The Polish Solution.
May of 1992.
New York City, USA.
It was too easy to get into his office after dark. He always stayed late, avoiding his family. He lived in that cushy rolling chair of his. Once the building shut down, security was relaxed. Some of the staff went home and the cameras took over the job. Codes and motion sensors protected the doors to important offices, and the rest was left to a simple lock and key. It was simple enough to get into the building before it shut down and hide out until the alarms were set. It was a bit more complicated to burrow through the ceiling into a secured floor and take the stairs up to the office of an unsuspecting CEO. But it was very difficult for me to enter his unlocked door and walk quietly up to his desk while he stared into a bright computer screen.
I stood there for several seconds, like a phantom, steeling myself. I looked at his face, lined with age, and reminded myself that he was responsible for killing that woman – and for what? He had all the money he could ever need. But he wanted more. He could not stand the thought of losing even a fraction of his profits, and it cost someone their life.
It had all started in Poland, with a kid who missed home, and it was going to end here.
"Randolph," I said.
He jumped so hard that he flipped his keyboard over. His fingers groped all around for his phone, but as he made contact, I grabbed the cord and snatched it off the desk. It clattered to the floor. He looked ready to fight, ready to flee.
I pulled a gun on him, "Easy. I just want to talk."
Meyer stiffened all over at the sight of the gun, and then smirked at me, "You're not gonna-"
I fired, demolishing his pencil sharpener. It was a high caliber gun, hot and heavy in my hand, but Larry had insisted it should be capable of making a point. The sound of the shot sent a jolt through the man, as if he had never dreamed of hearing it.
He seemed incapable, so I reached over and turned on his desk lamp, giving us a little light. "Much better. I like to see the people I talk to."
Meyer said nothing, maybe still hoping he could be brave.
"I have a question for you. I want you to think carefully about your answer, because your life depends on your honesty." I came around to him, pushing his chair away with one foot and sitting on his desk. I rested the gun across my knee. "Did you order the assassination of Maria Clark?"
Meyer said nothing.
I sighed. It was not necessary to get him to confess, because we had a recording of him discussing the hit in his office, but I wanted to hear him say it. "I have a proposition for you."
I slid a bottle of brandy over, flipping one of his classy desk glasses and pouring him a drink. I produced a small vial from my suit pocket and poured it in – no more than two drops, at most – and gave the liquid a little swirl. Meyer watched me intently.
"Your actions have damaged the lives of a lot of people. I never met Ms. Clark, but I did meet the woman your goons hospitalized in Poland. You must have told your guys to do as much damage as they could. I doubt her face will ever fully recover. Some people think that bad people have the potential to change, but not me. So, I want you to drink this, Meyer, and kill yourself."
Meyer stared at me, first rebellious as my speech began, and then concerned as the conclusion came, and I slid the glass toward him.
"You can't be serious," he stuttered, his voice losing its bravado.
I took a deep, patient breath. "You have options, of course. I fired a gun in your office, so security should be on the way up. Maybe they called the police – or maybe not, because shady things happen in this office sometimes. When they come through the door, I'll kill them, and then we'll sit here again with your drink. You could pour it out, and I could put a bullet in your stomach, right between your vital organs and all those vessels. But that's the slow way. If you drink this, it ends quickly. It just stops. It goes black, and you see whatever it is you think you might see after."
"N-No. I won't." Meyer looked at the drink like it was a live grenade, locking eyes with it, forgetting that I was holding a gun.
I stretched both arms out like I was tired, like I was bored, like this interaction was one of many I would have tonight. It was time for the next phase. I turned his monitor toward me and brought up a website, really just a sequence of numbers and letters leading me to a private webpage, with a single box in the center of it. It was a live video from the Meyer living room.
"We can just have a little family reunion, while you make your decision."
Meyer looked over, horrified, as he saw what the video showed. It was his family, tied up on the couch, tape wrapped around their mouths and blindfolds on their eyes. Larry was walking up and down the couch behind them, dragging a knife along the cushions.
I pushed everything I felt about this deep down and wore my business mask. We had a job to do here, a mission to accomplish. I had to weigh these lives against the ones that Meyer had damaged. But life did not work that way. It was not their fault their husband, their father, was this person, and tormenting them would not bring Maria Clark back from the dead.
"Drink," I said, quietly. "Everyone apart from your family will assume you had a heart attack, and your family… I think they have enough motivation to keep quiet."
"Who are you?" Meyer demanded, near to sobbing. "What do you want?"
"I told you what I want. I want you to drink this, and die."
"Please! I don't wanna die. I don't wanna die," Meyer sobbed. He jumped when the webcam shook all of the sudden, as Larry had just grabbed his wife and pressed the knife flat to the side of her face. "Please don't hurt her! She has nothing to do with this! Please!"
It was here, this was the place I wanted him.
"If you live, what do I get out of it?" I asked.
Meyer looked sharply at me, "I have friends, powerful friends. I can get you anything you want."
"I lied to you when we met. I work for certain interests within the government. I'm only interested in what you can give them. So, lay it out for me. What do you have to offer your country?"
He started spouting information, a fountain of knowledge about US adversaries. His knowledge of Iran was particularly interesting. I let him go on for several minutes, stuttering and sobbing, before he trailed off. I reached over and cut the monitor off.
"W-What about my family?"
"Your family will be fine, if they can keep their mouths shut. You will get a call within the next two days and be assigned a liaison. If at any point you provide false information or attempt to undermine your country, my friend gets a plane ticket back to New York and permission to kill everyone he thinks may be a threat to national security – you, your wife, your son, your daughter, that niece you have upstate. If you play nice and cooperate, this is the last time you'll ever see me or him again, and trust me, that's for the best."
Meyer sat in silence, staring at the black monitor. I looked at it and saw myself reflected in the lamplight. I looked different again, sinister and serious. And older. How did I keep getting older?
I stood up suddenly, startling the CEO, and took the glass. I looked pointedly between him and the liquid, and then poured it out in the nearby plant.
"Goodbye. I hope we never see each other again."
I left the office the way I had entered, carefully replacing the tiles I had come through, descending into the main lobby, and then taking the door out. It set off the alarm. I strolled down the street, which was quiet now that business hours had mostly ended and dipped into the nearest alley.
His call came a moment later, "Did you seal the deal?"
"I laid out the rules."
"Fantastic."
I could have taken a cab back to the hotel, but I wanted to walk off the man I had seen in my reflection. I wished Sam were still here, but then I was glad he was gone. It was best if he never saw this side of me. I was conflicted, wondering who I was under all of this pretending. I hated what I had to do, hated watching Larry terrorize that family, but I was so good at it. It came so easily to me, like second nature.
But it begged the question – if I was so good at it, such a natural, would it be so hard for me to find a solution that someone like Sam would agree with?