by L. T. Ryan
We returned to the BMW and sped away from the scene. The area seemed deserted, but we couldn’t trust looks. After all, we had thought the woods would be a sanctuary where we could question the witness. For all we knew there could be a housing development a quarter-mile away. None of the weapons were silenced. Anyone outside would have heard everything. Presumably sirens would be blaring if they had.
I called Brandon and updated him on the situation. Told him about the dead guys and uploaded the pictures we took so Brandon could ID them for us. I told him about the device we took from the car. He had me read some codes on the label fixed to the bottom of the unit.
He entered several strokes on his keyboard. A moment later he stopped humming a song I couldn’t place.
“Get rid of it as fast as you freakin’ can, man,” Brandon said. “That thing is tracking your ass right now and whoever is on the other end is heading toward you fast. Damn, they’re really moving!”
The road was empty. Bear pulled over. I got out and chucked it like a last ditch effort to win the game from beyond mid-field. It sailed sixty yards or so through the air, bouncing off trees as it landed somewhere in the woods.
“That’ll keep whoever comes looking searching for the bodies a little longer,” I said.
“I got some more news for you,” Brandon said.
“Christ, what now?” Bear said.
“You’re gonna like this,” Brandon said. I could see his smile in my head. He might’ve been bound to a wheelchair, but the guy could light up a room with his toothy grin. “You ready?”
“Lay it on us,” I said.
“I know the identity of the corpse.”
CHAPTER 32
The whistling sound approached fast from the south. I caught the trail of smoke a second before the woods erupted into a ball of flame. The explosion rocked the car. Chunks of wood rained down around us.
Bear took his foot off the gas. Must’ve taken his hands off the wheel for a few seconds, too, because the car coasted off the road and almost landed in the ditch. I reached over, righted it.
“Bear, you with me?”
The big man shook his head, knocked my hand out of the way and pressed the gas pedal to the floor. I was slammed back into my seat. My head rapped on the door frame. We raced out of the fallout zone. I glanced back and saw black smoke rising high over the orange flames.
I searched for the phone. Found it on the floor.
“The hell was that?” Brandon said.
“A rocket hit near where I tossed that tracking unit.”
“That’s why they were coming so fast,” Brandon said. He tapped furiously on his keyboard. “Goddamn drone, man. Holy hell, get out of there now and call me back. I’ll try to figure out who this thing is registered to.”
We’d been waiting to see what Brandon came up with. Wondering who the dead woman had been, and why she looked so much like Ahlberg, but obviously wasn’t. That would have to wait a few minutes though. We had to get moving, maybe even ditch the car. I kept my lookout over the sky while Bear navigated the roads.
I expected another strike to land near or on us, but it never happened.
On the highway, firetrucks and ambulances and police cars raced past us.
I pulled out my phone and started dialing.
“Who are you calling?” Bear said.
“Frank,” I said.
“Wait.”
“For what?”
“You dialing the right number?”
I glanced down at the screen. I was calling the man on his direct line, which would provide him with our exact location. If he was in charge of the drone, we wouldn’t stand a chance.
Bear continued. “And all he’s gotta do is look at his activity feed and he’ll know where we are.”
He was right. As much as I wanted to confront Frank on the explosion, I had to wait a couple hours. Give us time to put some distance between us and the attack site. I put the phone away.
“It was him,” Bear said. “We need to start thinking of how to get out of this mess.”
I nodded, unable to think of anyone else connected with access to a drone capable of launching a rocket to a precise coordinate. The phone buzzed against my leg. It was Brandon. I answered and confirmed the rocket strike. We turned the conversation back to the corpse.
“Is it a family member?” I said.
“Nope,” Brandon said.
“Is it Katrine?” Bear said.
We’d been down that path. Despite the obvious missing tattoos and markings indicating they’d been removed, it still remained a possibility. Perhaps because we wanted it to be the most logical choice in spite of the evidence. Wishing didn’t make it so.
“Nah,” Brandon said. “I told you that already. Don’t you listen?”
I put my arm out to stop Bear from responding. Years ago he would have slapped my hand away, leaving a big paw mark on me. Not today. He slammed his mouth shut like a guppy that inhaled a mouthful of water after being in the open air too long.
“In light of recent events, I don’t think either of us can handle the suspense any longer,” I said.
“First, let me tell you what it took to get this information,” he said.
Brandon was reveling in this. Most of the tasks he performed for agencies and friends — the few that there were anymore — left him bored out of his mind. He spent his days inventing new software to speed up his job. Some programs he sold to the government. Usually the U.S. There were a handful of countries he’d work with, all of whom were friendly. He had a strict code that he wouldn’t work with terrorists or governments that sponsored them. Some might say that’s a blurry line. And Brandon agreed, but it didn’t stop him.
The gig financed his life. Allowed him to help people like me free of charge. And despite his joke about my open tab, I’d always paid him, and planned on doing so for his help with the Ahlberg situation.
“OK,” Brandon said. “I went through every single government agency database. I knew there was a good chance I wouldn’t find anything in the States, but I did it anyway.”
“Did you come up with a match there?” Bear asked.
“Hell no, man. Waste of time. I used some of my older systems to do that in the background while I searched the EU DBs.”
“What’d you find there?” I said.
“More on your Ahlberg girl,” he said. “That’s one thing I wanted to tell you about. The French government knows something is going on. It doesn’t appear they had quite figured it out.”
Bear turned toward me. We used to have a couple contacts with French DSGE, but both had recently been lost.
“You think that was who followed us in the U.K.?” Bear asked.
“Might’ve been. I’ll see what I can find there.”
“Careful you don’t dig too deep,” I said. “Don’t want to alert anyone.”
Brandon laughed. “Trust me, people are alerted. I’m seeing more sniffing around my gear than I’m comfortable with. You know how it is, a whisper might as well be someone yelling in the Grand Canyon. Those echoes travel a long way.”
“Back to the dead girl,” Bear said. “Who is she?”
“Right,” Brandon said. “So I get through the main EU databases and find nothing. Tried a few other sources and got lucky.”
“Who’d you hack into?” I said.
“No hacking required,” Brandon said. “At least, not what I consider hacking.”
“So what was it?”
“Social media. Facebook.”
“You found her there?”
“Yeah,” he said. “And in a German newspaper’s obituary section from last year.”
CHAPTER 33
What the hell were we doing at the morgue? According to Brandon the woman we saw in that locker had died twelve months ago. And somehow between then and now she had taken over Ahlberg’s life. Since when did people start rising from the dead and taking up careers in espionage?
“Did I hear you right?” Bear said
.
“Yup,” Brandon said. “She’s been dead for some time.”
“What’s the obituary say?” I said.
Brandon read through the first couple sentences in German, then went silent for a few seconds.
“Doesn’t really say how she passed,” he said. “Name’s Martina Kohl. Left behind a husband, Bernd Kohl, two children, her parents, siblings, you know how it goes.”
“And this is from a year ago?” Bear said.
“You think I don’t know how to read, man?” Brandon muttered something indecipherable under his breath. “She passed a year ago. Almost to the damn day.”
“Get me the address of her husband,” I said. “I’m gonna start there.”
“Already got it, and it’s on its way to you. But you got a problem.”
As if we didn’t have enough already. The whole assignment had been nothing but a headache years in the making.
“What is it?” I said.
“She’s from Germany.”
“We’re in the Schengen zone. No docs required. Shouldn’t be a problem crossing over by car.”
“They do targeted stops if intelligence dictates,” Brandon said. “I’ve been monitoring for mention of either of your names.”
“And?” I said.
“So far, nothing. But whatever passport Frank gave you might be compromised. Just keep that in mind should you get pulled over soon after entering.”
We ended the call and drove another twenty miles before exiting into a small town I didn’t catch the name of. Bear pulled into a deserted parking lot and cut the engine. The windows were down but the air was still. It smelled bland, as though it’d been neutralized in a large filter.
“What do you make of all this?” Bear asked.
“I’ve had a couple thoughts, but I don’t want to assume anything and start running with the wrong idea.”
He leaned his seat back and stared up at the sky through the open moonroof. “The death a year ago had to have been faked.”
“Or Brandon got a bad match.”
“Yeah, I guess. But assuming he didn’t.”
“Assuming,” I said. “Exactly the thing I don’t want to do.”
“Assumptions are all we have to go on right now.” He grabbed the steering wheel and pulled himself forward, pivoted in the seat and faced me. “Woman fakes her death only to die a year later while pretending to be someone else.”
“Sums it up.” I had nothing further. It stopped there. The how and why of it all was a puzzle, and I needed a few more pieces to put it together. I saw where he was going. Hell, I wanted to join him for the ride. But it’d be a mistake that could lead to us missing something obvious.
“I can see why someone would do it, is all I’m saying,” he said. “There could be things, I don’t know, maybe she was dying already.”
“I want you to get ahold of Sasha,” I said.
“You wanna loop her in?”
“Not exactly.” I watched a truck pull into the lot. They parked on the opposite side. Two women stepped out. “I think you need a couple days away from this. Go home, if it’s possible. She can probably figure out a way to get you back into the country unnoticed. Or maybe she can come over here and meet you somewhere.”
“I’m not bailing on this. We’re too far in for me to quit.”
“I’m not asking you to quit. I just have no idea what else you’ll do while I’m in Germany.”
“While you’re there?” He shook his head. “Think you’re going alone?”
I knew he’d hate the idea. In a situation as screwed up as this one, splitting up could be a death sentence. We wouldn’t be there to watch each other’s backs. We’d lose the team aspect of working together, which always benefited us.
“I think it’s best,” I said. “Neither of us knows what I’m going to find at that address. Maybe it’s legit. Maybe it’s all a setup. If so, then I should be the one to deal with it. Not you.”
Bear sat there for a minute, staring down his torso. He took a couple deep breaths as he thought it over. “Maybe I could check up on—”
“No. No checking up. No running down leads. Take a couple days off. I got this, Bear.”
He nodded slowly, his chin resting against his chest. Neither of us had to mention out loud all that was at stake. He understood my reasoning even if he didn’t agree with it.
“Let’s head into town and make sure there’s a place for me to stay,” he said.
We switched positions in the car. I drove us through the town so Bear could make note of the hotels, restaurants, and so on. The plan was to meet back here in forty-eight hours. Any attempts at communicating would take place through Brandon, who had created a dial around for Bear.
“You get a lead, you move,” he said, exiting the BMW. “Don’t worry about getting back to me.”
“Likewise,” I said.
I pulled away as Bear headed off into the center of town. It was odd parting. We’d reached a point where we had no longer been working together. Hell, neither of us was working in that field any longer. All I wanted was to disappear and find a way to raise Mia in a normal fashion. And Bear hoped to provide a life for Mandy that’d give her a shot at normalcy. Adding Sasha to that mix only furthered the cause. The fact that we were in a foreign country fixing what amounted to a now-defunct SIS problem was bullshit.
But we were stuck in the middle of it nonetheless.
I glanced up at the rearview one last time before turning right to leave town. Bear had already assimilated into the crowd and was nowhere to be seen. In a way, I hoped the conversation we’d had moments ago would be our last one for quite some time.
Soon I was back on the highway, with my sights set on Leipzig, Germany.
CHAPTER 34
A drab yellow carpet lined the floor of the narrow hallway. I couldn’t tell if the salami smell came from someone’s apartment or the floor. Through one door I heard a television. Sounded like cartoons. The next was silent. The one after that, a man and woman argued. Couldn’t tell what about.
When I reached the apartment number Brandon had sent me, I paused. I couldn’t shake the thought that the entire thing was a setup. But why send me all the way to Leipzig, Germany? They could kill me anywhere. Hell, they could’ve done it down in Texas. No one was around. And in the span of a few days there had already been enough death to go around that small town for a couple years. Why waste any more money ferrying me around if that was the plan all along?
At some point I had to accept the feeling was a malfunction in my intuition and simply proceed with the job.
I reached around my back, placed my hand on the butt of the pistol secured there. A door opened down the hall to my left. I glanced over and saw a young woman carrying a baby. I smiled, nodded. She returned the gesture then went back inside. Guess she thought I looked untrustworthy. She was probably right.
For several seconds, I stood there, frozen. What was I waiting for? Someone to burst through the door? Ahlberg to show up? Frank to somehow call or get a message to me telling me to leave? I hoped he had no idea where I was.
Fact was that no one could communicate with me at that moment. I had one phone on me, and not a single person knew the details. I was untraceable, location unknown. For all intents and purposes, I was a ghost.
Not for the first time either. It had played to my benefit in the past.
The hallway fell silent. No televisions playing cartoons, no couples arguing, no women with babies observing and judging me.
I dialed in to the task ahead. Prepared myself for any and every situation that might occur the moment the door opened.
I knocked on the door, gripping the pistol tight in anticipation. I had to fight the urge to draw it prematurely.
The man that opened the door looked to be in his late thirties with slivers of gray throughout his thick head of hair. The scruff on his unshaven face was even worse. He wore grey sweatpants and a stained white t-shirt. Wine, perhaps. It looked like he had
recently woken up. He was a couple inches shorter than me, and considerably slighter. I probably had sixty pounds on him.
His gaze swept up and down. “Yes?”
He’d pegged me for American.
“Sorry to bother you so early,” I said. “But I need to ask you a couple questions.”
He closed the door a few inches as he stepped back. I stuck my foot against the frame to keep him from shutting it.
His eyes narrowed, and his gaze fell upon my hidden arm. “Who are you?”
“My name is Jack. I’m from the U.S. I need to talk to you about your dead wife.”
His face went slack and his hand fell from the door, letting it swing open. The man made no effort to stop me as I stepped inside.
The apartment was small. I only saw two doors. One to a bedroom, the other to a bathroom, I presumed. Seated at a small kitchen table were two girls. Looked to be around ten or eleven. A couch was pulled out into a bed. The sheets were tangled up. There were two pillows, one for each girl, both wrapped with pink cases.
The man said something in German to his daughters. They rose, leaving their breakfast on the table, and went into the bedroom. The latch made a loud click as the door shut.
“My wife died a year ago,” the man said. He had his hands on his hips and stood unnaturally straight. “End of story.”
I pulled a chair away from the table and motioned for him to sit down with his back to the door. He hesitated a few seconds. I reached behind my back. He put his hands up in front of him and sat. I wondered if this was the first such visit he had received with the way he responded to the anticipated threat.
I stood across from him so I could see the door and most of the apartment. With him secure, I took a look around the place. Dirty dishes were piled next to the sink. At least three days’ worth. The carpet was cluttered with clothes and toys and DVD cases. Looked as though it hadn’t been vacuumed in a month. A layer of dust coated the coffee table and television stand. The girls had looked taken care of, though. They weren’t malnourished. Their clothes fit and looked new. And the man himself looked to be in decent shape.