The Dolomite Solution

by Trevor Scott

  Turning down a narrow passage, Quinn thought of his plan of action. Even in the late afternoon, it wasn’t likely someone would be there. It was dark and dingy and any smart tourist would avoid the area. He knew that ahead was a turn and after that a recessed door where he could wait.

  Quinn made the corner and then scurried ahead, sliding into the doorway and slowing his breathing. Slowly he withdrew his 9mm automatic with the silencer from inside his jacket and placed his right hand against the cold brick wall. He could hear the man stepping slowly down the alley getting closer. His heart beat louder. Then the steps stopped. He had to be only ten or fifteen feet away, he thought. He could simply jump out quickly firing, but then he wouldn’t know why the man was following him. Instead, he waited.

  In thirty seconds the steps began again. Only they were slowly now. More cautious, perhaps. Quinn’s heart raced with excitement. Then the steps stopped again. His head was smashed against the wall, the cigarette almost finished, dangled from the corner of his mouth. The cigarette. How stupid could he be. The smoke must be drifting out giving him away. He turned his tongue over, opened his mouth wide, and the short cigarette flipped inside his mouth, sizzling out in his saliva. He ignored the pain, for his own stupidity was worse.

  He had to move now. With one quick motion, he followed his gun around the corner, firing as he went.

  The man was waiting for him, lying on the ground, his gun already out. The leather man fired back, his shots echoing down the alley, and one catching Quinn in his left shoulder, spinning him around. He recovered quickly, finding his mark on the ground, and fired five times automatically at the man’s head.

  He had hit his mark, Quinn knew. Slowly he made his way to the clump on the ground, his shoulder aching. The man lay face down, his arms stretched out in front of him, his gun gangling from his right hand.

  Quinn poked the man’s head with the silencer and he didn’t move. He looked around, but nobody had come. He returned his gun to his holster, reached down and lifted the man’s head until he saw the hole in his forehead, and then let the head drop to the bricks. Going back to where he had shot from, he found his spent brass casings and then started off in the other direction. He stopped abruptly, thinking. Then he swiftly returned to the dead man, took the man’s wallet and then hurried off down the alley in the opposite direction.

  He finally reached the busier Burggraben where he could see St. Ann’s Column a block away. He headed toward the tall monument, keeping his eyes open for anyone else following him. When he reached the monument, he took a seat on a bench and casually withdrew the man’s wallet from his pocket and opened it. He couldn’t believe it when he saw the I.D. Was it possible? Had he just killed a man with Interpol?

  ●

  Back in the alley, Sappiamo finally found his partner laying in a pool of blood. He checked him over carefully and started to cry. They had been through so much in two years. After he gained some composure, he checked the man’s pockets and found nothing.

  30

  Toni and Scala had followed them down the mountain in her Alfa Romeo, and pulled up behind Jake and the OSI agent. Jake shut down the Golf next to a small park in Volders, a village along the Inn River fifteen kilometers east of Innsbruck. He and Jordan got out.

  Jordan sat at a park bench with Scala, while Jake and Toni walked along a stone path with a railing dividing them from the swift-flowing river.

  Jake wasn’t certain where to begin. He had not been entirely truthful with her so far.

  “Something’s really bothering you, Jake,” Toni said. “What’s wrong?”

  The river was a constant drone behind them.

  He stopped and leaned against the railing. “I could have someone rip my nuts off with a vice grip and not tell them a thing, but you’ve always been able to sense when something’s not quite right with me, making me blurt out everything. Why is that?”

  She smiled and nudged closer to him. “It’s part of my charm. Don’t ya think?” When he didn’t answer, she said, “Seriously. With history like ours you shouldn’t have to ask. I can see it in your eyes because I know you. You can put up one hell of an act with others, but I’ll always know that you have more for me.”

  “Now that’s scary.” He gazed off at the beautiful aqua-marine water that flowed over some rocks to his left. “Otto Bergen hired me to help him bring in Scala and his research.” He turned to her and saw her astonished glare.

  “Why would he do that? I told the man he was in good hands, and I’d bring him in tonight.”

  “He seemed to think you had a hidden agenda. He didn’t trust you. He’s getting a little paranoid, and I can’t blame the guy for that, considering what’s happened in the past few days. His lead researcher is run off the road. Murdock, whom he was working a production deal with, is shot. The researcher’s maid is killed. And some crazy woman has kidnapped his other researcher.”

  “Very funny. I didn’t kidnap him. I simply rescued him from a couple of bozos in Milano. Which reminds me, I still haven’t figured out who those two were. Scala said they had Interpol identification, but I doubt they were with them. They looked more like thieves or mafia slugs.”

  “Why don’t you have any backup?” Jake asked.

  She laughed. “We’ve got almost fifty people working out of Rome, but our budget has been cut so severely we can’t do a damn thing. Half of our people are working in eastern Turkey and the Middle East, a fourth are in the Balkans. What’s that leave? Ten, twelve available for southern Europe. As it is I’m on loan with the Vienna office. Which reminds me, why didn’t you come and see me last time you came through the area?”

  Jake was confused. “Vienna? I haven’t been in Vienna for years. In fact, I think you and I were there together.”

  “You know exactly what I mean Jake Adams.”

  “I was in Odessa and Kurdistan,” he pleaded. “That’s not even remotely close to Rome.”

  “You could have at least called. I had to read about your crazy exploits in a security brief.”

  “Okay. I screwed up. I won’t let it happen again. I called you this time.”

  “Because you needed me.”

  “Damn right I need you.”

  She frowned. “Still thinking about sex?”

  “That’s all I’ve been doing lately is think about it,” he said, and then thought again about Murdock’s gorgeous wife Ute.

  She grabbed his hand. “That’s why God gave you the large hands.”

  Jake looked across the grass at Jordan and Scala talking at the bench. “I don’t suppose you’d like to take a ride and see if we can remember where all the parts are?”

  “Maybe later,” she said. “Besides you’ve never had a problem with that before.”

  They both stared off at the water flowing by.

  Something else was bothering Jake. “Why is the Agency even involved with this case?”

  She turned and leaned her back against the rail. “Why do you think? It’s an important discovery. Even more importantly, it’s something Washington feels could easily be exploited. You have to understand, Jake, I was sent to the Dolomites to look into what was going on there. I’d report back periodically to Vienna. It wasn’t easy remaining anonymous in Passo di Villa. It’s such a small village. I was pretending to be a mountain climber.”

  “You? The city girl. That must have been one helluva stretch.”

  “Ha, ha... Anyway, if everything goes as planned in the Dolomites, there’s no problem. Aldo and Scala present their study to the scientific community, to Tirol Genetics and Richten Pharmaceuticals, and then collect their Nobel Prizes, along with a million bucks in prize money. That’s no small reward. The problem is, someone changed the rules in the middle of the game by running Leonhard Aldo off the road and then trying to kidnap Scala. Someone’s serious about all this. Killing Aldo’s maid...”

  Jake placed his hand on hers. “Someone either doesn’t want this Dolomite Solution to reach the public, or they want it f
or themselves.”

  “Maybe both.”

  ●

  Sitting across the grass on the park bench, Jordan had been discussing some of the basics of the discovery Scala and Aldo had made in the Dolomites.

  “That’s amazing,” Jordan said. “It’ll be hard to believe a world without heart disease.”

  “What about a world without cancer?” Scala said. “That’s what’s next for science. And it can be achieved.”

  Jordan glanced over at Jake and Toni by the river. “What do you suppose they’re talking about?”

  Scala smiled for the first time since the two of them had met. “I think they’re lovers. Look at the way they touch each other. The way they look at each other. It’s obvious.”

  That was true, Jordan thought. But he was thinking they were discussing the case as well. “How well do you know this Toni?”

  Scala looked uncertain. “We just met yesterday, like I said. She saved me from two men. The two that had run my associate off the road that morning.”

  “I see.” He planted his eyes on the scientist. “You know there are some who would like to see your work buried, along with you. There’s a lot of money to be made with the status quo.”

  The scientist cocked his head to one side. “What are you getting at? I trust Toni.”

  “I’m not saying Toni is one of them,” Jordan corrected. “I’m just letting you know that this is what’s going on. Certain people would rather not have a cure for heart disease. That’s a fact. I think you’re with the right people. I’ve checked Jake Adams’ background. He can be a bit abrasive and over-zealous at times, but our government holds him in high regard. He’s done a lot of good in the past.”

  “And Toni?” Scala asked.

  “If Jake trusts her, she must be okay.”

  ●

  Jake and Toni finished putting the plan together for that evening when they were set to meet Otto Bergen at the Olympic Ice Stadium.

  Something had almost slipped Jake’s mind, but he thought of it now. “I almost forgot. Someone’s been messing with me ever since I got to Innsbruck. That’s how I got involved with this case in the first place. Someone told me to go to the alley the night Murdock was killed. When I got there, someone shot at me with a silenced gun. Later I found Murdock dead. I got knocked over the head and the cops questioned me for Murdock’s death. The killer wanted the cops to think I had done it, but they didn’t do a really good job of setting me up, because Murdock had been dead for hours. Then while I was at this morgue, which turned out to be a funeral home, some guy comes in shooting and kills two cops in the process. That can be read two ways. Either the shooter wants the cops to think I’m involved with something I’m not, or they want me to get involved with the case.”

  “Looks like they succeeded,” she said.

  “Yeah, well that didn’t do it. It was after someone put a bomb on my car.”

  She looked him over. “It obviously didn’t go off.”

  “It was a fake. Set to scare me. I went on the offensive after that. Changed cars. Moved from my apartment. There was a note in the car that said, ‘HUMINT is an oxymoron. So don’t be one.’ Later on I got an e-mail message saying I was slipping. I figured someone was really fucking with me now. I thought it might have been someone from my past who had simply gotten a hold of my E-mail address. As you know, that message could have come from anywhere in the world.”

  “What was the return address?”

  “Came from the Innsbruck Tirol Hotel. About a hundred and fifty people staying there. I haven’t had a chance to check into it further.”

  “How’d you get involved with Bergen?”

  Jake thought for a moment about how strange that had been. He had been unable to understand that himself. “I got a call from the man just before leaving my apartment. He wanted to meet at a restaurant in the old town. I wasn’t sure why at the time. I checked him out. He’s one of Innsbruck’s most prominent citizens. Wealthiest as well. The problem was I couldn’t figure out how he had gotten my name. I had only been in town for a few days. He said he had heard of me through Franz Martini, the polizei chief for Tirol. He’s the one who had questioned me about Murdock’s death. But that wasn’t a very good explanation.”

  “Naturally you met him anyway,” she said, smiling.

  “I can’t help it if I’m a curious bastard.”

  “He must have counted on that.”

  He looked at the river flowing by again. Of course. Bergen had counted on that. “I think you’re right. Does that mean Bergen had Murdock killed, and has been fucking with me ever since?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “What did Bergen want from you?”

  “We met. He wanted me to look into the death of Leonhard Aldo, his scientist. He said he had died in a car accident in the Dolomites. I agreed to check it out. Later that night Bergen sent me some e-mail information on what Aldo was working on, and then I checked out the company on the internet. Everything looked all right. Then this morning when I met with Bergen he told me some woman had his other scientist, Scala, and wanted to meet tonight at the Olympic Ice Stadium. He said her name was Maria Francesca Caruso. Sound familiar?”

  She shrugged. “I happen to like the name.”

  “Well I’m glad you used it this time. When I knew you were involved I figured it would be the easiest ten grand I’ve ever made.”

  “He’s paying you ten thousand bucks to bring in his scientist? I think I need to quit this government bullshit and go private.”

  “Well this is rare,” Jake assured her. “And the pay checks are rather erratic. Still, I’d love to have a partner.”

  “I’ll consider that. First, let’s get this solution in without getting anyone else killed. I’ve gotten attached to Giovanni Scala. He’s a nice guy.”

  Jake couldn’t argue with that.

  31

  Franz Martini paced up the narrow alley, which was getting darker every minute, watching over his officers to ensure they did nothing to contaminate the murder scene.

  His criminal investigator, Jack Donicht, was stooped down over the dead man with a pen light looking for something he could bring to his boss that would tell them who this man was and why he had been shot. He had found no identification. Only the gun which had reportedly been fired anywhere from one to three times, according to various reports from those living in the area. Donicht knew those were skewed since the alley would echo, and witnesses minds were always blurred with the shock of something like gunfire in their own neighborhood. It had to be something else, they would reason first. Only later would they try to recall the number of shots.

  Martini stopped alongside Donicht and asked, “Well, what do you think, Jack?”

  Donicht picked up the gun with gloved hands, popped the clip out the butt, and then slid back the action, retrieving a round from the chamber. He counted the rounds from the gun as he dropped them into a plastic bag. “Fourteen. That means the dead guy here got off two rounds. That matches with what witnesses said.” He looked up at his boss.

  “Jesus Christ, Jack.” Martini shook his head. “Think about what you just said. That would mean the guy shot himself. Roll him over.”

  His associate did as he was told, and immediately he felt embarrassed. There were at least three holes in the guy, the most prominent one in his forehead. “I see what you mean. But that means five or six shots. Nobody heard that many.”

  Martini stomped down the alley to the recessed area and then turned to face Donicht. “The shooter was here. Look there’s blood.” He had just noticed the drops against the dark cobblestone. “Obviously this guy had a silencer. He could have fired a thousand times. Your man was waiting for him to round this corner when he fired. He was already on the ground when he took the round in the head. Otherwise the gun would have dropped further from the body. What does the silencer tell you, Jack?”

  Donicht was now examining the blood spots. “I don’t know. A professional hit?”

 
“Did you read my report from talking with Jake Adams following the shooting of the American, Murdock? Adams said someone had lured him to the alley and then fired at him with a silenced gun. The same thing happened here. I’m sure of it. You and your men finish up here. I want everything done right. By the book. I don’t want any fuck ups this time. I’ve got to talk with someone right now.”

  Martini stormed off down the alley.

  ●

  At the headquarters of Tirol Genetics, Otto Bergen was watching the sun descend on the mountains. He was disturbed by what had happened in the alley. Things had gotten out of control and he wasn’t sure how to stop them now. Marcus Quinn had called him, saying he had been shot and needed help. Bergen had thought about simply letting the man die, leaving the world a far better place. But Quinn had made it clear that he had placed certain information in a secure place in case something happened to him. The polizei would get everything on Bergen’s involvement.

  He leaned on the window sill, frightened to move, knowing it was only a few hours away from the meeting at the ice stadium.

  “Your man downstairs did a hell of a job,” Quinn said, startling Bergen. He strolled over and took a seat.

  Bergen sat behind his desk and said, “He was a medical doctor before switching over to research.”

  Quinn’s chest was bare, with a patch across his left shoulder. “You happen to have any extra clothes around here?”

  Bergen ignored him. “Did the bullet go all the way through?”

  The man swiveled in his chair showing his boss the patch on his back, and then settled back into a comfortable position. “Clean through. No major organs. No bones. I got lucky. If the bullet hits the collarbone it could ricochet down to the lungs and heart region.”