“Hey!” Raimond snapped at Julie, annoyed at his brother’s ineffectiveness at such a simple task. “Wake up!”
Her head bobbed; she was still in a fog.
Raimond slapped her across her cheek. “Wake up, bitch!”
The slap sent adrenaline pumping through her veins, and she regained consciousness. The shadow in front of her moved, letting the headlights from the van blind her. She tried to raise her hand to shield her eyes, but it was securely lashed to the frame of the chair. Panic set in.
“This is an interrogation, Ms. Ponte. Before we begin, I am going to explain the rules. Listen very carefully. I ask you questions. You answer them truthfully. If you answer truthfully, you will live. If you try to deceive me, I will torture you until your death,” said a voice from behind her. “Do you understand the rules?”
The last thing she remembered was watching Will across the street at the Café Sacher meeting with Agent Nelson. Something went wrong. Someone had grabbed her from behind. She had no memory of the events that transpired afterward. She had no knowledge of her captors, their motives, or where they had taken her. One thing she did know was that her life was in grave danger. She looked left and then right, trying to catch a glimpse of her interrogator.
“I said, do you understand the rules?” Raimond repeated, growing more and more agitated by the second.
“I understand the rules,” she mumbled.
“Good,” he replied.
“What is your name?”
She paused. He already knew her name; he had said it earlier. This was a test, she told herself.
“My name is Julie Ponte.”
“What were you doing at the Wiener Staatsoper?”
He was setting her up. Baiting her to lie so he could punish her and begin the process of breaking her. She had never been interrogated before, but her instincts told her this was no time to be coy. Every answer was a high-wire crossing. One misstep, and she would pay.
“I was watching a meeting take place across the street.”
“Where was the meeting?”
“At the Café Sacher.”
“Who was at the meeting?”
“You already know the answer to all these questions,” she said.
“Don’t test me. I will hurt you if you break the rules again. This is my promise to you,” he said quietly.
“It was a meeting between a man named Will Foster and a man calling himself Agent Nelson.”
“Agent Nelson? What kind of agent?”
She took a deep breath. The easy part was over now. She was at the crossroads now. She had to make a choice: tell the truth and risk him not believing her, or lie, and risk him seeing right through her. She knew what she had to do.
“He’s not a real agent. It was all part of the plan.”
“What plan?”
“Meredith Morley’s plan to get Foster back.”
Raimond took a step backward. “What are you talking about? Who do you work for?”
“I work for a company called Vyrogen Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Foster was enrolled in a drug pilot program at my company involving highly infectious diseases. A few days ago, he broke out of our research facility in Prague. Mr. Foster is an extremely dangerous individual. I have been trying desperately to bring him back into quarantine. But at the moment…” she said, wiggling her bound hands at the wrist, “you are making my assignment extremely difficult.”
Raimond locked eyes with his brother. Stefan motioned for Raimond to follow him, away from Julie, so they could talk in private.
“We fucked up, Raimond, She works for Vyrogen,” Stefan whispered, with a hint of panic in his voice.
Raimond rubbed his chin. “It seems our employer has been withholding critical information from us. Frau Morley already had an asset in place with Foster, while she left us wasting time looking for him in Prague.”
“Why would she do that, when we could have easily brought Foster in?”
“She was stalling. Probably because she doesn’t want to pay. The last time we spoke, she tried to cancel our contract.”
“I thought you changed her mind?”
“So did I.” After a pause, Raimond added, “We need this fee, Stefan.”
“I know, but what do we do with her? If we let her go, she’ll call Morley.”
“So we don’t let her go.”
“You’re not suggesting that we kill her?”
“No. At least not yet. First, we find out everything Morley is doing. Then, we decide what to do with her. She could be valuable bargaining leverage if Morley chooses not to pay.”
“Jah. Agreed.”
Raimond and Stefan walked back toward Julie. Raimond stood behind her and began to caress her hair.
“You have been very cooperative so far, Ms. Ponte. You have followed the rules. This makes me very happy. Now, I want you to tell me everything.”
“I’ll try,” Julie replied. Her skin crawled as he stroked her. She steeled herself so as not to shudder under his touch.
“Tell me about this ploy with the man you called Agent Nelson. I don’t understand the purpose. If you are working for Vyrogen and Ms. Morley is working for Vyrogen, what are you doing in Vienna wasting time?”
She lowered her eyes.
“Ms. Ponte?”
“Foster doesn’t know that I work for Vyrogen,” she said. “Morley couldn’t risk him running again, so we had to think of a different way to get him back. The stick wasn’t working, so we decided to try the carrot. My assignment was to get close to Foster; get him to trust me. But it was taking too long. So, Morley came up with the idea of setting up a meeting with a confederate FBI agent. Nelson was going to offer Foster protection.”
Her candor surprised Raimond. He expected to be breaking fingers by now. “This is a very clever plan, but there is still something that confuses me. Your plan seemed to be working. So why did Meredith call me today and direct me to your apartment?”
A volcano of fury and fear erupted inside her. This was the bastard who had tortured Isabella — broken every finger on her left hand. “You’ll have to ask her that question,” she said, through clenched teeth. “I didn’t even know she’d hired you until now.”
Raimond began to ask Julie another question, when he was interrupted by the ringing of his mobile phone. He answered the call in German. As he listened to the voice on the other end of receiver, he began to shake. Stefan walked over to his brother and tried to listen to what was being said. Something was very wrong.
Raimond finished the call. His fingers opened and the phone dropped to the ground with a clatter.
“What is it?” Stefan questioned in German.
“Udo is dead. Our brother is dead.”
“What? How?”
“Traffic accident. He drove his motorcycle into a fucking trolley. He was killed instantly. They didn’t even take him to the hospital.”
Stefan stared at Raimond, but said nothing.
Raimond began pacing back and forth behind Julie’s chair. Then, he stopped and unleashed a guttural, primeval scream full of rage and anguish. His throaty roar reverberated off the metal shelving and uninsulated ceiling structure. The hairs on the back of Julie’s neck stood up.
Julie was fluent in German, although she had no intention of making this detail known to her captors. She had not met Udo Zurn, but she surmised that he was the thug who grabbed her from behind at the State Opera. Terror welled up inside her. The violent brother, the one pacing behind her, was infinitely more of a danger to her now than he was five minutes ago. Before, he had been agitated and cold. Now, he was burning with rage and hatred over the news of his brother’s death. Julie knew that she would be the likely target of his fury. She would be bludgeoned, whether she cooperated or not.
She began to tremble.
“This is your fault, bitch!” Raimond screamed at Julie. He walked around in front of her, boldly facing her. “You and your American bitch boss, Meredith Morley. If it hadn’t been for the two of you, Udo would still be alive.”