Page 92 of The Negotiator


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“Do you think your friend will still be here?” asked Sam.

“He’ll be here, all right,” said Quinn. “Unless he’s away abroad, or at any of his six homes.”

“He likes to move around a lot,” observed Sam.

“Yeah. He feels safer that way. The French Riviera, the Caribbean, the ski chalet, the yacht ...”

He was right in supposing that the villa on Lake Constanz had long been sold; that was where the snatch had taken place.

He was also in luck. They were eating dinner when Quinn was called to the phone.

“Herr Quinn?”

He recognized the voice, deep and cultured. The man spoke four languages, could have been a concert pianist. Maybe should have been.

“Herr Moritz. Are you in town?”

“You remember my house? You should. You spent two weeks in it, once.”

“Yes, sir. I remember it. I didn’t know whether you still retained it.”

“Still the same. Renata loves it, wouldn’t let me change it. What can I do for you?”

“I’d like to see you.”

“Tomorrow morning. Coffee at ten-thirty.”

“I’ll be there.”

* * *

They drove out of Dortmund due south along the Ruhrwald Strasse until the industrial and commercial sprawl dropped away behind and they entered the outer suburb of Syburg. The hills began, rolling and forested, and the estates situated within the forests contained the homes of the wealthy.

The Moritz mansion was set in four acres of parkland down a lane off the Hohensyburg Strasse. Across the valley the Syburger monument stared down the Ruhr toward the spires of Sauerland.

The place was a fortress. Chain-link fencing surrounded the entire plot and the gates were high-tensile steel, remote-controlled and with a TV camera discreetly attached to a pine tree nearby. Someone watched Quinn climb out of the car and announce himself through the steel grille beside the gates. Two seconds later the gates swung open on electric motors. When the car passed through they closed again.

“Herr Moritz enjoys his privacy,” said Sam.

“He has reason to,” said Quinn.

He parked on the tan gravel in front of the white stucco house and a uniformed steward let them in. Hans Moritz received them in the elegant sitting room, where coffee waited in a sterling-silver pot. His hair was whiter than Quinn recalled, his face more lined, but the handshake was as firm and the smile as grave.

They had hardly sat down when the door opened and a young woman stood there hesitantly. Moritz’s face lit up. Quinn turned to look.

She was pretty in a vacuous sort of way, shy to the point of self-effacement. Both her little fingers ended in stumps. She must be twenty-five now, Quinn thought.

“Renata, kitten, this is Mr. Quinn. You remember Mr. Quinn? No, of course not.”

Moritz rose, crossed to his daughter, murmured a few words in her ear, kissed the top of her head. She turned and left. Moritz resumed his seat. His face was impassive, but the twisting of his fingers revealed his inner turmoil.

“She ... um ... never really recovered, you know. The therapy goes on. She prefers to stay inside, seldom goes out. She will not marry ... after what those animals did ...”

There was a photograph on the Steinbeck grand; of a laughing, mischievous fourteen-year-old on skis. That was a year before the kidnapping. A year afterward Moritz had found his wife in the garage, the exhaust gases pumping down the rubber tube into the closed car. Quinn had been told in London.

Moritz made an effort. “I’m sorry. What can I do for you?”

“I’m trying to find a man. One who came from Dortmund long ago. He may still be here, or in Germany, or dead, or abroad. I don’t know.”

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