by L. T. Ryan
“You want to hit up that contact and send them the pic before we go out?” Bear asked.
“After,” I said. “Right now, I don’t want to think about Katrine Ahlberg or the mystery woman or Frank or the guys tailing us. I just want a beer and a steak.”
We found a small place about ten minutes away. The crowd was local. Always a good sign. The woman that greeted us spoke English the moment we walked in.
“Still stick out, I guess,” Bear leaned in and whispered.
The dining room was full. The woman offered us a seat at the bar, noting to the man behind the counter that we were from the States. He had beers in front of us almost before we sat down. Said that these were the American favorites. Bear’s presence combined with the atmosphere and the murmur of chatter around us dulled my senses. I felt more relaxed than I’d felt in years by the time my steak had arrived.
And it was one of the best cuts of meat I’d had in years. That was saying something.
Bear agreed. “Damn, this is good.”
The guy behind the bar smiled, refilled our mugs and brought a basket of fresh bread. Said they made it there from scratch. Smelled and tasted like it, too. Simpler ingredients were the key. None of that dwarf wheat.
Bear dropped his knife and fork on his plate. I looked over expecting to see the guy patting his stomach. But his plate was half covered with steak. His mouth hung open an inch. His eyes were fixed on the television.
“What is it?” I said.
But I didn’t need him to answer.
CHAPTER 20
I saw the image of Katrine Ahlberg on the screen. The station used the name of her sister, Birgit, on the banner below the picture. The news anchor spoke in Dutch and I couldn’t make out any of it. The image shrunk into the corner and gave way to a live shot of a city street littered with an ambulance, police cars, flashing lights, yellow tape, and cops everywhere.
I stood on the stool’s footrest and leaned over the bar and got the bartender’s attention. “What’re they saying?”
He glanced at the screen and his smile faded. He motioned for the others seated at the bar to quiet down. The volume turned up. Everyone directed their attention to the screen.
“Ah,” he said. “This is related to… I remember something about this from some years ago.”
“What happened?” Bear asked.
“Uh, OK. They say that Birgit Ahlberg, twin sister of Katrine Ahlberg, AKA the Scandinavian Princess — who herself was assassinated ten years ago — was murdered outside of Amsterdam this afternoon in the city of Leiden.” He turned toward us, hands extended, palms up. “That’s not too far away from here.”
“Son of a bitch,” Bear muttered.
I leaned in closer to the bartender while keeping my gaze fixed on the television. It was hard to make anything definitive out. They’d covered the body with a white sheet where it fell. The police had done a good job removing civilians from the shot. I wondered if the other woman from the hotel security footage was there. “What else are they saying?”
“Ah, yes, that Birgit had been underground for some time, recently resurfacing at charity events, and that they think it was this appearances that led those who murdered her sister to come after Birgit.”
Bear brushed against my shoulder. “We’re gonna have to call Frank.”
“I’m sure he’s already trying to reach us.” I tapped the bar top. “We’ll take the check now.”
The man kept his gaze fixed on us for a few moments. It must’ve seemed odd how interested we were in the news. But he didn’t ask, so we didn’t bother coming up with a story. Not like it would matter. We’d never see the man again.
We drove west for thirty minutes. I knew Frank could trace a location from a call. I didn’t want to make one anywhere near where we were staying, even with the additional SIM cards available. With Frank’s connections now as the head of the CIA’s SOG, I had no doubt he could have someone at those coordinates within half an hour if he chose to.
Frank’s ragged breath greeted me after the fifth ring. He must’ve raced out of a meeting to answer the call. “God dammit, that better be you, Jack.”
“We saw,” I said.
“Saw what?” he said.
“You don’t know?”
“Know what?” He exhaled loudly into his mouthpiece. “Quit jerking me off, Jack. You don’t know how close I am to sending a team out there to finish you two.”
“She’s dead.”
Silence over took the line. I glanced at the phone’s display to make sure we hadn’t been disconnected. The seconds counted upward.
“You found her?” he asked.
“Negative,” I said. “Someone else got to her. It’s all over the news. They’re reporting she was murdered on the street.”
“I know we weren’t the only ones, but I didn’t think anyone else had that kind of intelligence on her.”
Ahlberg wasn’t my only concern. “What about the guys following us? You figure out who else is itching to bat this around?”
“I’m almost positive those guys work for Awad.” Katrine and her husband were known terrorist supporters. There were those in my line of work who suspected them of being far more involved than signing checks. “Somehow, someone passed our intel to him. Now, that’s my gut talking, so don’t go acting on it.”
“Are we done now?” I didn’t want to remain on the line any longer than necessary. Frank could be tracking us at that very moment. He’d drag out the conversation as long as possible for his men to reach us.
“Hang on, I’m checking on this.” He tapped on his keyboard, clicked his mouse, entered a few more strokes. “This is legit. Someone got her. They don’t have anyone in custody, and no witnesses have come forward.”
“Looked like it was in broad daylight,” Bear said.
“It was,” Frank said.
“That’s almost daring someone to catch you,” I said. “Whoever did this has no fear of the law.”
“There’s nothing else about the crime scene,” Frank said.
“Are we done now?” I repeated.
“I’m thinking we need to question whoever did this,” Frank said. “But first, I need you guys to verify the body.”
“Ah, Christ,” Bear said. “Why don’t you come over and do it?”
Traveling to a specific location at Frank’s request was not high on our to-do list at the moment.
Frank said, “That wouldn’t look suspicious at all, would it? Plus they’ll have her moved before I get there. This is high profile, and her family is wealthy. I managed to get the morgue location. I don’t care what you need to do to get in there. You do it, and make an identification on the corpse. I’ll deal with the fallout and clean up any mess.”
He gave us the address and disconnected the call. I pulled the sim card from the phone and discarded it like a used cigarette butt.
“Ready?” Bear said.
“One more call,” I said.
I dialed a number I’d memorized many years ago. I was the only one who knew the number. And the man who answered would know it was me calling.
“I was wondering when I’d hear from you.” He sounded like a fourteen-year-old. Like always.
“Brandon,” I said. “Good to hear your voice. Say hello to Logan, too.”
“Holy crap,” Brandon said. “You got Bear there with you? Must be some serious stuff going down in Amsterdam tonight.”
“How’d you know I’d call?” I said.
“Because a week ago someone started diving into databases that no one should be accessing. And they started typing in queries using names that no one should be querying. So, I have to ask, Jack. What the hell was going on in Texas, and does this call have anything to do with that?”
“You know I’m in Amsterdam. That’s one of the benefits of this line, right? So why would I call about Texas if I’m five thousand miles away?”
“See, that’s what confuses the frick outta me because you appeared to be in a serio
us mess in Texas.”
“Texas is done and I don’t want to talk about it. It has no bearing on this other than because of that data breech Frank Skinner found me and brought me to SIS headquarters.”
“You mean Langley, right? That’s where he works now.”
“I’m pretty sure I said what I meant.”
“There is no SIS anymore, Jack. You know this.”
“Right, which makes this a nasty situation to be in.”
Brandon laughed. “When is it ever not with you? Damn, I ain’t had to bail anyone else out as much as I have with you. At least you got Bear there with you. I can rest a little easy knowing he’ll keep you from screwing things up too much.”
Bear laughed.
“Yeah, well, the big guy’s gotten soft since you last dealt with him,” I said. “Where are you located these days?”
“Fat chance there, hoss.”
“Don’t say hoss,” Bear said. “It doesn’t fit your demographic.”
Brandon laughed again. “The hell’s that supposed to mean?” He took a few deep, wheezy breaths and then changed his tone. “All right, I know you didn’t call to turn this into a party line. So what’s up?”
“We need a favor,” I said.
“That much is obvious,” Brandon said. “And it won’t be no favor. You’re gonna pay for my services.”
“Add it to my tab,” I said.
“You planning on taking care of that tab anytime soon?” he said.
“Yeah, you know what, add it to Bear’s tab. I think his slate is clean.”
“All right, all right. I can already tell I’m losing money on this one, so why don’t you get to it. What’s going on?”
“Kristine Ahlberg.” Within a second of speaking her name, I heard Brandon tapping on his keyboard.
“She’s dead,” he said. “Hell, died a long time ago. And it looks like you already know that.”
“We might have been involved. She had a sister, Birgit.”
“B-I-R-G-E-T?” Brandon said.
“No E. Two I’s.”
“She’s dead, too. Not so long ago. Today, in fact. And it happened close to where you’re calling from.”
“We know. Without getting into too much detail, we were sent here to find her but someone beat us to it.”
“Probably in a morgue right about now,” Brandon said. “Give me a minute and I’ll tell you where.”
I started to tell him not to bother, but figured having Brandon fact check what Frank had told us wasn’t a bad idea. I couldn’t put it past Frank to use the incident to set us up. Hell, for all we knew, Frank was the one behind the murder.
Brandon read out the address to the morgue. It matched what Frank had given us.
“Is that all?” he said.
“No,” I said. “I’m gonna send you a photo. I need you to find a match and let us know everything you can about the woman.”
He gave us instructions on where to upload the file. Bear sent it from his phone to the secure server. Brandon confirmed receipt and told us he’d be in touch within a few hours. We disconnected the call.
I looked over at Bear. “Ready to verify a corpse?”
“Highlight of my day, man. Highlight of my day.”
CHAPTER 21
We drove forty minutes to our destination. Several buildings made up the medical center. At the heart of it was a small emergency room. Two sets of double-wide sliding doors remained open. The temperature that evening was about the same as it had been during the day. Two cops and three nurses stood talking on the walkway leading up to the ER.
We looped around the facility, taking note of security guards and where the police cars were parked. Nobody paid any attention to us. We bypassed the parking garage and parked on a quiet alley a few blocks away.
“Plan?” Bear said on our walk to the morgue.
“No idea what we’re going to face in there,” I said. “No one’s gonna just give us access, so be ready to use some level of coercion.”
He looked over at me. “You don’t think my smile is charming enough?”
“Only with the ladies, big man.”
We clung to the shadows and kept our heads down in an effort to avoid any security cameras.
The unassuming entrance to the morgue was nestled behind a blue and white striped overhang. I expected an access pad or magnetic card reader. Nothing adorned the wall next to the door. I pulled on the handle. It was unlocked.
We stepped into a darkened hallway wide enough for a gurney and people to stand on either side of it. There were two doors along the right wall, and a set of double doors at the end. I figured the morgue was to the left of the corridor.
“Guess it isn’t the busiest place at the hospital,” Bear said. “This might go easier than we thought.”
“Why’d you have to say that?” I said.
Bear laughed. “Getting bored, I guess. Wouldn’t mind a little action in here.”
It was as if he was begging me to deliver a horrible pun in response. I resisted. It was good to have more of the Bear I knew back, though.
“Let’s find the body and do what we gotta do.” I took the lead and hustled down the hallway, pistol in hand.
“I gotta feeling we’re gonna get morgue than we asked for in here.”
I looked back at him, shook my head. “You had to go there.”
He shrugged. “Delivery made it dead on arrival, huh?”
I took a deep breath. Sighed. “Of corpse, Bear. Of corpse.”
“All right, then,” he said. “Now we can continue with the job.”
We’d dealt with killing and dead bodies and a number of atrocities over the years we’d worked together. But there was something personal about this job. We’d screwed up. An innocent woman lost her life. A not so innocent one had now paid for her crimes. We couldn’t atone for the mistake we’d made, but at least we could lay it to rest with the identification of Katrine Ahlberg’s corpse. The chapter would then be closed.
I leaned against the right side of the double door and pushed the latch bar with my hip. The room was aglow with fluorescent lights that hung in fixtures lined with dead cockroaches ten feet overhead. There was a good fifteen feet of space in front of me. The room opened to the left and continued around the wall. I leaned into the corner and saw a room enclosed in glass. Two stainless steel tables stood empty in the small room. Presumably that’s where they performed the autopsies.
The opposite wall had three rows of six lockers. Had they all been in use at the same time at any point in the morgue’s history? I supposed they had to be ready for a catastrophe.
Or overflow from Amsterdam on a rough night.
A man rose high enough to peer at us from over a wide monitor. His face and glasses reflected the red image he had pulled up.
He said something in Dutch.
“You received a body this evening,” Bear said.
The man stepped out from behind his desk. He was tall and slim with a matching nose. His lab coat draped over him like a winter jacket and hung loose around his torso. He ran a hand through his thinning hair in an attempt to straighten it. I doubted that he received many visitors in the morgue. Live ones, at least.
“The murdered woman,” he said with an accent that sounded more French than Dutch. “Can I ask what this is about?”
“You could,” Bear said. “But I’m not at liberty to discuss.”
“Then I’m afraid I need you to leave.” He pulled a cell phone from his coat pocket. He punched a couple keys, then glanced up at us. “I’m calling security now. You should leave. They are armed and trigger happy, as you say.”
“There’s no need for that,” I said. “I just need your word that if we tell you why we’re here, you won’t tell anyone else.”
He lowered the phone to his side, arched an eyebrow.
“We’re with the CIA. We have reason to believe that the woman you took in tonight is a person of interest that we’ve been searching for. We just need to take
a look, ID the body, then we’ll be on our way.”
“Interesting.” He brought his phone and opposite hand together. “I’m afraid your story sounds like bullshit.”
“Bear.”
The speed at which Bear moved surprised the doctor, as it did most people. The thin man threw his hands up and took a series of short steps backward, nearly tripping over a footstool. Bear closed the gap in an instant and knocked the phone from the man’s hand. The cell spun across the floor and ricocheted off the lockers like a hockey puck against the boards. Bear had his paws on the doctor, who found himself twisted like a pretzel before he knew what was going on.
“You assholes,” he said. “You know how much trouble you’re going to get in?”
Bear torqued the doctor’s right arm behind his back. The man screamed in pain.
“That’s only the beginning,” Bear said. “Now, you sit down and shut up and let my partner and I do what we need to do, and you won’t experience anymore pain. But if you get in our way, I will make sure that it’s the last thing you do.”
The doctor’s legs buckled and he went limp. A wet blotch formed on his pants.
“Passed out from fear?” I said. “And pissed himself? Impressive work, Bear.”
Bear chuckled. “Dumb son of a bitch. Tell me, how do these guys go through so much schooling, yet have no idea when to back down? They think those fancy degrees will prevent someone like us from attacking them?”
I shrugged. Bear let the guy fall to the floor, then rifled through a couple drawers until he found some medical tape. He began wrapping it around the doctor’s wrists, securing them together.
“Think that’ll work?” I said.
“If I use enough,” he said. “Besides, he ain’t gonna do anything once he wakes up.”
I turned toward the lockers. Katrine was inside one of them. They weren’t marked on the outside. I started on the left and opened each. Three out of the first four I opened were occupied by older folks who had likely passed on from natural causes. The next five were vacant. Hope faded the further I went. What if they’d determined her identity and moved her already? The family was wealthy. They could make things happen quickly.