by L. T. Ryan
I climbed on top of the desk again and pulled myself up and balanced on the center wall. The space wasn’t that high. I replaced the ceiling tile before dropping down into the other room. A few seconds later I heard the manager’s voice. The security room door crashed opened. The manager sounded confused. The cops sounded pissed. Why were the screens blank? Where had I gone?
At least I assumed that’s what they said.
They spent a couple minutes in the opposite room. I figured the manager was trying to reconnect the systems. He sounded frustrated. Perhaps the screwdriver trick had worked. I felt the tip of the tool dig into my leg, so I reversed it in my pocket. The cops said little. They probably wondered what the hell they were doing down there. I sat with my ear against the wall until the voices silenced and the door opened and clicked shut. I moved to a spot next to the door. If it opened, it would open against me, shielding me from view.
They stood in the hallway, talking. I wished I could understand them. Someone grabbed the knob to my room. Twisted the handle. It clicked repeatedly. The door was locked. One of them pushed against the door. It didn’t give.
The manager said something. One of the cops responded. Keys, maybe?
I waited as the voices trailed off. A minute of silence passed. The phone buzzed in my pocket. I answered without saying a word. The sweat beaded on my forehead and matted in my eyebrows slid down the side of my face.
“They’re all up here,” Bear said. “Where are you?”
“What are they doing?”
“The manager went behind the counter. He’s got a cabinet open.”
“He’s looking for a key.” I dragged the pad of my thumb across my forehead, flung the condensation away from me. “The cops are still there?”
“Yeah, both of them. They’re waiting by the counter. Man, they look freaking annoyed.”
“Do whatever you can to stop them if they head for the elevator. I’m gonna get to the stairwell. Call me when they’re coming down.”
I already had the door open and was making my way down the hall to the far end. I assumed that the stairs went down this far. I checked each door I passed. All but the last one was locked.
The stairwell was dark, hot and musty. I thought I felt someone’s breath on my neck. I didn’t care. I called Bear and updated him on my position. He told me the manager was still in the lobby. The cops, too. I climbed the stairs two at a time, skipped the first floor, and exited at the second.
There was a window at the end of the hallway. I slid the lock over and grabbed the lip at the bottom. It felt like the thing hadn’t been opened in years. I glanced down at the sill. Two or three layers of paint sealed the window to the frame. I took out the screwdriver I’d found in the security room and used it to cut through fifty years of paint. I tried to lift again. The window grated against its track. And it went up.
I pulled out my phone and called Bear.
“Go to the east end of the hallway. I saw an exit there. I’m getting ready to drop down from the second floor window. Be there.”
“You getting old or something, man?” he said.
“What?” I stopped, right leg hanging out, window pressing down against my left shoulder.
“All of a sudden you need a spotter for a one floor drop?”
“Go to hell.” I ended the call and stuffed the phone in my pocket. I tossed my jacket out the window then made sure the pistol was secure in my waistband.
The chime above the elevator dinged. The sound echoed down the hall. I looked back. The doors slid open. I eased my torso outside. Pulled my other leg through. A cop stepped out of the elevator. They looked down the hallway, opposite my position. I let my body drop, twisting my wrists to catch the outer sill. I pressed the soles of my shoes against the brick wall. They grated as mortar cracked and rained down on the asphalt below. The door below me opened and Bear stepped out and moved to the side. I let go, bracing for the impact to the ankle I’d injured in Texas. When I hit the ground, I allowed myself to roll back. Bear got a kick out of seeing me take the fall. I didn’t care.
“We better get to the car before they come out here,” he said, pulling me up by the arm.
CHAPTER 18
We traveled south out of the city on the A2, past Utrecht on the E25, continuing another ten minutes then exiting the highway. We’d made it out without being noticed. How long until they’d get our identities off the security feed? That wouldn’t matter if the screwdriver did the trick.
And it wasn’t like the hotel or cops would figure out who we actually were. Though it would’ve been better had we never been spotted. Things never worked out that way.
It was disappointing not rendezvousing with Katrine Ahlberg. Had she received word that we were coming for her? That might explain the maid’s explanation of the woman and her associate leaving after check-out and not coming back. They could have fled the city. Perhaps the country. I pictured them holed up in a safe house we might never find.
“Hungry?” Bear said, taking his eyes off the road long enough to look over for my response. I nodded.
We stopped at a small restaurant and grabbed a bite to eat. The place was deserted. We ate quickly. Neither of us spoke for the duration of the meal.
Back in the car, I said, “Did you reserve a room?”
He nodded. “Two nights.”
“Guess they got your ID then.”
“One of them.” He pulled all corresponding credit cards and photo IDs out and placed them on the dash. He’d come prepared. I would have if Frank had given me the chance. It helped that Bear had more than one identity to use. “They told us everything was expunged, redacted, burned. These governments should have nothing on us.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s what they said.”
“You believe it?”
I shook my head. “It was a nice gesture, but that’s all it was. There’s no way that they just hit the delete button. Now, maybe it’s at the point where only a handful of people in each country have access, but someone does. You can guarantee that. Not to mention all the countries we weren’t exactly on good terms with. Think they’re gonna forgive and forget?”
“Right.” Bear leaned back and took a deep breath. “I’m wondering how far this’ll go.”
“I don’t know. Don’t really care. We’ll deal with it when we have to. For now, we need to focus on finding a place to stay for the night, and getting a computer so we can sort through this footage.”
“You gonna call Frank?” Bear asked.
“I guess at some point. He’s probably itching to send a team after us. Wouldn’t doubt that he’s got them on standby already. I’d prefer to avoid talking to the guy.”
“Who you think he’d send?”
“Someone like us, I suppose.”
Bear grimaced as he rubbed the side of his head. “Are there many more left? I mean, that Frank knows.”
It was a good question, and one that I’d spent considerable time pondering. The extermination event had wiped the SIS clean. They went after me. I assumed that they had plans to take out the other guys from the past. I thought back to the conversation Frank and I had the other day. He mentioned a few of the guys from the old days. Said they were doing well. Was it bullshit? Or were they really out there?
“There might be a few guys still around,” I said. “Would they do a favor for Frank? I know I wouldn’t unless he had me dead to rights like in this case. Think about how many laws we broke to pull this hit off originally. Everyone in the group did that kind of crap. Plus, he’s heading up the SOG. It might be misappropriation of his resources, but those guys know how to keep quiet.”
Bear forced a laugh. “So you’re saying we should watch our backs.”
“Yeah, that’d be a good start. At least watch mine.” I flashed a grin in his direction. “Anyway, no point dwelling on this right now. Let’s find a place to stay.”
We located a hotel a few miles away. The guy at the counter gave us directions to a store where
we could pick up a laptop. After checking into our rooms, we headed out and bought the computer. Less than an hour later we were back in the room with the computer powered on and updated.
Bear took the memory card I’d used in the hotel’s security room and inserted it into the system. He navigated through a few menus and opened the file.
“Filled the damn thing up,” he said. “Card’s only thirty-two gigs. I hope we got enough of the surveillance.”
“How much would that hold?” I said.
His forehead wrinkled as he looked up at me while hiking his shoulders a couple inches in the air. “Maybe eight hours for a digital camera. But with this kind of system, I couldn’t tell you. Let’s see what kind of footage it records.”
Some systems only captured events in stills. While others only came on when motion was detected. And others recorded everything.
“It was live action when I was down in the security room,” I said.
“Doesn’t mean it stores that way.” He clicked on the mouse a couple times. The screen went dark for a moment and then came to life with a recorded feed of an empty hallway. “Dammit.”
“What?”
“I was hoping it only recorded when there was movement, but it looks like this is going to have everything. Or, I guess I should say lots of nothing.”
“Date says it’s from yesterday.”
“So we might luck out.”
We stared at the screen for twenty minutes. Nothing happened. It would’ve been more exciting to watch flies get it on.
“Any way to speed this up?” I said.
He clicked around the options and increased the feed to four times speed. “That should help.”
The time bar on the bottom of the video player flew by. We cut it in half every time someone appeared and watched as they waddled down the hallway. But for every time the elevator opened or someone stepped out into the hallway, no one went in or out of Ahlberg’s room.
Bear grew concerned. We were running out of remaining footage. A knot formed in my stomach as the feeling grew that we weren’t going to uncover anything. We’d be left standing at a dead end, surrounded by a ring of fire. We’d have to call Frank.
Bear paused the feed. “Getting hungry?”
It’d only been three hours since we ate. “Let’s finish this first.”
“Dammit,” he said. “All right, man. Let’s do it.”
I focused as much on the remaining time in the video as I did the footage of the hallway. It whittled down to twenty minutes, fifteen, ten.
“Not looking good,” Bear said.
Five minutes were left.
“Put it on regular speed,” I said. “Someone’s head might pop out of the door and we’ll miss it.”
“Guess that could’ve already happened, huh?”
I’d considered that it had. “If we have to take shifts watching this thing at regular speed all night, then we will.”
Bear rolled his eyes at the thought of sitting for hours staring at the empty hallway.
There was a minute left. I paced along a four foot track between the bed and Bear. He cleared his throat. The gesture let me know I was bothering him. I counted down the seconds. Fifteen. Ten. Nine. Eight.
Bear looked back. “Stop walking behind me, man.”
Five. Four. Three.
“Freeze it!”
The woman stepped out of room 815 and glanced down the hallway toward the camera. Bear did something with the mouse. The video zoomed in on her face. The shot was clear enough, even if a little grainy.
“You sure that’s the right room?” he said.
“You can back up and check, but I’m pretty sure that’s right.”
He zoomed out, and we both confirmed it was the correct room.
“That’s not her,” Bear said.
“No, it’s not,” I said.
We weren’t looking at Katrine Ahlberg. This woman was a brunette with tanned skin.
“The maid said there were two women in the room, right?” Bear said.
“Yeah, two women.” I leaned in closer and pointed to the screen. “Look there, on the door frame. You can see another hand.”
He poked the screen with his large index finger. “And some blonde hair. Right there. We got her.”
“Now where are they?” I said.
“And who’s that woman?” he said.
“Can you turn that into a regular image?”
“Yeah.” He looked back. “Why?”
“Because I got someone I think can help us figure out the identity of the brunette.”
CHAPTER 19
Bear zoomed in as far as he could without affecting the integrity of the shot and cut an image of the woman from the footage. He saved a copy of it on each of our memory cards, then left the image open in another program. We both stared at the mystery lady on the screen.
I leaned in closer as though that would reveal her identity. “Who do you suppose she is?”
Bear hiked his shoulders a couple inches. “I don’t remember everything about the original assignment, but I remember faces and there’s no recollection of her at all.”
I thought back to the pictures I saw in Frank’s office. “Nothing in the file Frank gave me matches. And we looked at several photos in his office. I can say I haven’t seen this woman before.”
“Friend?” He held out his hands. “Her lover?”
“Anything’s possible, but as far as I know men were her preference.”
Bear nodded, said nothing.
“Then there’s still the question of what they were doing at the hotel. I’m assuming Katrine met her there. Makes sense given the note we found.”
Bear looked over at me. “That note seems odd, right?”
“How so?”
“Like it was planted. I mean, there’s no way she was at that house a day ago. Not with the way the place smelled.”
“True,” I said. “But she could’ve been there a week ago. Wrote the information down. Took a pic of it. Counted on someone else to dispose of it. Whatever happened there tells me someone got out in a hurry. Perhaps she left first, and her men cleaned up after. Disposed of those poor dogs upstairs.”
“Plausible.” Bear turned back to the computer. “My guess would be that this brunette is involved in some kind of intelligence community and got wind of Frank’s plan. We never asked the maid how long they’d been there. Maybe the two of them were holed up there for a week or so.”
“Hiding in plain sight.”
Bear nodded. “And when they realized we were in town, they fled.”
I thought about what he said for a moment. “The two guys in England who followed us from your town to the marina. The house in the woods. The note. The dogs. What if someone else did that?”
Bear leaned to the side, cocking his head toward me.
“Someone else is after her,” I said. “And I’d assume that they know about us.”
The big man rose and went to the door. He looked through the peephole, then engaged the safety lock.
“Relax,” I said. “One, at this point we’re untraceable. Frank doesn’t know where we are. They won’t either.”
“And two?” he said.
“You and I are an unbreakable force when we’re working together.”
Bear flopped onto the bed like a wrestler dropping off the top rope onto his foe. The frame groaned and bent. I was surprised it didn’t snap. He worked a hand behind his head, stared at the ceiling.
“What is it?” I said.
“We’re not the same,” he said.
“We’ve never been the same. That’s what makes us a great team.”
“No, that’s not what I meant.” He craned his neck forward and met my gaze. “All those years, we only worried about ourselves. You had my back, I had yours, and self-preservation of the team was the name of the game.”
“And now?”
“Well, you’ve got Mia. I’ve got Mandy.”
“And Sasha.”
; He nodded, let his head fall back, eyes focused on the ceiling. “And Sasha.”
“So what’s your point?”
“Can we really be one hundred percent effective at our jobs if we have them on our mind? Don’t you fear the worry you have over them, returning to them, protecting them, will affect how you do your job?”
“I suppose it could—”
“You suppose, huh?” He laughed. “You’re something else, Jack.”
“It just doesn’t matter. We have to finish this, then it’s over. You’ll resume the life you’re building with Sasha and Mandy. You’ll find something you can settle in and do for the rest of your life. Compartmentalize for now.”
It’s what guys like us had to do. Shove everything that makes you human, wants and desires and needs and love, take all of that and hide it away. Double tape the seams. Whatever had to be done in order to focus on the job.
The ensuing pause and silence that went along with it deafened me.
“What about you?” Bear said. “Is Mia in your future?”
I tried to say yes, but the truth was I had no idea how things would turn out after we finished the job.
“In some ways I think she’s better off with Sean and Deb and the kids,” I said. “They’re a family. I mean, am I gonna settle down all of a sudden? Hell, I don’t know if it’s possible.”
Bear nodded, said nothing. Did he have similar thoughts about his own situation? It seemed he was off to a great start before I showed up.
“And we have to see what happens after this is over,” I said. “Is Frank finally going to get off our asses? Can I just become a ghost and try to make a life? Or will I be confined to drifting across the country or the world, never making a home or friends or starting a family?”
Bear sat up, held out his hand. I took it. A smile formed on his face. “This is some deep voodoo, man. We need to be drinking to have this conversation.”
I don’t know if it was the way he said it, or we just needed relief from the serious conversation, but the both of us burst into laughter.
“Let’s go get a drink and some dinner,” I said.
He deleted the image of the brunette and the footage from the computer, then started a reinstall of the operating system.