by L. T. Ryan
“It was my men. My responsibility.”
“My men,” Sokolov snapped. “And they will be dealt with. Anyway, the boyfriend does not matter. Dead, alive, either way. As long as she thinks he is alive, we have leverage.”
Nikitin stood up and faced Sokolov. “You do not want them to finish job?”
“I do.” Sokolov paused. “But what if we make a little change? Have them find Brier and take him alive. Yes, then she will have to make her choice. She will have to be witness to her decision.”
“I will go back to United States. I will do it myself.”
“No, there is no time. Victor and the others will handle it. They are already there. And I need you here. If she does not talk, we may need your—how do the Jews say?—‘brand of persuasion?’ And if she does talk, well then, you can have her anyway.
“Thank you.” Nikitin sighed, releasing the remaining tension in his muscles he hadn’t realized was there.
Sokolov’s trust seemed firmly intact. And he might just get his trophy after all.
“Tell me, did you find any family?” Sokolov put his hand on Nikitin’s back in a subtle signal they were going to walk. Nikitin responded, keeping Sokolov’s pace as they rounded the corner of the building and emerged into the empty lot.
“No. Her mother and father are dead. I do not believe that she has any other family.”
“This is a shame. But no matter. We have her friends.”
“Her friends?”
“The recently dead ones, Pavel. The ones you just killed. The ones we are going to pick up. Haeli Becher looked very lonely to me. I think it is time we set up a little reunion.”
25
Blake leaned toward the passenger seat and adjusted the laptop so the screen would be visible at a glance. On the map, the icon showing Haeli’s position hadn’t changed since he boarded the plane in Washington D.C.
When he left Arty’s, the map showed Haeli’s location to be in a wooded area on the outskirts of Eberbach. The satellite view showed a building nearby, but the address was not readily available. There were no street level images and, even if there were, the building looked to be set too far back from the road for it to matter. It took some digging to determine that the building belonged to Brighton Holdings Inc, a wholly owned subsidiary of Techyon.
The discovery served to substantiate what Blake already assumed. Whatever was going on, Techyon or, more specifically, Levi Farr was likely behind it.
While at Dulles, he checked again to find that the signal had moved about eighty-five miles to the east. If the GPS was accurate, Haeli, or at least her phone, was at another facility in Dietenhofen, near Kleinhaslach. Unlike the Techyon property, no digging was necessary. The mapping software reported the address and business name. “Hofmann Müllabfuhr GmbH.” A waste management company.
As far as Blake could find, it wasn’t owned by Techyon, Brighton, or any other subsidiary. It was a true mystery.
But when boiled down, there were only three viable options. One, Haeli was, in fact, at this place. For what reason, he couldn’t begin to guess. Two, Haeli tossed her phone into the trash and it ended up on a truck headed to the waste facility. Or three, Haeli was in transit and it only looked like she was stationary at the location because the GPS hadn’t updated.
After breaking down these options, one by one, he decided scenario number one was the soundest. Partly based on his questionable logic, and partly because he wanted it to be true. Needed it to be. If he had any chance of finding her.
Besides, the other possibilities wouldn’t hold up to scrutiny.
If she had tossed her phone in the trash, it would have had to be somewhere local. The facility was a two and a half-hour drive from her initial ping. But if it were reasonable to believe she was in Dietenhofen when she’d discarded it, it would be just as reasonable to believe she was where the map said she was.
As far as option three, it was dispelled when he landed in Frankfurt. Before exiting the terminal, Blake utilized one of the power outlets, installed in the armrests of the seats at the gate, to charge his dead laptop battery for a half hour. It was precious time wasted, but there was a plethora of information from Haeli’s phone backup that might prove useful in the near future.
He had spent most of that thirty minutes staring at the map. The indicator had remained firmly planted, exactly where it had been when he left.
There was a fourth option, or a variation of the third. He’d call it three-B. If Haeli was in transit and ran out of battery or turned the phone off while at or near the waste management facility, there was a possibility that the map simply continued reporting her last known location instead of showing nothing at all. Since he wasn’t able to find the answer in the technical documentation, he was unsure if such a thing could occur, and if so, for how long.
The bottom line was, there was only one actionable choice. Haeli was there. She had to be.
Now, as he pushed the sluggish rental car as fast as it would go without flying apart, he was almost there as well.
The lack of a speed limit on A6 had come in handy—the beauty of the autobahn. He would have disregarded it anyway, but it was nice to know that he wouldn’t have to worry about catching the eye of the police, on top of everything else.
Already having passed through Ansbach, he was nearing Kleinhaslach. From there, it would be just one more road before he reached his destination.
Judging from the satellite view, the final road cut through farmland before reaching a forested area. It was a clear catching feature. Once he saw trees, it would be time to start looking for the building.
As he followed the map, he compared what was outside his window to the overhead view. It was just as he envisioned. Farmland to either side. The trees in the distance.
He slowed as he got close. The building came into view.
The structure was a square block with a small, empty parking lot in front. One story with a flat roof, it bore none of the old-world architecture of the nearby village.
Blake pulled to the side of the road and studied the screen. Though not visible from the road, there were multiple buildings on the property. Blake counted five separate structures, two of them exceptionally large. There was what appeared to be a line of boxes. Pits separated by a partition. In the image, there were eight trucks. Two in the driveway that spanned from Blake’s location to the road at the opposite side of the property, six in an open area between the two largest buildings.
The complex appeared to be a transfer station and a truck depot. The buildings likely housed maintenance garages, maybe some kind of recycling center, and there would have to be offices, he guessed.
But the layout and use of the various structures was of little importance. What mattered was the one small, boxy, customer-facing building in the front. It was where the Haeli’s orange location indicator resided.
Now that he was there, he was confident she was there as well. It was like he could feel her presence, as ridiculous as that seemed.
The next step was coming up with a plan.
There were cameras on the building, so they would see him coming. But would it even matter? The small lot suggested that customers must show up from time to time. Who was to say he wasn’t one of them? Assuming his German wasn’t too rusty. Why not just waltz in the front door? Being unarmed, a soft approach was really the only option, anyway. Plus, as far as he knew, Haeli could have everything well under control.
Blake put the car in drive and started to pull out. A green and yellow garbage truck approached from behind. Blake pulled back to the side of the road and waited.
The truck passed him, turned into the driveway, and disappeared deep into the complex.
Though there were subtle differences, the truck was not unlike one might see on the streets of any town in the U.S. Essentially a rolling trash compactor.
In a way, he missed living there, in Germany. Maybe because it represented a time in his life when things were less complicated. Maybe the culture just suit
ed him. Either way, it brought a strong sense of nostalgia and longing.
He pulled out, swung into the driveway, and took a hard left into the empty lot. Pulling into the first space, facing the front door, he practiced what he would say in German. Just an average citizen who needed to dispose of some trash.
With Techyon involved, something told him that the notion would prove all too true.
26
“This is what it’s like inside an egg,” Haeli mumbled. “We’re all inside it. It’s how we stay warm.”
The men were still there, somewhere in her peripheral vision. Weren’t they? They were laughing at her. But there was nothing funny about their predicament. One wrong move and they would be swallowed by the vacuum of space.
Haeli squinted. The intricate code, embedded in the web of thin cracks that ran throughout the walls and concrete floor, had faded before she could fully decode them. They blurred to a milky gray soup.
She knew they saw it, too. Out there. Maybe that was their plan. To feed her to it.
But they were in for a surprise. Even now, her fingers dug at the knot. They never stopped moving. Even though her arms had grown to ten feet long, her hands continued their work. Haeli told them to give up. But they wouldn’t listen. Even still, she was grateful for their effort.
Her head bobbed and her eyelids fell.
Crack.
The heavy hand twisted her head and snapped her into the present. A moment of clarity washed over her. She was still in the room, tied to the chair. There were two men with her. They had drugged her. But she had made more progress on the knots, behind her back.
She knew this all along, didn’t she?
The rush of reality was like a drug in itself. A strange reverse high. She struggled to hold onto it, but it was no use. It was a tease. A ploy to get her to stop flapping her wings. To tire out so that she would plummet into the fissure.
Her fingers clawed. Why did they insist on doing that?
“No sleeping.” The voice echoed from deep below. It bubbled up through the water.
Then, there was a crash. Louder than anything she had ever heard. She covered her ears with her wings.
A portal opened in the bright sphere of light. A deep black hole. And they were coming through. They had found a way to infiltrate.
It was like a door. Yes, exactly like a door. And the two-headed monsters were moving right through it.
“Drop him there,” one said. “Prop him up the best you can.”
They looked so much like humans. But that wasn’t possible. The two had seemed to rip themselves in half. As if shedding their skin, they dropped their disguises to the floor, revealing their true forms.
But they looked more human now, not less. It was another ploy. Haeli was keen, and she noticed that one of them hadn’t fully completed the transformation. He was missing an ear.
She giggled.
Amateurs.
This wasn’t the first time she’d seen them, was it? They had come to her in a dream, perhaps.
“You’re wasting your time, I don’t believe in you,” Haeli said.
One of them spoke. His mouth moved to make a show of it, but the sound didn’t match. It was a telltale sign. That, and the fact that the sound moved through her like she wasn’t even there.
“Pull it. The dose is too high. Let her level out for a while.”
“Don’t pull it,” Haeli said. “If you pull it, the whole thing will unravel. Then, how will we hold it up?”
“See what I mean?”
Haeli wondered what language they were speaking. See what I mean? Were these real words? Or did they make them up? Maybe it was a code. To tell the others it was time to strike. They had started closing in. Trying to sneak up on her. They wanted her hands. Long ago, her hands had worked hard at untangling their tails. Those hands could fight them off, but not these. These had gone limp. Completely motionless. She felt the others begin to gnaw on her arm. They bit into the crux of her elbow with their pointy fangs.
“Good. Put it back in if she starts making sense. We will be back in a couple of hours. Call if she says anything about the diamonds.”
The two figures receded through the portal. It shrunk and blipped out of existence.
“You forgot your skin.” Haeli yelled. But it was too late, they were gone.
At first, Haeli thought she might be able to reach the grotesque body suits if her arms were free. Try them on, or at least see how they work. But she realized her arms had retracted and would no longer be long enough to reach.
It hadn’t dissuaded her hands in the least. They had resumed their work. Toiling away at their senseless task. For a moment, she felt a connection to them. Like she was able to influence them. To make them do her bidding.
But she had grown tired. So tired.
She closed her eyes and marveled at the colors inside her eyelids. The bright light, just a little duller, now carried hues of orange and yellow with hints of blue and purple.
Crack. “No sleeping.”
Her eyes snapped open. She glared at the man.
Where had he come from? Had he always been there? Had they moved her while she was sleeping? Was this the room she remembered from her childhood? When the Russians locked her away. When they killed her friends?
No, that was only a dream. She was happy they were there with her. Michael and Little Ricky. They would laugh when she told them about it.
“Hi, guys. I’m so glad you came with me,” Haeli said.
“Of course,” Wan replied. “I’d do anything for you, you know that.”
“I know. But I’m sure you’ve got better things to do.”
Bender was his sarcastic self. “I know I do. Where are we anyway?”
Haeli looked around. “We’re in the room.”
“Oh.” Bender nodded, knowingly. “And who are they?”
Haeli stared at the two men, who had huddled together, a few feet from the door. Who were they? Indeed.
“Are they the ones who killed us?” Bender asked.
Haeli laughed. “No. That’s ridiculous.”
“How do you know?” Wan wondered.
Haeli considered the question. How did she know? But a bigger, more anxious question popped into her mind. “Did someone kill you?”
“Yes.”
“Was it my fault?”
Wan and Bender didn’t answer. But their shifted gaze told her all she needed to know. She remembered now why she was there. She was to avenge them. It was the reason she had rubbed her fingers raw, working them into the gaps in the knots.
She could feel the slack. The looseness of the binding. She was close to freeing herself.
“Psst. Ricky,” Haeli whispered. “I have a secret to tell you.”
“Don’t Haeli.” He rolled his eyes toward the two men. “Not in front of them.”
“Why?”
Wan spoke through barely parted lips. “They’re holding you captive, Haeli. Do you understand? You’ve gotta snap out of it.”
“Yeah, Haeli. You’ve gotta remember what really happened. We were killed. You were captured. We’re not really here. I mean, we’re here, but we’re not talking to you.”
Haeli hated when Bender stated the obvious, as if he was the only one who understood anything. “I know, Ricky. What do you think I am?”
“Then you know you’ve got to get out of here.”
Haeli looked at the men. Ricky was right. They could be the ones responsible. She felt hatred for them. She wanted to smash their smug, snickering faces in. One of them looked at her through the back of his head.
“What are you looking at?” Haeli goaded.
They both glanced at her and then turned away, dismissively. One leaned in close as if whispering in the other’s ear. Haeli could hear the murmuring but couldn’t make out the words. She took advantage of their inattention.
Slipping one hand from the restraints, she flashed her free hand toward Wan and Bender. The surprise on their faces was pric
eless.
Before slipping her hand back into place, she pressed her index finger to her lips and winked.
27
Blake smiled and approached the counter. He had left his suit jacket in the car and rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt to appear more casual. It didn’t exactly scream blue-collar, but as Fezz would say, it was what it was.
“Hallo. Wie gehts?”
A man with blond hair and covered in tattoos, looked him up and down. “American?”
So much for that.
“Used to be, yeah. That obvious, huh?”
“Uh huh.” The man looked back down at his phone screen. “What do you need?” His English was perfect, but he had a thick German accent.
“Just looking for some info.” Blake leaned over to catch a glimpse at what the man was looking at. “Netflix, eh? Babylon Berlin. Great show.”
At first, Blake thought the guy was holding Haeli’s phone. But it was a different model all together.
“What kind of info?” He asked.
“Oh, yeah. I’m moving and I’ve got some junk I need to get rid of. Some broken exercise equipment, a couple pieces of furniture, stuff like that.”
Without taking his eyes off the screen, the man peeled a sheet of paper off a stack and handed it to Blake. “We take bulk items by weight. Metal, wood, plastic. Prices are listed.”
“Danke.” Blake slid the paper along the countertop and then pretended to peruse its contents.
Behind the counter and through the open door, Blake could see two men in the next room. One was holding a phone, the other was standing next to him, looking on. They spoke in Russian.
“Hey, maybe those guys back there wouldn’t mind coming out and helping me unload.”
The man looked up and shot Blake an annoyed look. He leaned in his chair as if looking in the back room, even though he wasn’t in a position to see the men inside. “They don’t work here. And that’s not how it works. Pull to the back, someone will direct you where to dump it.”
“Right,” Blake said. “Okay. Just one other quick question. Did you see a woman about this tall, dark hair, really attractive?”