tom-"
"I'm sure he'll think twice before acting rashly with Dembe standing behind you."
"I'm not staying here," Liz told him firmly.
He waved her words off, rising from his seat next to her to retrieve his coat and fedora. "Then you can look up places to stay when you've finished your report," he said as he shrugged into the overcoat and fished his sunglasses from the inside pocket.
"Fine," she relented hotly.
"Lizzie," he called softly from the front door of the apartment, she looked up at him expectantly; "my door is always open to you, no strings attached." She said nothing, made no movement in response. He nodded to himself. "Just so you know."