Local time – 8:30pm, Saturday 16th June, 2011.
Prague, Czechoslovakia.
Alex and Henry climbed breathlessly up the narrow flight of stairs towards the small attic bedroom on the sixth floor. The hotelier had said Vlady was running late, which explained why he came barrelling down the stairs as fast as they were climbing up. His progress was barely hampered by the bulky cello case on his back; he had obviously made this same trip many times before. The staircase was only wide enough for one person, so when he saw Alex and Henry, he stopped, looking flustered.
‘There’s no more rooms up there, just mine.’ His English was better than his mother’s.
‘Oh, yes, actually, we wanted to have a quick word with you.’
‘Are you the couple who want tickets to my concert? I’ll get some for you tomorrow. I can’t stop now, I’m late.’ Vlady tried his best to be polite to his mother’s guests, but in his hurry, he didn’t have time to pander to people blocking the stairs. Alex and Henry started going down, giving Vlady space to push past them. The unwieldy case on his back made him look like a turtle in rush hour.
Vlady reached the bottom of the stairs and Alex heard him farewell his Mother quickly and slam the front door behind him. When she and Henry got to the reception area, she waved goodbye to the hotelier while Henry impatiently held the door open for her. Once outside, they saw Vlady ahead of them. He moved quickly, striding smoothly so not to unsettle his precious cargo.
A block from the hotel, he heard footsteps behind him. The guests were following him.
‘We know you’re in a rush, but can we walk with you and talk? We’ve got a proposition for you.’ Alex asked, puffing. Vlady didn’t stop.
‘Proposition? You want to book my quartet?’
‘No, it’s more urgent than that. We need you to take something into the conference for us.’ Vlady looked exasperated, but surprisingly, still didn’t stop.
‘No way. I know what this conference is. We’ve been briefed four times by security. If they weren’t paying us so well, we would never have bothered with all this fuss.’
‘Can you at least wait to hear what it is? It’s not going to get you in trouble.’
‘I don’t care what it is! I’m not risking my neck for you!’ Henry jumped forward, blocking Vlady’s path.
‘Not even for $10,000?’
Now Vlady stopped. ‘Are you serious? $10,000? US dollars? For what? It’s not a bomb is it because… ’
Alex took over again. ‘Of course it’s not! We don’t want to hurt anyone! We just want to listen in. We would never ever implicate you in this if something went wrong. But nothing could go wrong. It’s just a mobile phone. Everyone is allowed to carry a mobile phone.’ Vlady started walking again, shaking his head.
‘No. No mobile phones. We were told they were not allowed.’
‘But if it were hidden in your case, you could claim to have forgotten it was there. They’re not going to search that! Are they?’ He stopped again.
‘Well, no, I’m not sure, they might… ’
‘If they do, and they take the phone, we’ll still pay you $5,000. If the phone gets into the conference, you get $10,000. And we’ll give you $1,000 of it now.’ Henry held out his hand, ready to seal the deal with a shake. But Vlady didn’t move.
‘How do I know I can trust you? You might be gone when I get back.’
‘We will be gone. We will leave the money with your mother at the hotel. You’ll have to take our word for it. You can get rid of the phone and you’ll never see us again.’ Alex did her best to bat her eyelids at the flustered man. His eyes darted back and forth between the couple. He obviously wanted the money. Needed the money. Alex noticed his suit looked second hand, and the sleeves only reached half way down his wrist, as if it was a hand-me down from a shorter relative. He let out a huge sigh.
‘OK. OK. But you have to be quick. I’m running very late.’ The three of them hurried in to a small alleyway. Vlady carefully placed his cello case on the ground and opened the lid. Inside, the cello was encased in a soft, cotton dust jacket.
‘This is an untraceable pre-paid I just bought at the airport,’ Henry explained as he handed the phone to Vlady. He had also bought Alex a new SIM card for her iPhone and they had thrown her old one away. Alex handed Vlady a blue tooth headset and showed him how to set the phone to ‘auto-answer’.
‘Make sure the phone is set to silent,’ she explained, ‘with the vibration alert turned off.’
‘OK. Do you have any tape?’ Vlady asked. Henry ruffled round in his backpack and pulled out a small roll of sticky tape. Vlady took the cello out of the dust jacket.
‘I’m going to tape the phone next to the bridge where the strings are raised. You won’t be able to see it in the cover. I’ll tell security they’re not allowed to handle my instrument.’
‘That’s a good way to get it in, but how about when you’re playing?’ Alex asked.
‘I can leave it in my hard case. I’ve played in the ballroom at the castle before. We’ll be positioned in the window alcove. I can leave my case behind the curtains next to my music stand.’ Vlady put his cello away and closed the case. He was even more flustered now.
‘We play for 45 minutes. We start in half an hour. We’ll likely only have one break, that’s the best time for you to listen.’
‘Ok, good luck.’ Henry handed Vlady a handful of $100 notes. Alex wanted to give him a quick hug, she was so relieved he had agreed to help. He hurried away. They watched him until he turned onto the road that took him through the security checkpoint, into the castle.
‘$10,000?’ Alex asked Henry. He smiled.
‘You think I’m not going to give it to him?’
‘I didn’t say that, I’m just wondering where you’re going to get it from?’
‘I’ve got some cash in my hotel room. We knew it was only a matter of time before we might need to bribe someone to get out of trouble.’
‘Or in this case, to get into trouble.’ Alex pointed out, feeling her stomach squeeze with nerves.