Color of Blood(61)
Judy swooned as if several sparrows were trying to fly out of her stomach.
“Besides padlocks, this wonderful device can also sever fingers,” the voice said. She heard guffaws of cartoon laughter.
She felt a hand grab her right wrist, even though it was bound to her side. She instinctively twisted her entire body as she tried to fight back.
“Don’t worry,” the voice said. “We’re not going to use it on your fingers. We’re not that bloody stupid. But we’d like you to feel the immense power of this device and know what it’s capable of. Now stop twisting because you could cause an accident. Please, Officer White, calm down. Now, do you feel that? Those are the cutting blades; feel how they fit snuggly around your index finger?”
Judy’s heart pounded as she felt the teeth of a huge pair of pliers placed delicately around her right index finger. She could barely breathe as the two blades nestled against the soft flesh of her finger.
“I think you get the idea, yes?” the voice asked.
Judy nodded vigorously.
“So, how do you think that strapping young son of yours—I think his name is Simon—would look if, say, he was missing two or three fingers? I believe he’s right-handed, yes?”
“Stop,” Judy screamed through the tape. “Stop!”
“I bet you think you’ll be able to move that son of yours and hide him somewhere, don’t you? But we’ll find him. You think the AFP will move you and your whole family to the UK? Perhaps the US? South Africa? And your parents? You think they want to move to a foreign country at their age? Doesn’t matter, we’ll find you and Simon. I can promise you we’ll take off all the fingers of Simon’s right hand, just leave a stump, and it would be your fault, Officer White. He won’t be able to button his shirts, or hold a knife and fork properly. Such a shame, and all preventable.
“I’m sure you think we’re bluffing. So as a demonstration of our resolve, we are going to leave you with a little gift. It will be something that you can hide easily from prying eyes and yet will be a constant reminder of our enduring business relationship.”
Judy felt several burly arms suddenly press down hard on her thighs, and she twisted her body as she felt her right shoe being taken off and her nylon sock daintily removed.
In the millisecond it took for her to understand what was happening, and before she could scream through the duct tape, she distinctly heard someone yell, “No!”
But it was too late. She felt something metallic and cold touch her foot, followed by a searing pain that swept up her right leg, then a clicking sound.
Judy screamed and screamed, writhing so hard she thought she might have hurt her wrists. As she violently twisted her head, the tape covering her eyes parted at the edge just enough that, for a fraction of a second, she saw the shoulder of a man leaning down against her legs, while behind him stood a man with a bolt cutter. It appeared the man with the bolt cutter had short, bleach-blond hair, a deep tan, and a small, gold hoop earring on his left ear.
After several seconds of screaming and twisting, Judy started to calm down as her right foot grew numb with pain.
“Officer White, we’ve removed just the tip of your right baby toe. You don’t really need it, and you can hide it easily enough. We look forward to working with you in the future.”
Judy was in the process of screaming a muted “You f*cking bastard!” when she felt a cloth imbued with the anesthetic placed over her nose. This time she greedily took it in.
***
The Japanese men stopped after leaving the Messeplatz and lit cigarettes; the two models sauntered by Dennis from right to left, followed by the Garder look-alike.
Dennis followed fifty feet back as the young man walked past the shuttle-bus stop and down Clarastrasse. Dennis lingered and took to the other side of the street, feeling a little out of his element. Garder was the trained, street-wise agent; Dennis was the trained investigator—he did his best work looking at documents and interviewing subjects. Nevertheless, Dennis knew enough about clandestine operations to appreciate that surprise was the ultimate weapon. As clumsy as Dennis might be, Garder would not be expecting to be tailed in this charming little Swiss town.
The man walked down the right side of the street in no hurry, stopping idly at a corner café, and then apparently changed his mind. Dennis did his best to keep a good distance back, and at one point the young man crossed to his side of the street, whereupon Dennis switched to the other side.
The man walked down Clarastrasse until it became Claraplatz, and Dennis could finally see the river and a bridge several blocks ahead.
The man stopped in front of a butcher shop and stared in the window for what seemed like five minutes. Dennis was forced to stop and fidget around a newspaper-vending box attached to a light post. A large bus spewing a thin cloud of diesel fumes lumbered down the street, momentarily blocking Dennis’s view of his prey. When the bus moved away, the man had vanished.
Dennis took off at a loping run down the street, straining to look down Claraplatz to see if the man had simply continued ahead. He pulled up directly across from the butcher shop and looked inside; there was a single white-haired, elderly woman in a beige jacket talking to the butcher.
Dennis continued at a trot until he came to a cross street and looked right, then left; a block down the tree-lined street to his left, he saw a man running. He took off down Rebgasse in pursuit and saw the runner take a right at the first street that would lead back to the river.