Marc Vandenburg didn’t stir until well after sunup the next morning. He considered rolling over and going back to sleep, but guilt got the better of him. He’d been putting off going to the gym for over a week, and twenty minutes on the treadmill would do him some good. He’d been gaining weight lately as he gradually lost the advantage of a young man’s metabolism.
He torqued sideways to put his feet on the floor, but paused there, a minor hangover reminding him of last night. He’d gone out to dinner with friends from law school and the schnapps had started flowing. Now he regretted it, but at least he’d gotten home at a reasonable hour.
He checked the clock: 9:05.
Christ.
He had taken to rising late since leaving Kerr & Dorfman, but it was getting out of hand. He had only one meeting today, but it was an important one—there were files he needed to review. It was a far cry from his days at the big firm. They had expected him to be behind his desk before seven every morning, and twelve-hour days were the norm. Altogether, it was a vampire’s existence, never outside his professional tomb in the light of day. Half a workday on Saturday was standard, and anyone aspiring to advance stayed longer.
His new private practice was the other extreme. If he had no client meetings, he often took the day off, or if he did go in, he wore jeans and a sweatshirt. His receptionist, an officious fifty-something frau who had come with the buyout, didn’t approve. Vandenburg didn’t give a shit—a perk of being the boss. There were, however, two glaring downsides to his new career path. First was that he got no regular paycheck, only scattershot retainers and commissions. The second problem reflected the first. The practice he’d acquired had always kept a thin client list, and unfortunately a few had dropped him in the transition. The handful he’d met so far were a veritable gallery of rogues. Still, if he could hold onto the bigger fish, dredge up a few more, the potential remained for a lucrative little practice.
He went to the bathroom, relieved his bladder, and when he tried to flush the toilet, the handle fell off—it had been giving him trouble for weeks. Not being mechanically inclined, he thought, Going to have to call someone in. He paused for a cautious look in the mirror. He looked better than he felt, and sucking in his gut he decided he could put off the gym for another day. A shave and a shower would put things right, he decided, then maybe lunch at Antonio’s. His mood brightened at the thought of a heaping plate of pasta. Vandenburg turned back toward the bedroom but froze at the threshold.
A man had appeared out of nowhere. He just stood there casually in the middle of the room, looking at him and smiling. He could have been a maître d’ about to welcome guests to a gastro pub. He was roughly Vandenburg’s own height, a bit slimmer, with unusual gray eyes that regarded him thoughtfully. There was no trace of threat in his posture or expression. On the other hand, he wasn’t here to fix the toilet.
“Who the hell are you?” Vandenburg asked in his native Luxembourgish.
“English?” the man suggested.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Not relevant.”
“I’ll show you what is relevant.” At that point Vandenburg made his first mistake in what was about to become the worst day of his life. He hauled back and took a wild roundhouse swing at the intruder.
When Vandenburg awoke for the second time that day, his head felt far worse. There was an intense throbbing, and he could hear his heartbeat pulsing in his ears. He vaguely remembered taking a swing at the stranger, not connecting. Then everything went to a blur. Somehow the man had got behind him and levered an arm around his throat. He remembered flailing and kicking, things slowly going gray. Then blackness until … until now.
Before he could blink his eyes open, Vandenburg realized he was in a sitting position and trussed to something solid. His hands were immobilized behind him, and not in a comfortable way—his shoulders were twisted back awkwardly. When he finally managed to focus, he recognized one of his heavy dining room chairs beneath him.
Then he saw the man, still standing in front of him. Same casual expression, same disconcerting eyes.
“Welcome back, Marc.”
Vandenburg sensed movement behind him. He twisted as far as he could against the restraints and saw a second figure over his shoulder. This one, more ominously, was wearing a black ski mask. The second man lashed out and whacked him on the head with what felt like a sock full of stones.
Vandenburg lurched forward, dazed.
“Eyes front, I think, is the message,” the interrogator said.
Vandenburg rattled his head to clear the cobwebs. The peril of his situation was fast becoming clear. “What do you want?” he croaked.
“A bit of cooperation.”
“I don’t keep money in the house.”
A brief half smile. “You misunderstand completely. Let me start at the beginning. We know who you are, what you do. More to the point, we know who your clients are.”
With those words, something clicked in Vandenburg’s head. Confusion and worry went to abject fear. He, too, knew who his clients were.
“We’re aware that your law practice is relatively new, and that you’ve assumed the client list of Dieter Schneider. I’m sure Monsieur Schneider told you he was retiring, but the truth is a bit more complex. His decision wasn’t based on age, but rather … How to put it? Personal safety? Of course, he wouldn’t have disclosed this to a prospective buyer. We both know what kind of services the firm provides, and to whom it provides them. Did it never occur to you that doing business with such individuals might come with complications?”
The lawyer didn’t respond.
“Apparently not. Well, then I should begin by explaining that we know a great deal about you and your prospective clients. Indeed, with regard to the clients, more than you could possibly know.”
Vandenburg listened as the man went into an extended narrative. He covered the half dozen accounts he had expected to be the most lucrative, detailing them as “extensive and ongoing criminal enterprises.” He also detailed Vandenburg’s own background, including his firing from Kerr & Dorfman, and precisely what he’d paid to take over Schneider’s practice.
When he was done, Vandenburg tried desperately to square two conflicting thoughts. One was that these men had a near-encyclopedic knowledge of both him and the dubious characters he was getting into business with. The other was that they had broken into his house, subdued him, and tied him to a chair. The fact that one was wearing a ski mask seemed half exclamation point, half question mark.
With no clear answer resolving in his head, he asked, “Are you police?”
“Let’s say we are the agents of a very concerned government body. What I’ve laid out is merely the tip of the iceberg. For years now, we’ve been watching Dieter Schneider. We’ve built cases against a number of his clients … soon to be your clients. In truth, as distasteful as many of them are, the majority don’t concern us at the moment. Yet one group very much does. The one whose representative you are scheduled to meet this afternoon.”
The name came to Vandenburg’s lips before he could stop it. “Moussa Tayeb?”
The interrogator’s head tilted slightly. “And there is the next thing you should know.” He held out a hand and the second man provided a tablet computer. He turned it toward Vandenburg, and on the screen he saw an online news article from the Luxembourg Journal. It described a shooting at Hotel Le Cristal. “The victim’s name hasn’t yet been released,” the man said, “but I can tell you it was Moussa Tayeb.”
Vandenburg’s world began to spin. He tried to imagine where this was going. “If Moussa is dead, then what do you want from me?”
“We know your meeting today involved not only Moussa, but also his brother Ramzi.”
“I’ve only dealt with Moussa before, and then only one meeting—but yes, Ramzi was going to join us today.”
“Why?”
“We were going to add his name to some documents. Moussa told me his brother wants to become involved in the organization’s business.”
“To say the least,” the interrogator said. “And far more than his brother understood.”
Vandenburg looked at the man questioningly.
“Don’t you see? Ramzi Tayeb has killed his brother. He intends to take complete control of al-Qassam Front. Which is why he will be at that meeting this afternoon.”
Vandenburg’s heart fluttered, and he sensed perspiration beading on his upper lip.
The interrogator leaned in closer. Nothing threatening, but disconcerting all the same. “But with your help, Marc, we can put a stop to the killing … once and for all.”