Her sleepy voice made me homesick. She said, “You promise to be careful?”
“Sure, but what could go wrong? I’m in a country with a low crime rate looking for a missing girl who hangs out with computer geeks. I think I’ll manage.”
She let out that warm Irish laugh and said, “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Then it was back to reality.
The breakfast in the main room of the hotel included three different kinds of fish. I’m not used to salted smelt for breakfast, but they weren’t bad.
Then I hit the streets with a vengeance. Not like I might in New York. There, I knew every street corner, most hustlers, and a lot of cops. Here, it was just me, hoping I didn’t do anything to be noticed.
I had several addresses I wanted to check out from Tony Martindale’s Intelligence Bureau resources. The folder he’d handed me on Henry hadn’t provided much information, but this turd looked to be bad news from the description they’d acquired through different informants.
Usually a criminal was known to be either tough or smart. This guy appeared to be both. But he had no actual criminal history. No arrests at all. That was the sign of the worst kind of criminal: one who was smart enough to work the system or avoid detection altogether.
The brief from Intel said he’d attacked the computer system of Aldi grocery stores in Germany. He had crippled all of their systems, then demanded ten million euros to let them operate again.
The only thing that had stopped him was a bank screwup. Somehow the account he had been using in Russia at the time was viewable by the police. That saved the German company a fortune.
In addition to several other cyberattacks, Henry was listed as responsible for three separate murders, two in Estonia and one in Russia. I thought, And at least one in New York. That didn’t count the dead at the coffeehouse.
The more I found out about this “Henry,” the more I looked forward to finally meeting him.
I walked along Pühavaimu, on the edge of the Old Town district. The medieval city walls rose right from the sidewalk, and a plaque advised me that Old Town was a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It explained that the first wall went up around the capital in the year 1265 during the reign of Margaret Sambiria, thus it is named Margaret Wall.
The streets were filled with tourists, and among them I heard a number of American accents. My cabdriver had told me Estonians greatly preferred to hear English to Russian if someone wasn’t going to speak Estonian. Cruise ships docked at the main port and shuttled busloads of tourists to Old Town to see Toompea Castle as well as farther east to see the Kadriorg Palace. At the moment, I was dodging those crowds.
At least two cruise ships were in the port, which I could tell by the different groups. Some had blue bags with the Princess Cruises logo on them. Others had Norwegian tags on their shirts. Each group shuffled along like the Peanuts gang, all closed in and cramped, trying to hear their guide.
I took in the city as I looked for the first address on my list, which turned out to be a warehouse. I could tell by the windows and how clean the interior was that it’d been used recently. That fell in with what I knew about cybercriminals. They tended to move from location to location. I inspected the warehouse, hoping to find some clue as to where the operation had moved.
I was surprised to find the front door unlocked. I walked in carefully, taking a few photos with my phone as I went. At the far end of an empty loading bay, a man in some kind of a janitor’s uniform pushed a wide broom.
When he noticed me, he smiled and waved. He said something in Estonian.
I held up my hands and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Estonian.”
The man, who looked to be about fifty with short gray hair, perked up and said, “English?”
I nodded, and he walked over to me.
“I like to speak English. Where you from?”
“New York.”
“New York, America?”
“That’s the one.” I also gave him a quick thumbs-up.
The man was small and a little hunched over. He patted me on the arm in a friendly gesture. “I’m Gunnar.”
I took a chance and said, “Gunnar, do you know where the company that was here moved?”
He gave me a confused stare, then smiled. “Computer company?”
I nodded.
“They have new building. On Tartu Maantee near Toit’s City.”
“What’s Toit’s City?”
“Nice café. You eat. You like.”
I had to smile. That was perfect. I thanked the man and eased away from him as he tried to practice more English on me.
I stepped outside into the bright sunshine of the Estonian morning. As my eyes adjusted, a man in a suit approached me. I could tell by the way he was walking that he was looking specifically for me. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
I felt for the pistol stuck in my waistband. Now I really appreciated the efforts of the NYPD last night at the airport. I had almost refused the offer of the gun. Now I was glad I had it.
The man stopped ten paces in front of me and immediately held up some kind of government ID. The way he did it, and the look of the ID, left no question that he was in law enforcement. It was almost a universal method of identification.
He spoke English with only a slight accent. He said, “Mr. Bennett, I need to speak with you.”
I was made.
CHAPTER 60
THE COP SEEMED a little casual as he approached me. Maybe he wasn’t used to the same threats American cops faced every day. And like many criminals in the United States, I was armed.
I didn’t want to be searched and have the pistol discovered. But there was no way I was going to hurt a cop, either. He knew me. By name. That was disconcerting. It was a little surreal to be on the other end of a police stop. The fact that I was in a foreign country only made it more uncomfortable.
He was about my age and fit. Maybe six feet tall. His eyes scanned me from head to toe. Then he said, “Why are you here?”
“You mean, here on the street?” I hated when someone tried to double-talk me in New York. Now I was on the other side of the conversation, and frankly, it was kind of fun. I saw the frustration on the cop’s face. I could tell he was wondering if maybe his English wasn’t as good as he thought.
Then he said firmly, “What are you doing in Estonia?”
Not being a hardened street criminal, I stammered but didn’t come up with a smart-ass answer. Finally I spat out, “Sightseeing.” I had to wonder if this guy was legit. Was he on Henry’s payroll? I became more apprehensive the longer he just stared at me.
Then he pulled a phone from his pocket.
I didn’t know what to do, so I just stood there. I didn’t want to make any threatening moves. I certainly wasn’t prepared to run.
The cop spoke English on the phone. He said, “Yes, it’s definitely Bennett.” He listened to someone speak for a moment, then replied, “We’ll wait right here.”
I had a sinking feeling in my stomach.
I had never heard anything specifically about Estonian cops being corrupt. Certainly not like I’d heard about Russian police or the police in Mexico. I had to make a decision. Was this something I could risk? Not just for my safety but for Natalie Lunden’s? If Henry was as powerful and rich as I’d heard, he could buy a couple of cops. Or at least outfit someone to look like a cop.