As the other men looked on, the big albino grasped the cabinet and tore it free from the bolts that secured it in place, toppling it onto one of the scattered bodies. Low on the wall where the empty schrank had stood, a crawl space opened into darkness.
Without having to be told what Altmann expected, Dolf crawled into the opening, Sig P226 in one hand and his flashlight in the other. Without waiting for the foot soldiers, Altmann followed him inside.
Resembling an extremely narrow mineshaft, the crawl space was braced by rotting four-by-fours and planking that leaked dust between the cracks each time the men bumped against them. Ignoring the damage the crawl was doing to his expensive shoes and clothes, Altmann let his anticipation pull him deeper underground.
Twenty feet in, a minor cave-in had blocked the passage. Not completely, but enough that it forced them to a stop. Dolf worked to clear enough of the rock to allow him to wriggle through the tight opening.
“Sir, let me have my men clear this. It’ll only take a few minutes.”
Altmann shook his head. “I’m not waiting for anything. Keep moving.”
Ten feet beyond the collapsed section, illuminated by the narrow flashlight beam, the cramped tunnel opened into a much larger space. Seconds later, relieved to be standing, Altmann watched as Dolf’s flashlight beam swept the room. At first, Altmann thought it was a small natural cave, but as more of his men entered the room, adding their flashlights to the illumination, it became clear that the crude shape was the result of hasty construction.
That, at least, made sense. In those final days leading up to Klaus Barbie’s arrest and extradition to France, the Nazi mastermind had acted in desperation to hide Hitler’s greatest artifact, one that Pizarro had captured as he conquered the Incan empire. It was ironic. Hitler’s search for items of mystic power had yielded one that had been the real thing, but he had never recognized its true purpose. But in those last days, Klaus Barbie had figured it out. Throughout the years when he worked for the American intelligence services, immediately following the fall of Nazi Germany, he had carefully guarded his secret. And when the Americans had relocated Klaus to Bolivia to keep him out of French hands, he had brought the artifact with him, returning it to the land of its origin.
Now Klaus Barbie’s heir was on the verge of claiming it for himself. Somewhere in this secret storage vault, it lay amid these stacks of boxes. Altmann could feel its presence. Standing to one side, he gave the order that put his men into action.
“Empty them all. Nothing goes untouched.”
“And if we don’t find it?” Dolf asked.
Altmann gritted his teeth. “Then we’ll touch everything again, and then again, until we find it. I will not leave this place without it.”
Dolf’s eyes showed that he understood what Altmann had left unsaid. And neither will anyone else.
CHAPTER 4
Levi Elias walked into the NSA director’s office knowing that Admiral Jonathan Riles wouldn’t be happy with the information he was about to deliver.
The admiral looked up, his ice-gray eyes locking with Levi’s. “Yes?”
“Sir, Dr. Jennings has informed me that Big John has a hit on a high-priority target in Bolivia.”
“Tupac Inti?”
“Yes, sir.”
Levi felt his boss’s gaze intensify at this confirmation.
“I thought he was in Palmasola prison.”
Levi nodded. “He still is.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“A new inmate.”
The lift of Admiral Riles’s left eyebrow indicated his loss of patience. “Your point?”
“Yesterday, the inmate, one Jack Frazier, killed a handful of neo-Nazis in a prison gang fight. Big John has placed a 0.984 correlation of this incident to Jack Gregory.”
“The Ripper’s in Palmasola?”
“Denise Jennings believes it.”
“Do you?”
For a moment, Levi considered his answer. “I do.”
The admiral paused, lost in thought. When he broke his half-minute silence, his eyes stabbed Levi. “Get Janet Price.”
Levi hesitated. Since they’d enticed her away from the CIA, Janet Price had been the NSA’s most valuable asset. Now, for the second time, Admiral Riles was about to launch her into action associated with the ex-CIA assassin known as The Ripper.
“She’s in Mozambique.”
“I don’t care. For some reason, The Ripper’s going for Inti. Christ, I don’t know why we pay billions for a system like Big John when we could just plant a GPS tracker on Jack Gregory. That man has a missile lock on trouble.”
“Anything else?”
“I want Janet on a flight out tonight.”
“It’s 2:00 A.M. in Mozambique.”
Once again Levi felt the weight of his boss’s gaze. “If she’s asleep, wake her up and get her ass in the air. How long will it take to get a jet there from Pretoria?”
“I can have one at Maputo International Airport within three hours.”
“Get Janet airborne thirty minutes after it lands. I want her in Bolivia, but by way of Athens.”
“The Golden Dawn?” Levi knew the answer to his question, even as he asked it. The Golden Dawn was Greece’s third-largest political party, one with very strong neo-Nazi ties. Those ties extended beyond borders to other such organizations, even Bolivia’s UJC.
“Have her new identity waiting when she arrives. Turn the screws on our man inside the organization. Her background has to stand up to UJC scrutiny.”
“It’ll put him at risk.”
“It can’t be helped.” The admiral paused. “And Levi . . .”
“Yes, sir?”
“I know Janet had a thing with Gregory. Make sure she understands exactly what’s at stake here.”
“She’s a professional. I’ll brief her in Athens.”
But as Levi walked out of the NSA director’s office, he knew Admiral Riles had a very good reason to worry. As much as Levi wanted to deny it, Jack “The Ripper” Gregory scared the hell out of him.
CHAPTER 5
Although outsiders believed that most Bolivian immigrants of German descent had Nazi connections, they were wrong. In the late 1930s, tens of thousands of Jews fled Germany to Chile and from there to Bolivia via a train dubbed the Jewish Express. Stefan Rosenstein’s grandparents had been among them.
If not for his decision to hire The Ripper, Stefan would now be a broken and lonely man, a Bolivian senator robbed of his most prized possessions, the lives of his wife and twin daughters. The Ripper had not come cheap, but it was the best money Stefan had ever spent. Now, just over a year and a half later, Stefan had called on The Ripper’s services once again.
Ironically, this move had been triggered by the very government Stefan had helped usher into office. It amazed him how paranoia could paralyze those in power, or worse, drive them to act in diametrically opposed fashion to the ideals that had put them there. In this case it was the Bolivian president’s fear of one man, Tupac Inti.
Instead of supporting the charismatic shaman, President Cayo Suarez had ignored the neo-Nazi frame-up that resulted in Tupac Inti’s arrest and had worked the judicial system to keep Tupac in jail, perpetually awaiting trial on trumped-up sedition charges. But what had triggered Stefan to hire The Ripper for one last job was his discovery of a planned neo-Nazi attempt to kidnap Tupac Inti from Palmasola.
“Stefan. It’s after midnight.”
Stefan looked up from his laptop to see his wife, Miriam, clad in her blue nightgown, standing in the doorway.
“I just need to send a couple more e-mails.”
“I’m sure no one will read them tonight.”
Stefan glanced down at his computer and hesitated, glad that she couldn’t see that he had a news story open in his browser instead of his e-mail. When he raised his eyes again, Stefan nodded.
“I’ll be along in a minute.”
Miriam raised an eyebrow as if she was about to sa
y something and then turned toward their bedroom, her bare feet producing soft swishing sounds on the hallway’s tile floor.
As he reached over to put the laptop to sleep, Stefan’s eyes were once again drawn to the headline from Santa Cruz.
“Palmasola Prison Fight Leaves Three Dead, One Horribly Blinded”
Switching it off, Stefan rose from his chair and followed in his wife’s footsteps. Although he knew his mind was too busy for sleep, he could at least lie there and keep her company. Maybe her gentle breathing could lull the worries from his mind.
Undressing, he climbed into bed. As Stefan spooned up against Miriam’s warm body and put his arm around her, the images of the dead men in that prison yard replayed in his head. But it was the image of the eyeless survivor that lingered. Although he knew that he should have been prepared for this, he wasn’t. As he’d done once before, Stefan had knowingly unleashed The Ripper.
CHAPTER 6
Janet Price stepped off the bottom step of the NSA corporate jet onto the tarmac at Athens International Airport and paused to raise her hands above her head, stretching her lean, five-foot-ten-inch body in the cool February afternoon sunlight. Clad in form-fitting black jeans, blouse, and boots, she unpinned her newly blond hair. It cascaded onto her shoulders in a way that framed a face that somehow managed to draw men’s eyes away from her dancer’s body.
Nodding to the man who handed her the duffle bag, she smiled, the easy self-confidence with which she carried herself masking the danger behind those laughing eyes. As she walked toward the terminal, she breathed in the Greek air. Her last memory of Greece had been in Heraklion, Crete. She’d watched Jack Gregory turn and walk away along the beautiful inner harbor, the tail of his white cotton shirt flapping over his loose-fitting cotton pants, the wind ruffling his brown hair.
She remembered Jack’s words after she’d tried to recruit him to the NSA.
“Believe me. Long term, you don’t want me anywhere around you.”
But Jack had been wrong about that. And now she might be forced to kill him, assuming that killing Jack “The Ripper” Gregory was even possible. Hopefully she wouldn’t have to find out.
By the time she’d cleared customs and made her way via cab to the Hotel Amalia, Janet was ready to settle into her room, take a long bath, and catch a few hours of sleep. The hotel’s modern atmosphere stood in stark contrast to the ancient Greek architecture that surrounded it. That Levi Elias had booked her a room this close to the Greek parliament building was surprising. Then again, sometimes the best-known locations were the least conspicuous.
But as she tossed her duffel on the green bedspread atop the king-size bed, her cell phone rang. Picking it up, she noted the caller ID. Levi Elias. Hearing the slight hiss associated with the encrypted call, Janet answered.
“Yes, Levi?”
“I see you’ve checked in.”
“Yes. I was just about to take a bath and close my eyes for a while.”
“Make it a quick shower. You’ve got a meeting with Ammon Gianakos an hour and fifteen minutes from now. I assume you read the packet.”
“That’s why I didn’t sleep on the plane.”
“He’ll be waiting at the Acropolis Museum. Walk around, see the sights, and listen. He’ll fill you in on everything else you need to know about Golden Dawn’s relationship with the UJC and Conrad Altmann. One more thing. We had to play all our cards to keep him in line on this one. He’s not happy.”
“So long as he gives me what I need, I don’t care.”
“Just a heads up. Sometimes even someone you own can be pushed too far.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
Arriving at the Acropolis Museum ten minutes early, Janet mixed with the tourists as she waited for her contact to arrive. Ammon Gianakos had risen to become the Golden Dawn’s top enforcer, a position not usually associated with a NATO country’s third-largest political party. But, far from being dead, neo-Nazi organizations across Europe and South America were in the process of reestablishing footholds within the halls of political power. Although the Golden Dawn attempted to maintain plausible deniability in its ties to the Greek neo-Nazi movement, those efforts were thinly veiled at best.
When Gianakos appeared, he made no attempt to hide his arrival. Twin black limousines pulled into the parking lot, disgorging a handful of muscular, dark-suited bodyguards, each sporting sunglasses and the earpieces that made such security details so visibly intimidating. Last to step out of the second car, clad in an elegantly comfortable beige sports jacket, open-collared white shirt, and pre-faded jeans, Gianakos scanned the crowd.
Ignoring the stares of curious tourists, he turned his prematurely graying head toward Janet. Having acquired his target, the man actuated a practiced, easy smile. Echoing the false greeting, Janet watched as Gianakos issued brief instructions to the head of his security detail and then left them to walk toward her.
Janet met him halfway, and like two close business associates, they turned to walk together around the exterior of the modern glass and concrete structure. As they passed out of earshot of nearby tourists, the casual small talk transformed into something else entirely. And though Gianakos’s face maintained its pleasant expression, his gray eyes acquired an angry glint.
“I told your superiors that I don’t like being threatened.”
Janet met that gaze as casually as if he’d just commented on the weather. “I don’t make threats.”
“You are the threat.”
“But you’re not my target.”
“Meaning what?”
“You do your part and you’ll never see me again.”
Gianakos stared at her for several seconds, hesitated, and then reached into his brown leather valise, extracting a large manila envelope and handing it to her. Without glancing inside, Janet nodded, smiled, and shook his extended right hand.
Together they turned to walk back toward the parking lot, once again engaged in pleasant conversation. Then, as Gianakos climbed into the second limousine, Janet slid into the backseat of the lead car, accompanied by two of Gianakos’s bodyguards. Her car pulled out of the parking lot, turning south onto Mitseon, as the trail car carried Gianakos in the opposite direction.
Janet glanced back to watch the other black vehicle disappear around a corner, before turning her attention to the trip that lay ahead. A brief stopover to collect her bags and then she’d let these Golden Dawn thugs escort her back to the airport.
After all, she had a date in Bolivia. She could study on the plane. Sleep would have to wait awhile longer.
CHAPTER 7
Tupac Inti had something that was extremely rare here in the crowded prison town of Palmasola—a private cell. Maybe it was because of some sense of guilt that President Suarez felt about imprisoning a prominent member of his own Quechua tribe. Or perhaps it was because someone feared that he might attract a local following that could challenge the existing criminal hierarchy in this prison town. But as Tupac watched the armed Disciplina Interna thug unlock his eight-by-eight cell and usher him out, he suspected that there was another reason behind his isolation.
Despite his leveled pistol, the gangster stayed well back from Tupac as he stepped onto the walkway outside his cell. A glance down into the junction of three alleys revealed more activity than normal for this early in the morning. Beneath an overhang in the alley that led off to the north¸ one of the many sanctioned drug dealers sold cocaine at a tenth of the street price to customers who had cash. A dozen feet beyond the drug dealers, ignoring the children who kicked a can down the alley, were prostitutes who had bribed their way out of Palmasola’s women’s section, actively engaged in satisfying the needs of their own customers.
Reaching the stairway, Tupac allowed himself to be ushered down and out among the other inmates who filled the courtyard. Aided by his great height, Tupac scanned the milling crowd, his eyes seeking those within the throng that meant to do him harm. The random crowd movement bothered him as much a
s being removed from his cell to join them. It meant that Tupac wasn’t the only one who had been rousted from his cell, that others were even more confused than he was.
Moving south across the yard, he moved past the junction of two long brick buildings to look down one of the wider streets that passed through the prison town. Wherever he looked, inmates issued into the streets. Obviously this had nothing to do with Tupac. So why did he feel so certain that it did?
“If you want to live, come with me.”
The voice at his side surprised Tupac, but not as much as his recognition of the speaker. It was the killer he’d watched dismantle the UJC death squad. Although the man’s Spanish accent wasn’t native to Bolivia, it could have been Argentine. Clad in stained jeans and a loose-fitting cotton shirt that hid the crazy quilt of scars Tupac had seen on his chest and back, the man had brown eyes that showed no hint of deception.
“Why?”
“We have very little time. Believe me or not. Make a choice.”
Without waiting for an answer, the man turned down the street that led south. Making a decision driven by curiosity and instinct, Tupac followed. As he watched the man move through the crowd, Tupac marveled at the ease with which he passed through the inmates without drawing undo attention. Only a small fraction of the four thousand men, women, and children that populated the prison town of Palmasola had seen this killer in action, so it wasn’t surprising that he could move about unrecognized.
The same couldn’t be said for Tupac. As it did wherever he went, his great size drew stares from all those he passed.
The man he followed turned west on a side street, Tupac’s long strides matching his increased pace.
Then a massive explosion rocked the north side of the compound.
For a second, the entire inmate population of Palmasola froze in place. What followed was a mad rush toward the sound of the explosion. A smattering of distant gunfire indicated that the outside guards were attempting to stop a flood through a breach in the north wall.
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