Headcount: v5 Page 3

  “Via those fourteen employees? So those people don’t exist? They’re phantom employees?”

  “No, they do exist. They are real people. And they are all legitimate members of the local union. In fact, they are set up correctly in the system—Texas locals on temporary assignment to a Polish subsidiary of Walker-Midland. It wouldn’t even get picked up on any of the audit reports.”

  “So the problem is?” I was confused.

  “The problem is they are chemical plant workers, but have been assigned to a construction-equipment manufacturer, the only Walker-Midland subsidiary in Poland. But no one would notice just by looking at the company name or industry codes. It’s too cryptic. But if you know what you’re looking for, you’d see that these fourteen workers are pulling in over eight hundred thousand dollars a year in total, if you combine the various overtimes, healthcare reimbursement, paid-out vacation, and so on. A drop in the bucket, and Walker-Midland’s records are so disorganized that there was no systematic way to catch it. Simone and I noticed the discrepancies. We traced the direct deposit accounts the salaries were going into. And then we figured out where the money was ending up.”

  “And the actual employees?”

  “Hanging out right here in town. Getting paid a small fraction of the payload in cash by Mr. Miroslav here.”

  I looked at Miroslav. He didn’t blink. Then he turned to me and smiled. “Jew dog. We will remove you from Poland. We will finish what Germany could not finish.”

  I stood up and hit him in the face. I felt his teeth cut into my fist but I didn’t care. “If Germany had finished what they started, there wouldn’t be any Poles left either, you ignorant pig. Nothing worse than a bigot who doesn’t know his own history.” I shook my head and stepped back.

  Mo smiled in surprise. Then she stopped smiling and told me to hold Miroslav’s arms. I went behind his chair and did what she said. He didn’t struggle. I guess I should have been surprised that a man like Miroslav wasn’t trying to fight us off or call for help or reach for a weapon, but he seemed strangely resigned to his fate, and I didn’t really question it. I was starting to resign myself to my own fate, even though I still wasn’t sure what was happening.

  Then I saw Mo reach into her back pocket and pull out a knife. It was a small folding knife—not quite a hunting knife, but not a Swiss Army knife either. Now I felt Miroslav’s arms go tight as he writhed in his chair.

  He looked up at Mo and began to plead again. “My daughter. She have no father if you do this.”

  “How old is your daughter?”

  “Five years.”

  Mo nodded. “Then she’s young enough to eventually forget you. To forget that the blood in her veins comes from a bigot and a murderer who’s too much of a coward to do the dirty work himself. She’s young enough that there’s hope she will find her own way.”

  Miroslav opened his mouth to protest but nothing came out except blood. Mo had driven the knife into the side of his neck just beneath the jawline. She had sliced clean across under his chin and was already wiping the knife off before I understood what had happened. I held on to his arms for a few more seconds before realizing there was no need.

  Mo leaned close to Miroslav as his gagging became less pronounced. “I had a daughter, too,” she whispered.

  I stood up straight and stared at Mo. She beckoned to me and I followed her. We walked outside to her car and I blinked in the dim light of the rising sun. She opened the trunk and unzipped a bag and pulled out what seemed to be plastic explosive. Then she motioned for me to follow her back inside.

  We went back into the office and Mo planted the explosive and rigged a detonator. I watched quietly.

  Finally Mo went to the computer and sent the e-mail she had typed up earlier. Then we walked back out of the room and towards the main door. On the way Mo planted more explosive near the door to the main warehouse and quickly set up another detonator. Then we walked back out to the car and got in.

  As she started the car I asked about the e-mail. She looked at me and smiled.

  “A note to the global head of payroll informing her of the discrepancy. With a copy to the head of operations. From Miroslav’s e-mail account, of course. A last confession from a man apparently racked with guilt and repentance.”

  “So they’ll remove these fourteen people from the payroll and take whatever legal action is needed?”

  “They’ll make sure new protocols are in place to catch this sort of thing going forward. But they won’t have to worry about removing the fourteen from the payroll or making any arrests.”

  I looked at Mo. She glanced at the time on the car clock and then pointed at my cigarettes. I gave her one. She lit it and smiled.

  “It’s almost six. I figure we’ve got about three hours before anyone tries to do anything about that e-mail.”

  “So?”

  “So we have three hours to kill fourteen people. But let’s get a cappuccino first.”

  SIX

  We cruised through a Starbucks drive-through. Mo got a cappuccino and I got a skim latte. She laughed at me for not taking full-fat milk. She said I needed my strength. I stared at her with a mixture of wonder and unadulterated fear. She had just murdered a man, and here she was laughing at my goddamn skim latte.

  “We murdered him,” she said.

  I was quiet. Mo was right. I was now a murderer. Sure, I hadn’t sliced his throat myself, but I did hold his arms so he couldn’t fight her off. Not that he really struggled. It was odd how he just kind of sat there. Miroslav was a big dude. And if he really was a genocidal maniac, why wouldn’t he at least try to fight us off? Why wouldn’t he try to retaliate against a Jew and a Muslim woman? Okay, his knee was all messed up. But still, wouldn’t a man like that have a gun or at least some kind of weapon handy?

  I asked Mo. She shook her head. “The people we’re after aren’t the foot soldiers. They aren’t the grunts who pull the triggers or bash the skulls or strap on the bombs. In fact, most of them are so far removed from physical violence that you sometimes get what we saw with Miroslav: they freeze and just accept it. When the violence finally catches up to them, they understand what they are accountable for. And this leads to a kind of spontaneous acceptance. Of course, it’s too late for them at that point. Too late for excuses.”

  “But Miroslav didn’t seem repentant in any way. He said some shit about wiping out the Jews even when he knew you—we—were going to kill him.”

  “I didn’t say repentance. I said acceptance. And it occurs at a deep emotional level, not necessarily an intellectual level. Miroslav was a bigot. Years of narrow beliefs resulted in thought habits that made him incapable of speaking in terms other than the garbage you heard him spew. But still, I promise you, there was a moment of understanding before he went down.” Mo sipped her cappuccino and stared out of the car window at the empty Starbucks parking lot.

  “If you say so. At least someone understood,” I said.

  She looked at me and smiled. “You could have stopped me if you wanted.”

  “Yeah, right. I like my kneecaps, you know.”

  She laughed. “Whatever. You didn’t even say anything.”

  “I was too scared.”

  “Okay, sure. I get that. But it wasn’t just fear, was it?”

  “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

  Mo looked at me in the way a proud parent looks at a child who has just stood up on his own for the first time. I felt uncomfortable.

  “What?” I said.

  She smiled and nodded. “You had already made up your mind.”

  “About what?” I said again. Then I understood.

  “Before we even got to the warehouse. You had already decided you weren’t going to the police and you weren’t going to kill yourself and you weren’t going to kill me. You knew what you were going to do.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I still don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  Mo laughed. “Whatever. Who do you think
you’re talking to? I can read the emotional state of someone as easily and unconsciously as I breathe.”

  I looked at her and then looked away. Mo was a partner at Chadwick & Company. Homicidal maniac or not, you don’t make partner unless you’re a terrific salesperson. And you can’t be a terrific salesperson without being an exceptional judge of character, which means it’s second nature for you to know what a person is thinking or feeling before they themselves figure it out. As Wayne Gretzky used to say, if you want to win, don’t go to where the puck is; go to where it’s going to be.

  So she was right. Although at a superficial intellectual level I was still weighing options and making lists, at a deeper level I had already decided. I had made my choice. I would join the crazy bitch in her insane mission.

  And part of that decision meant I needed to stop calling her a crazy bitch. After all, I’d now chosen to follow her. So if she was a crazy bitch, what did that make me? Crazy as well? Was this the mental shift she was talking about? Had I really turned into a goddamn psycho over the course of twenty-four hours?

  I finished my latte and sparked a smoke. I looked at her and shrugged. “So what now?”

  She laughed and kissed me on the cheek. Then she checked her BlackBerry. “You tell me. We’ve got two hours and twenty-three minutes.”

  “For what?” I said. Then I remembered, and suddenly I felt cold and naked even though it was Texas and I had just downed some hot coffee. “You mean you were serious about the fourteen people?”

  Mo nodded. She lit a cigarette.

  “But haven’t we done what’s needed? The payments will be stopped, and these guys will be arrested, right? Why do we need to kill them? That seems a bit excessive, don’t you think?”

  “If arrests were an option, we wouldn’t even be involved. A company this size will first launch an internal investigation. In fact, it’ll take weeks to even get approval to start the internal investigation. Maybe longer, since these are union members. And then it’s anyone’s guess how long it’ll take to get from that point to an actual situation where arrests can be made. Not to mention the international complications—communication issues, government red tape, confidentiality issues with Polish banks and unions. These guys will disappear the moment Miroslav’s death becomes public.” Mo shook her head. She looked at me with compassion and perhaps a hint of pity. “Frank, the Network is a group of killers. Killing is all we do. It’s not a question of whether it’s excessive or not. We’re only brought in when there’s no other reasonable option.”

  Now I felt hot and confused. “Brought in by whom? Do we work for the government? Are we some of kind of secret CIA assassins or something?”

  Mo laughed. “Nothing so glamorous. The CIA has enough assassins. And compared to us, they are as bureaucratic as any government agency.”

  “Then what?”

  She sighed. “It’s complicated. But generally speaking, the Network is a loose collection of connected interests.”

  “Connected interests like what? Is this something to do with the purification of Islam or whatever?”

  Mo laughed again, this time louder. “Oh, Lord, no. As I said, that stuff about Allah and Islam was just to mess with you. I told you, I wanted to see how you’d react. Wanted to make sure I hadn’t picked a bigot. No, we are one hundred percent secular. Our only allegiance is to democracy and capitalism. And those are just our values, not our objectives. We aren’t stupid enough or arrogant enough to think we can run around and single-handedly spread democracy and capitalism. That can only be done organically—by the natural growth of art and culture and entrepreneurship. That’s being done by everyone else.”

  “So what’s our objective then?”

  “I just told you. We kill.”

  I laughed in disbelief.

  Mo looked at me. She was angry. “What?”

  I shook my head. “It just sounds so ridiculous. On one hand you talk about democracy and capitalism and the spread of art and culture and free markets. And here you are saying that our job is to kill people without allowing them fair trial or even giving them the option to turn themselves in.”

  “Frank, as we get deeper into this, you’ll find that these people would love to get turned in. They know that the systems they operate within will protect them or at least delay the consequences of their actions. Remember, we’re not out there chasing the bin Ladens. We’re not trying to topple unfriendly governments. That work is being done by the right people: armed forces and intelligence agencies.”

  “Then whom are we hunting?”

  “The no-name people that hide between the cracks. The insects that live in the folds of the flab created when international law tries to merge with international business. The unknown people that provide the legal and financial support for the known groups that are being targeted by the armies and intelligence agencies of the world’s democracies.”

  “But the world’s democracies are already targeting these people, aren’t they? Money launderers, corrupt government officials, businesses that manipulate international tax laws, etcetera, etcetera?”

  Mo nodded vigorously. “Of course. And we don’t generally step in and take out people that are already being targeted. But for every one of these groups that’s being monitored or traced, there are ten that are either too buried in legality or appear to be too small or inconsequential to justify major government resource allocation. And then there are the one-off lone wolves, who are the hardest to find and eliminate. No government even tries to look for individuals working alone.”

  “But how do we know about these people? Is the Network connected with some of these government agencies?”

  Mo smiled. “Yes and no. Our members are spread across different industries and professions and countries, so there are certainly some that work for various government entities. But I couldn’t say how many or who they are or where they live.” She laughed. “I said we were a loosely connected group. That’s an understatement. It’s probably more accurate to say we’re a disconnected group.”

  “Then how do you get all this information? Don’t you have meetings or something?”

  Mo laughed. “Like a secret assassins’ conference? You need to stop watching those in-room movies in your hotel.”

  I didn’t laugh.

  Mo continued. “No. Our structure is closer to that of a terrorist cell setup. Each of our cells has two units: an Alpha and a Beta. The Beta unit knows only its Alpha. And the Alpha is connected to just one other unit: an Omega.”

  I stared at her to try and figure out if she was serious with this Greek alphabet cloak-and-dagger bullshit. She was.

  “So you know only one other member of this entire group?” I asked.

  Mo nodded.

  “And I’m a Beta?”

  Mo smiled. “Not yet. There’s a bit of a learning curve.”

  “Well, I think I’ve started on that curve. I just helped you kill a man.”

  She shook her head. “It begins when you kill. And now you’re going to have fourteen chances.” She looked at the time. “Just about two hours to go. Better get thinking. You’re running out of brainstorming time.” She laughed. “What kind of consultant are you, anyway? Let’s hear some ideas.”

  I stared at her. “Ideas? You mean ideas to kill fourteen people.”

  Mo nodded. “In two hours.”

  I was stunned. I wanted to faint and wake up when it was all over. I blinked several times.

  Mo nudged me. “Well?”

  Now I got angry. “Screw you. Why don’t I just kill you? Just one murder instead of fourteen, and it’s over.”

  She laughed. “Is it? You think it’ll be over if you kill me?”

  I took several deep breaths. I felt like I was choking. I needed some fresh air, and I stepped out of the car and stood in the empty, dry parking lot and stared at the rapidly brightening sun, hoping it would blind me so I could live out my days twitching in a chair and learning Braille. But then I looked down and turn
ed around and got back in the car. Sometimes when you’re in too far, going back isn’t an option. Sometimes you need to go in further and hope you make it through to the other side.

  “What weapons do you have?” I said. “Any guns?” I couldn’t believe what I was saying. I hadn’t even held a gun before.

  “No. We don’t use guns. Too many complications. We don’t have the same protections your CIA secret assassins might have.” She laughed.

  “Then what? We track down fourteen people and hack them to death with your pocket knife?” I was annoyed.

  “You tell me.”

  “How the hell should I know? I’ve never used anything more dangerous than a goddamn PowerPoint slide. I haven’t slept for almost thirty hours. And now I’m supposed to come up with creative ways for killing fourteen people at seven in the freaking morning?” I was shouting now. Luckily the parking lot was still empty.

  Mo was quiet. She just sat and watched me.

  I lit another cigarette and sulked in my seat. Then I turned to her. “Do you have all their names and contact numbers?”

  She nodded.

  I spoke slowly. “Maybe we call them to a series of meetings this morning. Similar to what you did with Miroslav. Say we’re doing interviews as part of our consulting project. Line them up in fifteen-minute slots. And then . . . ” I stopped.

  “And then what?”

  “You know what.”

  “Say it.”

  I swallowed hard. “Then we kill them. We take them out one by one.”

  Mo nodded. “Okay. Not bad. But where do we do this? Your hotel room? And what are you going to say to interviewee number twelve when he comes in and sees us covered in blood and surrounded by eleven bodies? Or interviewee number two, for that matter?”

  I was embarrassed. It reminded me of my first consulting project and getting chewed out for plugging bad assumptions into an Excel financial model. I thought for a bit. Then I nodded and looked up at Mo.

  “You have some more of that plastic explosive?”