“That is the méchant who attacked us in my house,” Larissa said at a volume just above a whisper. Brian was pleased to hear no panic in her voice.
“Yeah,” Brian replied in equally low tones. “Merz.”
“But how is he here? That is impossible.”
“I don’t understand either,” Brian said, “but here he is. The good news is we’re behind him and he doesn’t know it. The bad news is he can’t be alone.”
Brian scanned the foliage. It took five minutes to spot the next man. “I see another one.”
“Where?”
“About twenty feet north of Merz’s position. He’s hard to see because he’s hidden by some thick branches.”
“Do you recognize him?”
“No … wait a minute.”
The second man stood, stretched his arms, and limped to another tree.
“That’s Kralik,” Brian said as the man knelt behind the tree. “He’s the one who tried to grab me in Cannes. I recognize his limp. I gave it to him.”
Kralik, too, was looking east. Brian followed the man’s line of sight and saw the edge of a picnic table through a gap in the trees. What had Larissa said last night about a picnic grove? A sickening realization hit Brian: if he and Larissa had followed the Comet Line faithfully, these men were in the perfect position to ambush them once they crossed into Spain.
Brian hastily decided to keep this intelligence to himself for now. No sense worrying Larissa over a possible coincidence.
“Do you see any others?” Larissa asked.
“No,” Brian replied, “but we should assume at least six of them are nearby looking for us: these two, Skyrm, the bald man we saw outside Harte’s apartment, the tall man with Merz outside St-Sernin, and Silver. There may be more. Let’s hope we’ve outflanked them all.”
“What do we do?” Larissa asked.
Brian kept focus on Merz and Kralik. Neither moved.
“You say we’re close to the highway?” Brian asked.
“Oui.”
“We have to get to it, but stay inside the tree line and follow the highway south for at least a mile—two might be safer—and then hitch a ride.” He touched Larissa’s arm. “They were expecting to catch us here. They won’t look for us a few miles away.”
“But how could they be waiting for us here?”
“I don’t know,” Brian replied. “We just have to get away from them.”
The teenagers backed slowly away from their hiding spot and headed south. After several steps Brian stopped and turned to see whether Merz or Kralik had noticed their movement. Kralik was out of view, but Merz remained a sentinel facing the wrong direction. Brian watched him take a puff of his cigarette, then followed Larissa through the woods. Soon they had doubled their distance from Merz. Brian could hear the thrum of car engines muffled by the trees and the rain.
Larissa turned to smile in celebration of the highway noise and tripped over a hidden root. She twirled toward Brian as she lost her balance and landed on her stomach with her legs draped down a ridge that bordered the path. From the underbrush, she gave Brian an embarrassed look that morphed into shock as she slid away. Brian dropped to his knees and extended a hand, grazing her fingertips as she plunged out of reach.
Larissa was slipping backward on her belly down a sudden incline. Her rain poncho flowered mockingly around her. Larissa grabbed at ferns and shrubs to slow her descent, but they pulled easily from the wet earth.
Brian dropped his backpack, stripped off his poncho, and snatched up his hiking pole. He stepped to the lip of the hill preparing to follow Larissa but was startled by the queasy sensation he was already moving. He looked to his feet and saw he was sliding down the slick mud as if on skates. Brian threw his legs forward and deliberately landed on his butt.
The slope was steeper here than the section they had climbed minutes earlier. Brian sped downhill after Larissa like he was riding an invisible toboggan. Twenty feet below him, Larissa grabbed at a bush. The branches held fast and halted her slide.
By leaning left, Brian steered toward a thin chestnut tree. He crashed into it with his hip and came to a stop a few feet above Larissa.
“Can you climb up?” he said.
“My feet cannot find a firm spot,” she said. “I keep slipping.”
“Are you hurt?”
“I do not think so.”
“OK, good.” Brian allowed himself to slide halfway past the tree to get nearer to Larissa. “I’m going to lower my hiking pole. Grab on to it and pull yourself up hand over hand.”
He hooked his right arm around the tree trunk and leaned toward Larissa. Brian had no choice but to pull her up using his sore shoulder. He looped the hiking pole’s nylon strap around his wrist and extended the pole.
“It’s wet,” Larissa said.
“Everything’s wet,” Brian said. “Just get a good grip on it.”
Larissa reached for the walking stick with her left hand, nicking the end with her fingertips. On the second try she caught it, then shifted her body until she could reach her right hand above her left and grasp the pole.
Brian let out a whoosh of agony as he took the combined weight of Larissa and her backpack. His shoulder felt like someone struck it with an ax. He pitched toward Larissa, automatically tightening his hold on the tree trunk with his right arm. He groaned.
“Brian?” Larissa asked tentatively.
“Don’t worry about me,” Brian croaked. “Just climb!”
Brian stopped watching Larissa. He concentrated instead on the canopy of branches directly above that shielded him from the rain. Most of the rain, he thought as a drop splashed onto his cheek. Larissa continued to pull herself up the hiking pole hand over hand. Each time she grabbed hold, another spasm of pain flared through Brian’s shoulder blade. He fixed his eyes on a gnarled branch and tried to transfer the pain outside his body, mentally burying it in the ground beneath his shoulder.
The weight on the walking stick eased. Larissa must have found footholds and now was using the stick only for guidance. Moments later, she flopped to the earth beside him.
“Oh Brian, your shoulder,” she said and caressed his cheek.
“I’ll be all right,” Brian said. He pulled himself up until he could brace his foot on the tree, then rolled onto his stomach. “Just give me a moment,” he said between deep breaths.
“Where is your backpack?”
“Top of the hill.”
“I am so sorry I slipped.”
“I fell in the river, you fell down a hill. We’re even. Let’s just get back up there and resolve to stay on our feet. We can make it. We have to move carefully, that’s all.”
They crawled up the ravine methodically, using exposed tree roots, low-hanging branches, and saplings like rungs on a ladder. Brian felt a jolt of pain when he reached with his left hand, but he knew that’s all it was—pain. He was not injured. He simply had to push through the pain and reach the top. At least hitchhiking would be easier. Who wouldn’t pull over to help two pathetic teenagers who looked like they fell down a mountain?
Brian gazed down past his shoulder. Larissa was just beyond his feet. Her cheeks were streaked with mud, but she smiled encouragingly. “Almost there,” she said.
He looked up and saw she was right. The grassy ridge was only four feet above. Less than that. His right foot found a root and he pushed himself upward. Another step and he would be able to see above the rim. His left foot found solid earth, and Brian pushed up again to see past the crest and into the red-rimmed eyes of Matthias Skyrm, who towered over them with a sadistic smile plastered across his face.
As his every hope abandoned him, a curious fact registered with Brian Parker. Since this whole affair had begun, not until this moment had anyone pointed a gun at him.
CHAPTER 26--GUN
“Place your hands on the back of your neck and leave them there,” Skyrm said.
Brian and Larissa obeyed. They stood in a clearing with Skyrm’s crew facin
g them in a semicircle. Brian had guessed the number of men correctly, but not the roster. Merz and Kralik were present, along with the man from Harte’s street and the man from St-Sernin. But the sixth man wasn’t Silver. This was another new face—a hard face with a grim slit for a mouth and a notch missing from his right earlobe. The purple-shaded pouches beneath his stony eyes were sharply outlined as if scored by an X-Acto knife. While the other men were wearing various shades of dark green, the newcomer wore an army camouflage jacket. A genuine mercenary, Brian reflected. Each day Skyrm was pulling in deadlier accomplices.
Kralik held Brian’s backpack by its handle. The tall man with the vulture shoulders had Larissa’s pack. Skyrm had ordered the teenagers to leave their walking sticks at the ridge, denying them a possible pair of weapons. Brian was not allowed to put his rain poncho back on, so his clothes were soaked through again.
Skyrm stood four feet away and kept his pistol trained on Brian’s chest. Brian looked at the muzzle. Reading hundreds of spy novels provides a rudimentary education on handguns, and Skyrm’s pistol looked like a Browning nine-millimeter semiautomatic to Brian, though he couldn’t be sure. The length of the barrel gave Brian the most important fact about the gun. Any shot at this range would be fatal.
Skyrm addressed Larissa. “Please lower your hood, Mlle DeJonge. I distrust hidden faces, and, besides, it is unfair that you remain dry while the rest of us suffer in the rain.” He smirked. “Right, Mr. Parker?”
Brian replied, “It’s not her fault you didn’t bring your umbrellas.”
Brian felt Larissa tense beside him. She must have thought he was mad to taunt the killer pointing a gun at him. But Brian wasn’t playing Foster Blake for kicks. Skyrm, or his employer, needed them alive. Brian was certain of that. He had seen Skyrm operate, and if this man wanted Brian dead, he would have shot him five minutes ago on the hillside. Brian hoped a show of bravado might provoke Skyrm to reveal something useful—like why he was waiting for Brian and Larissa in this obscure spot in the Pyrenees.
The red rims of Skyrm’s pale blue irises blazed for an instant at Brian’s insolence, but cooled as quickly. “Please realize, Mr. Parker, this would be an ideal time to stop annoying me. In only a few days you have cost me much sleep and a considerable amount of money, and now I am standing in a rainstorm in the mountains at an hour when I should be enjoying breakfast.”
Skyrm shook his head. “I do not admire your pluck,” he went on. “I do not find you courageous. I find you bothersome. And if you do or say one more thing to bother me, my men will take turns snapping Mlle DeJonge’s delicate fingers.”
At the threat, Merz and Kralik looked at Skyrm in surprise, then nervously glanced at each other. With his back to them, Skyrm didn’t see their reactions. But Brian did. Well, he thought, that’s interesting.
“So,” Skyrm said, “do we have an understanding?”
Brian nodded. He sensed terror radiating from Larissa and wished he could tell her Skyrm was bluffing, that her fingers were safe.
“Everyone has underestimated you,” Skyrm continued. “Including that CIA buffoon. Certainly, you have been lucky, but this morning luck has left you.”
“You’re the one who’s lucky,” Brian replied, daring one more poke at the hornet’s nest. “If we hadn’t slipped down that hill, we would have gotten away from you.”
Skyrm sneered. “‘Gotten away from us?’ What do you mean? You couldn’t have known we were here.”
“Oh, we knew,” Brian said and nodded at Merz. “We smelled his cigarette.”
Skyrm spun on his heel to glare at Merz. The man with the ruby stud raised his eyebrows pleadingly and opened his mouth to deliver an apology that never came, for Skyrm had lifted his pistol and fired. With the gun’s single crack, a red hole appeared between Merz’s eyes. Merz jerked backward, let out a strangled squawk, and crashed into the undergrowth, sparing Brian and Larissa the sight of the exit wound’s carnage.
The small group remained motionless as the forest absorbed the gunshot’s echo. Brian’s stomach clenched. He glanced at Larissa and saw her quaking. Brian looked at the newcomer and saw he now held a pistol as well, but its barrel was pointed at the ground and the mercenary had angled himself toward Kralik and the others as if to head off any insurrection. None would come. The others stood languidly, displaying no remorse for their fallen comrade.
Skyrm pointed at Merz’s body. “I warned him twice about his incompetence,” he told his crew, his voice rigid. “I do not give third chances. Do you understand?”
The men nodded and grunted.
Skyrm looked at Brian. “Do you wish to register any further complaints against my associates, Mr. Parker?”
Brian slowly shook his head. His mouth was too dry to speak.
“Good,” Skyrm said. He turned back to his men. “Voss, Carter, take Merz and throw him down that ravine. He should go undiscovered for days.”
The bald man and the tall man went to Merz’s body, giving Brian two more names, though he didn’t know who was Carter and who was Voss. The pair roughly stripped off Merz’s jacket and wrapped it around his head. This shroud would prevent a trail of blood leading from the clearing to the ravine, Brian realized. He watched them lift the limp body and felt a pang of responsibility. Trying to appear brave, Brian made a smart-ass comment that cost a man his life. A bad man, but a man nonetheless. Guilt infiltrated Brian’s horror of the shooting.
Before Brian could examine his conscience further, a rustling came from the tree line. Everyone looked to the two men in orange rain ponchos and hiking gear who stepped into the clearing.
“’Ere, what’s going on?” one of them asked, his accent unmistakably Cockney.
They’re British, was all Brian had time to think as he watched the hikers’ eyes move from the two men hoisting a corpse to himself and Larissa standing as prisoners to Skyrm as he casually leveled his pistol at the new arrivals. The gun cracked twice more. The bullets’ impact flung the hikers back into the woods. The momentary crimson bursts Brian saw as the men flew from sight would haunt him for years.
Larissa began screaming in French. Skyrm’s head snapped around. “Fermez!” he said savagely. Larissa fell silent.
Skyrm fired off instructions to his men. “Dump these bodies as well. Kralik, you help. Make sure they are well hidden.”
Kralik moved toward the dead hikers. Voss and Carter carried Merz from the clearing. “Meet us at the van,” Skyrm called as they disappeared into the forest.
Skyrm turned to the remaining man, the hard-faced newcomer. “We must leave.” He looked at Brian and Larissa with furious eyes, but spoke with a calm voice. “I will have no more trouble from either of you. Take your rucksacks and follow Masson.”
The man in the camouflage jacket gestured with his pistol and took the lead. So that’s Masson, Brian thought as he and Larissa marched forward. They moved like sleepwalkers. The towering trees, the rain, even the idea of Skyrm walking behind him with a gun pointed at his back barely registered with Brian. His mind was numb with the atrocities he just witnessed.
He wondered about the hikers, who died for stumbling upon a murder and a kidnapping. All Brian knew about them is that they were British. No, all he knew is that one was British. The other never got a chance to speak. They had appeared to be in their thirties. Were they married? Did they have children who would never see their fathers again?
A chill shook Brian’s bones and his stomach convulsed. He fell to his knees and vomited. Reflexively, Larissa did the same.
“Have you finished?” Skyrm asked. Brian spat as much of the sour taste from his mouth as he could before nodding. He didn’t want to speak to Skyrm.
“Then move,” Skyrm said.
Brian and Larissa stood and resumed their march, now side-by-side. Talking might be dangerous, but Brian needed to communicate with Larissa. He took the risk.
“I’m sorry about that,” he whispered. “The puking.”
“Do not be,” she replied
, also whispering. “I am surprised neither of us did it sooner.”
Brian responded with a shrug.
“What I still do not understand,” Larissa said, “is how could they be waiting for us here?”
Skyrm hissed, “Silence!” before Brian could reply.
He was grateful for the interruption. Larissa’s question made Brian uncomfortable because he suspected the answer, and this was not the time to share his suspicion.
CHAPTER 27--VAN
They came to a larger clearing where a maroon van was parked perpendicular to a black Volkswagen Passat. From the many tire tracks scoring the rain-soaked ground, Brian guessed this was a makeshift but well-established parking lot accessed from the highway.
Noting the Mercedes-Benz logo embedded in the front grill, Brian recognized the van’s model as a Sprinter, its distinctly European design reminiscent of a bullet train. Sprinters were common back in Milwaukee, many still bearing the defunct Dodge ram and most driven by plumbers, electricians, or delivery people. Taller and slimmer than any American van, the Sprinter was a slender rectangle with a wedge-like snout. As Masson led them to the rear, Brian saw indentations along the cargo area where the windows would have been.
The Sprinter intrigued Brian because he had seen a similar vehicle recently. But where? Of course! Merz had been watching Larissa’s house from a maroon van. Was this the same van? Brian dismissed the idea. This one’s EU plates were branded with an E, for España. Using a Spanish van for surveillance in France would draw suspicion. Still, Brian considered it more than a coincidence that Skyrm’s team would use two identical vans.
The small procession stopped at the rear doors, also windowless. A narrow ladder had been welded to the left-hand door, just inside the hinges.
“Do you have clean clothes in your rucksacks?” Skyrm asked.
“Yes,” Larissa replied.
“You two should be presentable when you are delivered,” Skyrm said, putting an ironical twist on the last word. He opened the rear doors. The empty cargo area yawned at them. Shelves built into one wall were bare. A black tarp covered the opposite wall. Dull light shone through a frosted window in the partition between the cargo space and the cab.
The Boy Who Knew Too Much Page 14