“I think we’re good.”
She took his hand, and he pulled her up next to him. Then they were both standing on the leaf-strewn ground, looking around trying to get their bearings. He’d been in too much of a hurry to leave the cabin and hadn’t grabbed the map they’d used to find it. He looked up, eying the sun’s slow rise into the sky, backtracking through the tunnel in his mind, trying to position the cabin in relationship to the direction they’d come, the direction they’d entered the forest.
Then he started walking.
“How do you know where we’re going?” Jenna asked behind him.
“I don’t,” he said. “But I have an idea, and our only other option is to stand here like sitting ducks, waiting for whoever killed Karlsen to realize how we got away and come after us.”
He was relieved when she didn’t argue, and he moved as fast as he dared through the thick underbrush, pulling branches back for Jenna when he could, hoping she could stay on her feet long enough to get to the car.
Hoping the car was still there when they got to it.
The sunlight was brighter, the day growing warm and humid when their surroundings began to seem familiar. He moved faster, spurred on by instinct, rushing toward the opening he was almost positive was just beyond the next bank of brush.
He moved it aside with his arms, breathing a sigh of relief when he spotted the rental car they’d left there the day before. But it wasn’t alone.
Next to it a big SUV stood solid and menacing — but empty.
“Let’s get out of here while we still can,” he said, heading for the SUV.
“We’re taking their car?” she asked.
“We’re taking whatever’s in this car,” he said. “I’d take the car if I thought I could get away with it, but the last thing we need is to have someone report it stolen.”
He opened the hatch and couldn’t hide the grin that rose on his face.
Jenna came around to the back of the car. “Why on earth are you smiling?”
She stopped cold when she saw the weapons and ammunitions cache in the trunk of the SUV.
“Help me load this stuff into the car,” he said. He checked the safety on the weapons and then grabbed two semi-automatics and a tactical backpack loaded with ammo. He thought she might argue — Jenna didn’t like weapons — but she reached inside the SUV instead and picked one of the guns and a duffle bag.
They loaded everything into the backseat and Farrell reached into his pocket, relieved the keys to the rental had been in it when he’d dropped his pants to the floor of the Erik Karlsen’s cabin the night before. He’d like to think he would have had the foresight to bring them anyway, but his only thought in those first shocking moments had been to get Jenna out.
He reached into the backpack but didn’t find what he was looking for. He found it in the duffle in the form of a wicked hunting knife. He unsheathed it, tested its sharpness against his thumb. Satisfied, he strode back to the SUV and proceeded to cut all four tires deep and wide. The sound of air escaping immediately hissed through the quiet forest.
“Let’s go,” he said, making his way back to the car.
She slid into the passenger seat as he took his place behind the wheel. He’d just turned on the car when the first man broke through the brush.
“Get down,” Farrell shouted.
Jenna ducked, and he spun the car around as a bullet pierced the back of the car with a loud thunk. Rage seethed in his blood. He wanted nothing more than to stop the car, pull out one of the weapons, fire until he’d left a pile of bodies in his wake.
But that would be foolish. There would be time for revenge later. Now he needed to get Jenna to safety, and he couldn’t shoot behind him and drive at the same time.
He punched the accelerator instead, glad he’d insisted on a Jaguar at the rental office. I wasn’t a match for the SUV in terms of size, but what they needed now was speed, and the Jag had speed to spare.
He’d pulled onto the dirt road that had taken them to the turnout when the back windshield shattered. Jenna didn’t make a peep, just stayed down like he’d ordered with her head covered.
He floored the gas and the car accelerated smoothly. Farrell dared a glance in the rearview mirror and watched as four men with drawn weapons stood in firing position well behind them.
It was too late. They were out of range, and Jenna slowly straightened as they turned onto the main road. Then they were speeding away from Erik Karlsen’s hideaway and the men who had finally found it.
Who had found them.
29
Jenna’s heart was still beating too fast when Farrell pulled off the side of the road in a tiny town called Zwillbrock just over the German border. They’d been driving most of the day, and Jenna had spent every minute of it expecting gunfire to erupt from behind them. It hadn’t, and they’d made the drive in silence. She had no idea where they were going or what they were going to do, but she knew Farrell had some kind of plan.
He always did.
As it was, she was clinging to her remaining vestiges of calm. It wasn’t even the shooting, the dark exodus through the tunnel, that shook her. It was Lieve Karlsen and the fact that she would never see her father again.
The fact that Jenna and Farrell had left him to die.
Something dark had opened up inside of her as they’d fled his cabin through the darkened tunnels. Something bitter and angry. It was a voice she tried to banish, one that said Farrell had been right along. You could be good. Try to do the right thing.
But in the end it wouldn’t matter at all.
Farrell navigated the car off the main road, finally coming to a stop outside a quaint cottage with a sharply steepled roof and a Tudor facade.
“What is this place?” Jenna asked.
“It’s a B&B I know,” he said. “We can’t stay here more than a night, but we need a place to regroup. And I have to call Leo, arrange for false papers, protection for Lieve Karlsen.”
“What if they find us?” Jenna asked.
Somewhere between Erik Karlsen’s cabin and the little German town, she’d begun to feel that the only real safety lay in continued movement. After all, they’d been found at Karlsen’s cabin, a place where the man himself had peacefully hidden for over a year. It made their pursuers seem all-knowing, and she shook her head, telling herself to get a grip.
Farrell glanced in the back seat at the weapons stockpile they accrued from the SUV parked outside Erik Karlsen’s woods. “Then we’ll fight them off.”
She suppressed a shudder. She didn’t want to fight anyone off. Didn’t want to be in this strange town in this strange country while her daughter was in Italy. She wanted to be with Lily in the warm Tuscan sun, watching from the terrace with Kate while Lily and Anthony and Lessa chased the goats and played tag.
It all seemed very far away, but more than that, it suddenly seemed tenuous. Whomever had come after them — after Erik Karlsen — was powerful.
Powerful enough to quietly commission a study on a virus that could render obsolete bucolic scenes like the one she could picture in Tuscany. Powerful enough to find them only hours after they’d discovered Erik Karlsen’s hideaway. To kill an innocent woman like Mrs. Hodges simply to send a message.
These were people who would change the world — and not for the better. There was only one reason to modify a hemorrhagic virus like Marburg, and that was to kill. Whoever was behind the study didn’t spend all that money to satisfy their curiosity.
It was a power play. Because in the twenty-first century, it wasn’t the countries with the biggest bombs that were the scariest. It was the countries — and the individuals — with the kinds of weapons that couldn’t be seen or heard. The kinds of weapons that could be quietly released into a population with the intent of destroying it.
Farrell’s hand closed around hers. He looked into her eyes, and she had the sense she always had with Farrell: that he knew what she was thinking. That he could see it all on her fac
e. That he could feel it in her heart, as if it were his own.
“Everything will be okay. We’re going to take it one step at a time, all right?”
She nodded. One step at a time. She could do that. She’d been doing it her whole life.
They got out of the car and moved the weapons and ammunition to the trunk. She assumed they would need a new car — it wasn’t exactly unobtrusive to drive a vehicle riddled with bullet holes, missing a back window.
They made their way up a small path lined with flowers in an army of colors. When they got to the front door, Farrell opened it without knocking and they stepped into a cozy, wood-paneled foyer. There was a formal parlor on one side of the foyer, and a big dining room on the other. In front of them, a staircase led to the second floor.
“Guten Morgen. Wie kann ich Ihnen helfen?”
Jenna turned toward the voice and a small woman with graying hair and a wide smile. Laugh lines fanned out from kind, brown eyes.
“Guten Morgen, Frau Krüger. Es ist lange her,” Farrell said, turning toward her.
Recognition washed over the woman’s face. “Mister Black! What a surprise!” she said in accented English.
“Yes,” he said. “I would have liked to give you more notice but I’m afraid it couldn’t be helped.”
She waved away the comment. “Nonsense! You’re always welcome here. We rarely have guests anymore.”
“That’s a shame,” he said. “You serve the best bratwurst in the country.”
“Oh, now!” she said, her cheeks turning pink. “You flatter me.” She turned her attention to Jenna. “And who is this?”
“Martha, this is Jenna Carver. Jenna, Martha Krüger.”
Jenna held out a hand, suddenly aware that she’d thrown her clothes on in the dark and then stumbled through an underground tunnel before escaping in a hail of bullets. She must look a mess.
“Please, you must call me Martha,” the woman said.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Martha.” Jenna shook the older woman’s hand. “You have a lovely home.”
The woman looked around. “Yes, I quite like it, although it does get a bit lonely all the way out here.”
“Well, we’ll be happy to keep you company for a night or two,” Farrell said.
“Such a short stay?” Martha’s disappointment was obvious.
“I’m afraid so,” he said. “We’ve had a bit of scuffle. Just need to lay low until Leo can get here.”
“And how is Leo?” she asked, her eyes shining. “Such a dear boy!”
Jenna stifled a snort. Who was this woman that she was so familiar with Farrell? That she called a giant, nearly-silent killing machine like Leo a “dear boy”?
Farrell grinned. “He’s the same. You know Leo.”
She nodded. “That I do.” She clapped her hands. “Well! Let’s get you settled. The place is empty, so I’ll give you the Blue Room. It has a lovely view of the stream.”
“Wonderful,” Farrell said.
She led them up the stairs to the end of a long, narrow hallway papered with a faded floral. The room was small but beautiful, with heavy, old furniture, and brass sconces next to the bed. Jenna wandered over to the giant window, gasping at the view. Lush fields stretched as far as the eye could see, broken only by an occasional stand of trees, their trunks thick with age, and a wide stream flowing between tall grass.
Martha left them to get settled, and Jenna turned to Farrell. “Who is she? How does she know Leo?”
“It’s a long story,” he said.
She knew better than to press for details. If he’d wanted to offer them, he would have.
“I’d like to call Lily and Kate,” she said. Whoever was after them had found Erik Karlsen’s cabin. She wanted to trust Farrell, wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt about the Tuscan estate and its security. But Cornwall still loomed large in her mind. “I want to make sure they’re okay.”
He put his hands gently on her shoulders, touched his lips to her forehead. “Let’s go into town. We should be able to find a Tracphone. I don’t want to call on a landline. We can pick up some other supplies while we’re at it to tide us over until Leo can get here.”
She nodded.
“Would you like to shower first?” he asked. “Nap?”
She shook her head. “I just need… I need to talk to our daughter, Farrell.”
He held out his hand. “Then talk to her you shall.”
30
They moved the car to the back of Martha’s property and walked into the town of Zwillborck. It was small and quaint, with a handful of pubs and restaurants. They stopped first at a lakeside restaurant where they devoured plates of schnitzel and pints of dark, German beer. Jenna hadn’t realized how hungry she was, and she closed her eyes as she took bites of the crispy, breaded meat and tangy potato salad.
The food was a good distraction. Things were still tense with Farrell since their escape from Erik Karlsen’s cabin. It was her fault. Deep down she knew they hadn’t had a choice. If Karlsen had been mortally wounded, he wouldn’t have made it through the underground tunnel, to say nothing of the drive afterwards.
Still, she couldn’t think about the man — Lieve’s father — dying alone in the cabin, under assault from the men who almost certainly had found him thanks to Jenna and Farrell. The timing was too coincidental. She didn’t know they’d done it, but she was almost certain they’d led their pursuers to Erik Karlsen.
Now Lieve would suffer the same kind of grief Jenna had suffered after her father’s death. She had no doubt that Farrell would honor Erik Karlsen’s wishes that Lieve be protected, but that would be cold comfort in the absence of her father.
It wasn’t fair to blame Farrell for their swift flight from the cabin. But like so many things in their relationship, her feelings about it were complicated, so tightly wound she didn’t know how to begin sorting them. It was somehow easier to be angry. Easier than giving in to the panic that had been building in her bones since their conversation with Karlsen about the Marburg research. It was a conversation that left little to the imagination, one that was making it more and more difficult for Jenna to justify her hands-off stance when it came to violence. Up until now, she’d allowed Farrell to stand in front of her, to protect her and Lily when the situation called for it.
But she’d been a bystander. It had been possible to denounce the violence that was part of his life. To stand on principle. Now she was faced with the reality that the men who were after the papers weren’t going to stop until they got what they wanted. They weren’t playing by the rules. They didn’t care if they had to kill to accomplish their goals. In fact, the very purpose of the Marburg study was to kill.
That knowledge made it hard to deny Farrell’s modus operandi: kill before someone kills you and those you love. Deploy overwhelming violence in an effort to deter even greater violence. Use any means necessary to affect the least collateral damage — even if that meant inflicting some of your own along the way.
Did the ends justify the means? Is that what she was thinking? That Farrell had been right all along? She didn’t know, but her earlier viewpoint suddenly seemed naive.
She just wasn’t ready to face the consequences of that conclusion.
Being angry at Farrell wasn’t fair, but it was the only emotion she could manage at the moment.
When they finished eating they walked the streets of the little village until they came to a small market where Farrell paid cash for four Tracphones and an I HEART GERMANY T-shirt for Jenna. The sunlight was starting to wane, and the street lamps had come on along the village’s main street when they emerged from the market. Jenna tried to imagine what it was like living in such a picture-perfect town as they walked to a little park at the town’s center. Everyone here probably had jobs at the grocery or the local pub, the school or the small police station they’d passed. They probably went to school plays and local festivals, saw the same people at church every week. It seemed miles away fro
m the life she was living now, from the life she and Lily would live if they stayed with Farrell, but for the first time she wasn’t sure if that was a bad thing.
Farrell stopped at a park bench cast in shadows. He had been nothing but calm since they’d left Martha’s house, but she saw the watchfulness in his posture and the way he seemed to constantly scan their surroundings. There was a time when it would have made her more nervous. Now she found herself strangely soothed. If someone wanted to come for them, they would come. She would never be any safer than she was with Farrell, and wasn’t that better than the alternative?
He opened one of the phones and proceeded to set it up, then met her eyes. “No details about where we are, about what’s happened,” he said. “Not even to Kate.”
She nodded, and he dialed, then handed her the phone. It rang three times before Mrs. Pendleton’s voice sounded from the other side.
“Hello, how may I help you?”
Jenna was relieved that the other woman didn’t use Farrell’s last name when she answered the phone, then felt foolish. Of course, Mrs.Pendleton would have been briefed on protocol for handling Farrell’s house household — and there was no protocol more important to Farrell than total privacy.
“Hello, Mrs. Pendleton. It’s Jenna. How are you?”
“Miss Carver! How nice to hear your voice.” Jenna could hear her smile through the phone and was surprised to realize she missed her steadfast presence. “I’m just fine. How are you?”
“I’m… fine, too,” Jenna said. “How is Lily?”
Mrs. Pendleton laughed. “Ruling over both man and beast in Italy. Would you like to speak to her?”
“Yes, please.” Jenna hoped she didn’t sound as desperate as she felt.
“I’ll fetch her.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone for a good two minutes before she heard the muffled sound of footsteps followed by the sweet sound of her daughter’s voice.
Primal: London Mob Book Two Page 16