‘From a German?’ It was Sam’s turn. ‘You should try ten hours riding the waves sitting on a rubber and plastic contraption powered by 1000 horses. Follow that by a ten-k hike, and then more eggs and coffee than I really needed - all on no sleep.’
‘Sorry, Sam.’ He smiled. ‘It’s easy for me in my air-conditioned cellar having slept under, how did you say, a duvet the size of Hampshire? And a breakfast fit for a king.’
‘Wiltshire, actually. And you’re a count, not a king.’
‘Indeed.’
Having expended any tension, they both brought each other up to date. Sam gave a cursory overview of her escape, which she attributed almost entirely to the man wearing the Dolphins baseball cap.
‘Who do you think he was working for?’
‘Dunno. Other than “a government”, could there be a second side to this?’
It was silent between them for a while.
‘I don’t think so. Did he look British? SIS?’ Asked Wolfgang.
‘I just about have his face Wolfgang. If I had photofit software I could have a go. He’s certainly middle-aged. Maybe older. If he’s SIS he’s a very old case officer.’
‘It’s a conundrum - for sure.’
Wolfgang then back-briefed Sam on Freddie, the strange Croatian landline and its linkages, including the unexplained calls to the deepest jungle of Venezuela. He also told her about the Virgin UK mobile number that had disparate call-links to 12 separate Church members. And that the mobile had landed in Caracas three weeks ago. It was interesting stuff - Wolfgang had done well. But it hardly constituted a breakthrough.
‘I’ve got no further on the SMS on snakeskin-belt man’s phone. The one from “Ops” and the top line saying that they “need to talk equipment”.’
Sam played with her curls. She needed a haircut. It was so long she found herself biting the end of it like she had done when she was a kid. She stopped chewing when she glanced at herself in the small inset at the bottom of the screen.
‘Is that everything?’
‘You don’t sound very impressed.’
Sorry.
‘Sorry, Wolfgang. It’s great work. Better than I could have done. And, for me, other than letting you know that both mobiles should be with you by 10.00 am your time tomorrow, I’ve got little more to add.’
She stopped herself from putting some more hair into her mouth. Then she continued.
‘What do you want me to do? I can’t travel anywhere outside the US without alerting somebody.’
‘Can you stay where you are for 24 hours? It’ll give me time to get into the mobiles and see if I can piece together anything else.’
Sam stretched, stood and walked to the window. It was in need of a clean. The view was of the opposite building - a hardware store.
Hardly inspiring.
‘Sure. Look, I’ve used your credit card a couple of times - just now for the hotel, as a sort of guarantee that I was human. I don’t want to use it again for fear of a pattern. I can’t use my passport, or my cards. I’ve got about $420 in my pocket. Can you sub me?’ Sam asked guiltily.
‘Yes, of course. I have a Western Union account. I’ll send $2,000 to your local branch, and I’ll SMS you the code as soon as I have it. Will that be enough?’
‘Sure. And your SIMs. I’ve done the rounds with them now. The one I used to contact you just now is the same one I used in Germany to phone Jane.’
There was another pause.
‘See if you can get a SIM from a local telecoms shop. Or steal someone’s phone. You’re a secret agent. You can do that?’
Sam looked contemptibly at the phone.
‘I’ll do what I can … look, do you think I should phone Jane?’ She had no idea why she was asking for his advice. She supposed it was because she was used to working in a hierarchy. Wolfgang was a natural boss.
Sam heard him breathe out heavily.
‘No. Not yet. Let’s see what I come up with tomorrow before you do anything rash.’
Flemingstraße, Munich, Germany
Frank paused before he pressed the button on the intercom. He steeled himself. When people asked him, ‘what sort of person are you?’, his stock reply was ‘introvert’. It wasn’t far from the truth. Flying across Europe and barging in on someone he knew of, but had never met, was not his idea of fun. And it had just become a whole lot more daunting. The man lived in a house large enough for a member of German royalty. Which he guessed made sense.
His finger wavered. Then he pressed the button.
There was a delay.
‘Wer ist es?’
Frank struggled with Oxford English. German was beyond him.
‘Hello. My name is Frank. I have come to see Wolfgang. Please.’
There was a longer pause.
‘Hello. This is Wolfgang. Which Frank are you?’
‘Sam’s Frank. We’ve sort of met before. Berlin? A couple of years ago. I’ve come from London on behalf of Jane Baker. May I come in?’
There was a further pause. Then a buzz. The large metal gate slid sideward.
‘Wow. Just wow.’
It was 30 minutes, some pleasantries and a decent cup of mint tea later. Wolfgang had taken Frank down into the cellar.
‘Put your tongue away.’ Frank said to himself under his breath.
He couldn’t take his eyes off the glass wall.
‘This is The Church of the White Cross? As you see it?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Can I play?’
‘Be my guest.’
They had a couple of interactive glass info-boards in Babylon, but nothing like this. It was as if he’d walked onto a Mission Impossible film set.
Frank tapped, swiped and then reduced. He tapped some more. He moved open boxes with two fingers and then opened another tab. He then closed all of them and stood back. He was completely unaware of what Wolfgang was doing. He only had one focus - the board.
Frank scanned left and right; up and down.
Christ!
There was Ralph Bell. SIS hadn’t seen or heard from him in three years. He was pretty confident that the CIA hadn’t either.
He bent down and tapped his mugshot - a chronological factsheet appeared. He dragged it to eye height, standing up as he did.
This is good - well, bad.
Wolfgang’s latest entry was a month ago. He had Ralph Bell in the UK, tracked by a pseudonym and the new name’s mobile. The location was London. That sent a shiver down his spine.
He studied the details. He knew he didn’t have Sam’s photographic memory, but he picked up the salient facts.
He closed the tab and stepped back from the screen, almost bumping into Wolfgang who side-stepped to avoid a collision.
‘Sorry.’ Frank said.
Wolfgang nodded.
‘This is … fantastic. Unbelievable.’ Frank stopped for a second. ‘Accurate?’
Wolfgang shrugged.
‘I do not put anything on the database that feeds the board unless I’m 100% certain of its veracity. Everything you see is, in my opinion, the truth.’
‘And you have all of this from hacking - Dark Web activities?’
‘That depends on whether or not you’re going to arrest me.’
Frank didn’t know if that was a kind of German joke.
‘I’m not going to arrest you. I’m not empowered to. I’ve come here to see if you could help me track down Sam. But some part of me thought you might be working on The Church.’ Frank spread his hands to the glass board. ‘But, I never expected this. No one, well, no one in the UK, has this. And I’m pretty certain the US have nothing on this scale. If this intelligence can all be verified, you’re in a different league to us.’
Wolfgang looked stern.
‘You’re timing is good, Frank. Very good.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If you’d have been 24 hours earlier I would not have opened the gate and you would gone home empty-handed.’
‘So w
hy let me in now?’
Wolfgang took his turn to approach the board. He tapped The Church’s emblem with a single finger. It enlarged, twice its original size. He stood back a couple of paces.
Without turning to face Frank, he replied.
‘Because I think things are now moving faster than I can keep up with.’ He paused. ‘And Sam is in danger. I have a number of new leads that, without Sam being “out there”, I would pursue at my leisure. But I don’t have the luxury of time. Not anymore. You know what she’s like. There’s no “off” button. She’ll either get to the bottom of this - or die trying. And I don’t think I could cope with the latter.’
Frank took a few steps forward so that he stood shoulder to shoulder with Wolfgang.
‘You’re not the only one who feels that way.’ He turned his head sideways and looked at Wolfgang who met his gaze. ‘I thought I’d lost her - three times. One of which was when she was with you in that warehouse in Berlin.’ He sniffed. ‘On all three occasions, somehow she made it through.’
Frank swallowed, stopping himself from choking.
What is wrong with me?
‘Do you know where she is?’ Wolfgang asked.
‘Within reason. As I landed at the airport we had a ping from GCHQ. They’ve tracked her down to a 100 square metre block in Miami.’
‘How?’
‘She phoned Jane a couple of days ago. We had that number. She used it again three hours ago to an untraceable mobile. Voice-over-IP. The initial search identifies a Dark Web address. GCHQ is working on it. I reckon they might find that the end-link falls somewhere, say, over there.’ Frank pointed to Wolfgang’s computer work station.
Wolfgang nodded as he took a couple of steps left so that he faced the UK’s mugshots. He touched the Union Flag. His understanding of The Church of the White Cross’s UK cell expanded in front of him.
Nothing had changed since Sam’s visit. A politician and a member of the clergy. Three boxes were empty. Wolfgang stroked the empty boxes one after another.
‘Who do I trust?’ He paused, then looked at Frank. ‘You?’
Frank didn’t know what to say.
‘I have two known UK members. A politician and a member of the clergy.’ He pointed at the three empty boxes as he spoke. ‘There will be a policeman, a member of the security services, and a military man. And they’re just the heads of their own cells - possibly with four or five other members working directly for them.’ He turned to Frank. ‘Do you know who to trust? Jane? Is she The Church’s lead in SIS?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Jane hasn’t got a fanatical bone in her body.’ Frank spat it out.
‘How can you be sure? Really sure. What about you Frank. Should I trust you?’
Frank started to pace around the room. He couldn’t keep his hands still.
‘This is getting us nowhere, Wolfgang. We have to trust each other. You have to share this. Who knows what they’re up to next?’
Wolfgang was a steadfast object around which Frank was prowling. He felt out of his league. He was just an analyst. That’s all. He wasn’t a negotiator. Jane should have come. Not him.
‘I do trust you, Frank.’
That stopped him in his tracks.
‘Why?’
‘Because you would have acted differently if you’d been presented with this and been a member. But ...’
‘What, Wolfgang?’
‘My mother was shot dead in front of my eyes. My father passed away a few years before that. I have very few things left that are precious to me - and I will lose them, all of them, if they find out about me. I know what they are capable of. I have suffered under their brutal regime before.’
Frank knew Wolfgang was right about The Church. And he was right about trust. He trusted Jane. Unequivocally. But who else?
And what about Sam? If she were in danger they had no time to lose. They needed to come to some sort of agreement. SIS and Wolfgang. And they needed to do that as soon as they could.
‘OK, Wolfgang. You’re right. I don’t know who I can trust - except Jane. I can’t do this without assuming she’s on our side. And I’m not in a position to negotiate on behalf of SIS - what we can promise; what we can’t. But, if you let me speak to Jane - she will be able to.’
Frank waited for Wolfgang to register what he’d said. He did that with tight lips and a Germanic nod.
Frank continued. ‘First, though, are we right about Sam?’
Wolfgang looked straight at him. His face bleaker than at any time since they had met.
‘Yes. Yes. And she’s waiting for me to give her instructions. My worry is that, if you know where she is - then so do they.’
Outside the Miami Vice Nightclub, Collins Street, South Beach, Miami
The entrance to whatever the hell Miami Vice was, was halfway down Collins Street, a narrow avenue just off the strip on South Beach. It hadn’t been difficult to find - Sam had just Googled it. And then re-Googled it, putting the word ‘club’ at the end of the search. There were only so many images of Don Johnson she could cope with.
The heavy, brushed-metallic door was recessed into a two-storey high, white brick wall - dusk giving the paintwork a pink tinge. Standing outside was the largest and most imposing black man she’d ever been within six feet of. He was dressed all in white: white shirt; white trousers with a slight flare; white jacket with a wide collar; a white trilby hat; and, sparkled with silver diamond studs, a pair of white leather cowboy boots. His menacing face adding depth to what was a perfectly white vista.
As Sam approached the door, white mountain-man put his arm out blocking further progress.
‘Are you a member, darling? I don’t remember your pretty face?’
The huge man’s voice was almost falsetto - its ring as camp as you like. Sam had to work very hard to suppress a fit of giggles.
‘I am.’
Get a grip.
Sam fished out Müller’s Miami Vice card with the embossed R Wilder along its bottom edge. She handed it over as casually as she could.
White mountain-man glanced at the card and looked quizzically at Sam - and then her rucksack, and then back at the card. His face was one of consternation.
His cogs are turning?
Then he looked up and smiled.
‘What have you got in there, darling? A costume? Please let it be a costume!’
Sam inwardly winced but outwardly managed a smiled.
‘Yeah. Uh. Batman.’
‘Oooh! The cape crusader! My favourite!’
Sam smiled and moved towards the door. She didn’t want to continue the conversation in case white mountain-man asked to try on her fictitious cape for size.
He smiled back, and graciously opened the door.
Sam had no idea what to expect. She was pretty open-minded to most sexual persuasions, provided they were legal. She guessed if you could find Miami Vice Club on Google, everything that went on inside was probably above board. Nevertheless, she stepped into the crimson-carpeted, blood-red walled, minimally-lit corridor hesitantly. Knowing Müller’s fetish, if she saw one minor in the place she knew she wouldn’t be able to control herself.
She needn’t have worried. It was mostly legal.
The end of the corridor led to a large, windowless room. There was a conventional bar running along one of the walls. But, that’s where any comparison to convention stopped. The rest of the room was a heady mixture of indulgent and, even for Sam’s reasonably broad mind, bizarre sexual practice. There was a half-full dance floor on which nobody was fully clothed. A couple of dancer-sized cages hung in two of the corners; one contained a rather attractive, writhing naked woman; the other suspended a couple of men who could best be described as ‘being intimate’. Other than an empty stage, with its obligatory chrome pole, the rest of the room was replete with booths and tables - all decorated in fake red leather and dark stained wood. The place was full, but not yet heaving. It was dingy, but not dark. After a quick look round the room, Sam c
ouldn’t define the clientele. They were multi-race, multi-gender and, clearly, multi-every sexual persuasion you could imagine. The 20 or so large flat screen TVs that decorated the walls were showing every form of legal (I’m not sure?) sexual perversion Sam could think of.
She could only glance at the screen showing a large woman and a donkey. Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be a minor in sight.
She made her way to the bar and found a stool. The deep-bass thump of the electronic dance music made her head vibrate. If it was much louder, bits of her would fall off. Thankfully, her mind was swiftly disengaged from all the noise and hedonism by the very handsome, and nearly naked (a leather waistcoat, a pair of chaps and a thong), barman who met her across the red leather-topped bar.
‘What can I get you?’
Sam’s mind raced through all the possible answers to that question, none of which was a standard drink - but she did know of a couple of cocktails that would suit her mood ...
Come on!
‘Bacardi and coke, please.’
The barman nodded and turned to the row of glasses and bottles that ran along three shelves at the back of the bar. Sam closed her eyes. She had no choice. It was either that or being fixated on the cowboy’s naked backside - which would have won any competition it might have bothered to enter.
‘He’s got a nice arse?’ The voice was that of a husky woman. It made Sam start.
She opened her eyes and turned her head.
This is not going well for me.
A blonde-wigged beauty had sat next to Sam. Sam’s dad had been a Farah Fawcett fan. If he’d been alive and here in downtown Miami Beach, he would have gone to a different sort of heaven. The girl (late 20s, Sam’s height and build, but with more happening in the boob department) was gorgeous. She was even dressed like Farah Fawcett, a simple light-blue shoulder-padded t-shirt and white hotpants.
Sam was fixated by her teeth - which surprised her, considering the choices she had. The Americans do that so well? A mouthful of dazzling ivories framed by perfect lips.
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