The Dolomite Solution

by Trevor Scott

  “Jake Adams. Trouble seems to follow you wherever you go,” the criminal commissioner said.

  Jake moved to within a few feet of the boards, where the Austrian was now standing. “I’m starting to think so myself.”

  The Austrian furled his brows. “Are you all right, Jake? It looks like someone hit you in the shoulder.”

  Checking both sides, Jake noticed a hole in his leather jacket on his right shoulder. He slid his hand inside and then felt a little pain where a bullet had glanced off his skin. “Shit. A perfectly good jacket. I’ve had this thing for six years.”

  “I guess you have an explanation for all this,” Martini said.

  He thought for a moment, knowing Toni had probably gotten away with Bergen. “How much time do you have?”

  36

  Toni was in the back seat of Special Agent Jordan’s Ford unlacing her skates to replace them with shoes. She took off the blonde wig and fluffed out her own hair. Jordan was driving, Scala was in the front passenger seat, and Otto Bergen, still looking confused, was in the back with her. Moments ago the car had entered the onramp for autobahn twelve heading northeast toward Germany. Jordan punched it and the large engine roared to life, hitting a comfortable cruising speed that would not attract attention.

  She introduced Bergen to Jordan.

  “How did it go?” Jordan asked, looking at her in the rearview mirror.

  “There were a few problems,” she said. She plopped one skate to the floor and then rubbed her foot. “Some guy started shooting the place up.”

  “What about Adams?” Jordan asked.

  She couldn’t stop wondering what had happened to Jake. They had been in many tight spots like this, so she knew he could handle himself. But when bullets start flying anything can happen. “We had to leave him behind. He’ll be okay.”

  Jordan gazed at her in the mirror again.

  Toni turned to Bergen. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  She wondered about this man. He didn’t seemed overly shaken after just getting shot at. Maybe that was the problem, he knew he was in no danger. “Who was the man shooting at us?” she asked him.

  Bergen was looking straight ahead. He turned to Toni and said, “What makes you think I know the man?”

  “Do you get shot at every day?” she asked, her voice getting louder.

  “No,” he muttered.

  “And you weren’t afraid of getting shot?”

  “I...” He let out a deep sigh and shook his head.

  “You knew the shooter and also knew he wasn’t firing at you. Maybe you hired the man like you hired Jake Adams. Only this man was supposed to kill anyone who stood in your way of getting Scala. Which was me and Adams, as it turned out.” She smacked him with a backhand to the chest. “You gonna answer me, asshole?”

  He looked shocked to have been struck by a woman. “It’s more complicated than that.”

  “I’ve got a pretty good mind,” Toni assured him. “I’m certain I can understand.”

  She waited, taking off the last skate and then rubbing life into her freed foot.

  “The lady asked you to explain yourself, Bergen,” Jordan said over his shoulder. “You better answer her.”

  Professor Scala, who had sat quietly in the front seat, turned around and cast his glare on Bergen. “If you want to ever get the Dolomite Solution, you’ll answer her.”

  Toni hadn’t seen the professor so angry. She had a feeling he meant it. “Well?”

  Otto Bergen watched as the car swished past a small village to his right. “He’ll kill me. I’m sure of it. He’s a crazy man.”

  “Who is he?” Toni asked.

  “An American. Marcus Quinn.” Each word came out as if it hurt him to speak. “He knows Jake Adams, and he knew Allen Murdock. Murdock was working for Richten Pharmaceuticals. This Quinn came to me a few weeks ago saying he and Murdock had a deal to take over the solution once Aldo and Scala brought in the final results. He told me that if I didn’t cooperate with him he’d still steal the solution, but he’d kill me as well. I didn’t know what to do.”

  Toni pulled a pair of dark slacks over her tights and then slipped her shoes on. “So you agreed?”

  “What else could I do?” Bergen pleaded.

  She wanted to smack the man again. This time across his mouth. “Continue.”

  “Murdock came to me a few days after Quinn and asked for money. He said he wanted a fee for working the deal with Richten. I said he was crazy. Then he played a tape with me agreeing to let Quinn acquire the solution and leave Richten out in the cold. He said he’d send a copy to his boss, Herr Kraft. I had to give it to him.”

  “How much?” Jordan yelled.

  “Ten thousand American dollars.”

  “You got off cheap, buddy,” Jordan said with a laugh. “He could have stiffed you for a lot more.” He looked at Toni in the mirror. “So far his story jives with what Jake told me about Quinn.”

  Bergen was confused. “You knew about Quinn?”

  “Just found out from Jake Adams about an hour ago,” Toni said.

  Scala glanced at Toni for further explanation, and then said to Bergen. “But I don’t understand. Why didn’t you just go to the police?”

  Bergen sighed with a defeated look. “That’s where it gets difficult. This American, Quinn, had done his homework. A few years back I was desperate for money. My company was about to take off, but I needed capital to move it to the next level. I arranged one broker in Zurich to sell our stock short, had another in Frankfurt buy it up, and then announced a huge breakthrough with a major product. Our stock soared. We made money in Zurich, more than tripled our investment in Frankfurt, and made out in the long run with the new product and sustained stock price. We’ve been a hot pick worldwide ever since.”

  “Naughty, naughty, Herr Bergen,” Jordan said.

  “I know it was wrong,” Bergen said. “But I was desperate.”

  “So, this Quinn blackmails you with the information,” Toni said. “Where in the hell did all this go crazy?”

  Bergen let out a deep breath. “I didn’t know for sure if Murdock and Quinn were in on it together. I suspected, but wasn’t sure. I had never seen them together. A few days before Murdock shows up dead, Quinn comes to me and tells me he spotted someone else in Innsbruck who could make trouble for us.” He looked at Toni expecting her to fill in the name. When she didn’t, he said, “It was Jake Adams. Quinn said he knew Adams worked for the old CIA, and suspected he still worked for the new CIA. He said he had some unfinished business with Adams anyway, so he’d be glad to take care of him for me. I had never been involved with a man like him before. He was frightening.”

  “Wait a minute,” Toni interrupted. “You mean to say this whole thing started because someone thought Jake Adams worked for the Agency?” She started laughing. “This is just great. Adams has never worked for the new CIA. He left the old CIA years ago.”

  Jordan looked back through the mirror and nodded.

  “Then Murdock was killed for nothing?” Bergen asked.

  “Quinn killed Murdock?” Toni said, already knowing the answer.

  Now Jordan broke in. “Wait a minute, Herr Bergenbutt. Murdock was a schemer and a con man for quite some time. I’ve got a better scenario. I’ll bet Murdock was playing both sides of the fence. Taking you for a bath, playing games with Quinn, and still trying to keep his real employer, Richten and Andreas Kraft happy. Quinn, if he’s as mean as you say, finds out and turns off the lights on him permanently. By doing that he kills two birds with one stone. He cuts out a fifty-fifty split on anything he can squeeze out of you, and he tries to implicate Jake in Murdock’s murder. Make that three birds. He also gets to keep any profit he gets from selling the Dolomite Solution to the highest bidder. Shrewd motherfucker.” It was useless at this point for him to bring up Quinn’s relationship with the president of Providence Industries, which was still unclear.

  There was silence as the
car zipped past another Tirolean town.

  Something didn’t make sense to Toni. “That explains Murdock. But what about Leonhard Aldo’s murder? And his maid? And the two men who tried to kidnap Scala. How do they fit in?”

  Bergen glanced at the two in the front and then settled on Toni. “I don’t know. They must be independent.”

  Toni wasn’t satisfied. “You know something. What is it?”

  He hesitated. “I don’t even know who you work for and I’ve been spilling my guts,” Bergen started. “Probably because I’ve lived with such guilt for the last week that it feels good to get it off my chest. How about a show of good faith on your part. Let me know who you’re with.”

  She had anticipated this. “Jordan, pass back your I.D.”

  Jordan slipped it over his shoulder to her, and then she reached up her sweater into a pouch in her bra and retrieved hers. Then she turned on the dome light and let Bergen look at them.

  Satisfied, Bergen said, “As long as we’re showing identification.” He pulled out a wallet from inside his jacket and handed it to Toni.

  She looked it over and found the Interpol I.D. When she saw it she nearly choked. “Oh my God.”

  “What?” Jordan said, looking into the mirror.

  “Where did you get this?” she asked Bergen.

  “Quinn shot the man just hours ago in the old town region,” Bergen explained. “He was following Quinn and he got nervous. That’s the way it was described to me. Quinn took a bullet in the shoulder. Clean through.”

  Toni shook her head. There was no mistaking it, the I.D. was authentic. She had pistol-whipped two Interpol agents thinking they were kidnapers. No wonder they had been so surprised in Milan. But they had chased Leonhard Aldo and run him off the road. Had that simply been an accident? She didn’t think so. She wished Jake was here so she could bounce this off of him.

  “What’s wrong?” Jordan asked.

  She thought for a moment. “The man Quinn just killed in Innsbruck was with Interpol. He was one of the men who had tried picking up Professor Scala in Milan.”

  Scala quickly became interested, craning his neck over the seat. “Then they were with Interpol?”

  “I guess so,” she said with great reservation. “But it doesn’t make sense. I’ve never read two men so wrong in my entire life. I was sure they were Mafia hit men, or at least hired thugs. I couldn’t have been that far off.” Now she questioned in her mind if she had screwed up royally. She ran all the events of the past few days through her head like a movie, trying desperately to come up with something that made sense. Then she stopped on the two men her and Jake had nearly run over on the ice rink. The two men from Boston. She was sure about them. They were without a doubt hired guns. How did they fit in?

  37

  Jake was standing out in the parking lot of the Olympic Ice Stadium, leaning against the Tirol criminal commissioner’s BMW. He was still trying to figure out what had just happened inside. Somehow Quinn had escaped through a collapsing circle of Austrian Polizei. Perhaps even more disturbing was how he had so easily handled that huge German. When they were both in the Air Force, Jake hadn’t even considered Quinn a worthy opponent physically or mentally. He was one of those officers whose nose might turn brown from following a superior too closely. Somehow, Jake knew, prison had changed the man.

  Martini approached after sending his man, Jack Donicht, off with instructions. “By the time we arrived the parking lot was a chaotic mess,” Martini said. “You can imagine. Consequently we haven’t found Marcus Quinn, or those two men who had been out on the ice with you.”

  “Have you checked all the cars in the lot?” Jake asked, looking around.

  “Yes. Otto Bergen’s Mercedes is over there.” The polizei captain pointed off toward the outer edge where two men were looking over the car. “And of course your rental Golf right there. Other than that, my men have checked the names of everyone leaving the area and the license numbers of every car. They must have left some other way.”

  “What about the Germans?”

  “They were free to go,” Martini said. “You said yourself they were simply trying to stop the shooter.”

  That’s true, Jake thought. But somehow he guessed they knew more than they were admitting. “I guess that’s it then.”

  Martini smiled. “Not quite. I gave you your gun back with the understanding you’d try to keep a low profile and not go shooting up one of our city treasures.” He had his hand out.

  “I fired in self defense,” Jake said. “You can’t expect me to stand by and let some guy fill me full of lead.”

  The man’s hand was still out.

  “If I promise not to shoot it again, I can keep it right?”

  Martini didn’t budge.

  “You know I could get another one in two seconds. Which is not to say your fair city is a great haven of crime and gun play. Although things have been getting pretty intense here lately.”

  “Because of you,” Martini shot back. “We had only one murder in Innsbruck last year.”

  “I’m an innocent victim of circumstances,” Jake said, looking at the man’s mitt out there like a panhandler.

  Finally the captain pulled back his hand. “You’re lucky, Mr. Adams. Lucky I happen to like you and believe you. And also lucky I’ve found out something about the man who has been killing people in my city. It’s only because of this information that I’m allowing you to keep your weapon. You have a right to defend yourself against this man.”

  “You mean you already knew about Marcus Quinn?” Jake asked.

  Martini nodded. “Afraid so. I found out only hours ago. You want to tell me why Quinn has a hard-on for you?”

  “He was in my Air Force unit. The same squadron as Murdock. In fact, he and Murdock worked closely together.”

  “There’s more to this isn’t there?” the polizei captain asked. “Something personal?”

  “You could say that.” Jake thought back through the years. “I testified against Captain Marcus Quinn at his General Court Martial. Quinn was sent away to Leavenworth for five years. He obviously got out.”

  “And hasn’t forgotten your role in his downfall,” Martini added.

  Jake checked his watch. It was closing in on nine o’clock. He didn’t have much time. If he was going to work in this town, he realized, then he needed a friend like Franz Martini on his side. With that on his mind, he discussed what he had planned.

  ●

  Nikolaus Hahn answered his cell phone on the second ring. He was parked five blocks from the Olympic Ice Stadium on a one-block lane next to the Stadt Park.

  “You got them?” he asked. He listened for a moment and then said, “Stick with them. Let me know where they go.”

  He flipped the phone off and turned to Wolfgang behind the wheel who was ready to start the engine.

  “Take it easy, Wolfgang,” Hahn said. “I have a feeling they won’t go far. Not without Adams.”

  Wolfgang settled back in his seat. “Why don’t we just kill Bergen as well?” he asked. “Then you cut out the middle man.”

  The man may not have been the brightest born on this earth, Hahn knew, but he had a point. They could take the solution and simply start producing it and marketing it in Europe. Later, with the help of Providence, they would have the lucrative U.S. market as well. “We need to have a little patience, Wolfgang. That’s still a possibility, but don’t do anything without my approval. We have my boss to think about. And the Americans.”

  Wolfgang nodded with understanding.

  ●

  A block away, parked back behind some bushes watching the rear of the German’s car, was Sappiamo, Gabbiano and Brachi, who had stopped the bleeding from the shot he took to the leg. The bullet had shattered part of his knee cap and then glanced off and probably gone into the side of the boards at the ice rink. He had felt worse pain. He was more pissed off than anything, since he had listened to Gabbiano and rented the damn skates. He should have been
directly across from Sappiamo like he had wanted. From now on he’d say what was right, even though Dominic had made it clear that Sappiamo was in charge.

  “They’re just sitting there,” Gabbiano said, getting impatient. “Why don’t they do something?”

  Brachi was in the back seat. He smacked the younger man across the back of the head. “Shut up ya fuck. If we hadn’t been on those Goddamn skates we would have kept up with the bitch and that Bergen, instead of having to wait for these bastards.”

  Sappiamo shook his head. “My partner is killed tonight, and all you two can do is squabble like a couple a bambini.” He pulled his pistol and pointed it directly at Gabbiano’s head. “I ought to pop you right here you little fuckhead. I’d do it too, but I don’t feel like scraping your stupid brains off the interior.”

  Gabbiano tried not to look scared, but was failing miserably.

  “Put it away,” Brachi said. “I don’t want to have to go back to Boston and tell Dom you fucked up his nephew.”

  Sappiamo laughed and put the gun inside his jacket. “Nephew or not, he screws the pooch again and he’ll answer to my ass.”

  38

  The Ford turned off at an exit thirty kilometers east of Innsbruck, and Jordan stopped at the top of the ramp before turning left and driving over the autobahn.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Jordan asked Toni.

  “It’s our only choice,” she said. “If we simply leave these two alone and let them work a deal with Richten, who knows what will happen. Quinn is still out there. We’ve got to stop him now. Don’t forget those two on the ice from Boston. And the partner from Interpol. I still can’t figure out what they’re up to. Besides, Jake is expecting us.”

  Jordan crossed the autobahn and turned back toward Innsbruck powering up to cruising speed again.

  “I’m glad you think you know what you’re doing, because we’ve definitely got company.” He nodded at the rearview mirror.