So, despite the threat The Ripper posed, the operation would continue, and Tupac Inti would get the chance to play his part. Janet Price would make certain of that.
CHAPTER 24
Stripped naked, Tupac Inti stood on the damp concrete floor of the dark underground cell, his manacled hands and feet chained to the wall. The chains denied him rest, holding a promise of worse treatment yet to come. Tupac held no illusions of the humanity of his captors. Though Conrad Altmann needed Tupac alive, that didn’t mean the neo-Nazi’s UJC goons wouldn’t hurt him. Just a taste at first, followed by an offer of relief if Tupac told Altmann what he wanted to know. After that, the cycle would repeat until Tupac’s resistance finally broke.
But then Tupac had known this was coming since that day, three years ago, when he’d made his deal with the NSA. It was all part of the master plan. Though Admiral Riles hadn’t anticipated that Tupac would be left in prison for eighteen months, no plan ever went exactly as intended. Apparently it had taken Altmann longer than the NSA had thought to find his father’s hidden artifact. Whatever the cause, as long as Tupac got what he’d been promised, he was fine with it.
Tupac had watched his father die heartbroken that his son had abandoned his ancestral destiny for the military life. Now it was time to pay the penance the old gods demanded of him.
His thoughts turned to the man called Jack who had rescued him from Palmasola prison. Something about Jack had enticed Tupac to go off-plan and escape, even though he had intended to let the UJC capture him then and there. It had been a crazy risk, but the shaman had sensed an otherworldly energy in the man. And though Tupac did not know what role Jack would play in this, Tupac felt certain he would see him again. Destiny was about to come full circle.
Bracing his arms and legs, Tupac tightened his core, letting that tension seep outward into the muscles that powered his mighty limbs. Clenching his fists, Tupac increased the power his arms exerted on the chains, feeling his body lift from the floor until it was suspended in a close approximation of a gymnast’s iron cross. When the bolts that secured the chains to the wall groaned and began to give, Tupac relaxed and let his body settle back to the floor.
Escape would come only after he had what he’d come for. In the meantime, Tupac would endure the worst these neo-Nazi bastards had to offer.
CHAPTER 25
Conrad Altmann looked up as Dolf Gruenberg rapped on the open office door to signal his presence. Leaning back from the large teak desk covered with the papers he’d been reviewing, Altmann motioned for his lieutenant to enter.
“Leave your cell phone outside, and close the door behind you.”
“I left the phone in my car.”
It was their routine, always the same reminder, always the same response. But with Altmann’s knowledge of the worldwide extent of NSA snooping on all forms of electronic communication, there was no such thing as being too careful. It was the reason that, other than electric lights and a coffeemaker, he allowed no electronic appliances in his spacious private office or in any of the other designated black zones he sprinkled around each of his compounds. And whenever he and his people communicated via cell phone or e-mail, they only relayed information that Altmann wanted the NSA to get.
Dolf seated himself in an easy chair opposite Altmann.
“Inti has been secured in our compound outside Cochabamba.”
Altmann grinned. “Good. I hope you made him nice and comfortable.”
“Lap of luxury.”
“What about Janet Mueller?”
“She’s here. I told her to wait outside.”
Altmann stood and leaned forward to rest his palms on his desk. Dolf had come to this meeting knowing his boss wanted answers to some hard questions, and Altmann would wait no longer to ask them.
“I send two helicopters, eleven of my best men, and one woman to get Inti, and here you come, limping back on one shot-up helicopter with only three men and the woman.”
“And Inti,” Dolf said, his face showing no emotion.
Grabbing a glass paperweight from his desk, Altmann hurled it past Dolf’s head to shatter against the bookshelves behind him. The big man never flinched. Altmann doubted he would have flinched even if the paperweight had hit him.
“Would you mind telling me how one man managed to kill seven of my foot soldiers and blow up one of my helicopters, along with its pilot?”
Dolf’s pale eyes remained locked with Altmann’s as he spoke. “As we flew away, Janet Mueller recognized the man. He’s an ex-CIA assassin named Jack Gregory. Now he runs a one-man mercenary operation, hiring out to the highest bidder. His clients know him as ‘The Ripper’.”
“The Ripper? What a pretentious ass.”
“Maybe, but he’s one dangerous son of a bitch.”
“How does Janet Mueller know him?”
“She said the Golden Dawn had some trouble with him last year. I checked with Ammon Gianakos, and he said The Ripper killed one of their Polish business partners.”
Altmann paused, stroking his beard as he considered this new information.
“Tell me, now that you’ve personally observed Janet Mueller in action, what do you think of her?”
Dolf’s eyes narrowed slightly. “She’s as cool and decisive as anybody I’ve ever seen. She was the one who first figured out the kind of man we were up against. I don’t like saying this, but if she hadn’t been there, I doubt any of us would have made it out of that jungle alive.”
“So you trust her?”
“Not in the least.”
Altmann felt a grin return to his face at the blunt answers from his lieutenant. It’s what he liked about Dolf—straight talk, no bullshit. Good news or bad, Altmann could always count on Dolf to say exactly what he thought.
“Okay then. Here’s how I want you to play it. Assume she’s working someone else’s agenda. I don’t care whether it’s the Golden Dawn, CIA, or NSA. Feed her just the information we don’t mind them learning about, just enough to keep them from guessing we’re onto their game. In the meantime, put her to the test.”
“How do you propose to do that?”
“Let’s find out just how far she’s willing to go. Send her after Gregory. And get ahold of General Montoya. Give him Jack Gregory’s name, description, and tell him I said to have his intel people dig into Gregory’s background. I want a full-blown dragnet. Gregory is to be killed on sight.”
Dolf nodded. “Anything else?”
“I want our people hunting Gregory too. I’m too close to success to let a rogue screw things up.”
Dolf turned to walk toward the door, but Altmann stopped him, allowing his anger to edge into his voice.
“And Dolf?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Don’t let The Ripper make me doubt you again.”
This time Altmann saw it in the albino’s pale eyes. A barely contained killing rage. For a moment, Altmann gripped the pistol holstered beneath his desk, wondering if he’d pressed his lieutenant too far. Then Dolf turned on his heel and walked out of the office.
CHAPTER 26
Janet Price didn’t like inactivity. She didn’t like being cut out of the loop either. It was no great surprise that Conrad Altmann didn’t trust her. He didn’t want to do anything that would strain relations between his neo-Nazi groups and the Golden Dawn. So instead of directly opposing her, Altmann was keeping her at arm’s length. Despite having been allowed on the capture mission, she hadn’t been informed where Inti had been taken after their return. That just meant she’d have to work harder.
On this cool, misty morning, seated alone on the patio as two of Altmann’s native household staff served her breakfast, Janet played her part, offering a “no thank-you,” dismissing their excellent efforts as one of their betters would be expected to act. It made her want to pull the Glock from beneath her black leather jacket and shoot the next neo-Nazi bastard she saw.
That person turned out to be Dolf.
“Finish your meal
. Herr Altmann wants you to do a favor for him.”
Janet lifted her cappuccino, sipping it casually before setting the cup back in its saucer.
“I don’t do favors. If he’s offering me a job, I need to hear what it is. Then, if I like it, we can discuss price.”
Dolf smacked his huge right hand flat on the table in front of her, and Janet stuck a knife into the wood surface between his two middle fingers.
When he jerked away, a thin trickle of blood wept down his hand. Dolf’s jaw muscles clenched as the veins in his temples bulged.
“Do something like that again and I’ll break your pretty little neck.”
Janet pulled her knife from the table and wiped its blade on the white cloth napkin.
“Next time I’ll cut something off.”
Leaning back in her chair, she continued, “But you’re not going to do it again, are you, Dolf? Because my boss wouldn’t like it. That means your boss wouldn’t like it. So, I recommend you knock off the bullshit and get down to business.”
Looking into those cold, dead eyes, Janet found herself hoping that Dolf would yield to temptation. Instead, he sat down across from her, the change in the man so dramatic that, except for the blood that continued to seep from the webbing between his fingers, a passing stranger would think they had been amiably chatting.
“Herr Altmann wants you to kill Jack Gregory.”
“A dangerous job,” Janet smiled. “It carries a dangerous price.”
“Name it.”
“Eight hundred thousand euros, payable after the job is done.”
Dolf laughed. “Give me a serious number.”
“I gave you my number. Altmann can take it or leave it.”
“No man is worth that much.”
“Then you kill him.”
Dolf grabbed a napkin, wiped the blood from his hand, and stood.
“I’ll tell him. You might not like his response.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
Dolf grinned.
“You already are.”
Janet watched him walk away, the tension in the big man’s back threatening to split the seams of his tailored jacket. One way or another, she was about to get back in action.
CHAPTER 27
Even in the dark hour before dawn, Jack could tell it would be a warm Friday here in the Bolivian lowlands. It had been two days since Jack had watched Janet Price fly away in that helicopter full of neo-Nazis, two days since he’d lost Tupac Inti. After ditching the Ford Explorer, Jack had purchased a used Honda Shadow motorcycle and then paid a month’s rent for this small house on the outskirts of Santa Cruz.
Being back in the city where this all started was good for a couple of reasons. The authorities didn’t expect pursued individuals to return to the town from which they’d just escaped. More important, it was one of the biggest cities in Bolivia, which made it easy to go unnoticed.
Jack had spent the last two days outfitting himself with the supplies he would need in order to start fixing the mess he’d made of this mission. First, he needed answers. He knew people who could get him what he needed, but they were only available via very secure communications links and didn’t come cheap. But, unlike back in his days with the CIA, money was no longer one of Jack’s problems.
He would have to arrange transfers from one of his Cayman Island accounts into other numbered accounts. To do that he needed to make use of one of the satellite Internet accounts of his Shell Corporation. The small satellite dish he’d attached to the north-facing back wall gave him part of that capability. The software he was installing on the laptop would do the rest.
It was slow work, but necessary. Having seen firsthand the NSA’s involvement in this, Jack knew that he would need to take extraordinary precautions.
He physically disconnected the new laptop’s internal microphone and camera and then performed a multipass wipe of its solid-state drive. Now Jack booted the system from a special USB dongle and installed a clean version of the Linux operating system, a bare-bones Internet browser, and an encryption package that he was confident even the NSA couldn’t hack, at least not until they managed a major breakthrough in quantum computing.
Waiting for the lengthy installation to complete, Jack stood, walked over to the coffee pot and poured himself a brimming cup of Bolivia’s finest. Taking a slow sip of the strong black liquid, he leaned back against the old counter and examined his new abode. Its eight hundred and fifty square feet consisted of two rooms. This one served as living room, dining room, and kitchen, with no divider between any of the rooms. At one time, the obscured pattern on the worn linoleum floor might have been floral. The years of water stains from the leaky roof had combined with general wear and tear to make such a judgment no better than a guess.
But the place had electricity to power the stove, a refrigerator, his laptop, and this newly purchased coffee pot.
This room’s meager furnishings consisted of a sagging brown couch, a metal-legged table, and two dining chairs, one of which was stable enough to allow Jack to sit without fear of it tipping over or collapsing. There was a phone jack in the wall next to the couch, but no end table or phone. The entry door and a four-foot-square window occupied the south wall. Another door on the east wall stood open, granting access to the bedroom and its small bathroom. The north wall had no windows, only a door that opened into a tiny, overgrown backyard surrounded by a high chain-link fence that a thick growth of vines had rendered opaque.
All in all, adequate accommodations.
Walking back to the table, Jack glanced at the installation progress bar on the laptop’s display . . . thirty-seven percent complete. Christ. He hated waiting. But like his daily meditation and workout routine, patience was one of the many disciplines he’d enforced on himself over time.
For more than a year, he’d worked harder than ever on imposing self-discipline, hoping it would quiet the fire that raged within. Always gifted with an uncanny intuition after that Calcutta night, Jack had experienced an amped-up state of consciousness. In combat, it let him anticipate an opponent’s move as his enemy decided upon it. If that had been the only side effect, it would have been fine. But Jack sensed danger, and he hungered for it with a ferocity that threatened his self-control, threatened his sanity. And each time he yielded to those impulses, whether from necessity or weakness, the greater that hunger became.
It was the reason Jack had rejected the offer Janet Price had made in Heraklion, Crete. It was the reason he’d walked away, leaving her seated at that harbor café, when he’d really wanted to stay. Seeing her again had brought those suppressed memories flooding back, and right now, that was a distraction he didn’t need. What he needed to know was why the NSA had sent her here. Why was she helping the neo-Nazis?
Jack knew that Conrad Altmann ruled Bolivia’s neo-Nazi organizations with an iron fist, that the man’s corrupt tentacles extended into the Bolivian police, military, and even parts of the government. The combination of high intelligence, big money, and ruthlessness generally yielded those results, even in the countries of the first world. These were traits to be expected of Klaus Barbie’s bastard son.
These were the traits that had led American intelligence to protect the Butcher of Lyon after he’d been captured at the end of World War II. The United States had done much more than protect Klaus Barbie; they’d hired him and set him up with a secret house and support staff in Germany, all because they knew how exceptional the Nazi was at infiltrating foreign intelligence organizations. And the Americans had been well rewarded for their efforts as Barbie identified secret Soviet operatives throughout the eastern and western European countries.
It was the reason why, when the French discovered that the U.S. was protecting Barbie and demanded his extradition, the American government helped him escape to Bolivia. Little wonder that he’d seeded the neo-Nazi movement in this new land with his capabilities. Little wonder that Barbie’s son had mastered his father’s techniques.
What Jack hadn’t figured out was why Altmann hadn’t had Tupac killed. He could have ordered it done in Palmasola prison. His men could have killed Tupac instead of loading him onto a helicopter and flying him away. If Altmann needed information from the big Quechua shaman, why had he waited a year and a half to grab him from Palmasola? Why now?
A glance at his laptop showed that the installation had completed. Good.
Having established the link that logged him onto his satellite Internet service, Jack launched the encrypted voice-over IP chat session. It was time to get some high-priced answers.
Two hours later, having shut down the laptop, Jack slipped into his brown leather jacket, grabbed his helmet, and walked outside, locking the front door behind him. At a little past 8:00 A.M., the jacket already felt too warm. But where he was going, it wouldn’t be.
Pulling on his dark-visored helmet, Jack started the motorcycle, gunned the 750cc engine, and let the black bike carry him away from Santa Cruz.
CHAPTER 28
Stepping off his personal helicopter, Conrad Altmann felt the rotor wash blow his hair against his neck and face before he moved away from the whirling blades to the open-handed greeting of Renaldo Rodriguez, the foreman of Altmann’s fortified Cochabamba estate.
“So good to see you, Herr Altmann.”
Altmann nodded. “I hear all is well.”
“I think you’ll find it to your liking.”
The son of mixed parents, Renaldo had his mother’s fair complexion and his father’s work ethic. Those traits combined with a genial nature to yield a man that Altmann genuinely liked, to the surprise of some of his fellow neo-Nazis. Altmann’s devotion was to the National Socialist Party, not to the white race. Although he would never have admitted it to other party members, he knew, as had his father, that Hitler’s vision of the master race had been wrong. There was certainly a master race; it just wasn’t human.
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