Allegiance Burned: A Jackson Quick Adventure

by Tom Abrahams

  “For everything.”

  “When do you need it there?”

  “Immediately.”

  “Immediately is expensive.”

  “I’m sure it is, Viktor. Just let me know the damage.”

  “What are you shipping?”

  “Does that matter?”

  “Yes. If it’s something you cannot take on a plane with you, then I am certain it will add to the expense.”

  “Personal protection,” I say. “It’s the sort of protection that airport security frowns upon.”

  He tilts his head, cracking his gooseneck. “It’ll be five hundred dollars.”

  “U.S.?”

  “Of course.”

  “What’s my guarantee it gets there?”

  “I put my name on the shipping voucher,” he says. “I have friends who make sure it gets to you.”

  “Okay then. Give me the box, please. I’ll pack it. You ship it. You get the money.”

  “Okay then,” he mimics. “Where do you want this package to go?”

  “I’d like to send it to Frankfurt and pick it up right after we land. Can you get the package there —”

  “Immediately,” he interrupts.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “There is DHL Packstation fifteen minutes north of the airport. I give you the address. You will find it no problem. Maybe it is there when you land. Maybe a little later.”

  He disappears through a door behind the desk and then emerges a minute later with a box and some packing material.

  “You’re prepared,” I remark. I reach down into my pack to pull out the Smith & Wesson and the Tec-9.

  “We have lots of business people,” he says. “They have business needs.”

  I pull the box down onto the floor next my bag. I don’t want to pull the weapons up onto the desk, and freak out Viktor. Both weapons fit neatly into the box, the ammo sitting in the gaps between the gunmetal and the cardboard. I pour a bag of Styrofoam kernels into the empty spaces, fold the box closed, and run a strip of tape down the middle.

  “I will label for you.” Viktor takes the box from me and slides it across the desk. “Now I need the money.”

  I pull his payment from the bag. My once fat roll is slimming down a little faster than I’d like.

  “What’s the money for?” Bella asks, coming up behind me as I am thumbing five one hundred dollar bills. Her hair is pulled back against her head, still wet from a shower. Her face is clean, without makeup except for a little lip gloss.

  “I can’t take certain belongings on the plane to Germany,” I explain. “I’m arranging alternative transportation with Viktor here.”

  “Good idea,” she says. “I have something I need you to add to the box. Is it too late?”

  CHAPTER 18

  “Bella, you actually did a great job getting us out of Chernobyl.” I’m walking beside her in the Frankfurt Airport, trying to navigate the yellow, blue, and green overhead signs.

  “Gee, thanks,” she says. “Coming from you, that’s such a compliment.” She presses her palm flat against her chest, feigning appreciation.

  “That’s not exactly what I meant. I didn’t intend for it to come out that way. I’m just saying you really did impress me.”

  “Okay, Jackson,” she says, “I’ll take it as the compliment you intended it to be.”

  We haven’t really talked much since leaving Chernobyl. The drive back to Kiev was filled with silence, both of us too tired to carry on a meaningful conversation. The ride to the airport was in a shuttle with a couple of other hotel guests, so we weren’t going to talk then. Both of us slept on the flight from Kiev to Frankfurt. It was the best two and a half hours of sleep I’ve had since waking up in my apartment three, or is it four, days ago. I can’t keep track.

  “We need a rental car,” I say. “Once we clear customs and have our bags, I’ll find a place to get one.”

  “How are you on cash?” She squeezes past me into the single file line at immigration.

  “Getting low. I have enough for a few more days. We’ll be okay.”

  “This won’t last a few more days. It’s going to be all over a lot sooner than that.” She takes a step forward in the line.

  “How would you know that?”

  “I don’t know.” She starts to run her hand through her hair before remembering it’s pulled back into a ponytail. “I’m just figuring that Blogis is already here. He’s got a piece of the process. We’ve got two piece—”

  “Speaking of which, we haven’t looked at the gift we got in Chernobyl. We don’t know what that is, right?”

  “I looked at it.” She takes another step closer to the red-vested immigration officer.

  “When did you do that?”

  “In the hotel room,” her eyes dart to the floor, “when you were downstairs.”

  “Well?”

  “It’s a hard drive,” she says, “and the only thing on it is a piece of the process.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “When were you going to tell me this?”

  “I just did,” she shrugs. “I wasn’t keeping it from you, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

  “Whatever.” I shake my head.

  “C’mon, Jackson…”

  “It doesn’t matter. So what’s left of the process? Now that we’ve got two pieces and Blogis has one, as you said.”

  “Well,” she says, “I can’t tell, by looking at the information I have, which two pieces we have. So there’s no way for me to know what’s left.”

  “Sir Spencer seemed to think there was maybe one piece left.”

  “I guess that’s possible,” she acknowledges. “We’ll figure that out when we get to Heidelberg. Here,” she hands me her phone, “take a look at this.”

  “What is it?” I’m staring at a screen full of mathematical equations.

  (v-c)/c = ƒt /(TOFfc – ƒt) = (2.48 } 0.28 (stat.) } 0.30 (sys.)) ~10-5.i ̄h ∂ ψ(r;t)=Hψ(r;t) (1) ∂t

  pˆ2c2 + m2c4 (2) ∂22224 i ̄h∂tψ(r;t)= − ̄h c ∇ +m c ψ(r;t) (3)

  2∂2 22 2 24− ̄h∂t2ψ(r;t)=− ̄hc∇+mc ψ(r;t) (4)1 ∂2 2 m2c2

  c2∂t2−∇+ ̄h2 ψ(r;t)=0 (5) 1∂2 2

  2 = c2 ∂t2 − ∇ (6) (h ̄ = c = 1) 2 + m2 ψ(xμ) = 0

  (7)∂2 . ∂2 − ̄h2 ψ(x; t) = − ̄h2c2 + m2c4 ψ(x; t) (8)∂t2 ∂x2

  2 ∂2 2− ̄h ∂t2 φ(t) = E φ(t) (10)

  “It’s a screen shot of the process piece.”

  I hand back the device. “It’s gibberish.”

  “Sure, but’s it’s part of the process. I recognize some of the equations. They’re similar to the work in the other part I have.”

  “Why are you showing me this?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I don’t want you thinking I’m keeping stuff from you, that’s all.”

  “Fair enough. Hey, it’s your turn.” A thick, squatty woman in a red vest and short sleeved white shirt waves for Bella to step to her counter.

  “See you on the other side,” she smiles.

  An Aryan looking man with a crewcut and thin wire-rimmed glasses calls me to his space. “Guten Morgen,” he says, looking at me over the tops of the glasses.

  “Good morning.” I hand him my passport.

  He takes the document and opens it to the identification page, “You are American…Mr. Curtis?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Welcome to Germany,” he says without looking at me. He references the passport while typing something into his computer. “Why is it you are visiting us here in Frankfurt?”

  “Business.”

  “What kind of business?” He continues to type, but glances over at me, studying me.

  “I’m a technology consultant. I work on computers.”

  He spins his chair to face me. “Where is your computer then?”

  “I don’t carry my own computer with me. I use whatever hardware the client provides. I’m on terminals so much during the work day, I ne
ed a break at night. So I don’t usually carry my laptop with me on trips.”

  “What kind of laptop?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “What kind of laptop do you have?” His eyes narrow and he leans forward.

  “Oh,” I say, “A Macbook Pro. Fifteen inch.”

  He returns to his computer. “How many days will you be here in Germany?”

  “I’m not sure,” I tell him. “It all depends on the client. It could be a couple of days or a couple of weeks.”

  “You are aware,” he informs me, “that if your stay exceeds ninety days, you will need a visa?”

  “I don’t expect to be here that long.”

  He looks at me for a moment past the point of being comfortable, tilts his head, and then punches the stamp into my passport. “Willkommen in Deutschland, Mr. Curtis.”

  “Danke,” I thank him and move past him to find Bella and baggage claim.

  ***

  The DHL Packstation is on a narrow residential street in what looks like an apartment building. I pull the Citroen Cactus into a curbside spot, working hard to spin the odd-shaped steering wheel back and forth.

  “I’ll be right back,” I tell Bella. “The package should be here.”

  Bella is sitting in the passenger seat, her belt strapped across her chest, thumbing through her phone. “Okay,” she says.

  The building is an off-white stucco or plaster with a series of four-paned windows trimmed in taupe. To the left of the building there are nicely manicured hedges that wrap the corner to the intersecting street. Centered along the building’s main entrance are a dozen wide concrete steps leading to a landing which runs maybe thirty feet across. There’s a woman walking a pair of shepherds down the steps past me as I climb to the landing. She ignores me, more concerned with not tangling herself in the dogs’ retractable leashes.

  Next to the main entrance, which is a large glass and chrome door, there’s a narrow glass door leading to the Packstation. Above the door there’s a yellow sign which reads DHL - 3 Furstenbergerstrasse 60322. This is the right place.

  I pull the chrome handle and swing the door open to a rush of cool air. Inside the fluorescent room is a high counter, a couple of chairs, a display rack of greeting cards, and a wall length case stuffed with shipping materials.

  “Guten tag!” says the cheerful young woman behind the counter. “Wie kann ich Ihnen helfen?”

  “Ich spreche nicht Deutsch. Ich spreche Englisch,” I respond sheepishly, telling her that I speak English, not German.

  “I speak English,” she says. “It is not a problem. May I help you?” Her English is good, though peppered with the throaty crispness of her native language.

  “Yes, please,” I tell her and hand her my packing slip.

  She looks at the slip and then at a printout on her side of the counter. She runs her finger down the page and then back up toward the top. “I don’t see that it is here,” she says with a sympathetic frown. “I will check in the back. We may have gotten it within the last few minutes.”

  “Thank you.” I lean against the counter with my elbows. There’s a clock directly above the door through which the clerk disappears. It’s eleven o’clock in the morning. It feels like midnight. My stomach has the jitters and my eyes are burning from fatigue. I notice a coffee maker on the far side of the room, beyond the spinning display of greeting cards, so I trudge over to the half-full pot and pour some of it into a white Styrofoam cup.

  The cup is warm in my hands, the steam pouring from the top as I take a quick slurp. It’s strong coffee, and hot enough to singe the tip of my tongue and the roof of my mouth.

  I blow on the cup, rippling the coffee, and walk back to the counter. The woman reappears from the back carrying the box I packed at the Hyatt Kiev a few hours ago.

  “It just arrived.” She dumps the box onto the counter with a cute grunt. “It wasn’t put into our arrival system yet.”

  “Thank you.” I reach for the box.

  “I see you found our coffee.” She motions with her eyes to the steaming cup. “It is typically too hot.”

  “Yeah,” I run my tongue on the roof of my mouth, “I found that out. Thank you anyhow.” I take the box and slide it under one arm while grabbing the coffee with my other. “Do I need to do anything else?”

  “No,” she says. “Thank you for using DHL.”

  I turn, with my arms full, and awkwardly find my way to the door, back into it, and push myself out onto the landing into the warm air, a muggy contrast to the overly-air conditioned office. I walk down the steps, blowing on the cup and taking another scalding sip of bitter caffeine, and step to the curb. Where I parked the car, there’s a gray Audi.

  Confused, I scan the cars along the curb and farther down the street to a white four-door hatchback.

  I must have parked farther away than I thought.

  That white car, however, is a Volkswagen, not a Citroen.

  What the —? Did Bella leave me here? She’s got my pack with my money, my supplies…

  The burner phone in my pocket buzzes.

  Still looking for my car, I put the box on the ground at my feet and fish for the phone.

  “Hello?” I press the phone to my ear without looking at the screen. “Bella?”

  “Jackson?” It’s Bella, her voice quivering. “Are you there?”

  “Bella, where are you? Why did you —?”

  “Jackson, I need you to —” Her voice is suddenly muffled, replaced with a deeper, guttural voice.

  “Jackson Quick?” A man’s voice.

  “Yes. Where’s Bella?”

  “I have her with me,” he says. “She does not have with her the thing I need.”

  “Who are you?”

  “You know who I am,” he says.

  “Why don’t you just come and get whatever it is you need?” There’s a cell phone on the edge of the sidewalk near the curb. “Why play this game?” It’s Bella’s phone, with the familiar floral Vera Bradley case. The screen is shattered. The Tile app won’t find her this time.

  “I am not careless, Jackson,” he says. “You are clearly a dangerous man, and it would not be wise for me to attack you in daylight, in front of a building with security cameras. I weighed the odds and took Bella.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.” I kneel down to rip open the top of the box, tossing the coffee to the cobblestone sidewalk. “You could’ve ambushed us both. Obviously you knew where we were and what we were doing.”

  “Jackson,” the Barry White deep baritone chides, “you are dangerous but not experienced. Why would I risk taking both of you in an uncontrolled environment, when I don’t know whether or not you have the process in your possession? You could die, she could die, and then I don’t get what I want.”

  I pull out the Tec-9, reassembling it before loading the magazine. The woman with her dogs walks by, shooting me a disapproving look as she climbs the steps to the building.

  “If I take the opportunity to relieve you of your partner,” he continues, “then I can control the time and place you bring me the pieces of the process I desire. More control, more success.”

  “You’re picking your spots.” I pull the Tec-9’s sling over my head and reach for the Smith & Wesson to reload it with shot shell.

  “Exactly,” he says.

  “Wait a second. Your flunkies have tried to kill us at least two or three separate times. Now you want us alive? What’s changed?”

  “I’ll be in touch.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “I recommend you answer the phone. Miss Buell’s life may depend on your ability to follow my instructions.”

  “Understood. But you’re assuming I can get the parts of the process you want.”

  “I have faith in you.” Liho Blogis ends the call.

  I slip the phone back into my pocket and pull the last objects out of the DHL box; the two hard drives containing pieces of the process.

  ***


  The DHL clerk isn’t as happy to see me as she was just a few minutes ago. It could be the semi-automatic machine pistol strapped across my back. Her eyes widen and she starts waving her hands at me, but I’m already behind the counter.

  “You have security cameras?”

  “Yes.” Her hands are over her head, her eyes twitching with fear. “Please take what you want.”

  “I’m not going to hurt you. My friend was just kidnapped. I need to see your security video.”

  “I will call the police for you,” she offers. “They can come here to —”

  “No!” I push my way past her into the back room. “The police will take too long. You can call them when I leave.”

  She maneuvers her way through the maze of yellow and red shipping boxes behind me, her trembling hands still above her head, to a closet in the far corner of the back room. “The security camera video comes to here.” She points to a pair of digital video recorders with accompanying monitors.

  “Which one is for the front door camera?”

  She pushes a button on the DVR to the left, and the display on the monitor comes to life. On the screen is a fisheye view of the street in front of the building.

  “You can put your hands down. I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.”

  She nods, her lips quivering, and lowers her hands. “Why do you have the guns?”

  “Long story. But I can assure you I only use them in self-defense.”

  She nods again, but doesn’t seem to be any more at ease.

  “Rewind that one.” I point to the exterior view. “When you see me parking my car and getting out, you can stop it.”

  She pushes a couple of buttons and the DVR runs backwards, the digital images on the monitor moving in reverse bursts. I see myself, armed, oddly walking away from the Packstation. Then I’m taking apart the Tec-9, closing the box, resealing the tape, wandering around backward, and walking backward into the building.

  The gray Audi pulls out of an empty curbside parking spot, and a moment later the white Citroen backs into the spot. Its doors open and Bella’s cell phone spills from the car, hitting the sidewalk and bouncing. Four men get out of the car, two of them from the back seats, one from the front passenger’s seat, and a tall man, broad shouldered with a white turtleneck and sunglasses exits from the driver’s seat. A moment later I’m walking backward and getting into the car, then pulling out of the spot and disappearing off of the screen.