2

Marc went to a tall, modern steel and glass office building that resembled the one he’d been to earlier, only this one was almost completely dark, save for a band of light on the tenth floor. Marc had to rap on the glass front doors with his knuckles - they were code locked - and he was given the once over by a guard who spoke broken English and looked like the offspring of the person in Edvard Munch’s “The Scream“. Seriously, he was a man with a long chin and a narrow face that looked like it had been slammed in a car door one too many times, and his hair was such a wispy, pale blond that it looked like he had no eyebrows until you got close up. He could have been anywhere between his late thirties to his early nineties. His watery eyes gave Marc a skeptical scan, and then he turned an even harsher glare on him and Sid. Marc gestured over his shoulder at them, and said, “These are my associates.”

He looked really doubtful; his mouth pursed into a pucker that appeared painful. “He wants to see you alone,” he told Marc, struggling with the hard A sound.

“They’ll wait for me down here.”

How nice of Marc to ask them first. Logan glared daggers at his back, but at least it got them in the door.

The lobby was a low rectangle of glass and marble like composite (it looked like marble, but it had an odd smell, and the sound of footsteps on it was off - he’d have asked what the hell it was, but then he suddenly realized he didn’t actually give a shit), with a semi-circular desk made of black plastic that gleamed like patent leather and a small “waiting area” that had a couple of butterscotch leather sofas that still managed to looked hard and uninviting. As Marc walked back to the bank of elevators, Scream went behind the desk and unlocked one of the lifts, and as he strolled past, Logan glimpsed the security monitors hidden behind the desk. If he could judge by what he saw there, they were pretty much the only people in the building besides Haun.

Before Marc disappeared into the elevator, he held up his hand and flashed him five fingers twice. He was telling him to give him ten minutes before coming up, and Logan gave him a curt nod before wandering over to the waiting area, with Sid on his heels. With Scream alone here, he didn’t care if the guy was armed with anti-tank missiles - he wasn’t even going to make him pause if he wanted to go upstairs after him. Presumably there were other security measures, but again, not anything he probably needed to worry about.

He flopped down on one of the couches, and it was as hard as he anticipated. He put his feet on the edge of a glass and chrome coffee table that had a couple of glossy magazines piled neatly on its surface. Logan noted a German financial magazine on the top of the pile, but after Sid had taken a seat next to him, he pulled out a magazine underneath it that was a French travel magazine. What an interesting pair to draw to.

That also reminded him Sid could speak French. All the older Rahjani kids knew Arabic, English, and French, although Sid had once told him he couldn’t switch back and forth quite as quickly as he could. He once asked him how he kept all the languages he knew straight in his head, and all Logan could offer him was a shrug. He honestly didn’t know; he didn’t even know how many languages he spoke. It was like direct access to that part of his brain had been cut off, and yet that part still found a way to express itself independent of him. He didn’t control it at all; it was almost perfectly autonomous. That was why it sometimes took him a moment to realize he’d just said something in another language, or heard something clearly in another language. It was like a mental blind spot that he could still somehow use, but he was never in control of it.

Sid idly flipped through the magazine, and Scream took a seat behind his big desk, surreptitiously slipping earbud earphones into his ears. Did he have an iPod back there? Well, no one said that scarecrow resembling security guards couldn’t have iPods. Marc had one, loaded with metal and house music - it was like his play list said “I’m extremely gay, but I can still kick your ass” … which was actually a pretty accurate assessment. He wondered what Scream’s play list said about him.

Logan checked his watch to verify the time, and Sid made sure that the guard wasn’t paying any attention to them before asking quietly, “Is there some way I can overcome being asexual? I mean, am I stuck like this?”

Belatedly, he realized he should have got Marc alone and told him. This probably made Sid feel bad, and that was never his intention. “You can overcome any limitation, kid, if you put your mind to it. I really wouldn’t worry about it anyways. Sex is highly overrated; it’s usually more trouble than it’s worth.” That was of course bullshit, but there was no way the kid could know that.

Sid looked at him with a skeptical scowl. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

“When do I ever do that?” At least he had a reputation as a bit of a grumpy bastard - sometimes that came in handy.

He grimaced and looked away, acknowledging the point without admitting it. After a moment, he pretended to flip through the magazine, then said, “I hate feeling like an alien all the time. I tried to force myself to be like everyone else … but I don’t know how they do it. I mean, that’s what I devoted all my time to in L.A., but it didn’t matter. I had no idea what to do or how to do it, and I didn’t know who to ask. I don’t even know how to talk to people.”

He sighed, wishing Marc would hurry up and get his ass back down here. He was not an agony aunt, nor did he ever want to be, even though he did feel sympathy for the kid. “You need to stop worrying about it. You’ll make it worse if you obsess on it.”

“I’m not obsessing, it’s just … what if this is all I’m good for? What if this is all I am?”

“Well, that’s just bullshit. You aren’t just a bunch of engineered genes, and you ain’t just a bunch of indoctrinated traits. If you honestly believe you’re the animal they wanted to convince you you were, they’ve won.”

“Tool.”

He looked at him sharply, wondering if he was insulting him. “What?”

“They told me I was a tool of the court, not an animal.” He paused, and looked at him thoughtfully, cocking his head to the side. “Is that what those people, Weapon X, tried to convince you you were? An animal?”

Oh Christ - it was like Sid was deliberately jumping to topics he didn’t want to talk about. But realistically it was his fault - he should have known they considered Sid more of an object than a creature. He was the only creature ‘round these parts. “It doesn’t matter, ‘cause they were full of shit. And the Rahjani court was too. Don’t forget that.”

“I know that. I think. It’s just … it’s so hard.”

“Yeah, I know. But it gets easier as time goes on. You just gotta hang in there, and remember you’re stronger than them.”

Sid nodded and sighed, flipping the slick pages of the magazine, which showed pictures of tropical isles with translucent blue water and bronze skinned topless women who looked like they’d walked out of some teenage boy’s dream. That would have been nice - to be on assignment in Saint Tropez, drinking eighty proof rum and watching the sun collapse into water as blue as gemstones. But no, Marc had to take an assignment in Zurich in autumn.

He thought he could hear a faint buzz of music coming from the guard's iPod. Was he listening to Souza marches? Dear lord.

At the eight and a half minute mark, he saw the unlocked elevator's panel light up, and after a brief hum the doors parted with the slightest gasp, and Marc strolled out, his long grey leather coat flapping like wings behind him. "See you later, Gustav," Marc said to the security guard, giving him a dismissive little wave. Marc looked at Logan and jerked his head towards the door - that meant he'd tell him what was going on outside.

As soon as they were all back out in the sharp, icy air, Sid asked, "His name was Gustav?"

Marc shrugged. "No fucking idea. He just looked like a Gustav. Or maybe a Dolph."

"I thought he was more of a Nils."

Marc rolled his shoulders again, and led the way down the seemingly deserted street. "Could be all of 'em. Will we ever know?"

"So what's up?" Logan prompted.

Marc chuckled in a low, slightly humorless way. "You won't believe this. So Haun was informed that there's something valuable to his family that has been recovered, but it's in the hands of some unscrupulous people, and he can't legally prove it belongs to his family. So he wants me to get it back for him."

"Can't legally prove it? Already this sounds like bullshit. What is this thing?"

"He wouldn't say. Just an heirloom of more emotional than monetary value."

"That he's paying you a half mill for? I call bullshit."

"I agree, except I was thinking - look where we are."

Logan glanced around, but assumed he didn't mean the Zurich business district. "Switzerland?"

"Yeah. And what scandal has recently been dug up here?"

It didn't take him long to think. There weren't too many scandals involving Switzerland; it was a fairly scandal free place. Except ... "Nazi gold? You aren't serious."

"What?" Sid asked. He was probably out of the world news loop; it wasn't like this scandal was all that recent anyways.

"Some Swiss banks kept gold and other looted treasures for the Nazis, despite their position of neutrality," Logan told him. "It was all rather nasty and ugly, as all things with Nazis generally are."

Marc nodded in agreement. "And just from his hinting, I figure this has looted Nazi treasure written all over it. The problem is, he really can't prove it to get it back. Which opens the door to two possibilities: he's telling the truth, and something stolen from his family is here, and he wants to steal it back since he can't take it to court."

"Or two," Logan continued, following the logic. "It's not really his, but he wants it anyways."

Marc tapped his nose and then pointed back at him, a non-verbal way of telling him he was spot on. "I shoulda had you in the room to do the sniff test, but he's a nervous sort. Only wanted to deal with me."

"Sniff test?" Sid repeated.

"Smell the truth," Logan said. "I can smell lies, remember?"

"Oh, right," he answered, in a kind of distant way that suggested he'd forgotten.

"So where is this thing?" Logan continued.

"Let's wait 'til we get some privacy, huh?"

There was no one out on the street with them - not now, anyways - but he could understand the need for privacy. If Marc was right about the Nazi connection, this could be potentially nuclear in its scandal.

*****

Back at the hotel, Marc showed him what he had, and it wasn't much. All Haun knew was a guy named Hans Naslund was acting as a "broker", a go between for the people who had the item and the people who wanted it. There were some grainy photos of him taken from security cameras, revealing Hans to be a man in his late forties, with a pot belly and a crown of whitish hair that had fallen back until his bald pate was exposed, leaving his remaining hair like a wreath around his lower scalp. He wore black framed glasses that made his eyes look small; his face was unremarkable, as was his wardrobe, and his posture was slightly stooped, hands almost always driven deep in the pockets of his heavy overcoat. He ran an antique shop downtown, although Haun didn't think the item in question - which Marc was calling "the ark", as in Raiders Of The Lost Ark (who didn't love a nerdy, funny mercenary?) - was there, as the antiques he dealt with were of the more "common" variety, and his sec! urity wasn't that good.

The first thing they needed to do was a reconnaissance, maybe a stake out, and Logan volunteered to go ahead and venture into the lion's den first, leaving Marc and Sid to stake out the area.

They got up late the next morning, had a reasonably decent breakfast at the hotel restaurant (was the waitress giving him the eye, or Sid? He honestly wasn't sure; maybe she was giving both of them the eye), and then struck out for Hans's antique shop.

The street was fairly busy with pedestrians, so he didn't feel too inconspicuous. He even wore a fairly heavy black leather car coat (borrowed from Marc) and had a black watchcap pulled over his hair, so he'd look fairly normal. (He didn't need the coat - cold never bothered him much. As for the hat ... okay, yeah, his hair was a bit weird. There was no help for it though, was there?)

A bell over the door sounded as he walked into Hans's shop, and he instantly had to stifle the urge to sneeze. The place was thick with dust and the smell of crumbling paper, aging wood, all the olfactory hallmarks of things slowly and elegantly decaying. It was a place full of dark, polished wood and low shelves, displaying cases and globes, old style clocks, a Tiffany lamp, and even tin toys from the very early twentieth century. The windows were soaped over at the top, perhaps to prevent too much sunlight from getting in and damaging delicate items, so there were low amber spots here and there, giving the whole store the general overall color scheme of faded parchment. He felt like he'd stepped into a Twilight Zone episode, and wondered if that was far off the mark.

Hans greeted him in Swiss German, his tone businesslike and not all that friendly. He wasn't offended - Logan had a vague sense that the Swiss were not an overly warm or demonstrative people, not with strangers at any rate, although he wasn't sure where he'd formed that impression. More World War Two detritus? He had no memory of ever being here before, and yet a vague sense of deja vu seemed to smack him in the face around every corner. He assumed he must have been here before in some time lost to his mind; he assumed that was why he could speak the language.

Logan decided to just speak regular German and see if he could muddle through a conversation with him. Luckily, Hans could speak regular German as well - it wasn’t that big a leap from Swiss German to plain old German - so that was okay. He had no idea why he decided that he wanted Hans to think he was German, not American or Canadian, but he knew he'd never be able to pass for Swiss.

There was a low glass counter where the cash register - an antique in itself - sat, and looking down into he saw antique brooches, pocket knives and pieces of heirloom silverware, and some timepieces. He acted interested in a silver pocket watch with a slightly dented case, that Hans eventually took out so he could inspect it up close. It was still working, and dated from the very dawn of the twentieth century (you had to love Swiss timepieces - say what you would about them as a people or a government, but they could make a watch). It was a nice piece, one he was tempted by, but it was extremely expensive.

They did some small talk - Logan didn’t know a lot about watches, but he bluffed as best he could - and he got a feeling that Hans was starting to warm up to him. He mentioned that he was also a collector of antique weapons, and wondered if he had any. Hans brightened, as of course he did, and Logan waited to see if he’d ever offer a gun.

Because that was what he smelled: gun oil. Not on him, and not behind the counter. Just somewhere in here. The problem was, he’d need to have a huge sneezing fit, and then, once he had adjusted, he’d have to close his eyes and carefully parse all the diverse scents here to find the trail that would lead him to it. He imagined that it was probably somewhere in the back room, which was only assessable through a dark green curtain behind the counter, but Hans never went there. It seems that on the shelves, in amongst the various cases and containers (some of which were surely antiques themselves), were the weapons, and even though none appeared marked, Hans knew where every single one was. There were knives of great variety, some dating back to World War One, a Prussian sabre, a musket that had cracks along the barrel (it smelled faintly of the black powder that used to be its firing medium, but it didn’t smell at all of modern day gun oil), and even a pike from the Swiss Ar! my guards dating back many decades, but he showed him no weapon that reeked of gun oil. He couldn’t say he was disappointed or all that surprised.

The back room was the interesting bit, he could tell. He needed to find a way to get there legitimately; he didn’t want to bowl this old guy (holy shit - he thought he was old? How the fuck old was he?! At least double this guy’s age …) over if he was a legitimate (or semi-legitimate) businessman who didn’t realize what he was dealing in.

He made up a story that he had to return to Berlin tomorrow, but he’d call his appraiser tonight and see if the price of the watch was fair. Hans took that with equanimity, and gave him the shop’s phone number so he could call ahead if he wanted to come in. That was pretty much it, Logan left, and it was probably the least bloody reconnaissance he’d ever been on. But as soon as he was out of view of the shop’s windows, he stopped and went into the huge sneezing fit he’d been holding back. Damn, it felt like he was expelling a pound of dust - his eyes were watering and his nose was running like a leaky faucet as soon as he was done. A nattily dressed man even paused and offered him a handkerchief. (Okay, maybe he was wrong about the Swiss as a people. Maybe he was thinking of the Latvians. Or Americans. Jesus, how was he supposed to keep track?)

As soon as he was done sneezing, he wiped the tears from his eyes and the snot from his nose with the back of his hand, and continued down the street. This was a nice one, clean and quaint, with lots of small shops devoted more to the urban dweller than the tourists, although clearly they weren’t ignored, as the McDonald’s on the Southwestern corner attested to. He paused to bend over and pretend to tie his bootlace, and was able to glance surreptitiously behind him, using shop window reflections. He felt he was being watched; it was like the eyes were burning holes into his back.

It wasn’t Marc or Sid. He hadn’t seen them, but he knew they were watching the street, and that was it - they’d be watching the street, not him. Marc was a pro, he’d never stare at his own undercover man, and he wouldn’t let Sid do it either. Somebody else had noticed him, and didn’t like him.

Did Hans’s shop not get a lot of business? Did the men who wanted the deal to happen keep a close eye on his shop, just in case someone came snooping around? This was a scenario he discussed over breakfast with Marc, and they thought it was a very good possibility, especially if this thing was as hot as they suspected it was. That’s why he was going ahead as a decoy - to see the response.

Marc couldn’t tap the land line in the store (and even if he could, he wasn’t fluent in either form of German), but he had an impressively powerful directional mike, so he probably caught every single word in the shop, and he was recording them digitally, so if translation was necessary, Logan could listen to it later and fill him in. If Hans was now talking to someone - or someone was talking to him - Marc was catching every syllable. Haun had a pitiful lack of information, Naslund was his only lead, which is probably why he hired Marc in the first place: he would have rather handled it privately, but wasn’t sure how. And to be quite honest, neither he nor Marc were certain they’d give him his prize. Logan wanted to verify that this “heirloom” - whatever the hell it actually was - belonged to his family. If it didn’t, he wasn’t going to give it to some scum sucking, fancy pants greedy bastard. For some reason, that amused Marc, but he agreed to go along with that in exch! ange for his help. (Sid, who came with them because he was bored, was helping regardless.) Yeah, maybe it seemed weird coming from him, but if this was pilfered loot, it had been paid for in blood, and he was not going to turn it over to someone who wished to profit from it even more. Whatever it was, people had died needlessly and cruelly for it, and the exploitation of it had to stop. It was too late for the people, but it was the principle of the thing.

Logan didn’t think he had a follower - not yet - just a watcher, but as soon as he straightened up, he sauntered down the street, presumably window shopping, and ducked into a bookstore, staying near the windows so if the watcher wanted to continue, he could. He took a long time browsing titles at the end of the shelves, and finally he thought he saw a guy in a dark suit and a navy blue topcoat across the street, loitering and lingering for no obvious reason. A fedora like hat shaded his face, and Logan felt he should give him bonus points for the noir homage. He sucked on a cigarette aggressively, like it was the last smoke before the firing squad did their duty.

Logan went ahead and bought a book, just to make him look legitimate, and then left the store, careful not to notice the man and yet keep him in the corner of his eye. He looked like he was just a random businessman, taller than most, the dark suit hiding his body so well Logan couldn’t tell if he was muscular or not. Was he packing? The topcoat hid the telltale bulge of a shoulder holster, but just the way he was carrying himself made Logan think that was a big affirmative. He hadn’t crossed the street yet, and in spite of the traffic along the boulevard, he was certain he could have if he wanted to. He was probably just keeping an eye on him, trying to judge if he was just some kind of German businessman on a daytrip in Zurich, or if that was simply a very flimsy cover. Maybe that was a promising sign - maybe these people wouldn’t needlessly harm an innocent. Not that that was going to save them, mind you, but maybe he wouldn’t kick their asses totally concave.

He decided to force the issue. He turned suddenly down a narrow side street. If the guy wanted to keep watching, he’d have to cross the street and commit to following him, and that was exactly what Logan wanted. He soon came to a boarded up shop - Logan could smell the fire damage inside - and ducked into its recessed doorway, and commenced to waiting.

He really didn’t know if the guy was just doing harmless surveillance or intended him bodily harm, but it didn’t matter. This was why he was the decoy. He was going to grab the guy and find out who he was working for, and what the fuck this “heirloom” was.

It was a terrible cliché, he knew it, but he really did have ways of making people talk.