The sedan stopped at the front gate and waited as it swung open, before entering the circular driveway to deposit Stefan at the front door. Although he preferred to let himself out, he waited for his security chief to open the door, nodding to the compact ex-Mossad agent as he climbed out.
“Thank you, Jacob. Any issues tonight.”
“All quiet, Senator.”
As Stefan climbed the steps, he was met at the front door by Ricardo, his Bolivian butler. Stepping past the slender, gray-haired man who had served Stefan’s family for more than half of his sixty years, Stefan held up a hand, anticipating the man’s question.
“Nothing tonight, Ricardo. I’m headed for bed.”
Ricardo nodded. “Should I pour your bath?”
Stefan started to say no, but then reconsidered.
“That would be good, thank you.”
Ten minutes later Stefan slid into the hot water and felt it ease muscles tightened by a long day sitting and listening to his illustrious colleagues pontificate. Of course, when it came to pontificating, Stefan could hold his own. It was the worry that had drained him.
Donning his warm pajamas, he climbed into bed and turned off the light. It seemed that his head hadn’t even hit the pillow when he awoke. A glance at the cyan numerals on his bedside clock gave him the bad news. 12:00 A.M. The witching hour.
The moonlight streaming through the bedroom windows bathed the figure sitting in his reading chair in an appropriately ghostly light.
“Hello, Stefan.”
The familiar voice broke the spell which had held Stefan breathless.
“For God’s sake, Jack. You scared the shit out of me.”
“These are scary times, Senator. Others are watching your house. And not just Jacob Bensheim.”
Pushing the remnants of sleep from his head, Stefan sat up and swung his legs off the side of the bed. “Jacob already warned me. It’s why I sent Miriam and the girls away.”
“You should have gone with her.”
“I have responsibilities here.”
“Is dying one of them?”
Stefan rose to his feet, walked to his liquor cabinet, and poured himself a glass of Chivas 25, straight up. He thought about offering Jack a drink, but why waste his breath? Instead, he carried his drink to the sitting area and took a seat across from The Ripper.
“What do you want Jack? Payment?”
“You know I never take payment until the job is done. I’m not finished.”
“Then why are you here?”
The silence that followed heightened Stefan’s discomfort, something he hoped a couple more swallows of the twenty-five-year-old scotch would alleviate.
“When you hired me to free Tupac Inti, you told me the neo-Nazis were going to murder him. I want to know why you lied to me.”
Feeling sweat bead on his brow despite the coolness of the room, Stefan took another drink and swallowed. It didn’t seem to be helping. It was strange how he feared this man more than he feared the neo-Nazis who wanted to kill him.
“It’s complicated.”
Stefan thought he saw a red glint in The Ripper’s eyes, but it must have been a trick of the moonlight.
“What I’m trying to say is that some things are easier to believe than others. I told you what I thought you could accept without laughing in my face.”
“Why would I do that?”
Stefan’s laugh came out like a hiss. “Because I hate Nazis! Because I’m a crazy Jew who believes Klaus Barbie’s bastard son is on the verge of accomplishing what his father’s beloved Führer failed to do.”
Again The Ripper fell silent. Stefan wasn’t surprised. That outburst hadn’t been something he’d planned, and it wasn’t likely to inspire confidence in his mental or emotional stability. Then again, why would someone with mental and emotional stability hire The Ripper? Stefan started to take another drink but felt his stomach rumble and set it aside.
When Stefan started talking, he found he couldn’t shut up. The story bubbled from his lips as though he’d just kissed the Blarney Stone. He told The Ripper everything he knew about Klaus Barbie and Conrad Altmann. He told Jack about all the things he believed but had no proof of. All the crazy bullshit poured from his lips in a rush that left him breathless.
When Stefan finally stopped talking, he looked at the moonlit killer sitting across from him, trying to spot some shred of evidence that he hadn’t just torpedoed his only hope of salvation.
When The Ripper stood, he spoke softly.
“I’ll look into it.”
Stefan watched as The Ripper walked to his cabinet, picked up the half-empty bottle of scotch, and then looked back at him.
“I’ve taken the liberty of booking first-class seats for you and Jacob on the 4:45 A.M. Avianca flight into Miami, with a connection to Tel Aviv. Make sure you’re on it.”
Stefan felt a sudden rush of hope tinged with guilt at the thought of abandoning his parliamentary position. But letting Altmann’s people kill him wouldn’t fulfill that position either. As he looked at The Ripper standing there in the semi-darkness, holding the Chivas bottle in his left hand, a new worry assailed him.
“But the men watching outside?”
The Ripper nodded and then turned toward the bedroom door.
“I’ll have a word with them on my way out.”
CHAPTER 33
Janet opened her eyes and turned her head to glance at the glowing numerals on her bedside clock. 1:59 A.M.
Throwing off her covers, she climbed out of bed, fully clothed. Slipping on a thick pair of dark socks, she decided to forgo putting on her boots. There was too great a chance they might squeak on the smooth tile floor. After sliding her hands into a pair of black leather gloves, she lifted her Glock from the nightstand and slid it into the elastic holster pocket in her black undershirt. No need to check it. She already knew the compact had a full magazine and one in the chamber. Even if she hadn’t checked it before going to bed, the weight of the familiar weapon would have told her.
Outside her window, the light of the full moon lit the courtyard, but it was too high overhead to cast direct light into her room. Janet took that, along with the fact that the clouds had cleared, as a good sign. It was funny how someone who lacked all superstition looked for good signs at a time like this. She preferred to regard it as positive thinking.
Pulling her double-edged black knife from its sheath, Janet checked its custom haft and then returned it to its side sheath. Stepping to her door, she paused several seconds to listen. Hearing nothing, Janet opened the door and stepped out into the large loft area that overlooked the family room below. The indirect moonlight that leaked in from the family room’s twenty-foot-tall, floor-to-ceiling windows provided just enough illumination for her to see the nearest of the ceiling-mounted reflective glass bubbles that housed Altmann’s security cameras.
As Janet stared up at it, she hoped that the eyes looking back at her belonged to Jonathan Riles and his team of NSA hackers. If so, Altmann’s security guards were watching loopback video of an empty loft area instead of preparing to trigger the estate’s alarm system. The small green LED on the adjacent networked smoke detector blinked several times. Dash dash dash . . . pause . . . dash dot dash. Janet recognized the Morse code for “OK” and smiled up at the camera.
Janet turned left, passing the elevator and the open spiral staircase on her left, her footsteps so soft on the tile that she couldn’t hear herself move. Just beyond the door to Altmann’s theater, she entered a short hallway that led to Altmann’s second-floor office. Right now that door was closed. Janet ignored the hand scanner, reached for the handle, and heard a click from its electronic lock.
Nice to know the home team was on its game.
Twisting the doorknob, she felt the latch release and pushed the door inward. Stepping inside, Janet softly closed the door behind her. Janet knew that this office was one of Conrad Altmann’s black zones, a space where he allowed no electrical devices that
weren’t already hardwired in. His security system was designed to detect any such device that crossed that threshold. The fact that there was no response to her entry further confirmed that the NSA now had total control of the Altmann estate’s security apparatus.
The curving glass walls at the south end of the office back-dropped Altmann’s desk, providing a magnificent view of the distant Mount Illimani, its glacier-capped peak reflecting the moonlight.
Janet pulled her knife from its sheath, gripped the haft with both hands, pressed two different places on the grip, and twisted. The rubber haft separated, revealing a two-inch device that vaguely resembled a memory stick. Unclipping it from its mount, Janet reassembled the knife and returned it to its sheath. Approaching the east wall, she pressed the topmost of three buttons on the device, an action that lighted a tiny red LED.
Starting at the north end of the room, Janet moved slowly south along the wall, moving the device up and down over the paintings and the bookshelves. Nothing.
Moving across the room to the west wall, Janet repeated the process with no better results. Crap. She’d been sure that Altmann would want to keep the crown piece close. She’d assumed she’d find it in an office safe. That presumed that Altmann had a safe in his office.
Shifting her attention to the floor, Janet bent low, working her way across the room in a back-and-forth pattern that cleared one six-foot-by-six-foot square at a time. Fifteen minutes passed, then twenty. Her frustration continued to grow.
A noise from the hall was followed by a soft click from the office door. The NSA had remotely locked it again. Not good.
Moving silently across the room, Janet curled her body into the footspace below Altmann’s desk. Pulling her Glock from its holster, she pressed her back against the teak front panel, stilled her breathing, and waited.
The sound of the lock disengaging told her who was outside. Conrad Altmann had pressed his hand against the scanner to unlock it. She heard the door open and Altmann step in. A second later the ceiling lights came on.
Altmann’s slippers made soft scuffing sounds on the tile as he walked directly to the east wall bookshelf and stopped. Her hearing tuned to the slightest sound, Janet heard a book being pulled from a shelf, heard it returned, and another extracted. The sound of Altmann licking a finger. The sound of turning pages. The slap of a hardcover closing. The sounds repeated, then repeated again.
“Damn. Where the hell did I put it?”
Janet looked across the gunsight, past Altmann’s chair, and let her index finger creep inside the trigger guard. From this angle she couldn’t see the bookcase or Altmann, but he’d have to cross her sightline if he walked behind his desk.
Suddenly, she heard more footsteps, followed by Dolf’s voice.
“Herr Altmann, is everything alright?”
“Couldn’t sleep. Busy mind. Thought I’d pick out something to read.”
“Something you didn’t have in your downstairs study?”
Janet heard Altmann laugh.
“Odd, isn’t it? I found myself craving a tome I keep up here.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“No. I’ve found what I was looking for. If Karl Marx doesn’t put me to sleep, nothing will.”
It was the first time Janet had heard Dolf Gruenberg laugh. She didn’t care to hear it again.
The two men walked to the door, the lights went out, and Janet heard the door close and lock. Sliding the Glock back into its holster pocket, Janet grabbed the small device she’d been using prior to the interruption, switched it on, and started to crawl out from underneath the desk. Two green LEDs stopped her.
Sweeping the device around the floor beneath the desk, she saw three green lights come on as she neared the right panel. Tapping the panel, she found no means of opening it. Instead she moved back to the front of the desk and reached for the lower drawer handle, expecting to pull out a file drawer. Instead, a door made to look like two file drawers swung outward. She found herself staring at a safe, illuminated by the dim moonlight.
An old-fashioned dial combination lock occupied the center of the steel door. Knowing Altmann’s aversion to electronics, that didn’t surprise her.
Pulling a pen light from her pocket, Janet switched it on, placed it in her teeth, and aimed its narrow beam at the dial. Janet pressed a switch on the small device she’d previously used to detect the safe’s presence, magnetically attaching it to the safe, just above the combination lock. Spinning the dial clockwise several times to clear it, she stopped on zero and then began slowly turning the dial counterclockwise. Four complete turns later, when she reached eleven, the first red LED illuminated. Three clockwise turns, and a second red LED brought her to a stop on sixteen. Another two turns counterclockwise produced another red light as the dial reached fifteen.
Janet removed her right hand from the dial and paused to pop her knuckles. Realizing what she’d just done, Janet chuckled at the subconscious act. She must have been watching too many movies.
She spun the dial clockwise one complete turn as she watched for the fourth LED to light up, something that happened at thirty-two. A final counterclockwise spin brought the dial to a hard stop. Janet reached for the lever and twisted, rewarded by the feel of the locking bars sliding into the open position. She pulled and the door smoothly swung open.
The sight that greeted her gaze brought a gasp to her lips. The size of a large Fabergé egg, the intricately etched golden sphere reflected the soft penlight in an almost magical way. No matter what equations this thing might hold the solutions to, Janet knew she was staring at an item of unimaginable value.
Pausing a second to memorize its exact location and orientation, Janet reached into the safe and carefully lifted the Incan orb from the cushion on which it rested. It was lighter than she imagined and, as she examined it more closely, she could see why. Mostly hollow, it was formed of stacked rings, between which she could glimpse intricate inner workings that reminded her of what she’d once seen on a tour of a Swiss watch factory. The symbols etched into and around each of the rings connected to different symbols above and below, the bottommost of these seeming to vainly reach for something that had been lost, no doubt the symbols on the missing silver staff.
Janet started to set the orb on the desktop and then reconsidered, reaching instead for its cushion, setting that on the desk before setting the crown piece atop it. Removing the penlight from her mouth, Janet switched it off and twisted its shaft to reveal the pinhole lens of a digital micro-camera. The low-light camera needed no flash, and she began taking a series of pictures as she moved slowly around the orb. After taking several more from above, Janet set the camera on the desk and turned the orb upside down. Then she took another complete set of pictures.
Satisfied, Janet stowed her tools and replaced the golden Incan orb on its cushion in the safe, taking care to return it to its original position. Closing the safe, she spun the dial twice, leaving it set on seventy-eight, just as she’d found it.
Janet closed the door that hid the safe within the desk, rearranged Altmann’s chair, and then took a final look around the office, just to verify that nothing was out of place.
As she reached the door, she heard the soft sound of the electric lock opening, mouthed a silent thank-you to her NSA fairy godmother, and walked silently back to her room. As she slipped beneath the covers, consciously releasing the tension that had accumulated in her shoulders, Janet started to place her Glock on the nightstand, but then reconsidered.
Tucking the 9mm pistol beneath her pillow, Janet lay her head down and closed her eyes. Tonight she would snuggle up with the only lover she’d had since Jack Gregory. Tomorrow she would set out to find him.
CHAPTER 34
“Gone! What the hell do you mean, gone?”
Setting his coffee down on the table, Altmann felt the blood rush into his face as he rose to his feet. Dolf Gruenberg towered over him, as inscrutable as if he’d just informed Altmann that the kitchen wa
s out of eggs for breakfast.
“Sir, according to Avianca Airlines, first-class passengers Stefan Rosenstein and Jacob Bensheim departed El Alto International Airport at 4:45 A.M., bound for Miami, Florida, with connections through Atlanta to Tel Aviv.”
“Where the hell were Lars and Thomas while this was going on? Sleeping?”
“In a manner of speaking. Police found them in Lars’s car this morning, both dead with gunshots to the head. There was a half-empty bottle of scotch sitting on the console between them.”
Altmann cursed, turning his back on Dolf as he moved to stand by the pool. He looked out toward the city but beheld the mental image of the dead men and the bottle of scotch.
“Were they drunk?”
“Police don’t have the blood tests back, but unless they suddenly decided to splurge on a twenty-five-year-old bottle of Chivas, I wouldn’t bet on it.”
Pacing slowly back and forth, Altmann rolled this new information around in his head. Stefan Rosenstein was known to favor that brand and vintage of scotch. Add that to the senator’s hasty departure in the company of his ex-Mossad bodyguard, and the pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place. Although Jacob Bensheim was good, it was a safe bet that he hadn’t killed Altmann’s men. Someone else in Senator Rosenstein’s employ had done that. The Ripper.
Altmann stopped pacing and turned back to face Dolf.
“Where is Janet Mueller?”
“She packed a few of her things in a small backpack and left before sunrise. It looked like she was headed out to collect the bounty on Gregory. The funny thing was she didn’t take her fancy sniper rifle.”
“How did she leave?”
“She asked for a car, and I gave her one of ours.”
“And where is it now?”
“According to the GPS tracker, it’s parked a block from the police headquarters. The man I assigned to follow her reported that she parked the car on the street and then boarded a downtown city bus. Somewhere along the bus route, he lost track of her.”
Altmann nodded. He’d come to expect nothing less from Janet Mueller. At least that part of this was going as he intended.
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