‘In German Augen means …’
‘Eyes,’ said Degen. ‘Ah, okay.’
A blank look from Macrae.
Amberson had grinned. ‘Mata Hari means eye of the dawn.’
Macrae had laughed again. Degen had smiled, shrugged and said, ‘Why not.’
Amberson threw another glance at the laptop, then he checked the time. Degen would arrive at Dulles soon.
Once again Haas and Buzek were clad in Kevlar, following Glocks in two-handed grips through the doorway of a modest apartment. This time Haas wasn’t quite as unconcerned by the possibility of booby traps.
None.
So far.
Still, this was better than babysitting the Dane.
They moved from room to room with smooth efficiency, Glocks sweeping each space. But the apartment was empty. No furniture, no rugs on the polished wooden floors, the cream walls were smooth and bare. Not even a picture hook. The only signs of past human habitation were lace curtains hanging over every window and a half roll of toilet tissue in the bathroom.
‘I shot an Albanian mobster?’ Breckinridge blinked at Reynolds.
Reynolds nodded. ‘Vilson Bogdani, real name Dren Jashari, he married into the Varoshi crime family.’
Married? It had never occurred to Breckinridge that she’d killed someone’s husband. She glanced at EAD Porter. He was giving her a look that seemed to say: You see? That’s why you need the time off.
Porter shifted his gaze to Reynolds. ‘Wife’s whereabouts?’
‘Deceased,’ said Reynolds. ‘A few years ago. Name, Mirlinda. Her mother was Zamira, the elder sister of the three Varoshi brothers who ran the clan. We know Dren Jashari was questioned by police a few times in Germany, but Europol lost track of him a few years ago.’
Breckinridge looked again at the six greyscale prints spread out on EAD Porter’s desk. All copies of Europol surveillance photographs. All featuring Dren Jashari in conversation with different males. EAD Porter held a seventh print. He handed it to Breckinridge.
‘See anyone you know?’ Porter asked.
Movement in the trees. Amberson squinted. A bird hopped from one branch to another. Another blue jay. He’d seen quite a few of them, along with finches, sparrows and starlings. One morning he’d seen a raptor, taken a photo with his phone and identified it as a red-tailed hawk, a chickenhawk. He’d googled and discovered red-tailed hawks were easily trained by falconers, and they were also found in Canada and the West Indies, and they were sacred to Native Americans, and they were monogamous, and their screech resembled a steam whistle, and ... Amberson had closed his browser: he had no intention of becoming a bird nerd. He’d kept an eye out for another sighting of the raptor though. But there had been nothing more interesting than a blue jay.
Amberson’s eyes flicked back to the laptop again. Not long now. Most of the pieces were in place. Just a few final moves to be made.
Breckinridge stared at the image EAD Porter had just handed her: the profile of Dren Jashari and a face leering in the direction of the camera that she recognised from a recently read file. ‘Dierk Wald,’ she said.
‘The recently deceased Dierk Wald,’ said Porter. ‘My last meeting was a briefing on a forensics report from Austria. Our people checked the results, and they confirmed the fingerprint identification. Dierk Wald was among the dead found at the scene of the blast in Vienna. Looks like loose ends may have been being tied up. Wald had been one of a circle of men grouped around the centre of the explosion. However, because their hands had been tied behind their backs, the damage to the skin on their fingertips had been minimal, allowing the Austrian team to make positive IDs. Wald’s confirmed involvement, the attempt on Lachkovic’s life, and the connections we’ve found between the two of them add up to a shift in our investigations.’
Breckinridge looked from the greyscale leer to EAD Porter’s slim smile.
Porter said, ‘We can now put pressure on a number of people Lachkovic is associated with.’
Gibson Ellis and James Kang were hanging back with Adler and Manz. During the meeting at Ballhausplatz, Feiersinger had made his case. Ellis could see Molly Wells had not been convinced. But it had been clear that Feiersinger sharing his thinking had been a courtesy: Wells could hold any view on the politico’s reasoning she liked, Feiersinger’s plans would be carried out regardless. Gibson had watched the wisdom of covering herself wrap itself around Wells. She’d ceased objecting, and she had allowed Ellis and Kang to observe.
The Austrian Federal Police, backed up by EKO Cobra and WEGA teams, were focusing their efforts into searching lofts, in particular those of a similar layout to lofts at the apartment buildings in Burggasse and Lerchenfelder Strasse. Misdirection, Feiersinger had insisted. He was certain the US Vice President would not now be found in a loft.
Feiersinger was convinced Austrian and American agencies were being wrong-footed by training that dictated they follow the evidence. But the evidence made little sense to Feiersinger, and he had stepped back from the data and looked at recent events with a different eye. Not the analytical eye of law enforcement, but the sly eye of a professional manipulator. And what Feiersinger believed he saw was the embedding of clues in recent events.
Feiersinger was also certain Dierk Wald was the key to finding the American alive, and he had tasked his aides with looking for Wald connections. What they’d found had prompted Feiersinger to send the Jagdkommando/Secret Service team on a different tack from the Wald-focused raids being carried out by Austrian and US police.
Johann Bauer had been the name of the KFOR soldier Wald had blamed for the death of the woman Wald had been in a relationship with in Kosovo. A check of the records of utility companies had revealed the bills for three apartments near the scene of the Vice President’s abduction were all in the name of Johann Bauer. More checks revealed the apartments had all been rented within a four week period five-to-six months ago.
Wells had asked if Johann Bauer was a common name. It was. Wells had asked if the records indicated if all three apartments had been rented by the same Johann Bauer. They did not. Wells asked why Feiersinger was not using his influence to shift the focus of Federal Police investigations towards these disparate Johann Bauers. Feiersinger had shrugged.
Ellis hadn’t been sure if the shrug meant Feiersinger didn’t have the necessary clout, or if Feiersinger had decided that if his misdirection theory was wrong then his career could survive his having initiated a side-operation that proved fruitless, but not if he were to decide to divert huge resources based on nothing more than intuition. Whatever the reason, Feiersinger had drafted in a Jagdkommando team to check each of the Johann Bauer apartments.
‘Empty. Same as the last one, no sign of recent occupation,’ said the Austrian accented voice in Ellis’s comms ear-bud.
The second apartment being as bare as the first wasn’t a surprise to Adler. And he expected the third to be similarly abandoned. Left untouched for months. As Kai Degen’s apartment had been. It wasn’t much of a clue, more like a hint. A subtle confirmation of the message Adler was being sent: Kai was involved.
That possibility had been nagging at Adler since the very first meeting with Feiersinger—the efficiency and boldness of the US Vice President’s kidnap had been breathtaking—but he’d struggled to see a convincing explanation for his friend being behind the abduction. Financial gain was not a plausible motivation—Kai did well from his K & R consultancy, but he’d never been driven by money—and Adler had remained unconvinced. Until the Haerdtl Room, when Feiersinger’s aide had handed Adler a file on Dierk Wald. Adler had recognised the face in the images in the file. A face from Kosovo. The unmistakable leer of Besian Beqiri, whom Degen had promised to kill if any harm came to the girl with the scar on her chin whose scream had sent Degen and Adler bursting into Besian’s Bar.
Adler had remained silent during the remainder of Feiersinger’s briefing, absorbing the politico’s thinking, seeing that it aligned with a scenario that inc
luded Kai Degen. Adler knew, with unflinching certainty, that if the Vice President of the United States of America was just a pawn, an innocent caught up in some campaign Kai Degen was waging, Degen would have taken steps to avoid the American becoming collateral damage. And that meant keeping the Vice President secure until it was safe to hand him over. And when it came time to return the American, who would Kai Degen trust with the man’s life? Jagdkommando.
Degen knew he would be a suspect ... no, Degen would have made sure he was a suspect, and Feiersinger—or more likely one of his aides—must have been manipulated into involving Degen’s former Jagdkommando team, ensuring Adler was in place to spot the Beqiri clue.
What did that say about Adler? That Degen trusted him, or did Degen see Adler’s friendship and loyalty as a personality chink to be exploited? Probably both, Adler had supposed.
And Adler was okay with that, because he was certain Degen’s actions would be driven by guilt. Not remorse over something he’d done. But by something he hadn’t done. It was the same guilt that kept Adler from sharing everything he knew.
At the third apartment, Haas and Buzek were first through the door.
Hall … Clear. Four doors: all closed.
Door one: lounge …
Clear.
Door two: bathroom …
Clear.
Door three: bedroom …
Clear.
Door four: kitchen—
‘We’ve got something,’ said Haas. ‘The apartment is empty, except for the kitchen. On a wooden stool in the centre of the room is a laptop. The laptop is open and switched on. The screen is displaying a video of a male. He’s strapped to a chair with a black hood over his head. I can’t tell if it’s a live feed or a pre-record.’
In Haas’s comms-bud, Adler asked, ‘Any cables or wires attached to the laptop?’
‘Negative.’
‘Check the machine’s power meter.’
Haas nodded for Buzek to withdraw, then he stepped towards the laptop. He moved the cursor over to the battery icon at the foot of the screen. He let out a breath: no booby trap.
‘Ninety-six percent,’ said Haas. ‘Someone left this here just before we arrived.’
Dominik turned a corner and saw the van. A black VW Transporter. The passenger-side door swung open. Dominik climbed in, smirked at Scott Macrae and pulled the door closed.
‘All okay?’ asked Macrae.
‘Shiny. Laptop is set up.’
Macrae nodded at the black rucksack on the seat between them. ‘Your stuff,’ he said. ‘I’ll have you at the train station in ten minutes.’
Dominik grinned as he drew his seatbelt across his chest. His part was over. He’d be back in Poland in a couple of days. There, he planned to spend a few nights in a five star hotel, then he and his rucksack would start ticking off his wildlife bucket list: from polar bears in Manitoba to penguins in Patagonia.
‘What will you do after your trip?’ asked Macrae.
Dominik shrugged. ‘I am not sure. I had an idea for a band. Perhaps I will go to Nashville.’
He’d slept. He’d woken. He’d pissed. He’d been given food and water. And now the headphones were back on. He was listening to another audiobook: the life of Julius Caesar and how his assassination led to the demise of the Roman Republic.
40. COMMUNICATION
Half a dozen agents occupied one curve of the briefing room’s oval table. Opposite them, EAD Xavier Porter nodded thoughtfully at each of their reports.
Locke: ‘Timestamp confirmed. The video was recorded ninety minutes ago. Duration five minutes. The video was uploaded by the email address [email protected], then sent to itself. That account was accessed on the laptop, and the video was downloaded onto the laptop seventy-five minutes ago and set to play on a loop. The email account was left open, no other activity. The account was created six months ago. The download took place shortly before the laptop was discovered.’
Garcia: ‘The laptop owner has been traced, a high school student in Linz, she reported it stolen three months ago. Local police are checking out the girl, but their initial report suggests she’s clean.’
Ross: ‘The email address won’t throw up anything, AOL doesn’t keep IP information longer than twenty-eight days, but even if we got lucky we’re guessing we’d trail back to another stolen laptop. We’re checking anyway.’
Sullivan: ‘Local techs are examining the video. It’s also being looked at by the National Multimedia Evidence Processing Lab in Indiana. They’re saying the hooded figure in shot is a match for the VP’s height and build. The large window in the background has been fitted with shutter panels. As they’re closed, no outside detail is available. There’s no audio track, so no location clues there. However, the light bleeding through the shutter slats suggests the window is south-facing. As the light isn’t interrupted, the window must be above traffic level. Every available body is on the streets of Vienna checking exteriors, but ...’
Needle in a haystack, thought Porter.
The preparations Gibson Ellis had made for the Vice-President’s visit to Vienna included the VP occupying the guest wing of the US Ambassador’s residence in the Hietzing district. A large contingent of Secret Service agents had been billeted in a city centre hotel close to the main Embassy building, including those agents assigned to overnight protection detail at the Ambassador’s residence. In order to provide a rapid response team in the event of a breach of security at the residence, Ellis and a detail of agents had taken over the top floor of a Hietzing hotel very close to the residence. Originally, it had been a smart move. Now it was inconvenient.
Ellis fished in a pocket for his room key, then he waved a thanks as James Kang’s car pulled away. Kang would be back in an hour: enough time for Ellis to shave, shower, dress in fresh clothes and call his wife.
Ellis shivered as he stepped from warm evening air into the air-conditioned hotel. Nodding to the agent stationed in the lobby, Ellis made his way to the elevator. The door slid shut. Ellis pushed the button for the fourth floor, leaned against the back wall and closed his eyes.
The elevator stopped. Ellis blinked a weary glance at the button panel. He’d only reached the second floor. Ellis sighed as the door began to slide open. He knew he was being unreasonable, but he silently cursed the resident, or maid, or bellboy, or—
Shit!
Ellis attempted to push himself off the wall as he reached for his weapon. Too slow.
The human body could take a lot of non-specific physical trauma. Kicking and punching wasn’t the most effective way to subdue an opponent; throwing body weight was. The balaclava-clad man in the hallway rushed Ellis. Crunched him against the elevator wall. Brought a knee up to Ellis’s middle. As Ellis doubled up, the knee swung again and smashed into his face. Ellis was thrown against another wall, and he crumpled to the floor, tasting blood.
Juan Vicente Ibáñez grabbed the Secret Service agent’s handgun, snatched the back-up subcompact from Ellis’s ankle, then dragged him from the elevator into the hallway, where Ernst Ebner was keeping watch. Ebner pushed open a room door, and Ibáñez pulled Ellis through the doorway, then into the bathroom and pushed the American into the empty bath tub.
Ellis twisted to try to stand, but slipped on the slick surface: the tub had been coated with the contents of three litre-bottles of olive oil.
‘Stay where you are,’ Ibáñez barked.
Ellis slumped into the bath, wiped his bloodied mouth with his sleeve and glared at Ibáñez. ‘Need to remember this trick,’ Ellis snarled. ‘Smart.’
‘We need you to be smart also,’ Ibáñez said. ‘We wish to make arrangements for you to collect your Vice President.’
Ellis spat blood onto the gleaming white floor tiles. ‘You could have picked up a phone,’ he said.
‘This way you know the offer to trade is genuine.’
‘Trade? You demanding more money?’
‘No, not money. We just want Kolinkar Øster released with n
o charges.’
Ellis stared. ‘Feiersinger was right,’ he muttered.
Ellis’s suit had the appearance of slimy graphite-coloured marble, with veins of lighter grey where the material had creased and escaped being coated in oil. His hair was a greasy helmet, having had oil-slicked fingers pushed through it repeatedly during Ellis’s debriefing.
Molly Wells had been driven to the Hietzing hotel to hear Ellis’s report first hand. His earlier call to the Embassy had been replayed, digested and debated in Washington while Wells had been in the car.
She’d listened. To Ellis. And to the DC-based representatives from various agencies gathered round a table 4,500 miles away, their comments and questions being relayed into the comms bud in her ear.
‘Why go to you?’ she asked.
‘Maybe they felt bad about screwing up my career.’ Ellis looked down at his ruined suit. ‘I still need a shower and a fresh set of clothes. I smell like week-old salad dressing.’ He looked up. ‘We done?’
Wells sucked in a breath, but she let whatever words she had been close to uttering dissolve in a loud exhale. Ellis had had the shit kicked out of him in more ways than one. He was entitled to his bitter tone.
The table in Washington had heard enough; they signed off.
‘Sure Gibson,’ she said softly, ‘we’re done.’ Wells turned. ‘But don’t take too long freshening up. You’re leading the team to bring back Ranger.’
She left the room. It would have been too awkward if she’d stayed to watch Ellis fake gratitude. Worse if he hadn’t bothered. Not that the idea had been hers. Washington had decided Ellis retrieving the Vice President he’d lost would be good for morale. And good for PR.
The Hunting Command (Grey Areas Triptych Book 1) Page 25