The Aggrieved

by Brett Battles

  “I don’t see any activity, do you?” he asked.

  She casually looked toward the building, focusing on the top apartment. Because of the solid wall surrounding the balcony, she could see only a portion of the windows beyond them. “It looks quiet, but is impossible to tell.”

  Two girls on a motor scooter pulled out from under one of the other buildings and headed down the street toward Daeng and Jar. As they neared, Daeng leaned forward and kissed Jar on her cheek, very near the corner of her mouth.

  She started to jerk away, but in obvious anticipation of her reaction, his other hand was already wrapped around the back of her head to hold her in place.

  “Don’t,” he whispered.

  We’re only acting, she told herself, trying to get her panicked breath under control. It’ll be over soon. We’re only acting.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled.

  Once the scooter was gone, Daeng pulled away.

  “Nothing to be sorry about,” he said. “I should have warned you.”

  “It is…it is fine.”

  He led her across the street to the other corner. From there they could see the five-story building opposite Gomez’s.

  “If we had a thermal detector, we could scan her apartment from that roof,” he said.

  “We do not have one, so why would you even suggest that?”

  “It wasn’t a suggestion. It was a thought.”

  “A useless one. What I think we should do is wait until dark and see what lights come on.” Sunset was only a couple of hours away.

  “That would work, too,” he said.

  She extracted her hand from his and did a search on her phone. “There is a café three blocks away. And I am hungry.”

  “Then I guess we should get something to eat.”

  Her brow furrowed. “That was my intention. Was I not clear?”

  MUNICH

  IT TURNED OUT Nate made the smart choice by not taking the same train as the woman.

  She was in full paranoia mode, evidenced by how many times she switched lines, twice even going back a few stations in the direction she’d come. He stayed one train behind for a few stops, but then decided to sit on a bench and watch her U-bahn dance on his phone.

  When she finally exited the system at Giesing, he got moving again, taking only two trains—instead of her nine—to reach the station. By the time he arrived, he was twenty minutes behind her but only half a block away, as she’d gone into a building on the corner of Schwanseestrasse and Deisenhofener Strasse and stayed there.

  He took a walk around it. The place was a mixed-use structure of several interconnected buildings that covered nearly a whole block. On the ground floor were a few cafes, a couple of small markets, and a drugstore, while the four floors above them held what appeared to be apartments.

  The tracker indicated the phone had been taken into a unit on the third floor toward the middle of the block. Her home? It seemed an odd choice for an international operative. Though it was a nice neighborhood, a woman in her position would have made enough to live in a considerably more upscale, secure neighborhood, where her comings and goings would be less likely to be noted by nosy neighbors. Perhaps she was visiting a friend or a lover. Or maybe she was on a job and was here for a meeting.

  He leaned against the side of a hut that shielded a bus bench, and waited for a few minutes to see what the woman would do. But while the tracking dot did move around, it remained within the apartment.

  He had a feeling if he continued waiting there, he’d be in for a long night. He ticked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, thinking. Maybe he’d walk by the apartment and get a sense of the place, to make a more educated guess about whether she lived there or not.

  The more information, the better, right?

  As he knew from watching others go inside, there was no lock on the building’s door, and he was able to walk right in. Signs directed him to the stairs, and soon he was standing in the third-floor corridor, albeit two sections away from the apartment the woman was in.

  Blaring TVs and raised voices and the clinking of dishes oozed from the flats he passed. Four times he walked by other people in the hall, none paying him even the slightest attention. The presence of strangers in the building was apparently not unusual.

  As he entered the section where the woman was, he checked his phone. The apartment in question was only four doors ahead on the left, and the dot was still inside.

  He’d already gone too far to change direction when he saw the camera. It was directly across the hall from the apartment, and painted to blend in with the molding. A moment later, he spotted a second one right above the door itself.

  But he was not wholly unprepared. Without breaking stride, he checked that his scarf was still over the lower half of his face before he opened a game on his phone. Staring at his screen, he walked beneath the two cameras and down the hall to the stairwell entrance in the next section. There, he paused and looked back.

  Interesting.

  The cameras looked as if they’d been in place for a while, not like they’d been installed for a temporary mission. But his exposure to the inside of the building had only increased his suspicion that it wasn’t the woman’s residence, either. Unless…

  A hidey-hole?

  Now that made more sense. It was not unusual for operatives to have a personal safe house to retreat to. If that’s what this place was, then what drove her here today? Had she known he was following her?

  Nate thought back over everything he’d done since arriving in Munich, but none of his actions should have triggered any warnings. Reiko Klassen couldn’t have warned her. Nate, Daeng, and Jar had handled the Copenhagen operation flawlessly. The only other way the woman could know about Nate’s interest would be from Freddie Sheng, but that didn’t make sense, either. Any warning from him would have come days ago, and she would have already been in hiding, not tucking herself away only today.

  No, it was as if she was running from something else.

  Which could mean…

  “Please, no,” he muttered.

  He took the stairs down two at a time. When he reached the ground floor, instead of using the front entrance, he found one that let him out the back. He circled around the end of the building farthest from the U-bahn entrance.

  His gaze was immediately drawn to a flat-topped office building on the other side of Schwanseestrasse. If he could get to the roof, he could take a nice long look around without garnering any suspicion.

  He waited for the light to change, and then crossed the street and walked over to the building. In the lobby, he found a directory listing dozens of businesses, many of which appeared to be doctor’s offices. Perfect. If the place served only a single employer, getting to the roof would be difficult. But no one batted an eye as he exited the elevator on the top floor and entered the stairwell marked with a roof-access sign.

  The fire door at the top of the stairs was locked but easily picked, and within six minutes of first setting eyes on the building, he was standing on the northwest end of the roof.

  After checking his phone to make sure the Dehler dot was still in the camera-protected apartment, he looked down on Schwanseestrasse. The afternoon shadows were melding together as the sun teetered on the horizon. He retrieved the palm-sized binoculars he’d obtained with the other surveillance gear and examined the people below him, eliminating them one by one as a person of interest, until he was left with three men he could not cross off his list.

  Nate was iffy on one of them, but he had no doubt the other two were watchers. And unless the apartment block on the other side of the street was a hotbed of international intelligence activities, it seemed pretty damn likely the watchers were here because of the woman.

  In normal circumstances, he would have backed off until he at least had a better idea of whom the watchers represented, but everything changed the night Liz died, and it didn’t matter to him anymore whom anyone else was affiliated with. If they were in
his way, they were a problem that needed to be solved.

  He spent several minutes studying the areas around each watcher, taking in every railing and bush and walkway, stopping only when the encroaching twilight made it difficult to see.

  Back on the street, he first checked the man he was unsure about. Though the guy was clearly waiting for something, he was anxious in a way a pro would never be, and therefore, not someone Nate needed to worry about.

  And then there were two.

  The next man was the older of the remaining duo, and definitely interested in the apartment building. He’d positioned himself at the end of the trees near an U-bahn station exit, across the street from Dehler’s building. The area between the trees was filled with bare branches of tall bushes and small piles of snow. While there were a few people in the watcher’s vicinity, most were closer to the escalator to the station. Those that weren’t were heading toward the street corner.

  Nate studied the guy for a full minute. When pedestrian traffic lulled even more, he slipped his hand over the gun in his jacket pocket and moved in right behind the guy.

  In German, he whispered, “One move and I kill you.”

  The man started to turn, so Nate jammed the jacket-covered suppressor into the watcher’s back. “I wasn’t joking.”

  Based on how quickly the man stopped moving, this probably wasn’t the first time he’d had a gun pressed against him.

  Nate said, “Lift up the bottom of your jacket. Left side. Slowly.”

  The man did as told, but he stopped before the coat reached his rib cage.

  “Nice try.” Nate poked him with the gun again. “Higher.”

  The watcher’s reluctance was palpable, but his desire not to die tonight clearly won out. He lifted his jacket until the underarm holster and pistol were exposed.

  Nate took the weapon and stuffed it into one of his pockets. “When I tell you, you will start walking backward until I say stop. Nod if you understand.”

  The man nodded.

  “Good. Start now.”

  Nate guided the man to a dark area, behind a line of denuded brush away from the main trafficked areas.

  “Stop,” Nate said. “Now sit.”

  A pause before the man started lowering himself. When he added a little turn to his movement, Nate tapped the side of the guy’s head with the suppressor. “Did I say look behind you?”

  Wincing from the relatively gentle blow to his temple, the man sat and said, “Look, I’m just doing a job. Whatever you want, I can’t help you.”

  “You could tell me what the job is.”

  “I don’t know. I was only told to watch.”

  “For what?”

  The man hesitated.

  “For a woman?” Nate asked.

  The watcher shrugged in a way that made it clear Nate’s guess had been right.

  “What’s her name?”

  “I wasn’t given a name.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “I’m telling you, I wasn’t given a name.”

  Nate thought the guy was telling the truth.

  “Who are you working for?”

  “Seriously? It’s a blind gig. I have no idea.”

  A blind gig—an anonymous hire, money wired from a one-time-only account, never a name exchanged. It was possible, but the guy wasn’t as convincing as he’d been a moment before.

  Nate could probe more, but he’d already wasted enough time with the watcher. “You were right in the first place. You can’t help me.”

  Fast and smooth, Nate wrapped his arm around the man’s neck and squeezed, until he’d cut off the blood flowing to the watcher’s head long enough for the guy to pass out. A quick search turned up a Swiss passport and a German driver’s license, each in a different name, and both undoubtedly counterfeit. There was a phone, too, which Nate confiscated. The only other thing of value was the man’s comm system. Nate wiped the earpiece off, stuck it in his own ear, and propped the man’s body against a tree, making it look like he’d had a few too many to drink.

  Nate repositioned to a spot from where he could see the other watcher across the street. The guy was even younger than Nate had thought, early twenties at best, which meant his older colleague had probably been in charge of their operation. Nate clicked on the comm mic and, in an approximation of the unconscious man’s voice, whispered, “Status.”

  Across the street, the other watcher stiffened. “No change here, sir.”

  “Maintain position.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Nate muted the mic, and set out to pay the guy a visit.

  ATHENS

  “COULD BE ON a timer,” Daeng suggested. A few moments before, a light had come on inside the apartment.

  Jar kept her gaze on the windows and said nothing.

  She and Daeng were hunkered down in the dark corner of a parking area, about half a block away. From there, they had as good a view of the apartment as they were going to get at ground level.

  Thirty seconds later, a light in a different room popped on, and then another. A few minutes after that, the first light turned off for a few moments before turning back on again.

  “Someone is home,” Jar said.

  Nothing changed for the next hour and a half. Then Jar’s phone vibrated with the three short shakes of the tracking alarm she’d set. She woke up the mobile’s screen and brought up the map. For the first time since they’d arrived in Athens, the glowing dot was on the move.

  “Could be talking to someone,” Daeng said as he glanced at the map.

  Jar studied the dot. When someone talked on a phone while on their feet, especially if he or she was inside, the subject would more often than not follow and repeat a certain path, often stopping for several seconds before walking again. The dot’s path was not following such a pattern. It moved from near the center of the apartment to the far right, and then hooked around the front, near the balcony. There it stayed for only a second before heading at a diagonal toward the back left corner.

  “Light off,” Daeng said.

  Jar glanced up and saw the center light was out. Just as she was about to look back at the screen, the room on the left side of the apartment also went dark.

  On her phone, the dot was now holding still near the back left corner. This lasted for almost a minute, and then it moved forward two meters and stopped again.

  No, not stopped, she realized as the readout changed. The dot was descending.

  “Elevator,” Jar said. “She’s leaving.”

  They left their hiding place and hurried across the street toward the target’s building.

  “Where is she?” Daeng asked as they neared.

  “Almost at the bottom. Slowing.”

  The parking area on the ground level of the building was propped up by pillars and a central core that contained the elevator, but otherwise the vehicles were in sight of passersby.

  Daeng stopped just shy of the property line. “Put an arm around my waist.”

  Jar frowned. “Why?”

  “Same reason as before.”

  She grudgingly did as he said. In their uncomfortable embrace, they angled themselves so both could see under the building.

  When the elevator door slid open, two women exited.

  “Which one?” Daeng asked.

  Checking her phone, Jar said, “They’re too close together. I can’t tell.”

  “No, I mean look at them. You saw the woman in Jakarta. Is she one of them?”

  As Jar looked back into the garage, Daeng put a hand above her ear and pulled her head to his chest.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “You were being too obvious. Just relax.”

  Well aware of him pressing against her, she tried to concentrate on the women as they walked over to a dark gray sedan and got in. Both were tall with long hair, and dressed like they were heading out for a night of clubbing. More importantly, both were women Jar had never seen before.

  “So?” Daeng
asked.

  “Neither of them.”

  “Are you positive?”

  “Why would I lie?”

  “I didn’t say you lied. I was just double-checking.”

  She pulled her head back and looked up at him. “First, they are both too tall.”

  “They were wearing heels.”

  “Yes, I know,” she said, irritated. “I took that into consideration. Second, they are both younger than the woman I saw, and third, their facial features are different from hers. Neither one is the woman.”

  “All right, all right. I just wanted you to be—”

  Lights lit up the street as the car the women were in pulled out of the parking area. Daeng leaned down and put his cheek against Jar’s as he twisted them around, putting his back to the road and shielding their faces from view.

  The position bent Jar slightly backward, and if it weren’t for Daeng’s arms, she would have fallen to the ground. As anxious as it made her feel, there was a spark of excitement, too. Why, she had no idea. She wished the sensation would go away.

  After the car passed, Daeng eased his grip and helped her to stand on her own again. Taking a step back, he said, “I’m sorry again. I didn’t want them to—”

  “See our faces. I understand. It was the right decision.” She fell silent, wishing the conversation would turn in a different direction. Thankfully, Daeng obliged.

  “I guess the question is, was one of those women Gomez or someone who works for her?”

  Since Jar did not know the answer, she saw no reason to reply.

  Daeng seemed lost in his own consideration of the question and didn’t appear to notice. After a moment, he said, “You were right about those women seeming young. Too young to be full-fledged operatives, I would think.”

  Jar, who was barely in her twenties, raised an eyebrow. “That is age bias.”

  Daeng bowed his head slightly. “You’re right again. How about I amend that to likely too young to be operatives?”

  “Not much better.”

  She could tell he was trying not to chuckle, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She wasn’t trying to be funny.