Scorpion Trail

by Archer, Jeffrey

  She dismissed the thought. Not on. Not if she wanted to live a little longer.

  She pulled an address book from her handbag. Time to find a friend she could trust. It wouldn't be easy. Loyalty was a rare commodity in the circles she moved in.

  Kommissar Gunther Linz had intended to spend the afternoon watching athletics on television with his wife who was a gymnastics teacher, but the weekend duty man at the Wiesbaden HQ had gone sick, so when the alert came from the Hessische Landeskriminalamt they'd telephoned Linz at home.

  The word 'Bosnia' linked with crime in Germany made him shudder. With hundreds of thousands of refugees here from all the Yugoslav ethnic groups it wouldn't take much to spark civil war on German streets.

  And now the attempted murder of a child. Bad news. Very bad.

  As he took the Pfefferheirn turning off the Autobahn, he jabbed at the radio button to catch the six o'clock bulletin. Wanted to see what the media had dug up on that Leipzig can of worms.

  The way he'd heard it from the police rumour network, the suicide note left by the microbiologist had been dynamite. The Leipzig police had passed it straight to the intelligence agencies who'd slapped a national security classification on it and demanded sealed lips. Now the BND were claiming they'd 'lost' the letter.

  The 'pips' of the time signal. He turned up the volume.

  '. . . Frau Erika Schmidt, the daughter of the dead scientist, claims in an interview in tomorrow's Bild Zeltung that her father told her some of the old Stasi securio police were still functioning, and that he'd been ordered against his will to produce dangerous bacteriti for them. . . .'

  The Stasi still functioning? No chance. Impossible after the way it had been taken apart after unification. A judicial Commission was still sifting the files looking for people to prosecute on human rights charges.

  If there were Stasi men still operating, they were freelancers. But freelancers using anthrax? He shuddered again. And working for whom? The BND? Not their style ... On the other hand, they had gone out on a limb with that plutonium business.

  He pushed the 'off' button.

  A uniformed officer stopped him at the turning into Muhlweg. He showed his pass and was waved through. Locals clustered in groups of two or three on the pavements, watching the comings and goings. Must have shaken up a dull Sunday, Linz thought.

  Relieved to see him, his opposite number from the Hessen police shook him warmly by the hand.

  'The hospital say the girl will live. The bullet missed her heart by this much.' The Inspector held his finger and thumb so they almost touched. 'By the way, they're all foreigners here. Americans and British. Not much German between them.'

  'Then I can practise my English a little,' Linz replied.

  Alex stood up to greet the tall, limping newcomer with the pepper-coloured hair. The wariness in the policeman's close-set eyes told him this was a man who preferred facts and certainties to supposition.

  Irwin Roche had summoned the help of an interpreter from the Rhine-Main Air Base, a bespectacled schoolteacher.

  Helped by a large pot of fresh-brewed coffee, they explained the background to the shooting that afternoon. Linz listened, interjecting sometimes in English, sometimes in German.

  Lorna spelled out how CareNet used the Internet as an adoption agency, then Roche took Linz into his den to demonstrate.

  'So, any person who has a computer can connect to this?' he asked, intrigued.

  'All you need is a modem and a subscription to an Internet server.'

  'So, anyone who saw the report on the news could have had the idea to connect to this Internet and could find out that Vildana was staying in your house?' he pressed.

  Roche blushed again.

  'It was incredibly stupid to put my address, I know that. . . .'

  'Ya, but my point is that anybody could do this. Any crazy person with a computer. . .'

  'And a gun,'Alex added. Linz seemed to be questioning Pravic's involvement.

  'Of course. But I must look at all possibilities,' he said dismissively.

  'Tell me, does the computer make a record of the people who have connected up and read these messages?'

  'Unfortunately not,' Roche replied. 'There's no control over the "net".'

  'That is a pity.'

  Back in the kitchen, Linz began to make notes.

  'It was you who brought the girl into Germany illegally, Frau Sorensen?' he asked without looking up.

  Lorna glanced in alarm at Alex. He shook his head.

  'I'm not prepared to comment on that.'

  Linz took her answer as an admission.

  'Vildana's a persecuted person and could apply for asylum here,' she added simply.

  Linz didn't react. It wasn't a point worth pursuing. Any foreigner entering Germany legally or illegally, had a right to stay while an asylum application was processed.

  'Milan Pravic lived in Germany for several years,' Alex said. 'His brother told me it was Berlin. Wouldn't there be some record of him there? A photograph maybe?'

  'It's possible. The Landeskriminal polizei in Berlin can check that. Today of course is Sunday, so they cannot get at the Municipal register until tomorrow. We have access to the Bundesverwaltungsamt computer in K61n - where the records of "black sheep" are kept, guest workers who will not get their visa renewed because they've broken the law. But they have nothing on Milan Pravic. I have already checked.'

  He frowned.

  'What do you know about this person?' Linz asked.

  'He's a mass murderer and maybe a rapist, Herr Kommissar,' Alex snapped.

  'Comes from a small village in Bosnia. His brother's a priest. Not much love between him and Milan. The man's a psychopath.'

  'But perhaps has not used computers much . . .' said Linz frostily. He suspected the Englishman was something of an amateur psychologist, a species he disliked.

  Alex ground his teeth.

  'You understand, Herr Crawford, that there is not much evidence yet,'

  Linz continued. 'Maybe the ballistics department will get some information from the bullets. Or maybe the girl saw the face of the man who shot her.'

  'All Vildana saw was the front wheel of her bike,' Lorna replied. I was watching her.'

  'I don't think you've quite understood about Pravic, Herr Kommissar,'

  Alex continued. 'Let me tell you what his own brother said about him. He said killing's like a drug to Milan. Particularly when his victims are Muslim. He'll kill anybody who gets in his way. And given the means, he'll commit murder on a scale that'll make the Tulici massacre look like a minor road accident!'

  Linz blinked at the intensity of Alex's words.

  'Then we must pray for some luck in finding him,' he added calmly. 'I would like to know where to contact you if I need to talk to you again.'

  Alex gave him the number of the Hotel Sommer.

  'And you, Frau Sorensen? Where will I find you?'

  Alex's and Lorna's eyes met for no more than a second, but it was long enough.

  'I'll be with him,' she said.

  They spoke little on the drive into Frankfurt, Lorna's hands gripping the wheel for support as much as to steer the car. Personal decisions were beyond her now. The puppet-master Fate had taken control again.

  Her mind gyrated, sifting and sorting the words and happenings of this long day, but they were as hard to hold onto as leaves in the wind. The baring of souls in the bistro had opened old wounds then seared them.

  Now, the sharp crack of the gunshots, the clatter of handlebars on concrete, the sight of the blood-soaked rag pressed to Vildana's chest - all snapshot images clicking round in an endless loop in her brain.

  Alex took in little as they drove into town, his mind filled by the eyes at the window of the white Polo. The cold, blue-grey eyes of a man who'd assigned himself the right to snuff out the life of another human being.

  Any man who had such arrogance over life and death would try again, once he learned Vildana was still alive. They'd need
a new hiding place for the girl when she was released from hospital. Above all, Pravic had to be found. He had to be stopped.

  He would need a new hiding place? Who? Whose responsibility was Vildana now? The Roches', Germany's - or Lorna's?

  He turned his head to look at her. Lorna's chin jutted in concentration as she drove, her blonde hair short and wavy like a Pharaoh's. Now that he knew what she'd been through in those lost years, he could read it in the hollowness of her cheeks, in the lines round her mouth.

  She sensed him looking at her and flashed a smile that peeked from her face as nervously as a kitten sniffing the air.

  Their eyes locked for little more than a second, just long enough to confirm agreement as to what would happen next.

  Words weren't needed. They'd be superfluous, dangerous even. Words analysed things too much. If the two of them were to talk about the pact their eyes had just made they'd find a reason for setting it aside. They'd have to conclude that on a day of such shocking, murderous events, it would be wrong to pursue pleasure.

  She parked the Land Cruiser in a imilti-storey. He took Lorna's small suitcase from the back seat and carried it two blocks to the Hotel Sommer.

  The desk clerk handed him the room key without comment. Then when the couple disappeared into the elevator, he changed the figure 'one' in the occupancy column of the register to 'two'.

  They stood close together in the lift, their bodies touching, but not their hands. Slowly he bent his head and their lips brushed with the lightness of feathers.

  The elevator stopped and the doors opened, but for a moment their eyes stayed on each other, neither wanting to break the spell.

  His hand shook as he fumbled with the key. Like a cat, she rubbed her face against his shoulder, her breath halting and uneven.

  Inside the room, he dropped the suitcase beside the wardrobe, then held her by the waist. She slipped her arms round his neck, threading her fingers through his hair.

  His mouth crushed against hers, their lips and tongues re-discovering the taste and territory they'd once known well.

  She pulled back from him, her eyes wild and hungry. She stroked his beard, trying to familiarize her hands with the unfamiliar.

  'Maybe. . .' she breathed, 'maybe that'll have to go.'

  'What, now?' he asked.

  'No.' Her mouth widened into a smile. 'Not now. Later. A lot later.'

  She slipped off her knitted waistcoat then crossed her arms, taking hold of the hem of her shirt and pulling it over her head. Alex did the same with his pullover. They dropped the clothes on the floor.

  He kissed her bare neck and shoulders, his hands tingling at the feel of her smooth, soft skin, the soapy perfume of her flesh borne upwards by her body heat. She was so thin, he could feel her ribs. He ran his fingers down the ridges of her spine, remembering their geography. Then with a little twist he unclipped the strap of her bra and slipped it forward.

  Lorna tossed back her head and closed her eyes to heighten the sensations shooting through her body. His tongue's caress hardened her nipples. She breathed in sharply, clasping his head as if it were the most precious thing on earth and ran her fingers up the soft, sensitive skin behind his ears.

  She felt his hands start to work on the belt of her jeans.

  'Hang on,' she panted, 'you've still got your shirt on.'

  She tugged and pulled at the buttons, breaking one of them, then pushed the shirt back over his shoulders.

  She rubbed her body against the thick mat of hair on his chest, remembering. Remembering how fine-tuned his flesh had been when they'd met that second time in Belfast, how addicted she'd become to what he did with it.

  He had the belt undone and slipped his hands under her knickers, cupping her small buttocks, his fingertips reaching to feel the hot moistness underneath.

  They pulled apart to throw off the rest of their clothes.

  Lorna threw the duvet onto the floor and lay down on the smooth white sheets. She covered her breasts with her hands, conscious that they weren't as firm and shapely as when he'd last seen them. But then, he wasn't the same shape either, she realized, seeing the slight bulge of his stomach when he knelt beside her on the mattress. She looked up at his beaming face as his hand caressed her stomach and teased through the tufts of her bush.

  'You're as gorgeous as ever, Lorna,' he breathed. 'D'you know that?' A silly grin spread across her face.

  'So are you,' she purred.

  She took hold of him and pulled him down on top of her.

  Twenty-four

  Monday 4th April, 10.30 a.m.

  Boston, Massachusetts

  Annie Donohue, slit open the hand-delivered letter and pulled out a pack of photographs. She frowned. For her? Some mistake, perhaps. Then she unfolded the single sheet of writing paper accompanying them and recognized the writing of her younger sister.

  'Hey, it's from Lorna,' she smiled, realizing then that the scenes in the shots were Bosnia.

  Always close, she and her sister. Two years between them in age, but as children they'd been like Siamese twins when it came to coping with the tyranny of their father.

  It was a brilliant spring morning in New England, maples and birches exploding with yellow-green life. The Lowell children were back at school after a few days at home because of bad colds. Annie had the house and the day to herself

  An uncontrolled appetite for muffins and donuts had left her with hips and thighs that were painful to joke about, but she had a ready Irish smile, lively brown eyes and tawny hair almost down to her shoulders.

  She took the letter back to the kitchen and poured herself some of the coffee she'd left to brew. Then she sat down and read.

  Dearest Annie,

  You will NEVER guess who the guy with the beard is, standing next to me in a couple of these photos! His name begins with the letter 'A'.

  See you soon. Loma.

  What was she on about? Never got sensible letters from her any more.

  She riffled through the prints until she found two that showed a bearded man standing uneasily next to Lorna. Certainly didn't recognize him.

  She read the letter again.

  His name begins with the letter 'A'.

  'Oh my Goff she shrieked. 'That's not possible.'

  She looked again at the pictures, then stomped to her husband's den and pulled a box file from the bookshelf. She returned to the kitchen and opened the lid. Inside were hundreds of photographs, dating back years, all the prints that had never merited being pasted into albums.

  Her heart was thumping so much she feared a coronary. She dug deep in the box, guessing anything from so long ago should be at the bottom. She stirred the prints like a cake-mix, but didn't find what she was looking for.

  'Come on, Annie, you're being stupid,' she scolded herself. 'Go systematic.'

  She began again, removing each print individually, checking and stacking them into piles. Eventually she found it.

  Hands trembling, she held the print taken in Belfast in 1973 next to the new ones.

  'Oh my Goff!' she howled.

  The beard had fooled her. Older now, jowlier, bigger gut, but the same man.

  'A for Alex!' she hissed.

  She took the new pictures to the window and held them to the light, looking for signs on Lorna's face of the bitterness she'd harboured for the Englishman for so many years. Lorna certainly didn't look happy in the photograph. The smile looked fixed.

  The two sisters had always confided in each other. She remembered Lorna crying over the stocky, unsophisticated boy she'd fallen for in a London pub in the nineteen-sixties. She had been broken-hearted at having to leave him and return to college in America.

  She remembered too the ecstatic phone call from Belfast ten years later, announcing they'd met again. Then, just a week or two after that, the betrayal.

  Annie had never shared Lorna's belief in fate; when she learned Alex was spying for the British, it hadn't been hard to conclude that he had engineered the me
eting to make use of her.

  Was he doing it again? What use could she be to him this time? Lorna wasn't involved in anything sensitive these days. No longer had anything to do with the Cause.

  Annie read the letter once more. No clue from Lorna as to what she felt. No reason given for sending the photos. Just those ambiguous exclamation points. It was almost as if after twenty years of pledging to get her own back on Alex, Lorna couldn't decide what to do, now she had the chance. As if she was asking for help ...

  Mister Alex Jarvis. Annie knew what she would do to him. Cut his balls off.

  But it wasn't down to her. Not down to Lorna, even. When revenge was personal it was almost always wrong. There were bigger issues to be considered. This was one for the organization, for the boys with long memories who would've given their right arms during the last twenty years to know the tout's whereabouts.

  She picked up the telephone and dialled her husband's number.Joe had sat on the Irish Republican fundraising committee for over fifteen years. They'd both of them been involved since soon after the British troops went in.

  Campaigning, lobbying. Joe would know what to do.

  He'd have a feeling for the mood amongst the Provisionals now there was a ceasefire on the way.

  Joe was in a marketing meeting, but his secretary pulled him out. He listened silently as she explained, then gave his answer in a couple of sentences.

  She padded back into the den, took an envelope and writing paper from Joe's desk and returned to the kitchen. She slipped one of the photos inside the envelope, keeping the other back for herself. For at least ten minutes she just sat, wondering whether she'd done the right thing after all, talking to Joe.

  It was she who'd encouraged her sister to get involved in the Gause. Her thoughts drifted back to 1973 when Lorna had fled from Belfast like a wraith. After the boys in Boston put a contract out, the creature had hidden in cupboards, terrified a knock on the door would be followed by a bullet.

  Above all, Annie remembered how Lorna's spirit had been broken by that bastard's betrayal, by the shock that someone she'd loved and trusted could do that to her. Annie had told her sister to forget him, but she never could. Never got him out of her system. Lorna, she guessed, was one of those benighted women who only loved the men that abused them.