The Honorable Knight

by Patrick John Donahoe

  Serena wondered what was going on at the bar. She sat down and asked, “Are you alright?”

  Desiree replied, “We were about to leave. I’m so glad you and Jacques are here.”

  Karl returned with Jacques and Heinrich, and each carried a chair. Karl invited the two men to sit and then he sat in between the two women. “I feel like a thorn between two roses,” he announced as though he amused himself. “Jorge, can we have the dessert menu? And add the desserts and drinks to my tab.”

  Forty-Six

  Kurt had the valet park the Mercedes, then he and Leora walked hand in hand into Mani’s. The maître d’ inquired if they would like a table, but Kurt told the maître d’ he was only stopping by to give his father, Karl Brandt, a message.

  “Mister Brandt, of course. Follow me.”

  Kurt observed his father having drinks with two women and two men. One of the men was Heinrich, whom his father never associated with in public, and one of the women was the secretary he met at the Rumba Bar in Havana. Kurt wondered, what was she doing here? Was she working undercover for his father and spying on him in Havana and now here?

  As Kurt approached the table he overheard the Havana secretary say, “. . . you have a beautiful city. I hope we can spend more time here working on our collaboration.”

  Karl looked up from giving his full attention to Serena and asked, “Kurt, to what do we owe the pleasure of this visit?”

  “I want to introduce you to my fiancé, Leora.”

  “What! Are you out of your mind?” Karl’s frown flushed red with instantaneous anger. He rose from his chair and slammed his drink onto the table spilling most of it on the tablecloth.

  The four sitting at the table with Karl felt embarrassed for Kurt and Leora.

  Leora started to turn away, but Kurt held her hand and said, “No, we’re here together and will leave together whether my father approves or not.”

  Kurt pointed at Serena and said, “Did you hire this woman to spy on me while we were in Cuba and since I’ve been home?”

  Karl, obviously embarrassed by his and Kurt’s outburst, was suddenly unsure of what to say and do, sat back down, his face still flushed, and said, “I only met this woman today. I don’t understand your question.”

  Heinrich stood and walked over to Kurt and Leora. Addressing Karl, Heinrich asked, “Is there a problem?”

  Kurt answered in anger, “Yes, I think you and this woman have been spying on me this summer. Otherwise, why did she come here from Havana?”

  Heinrich, his secret police instincts kicking in, addressed Serena and asked, “Did you meet young Kurt in Havana?”

  “Of course not. He probably met someone who looks like me. I’ve never been to Havana,” Serena replied, putting a slight Georgia Peach accent to her voice. “I work for the CDC in Atlanta.”

  The subtle obviousness of Serena’s accent gave Karl a start, and did not impress Heinrich.

  Heinrich, not to be outdone, replied, “I checked both your IDs against the CDC roster and Desiree al-Rashid is a CDC employee, but I found no record of a Serena at the CDC, or of your bodyguard sitting there.”

  “I’m a consultant, not an employee,” Serena replied without any accent.

  Seeing this conversation was going from bad to worse, Jacques stood and sidled up next to Heinrich. Jacques was aware from the scuffle he had with Heinrich earlier that Heinrich had a .45-caliber pistol in a holster beneath his left arm pit. Jacques realized he’d made a mistake by arming himself with only a .38-caliber pistol strapped to his ankle. He considered kneeling down and retrieving his pistol, but hesitated. He would be vulnerable kneeling.

  “You’re lying,” added Kurt. “I never forget a face. You said you worked as a secretary on the docks in Mariel.”

  Karl said, “Heinrich, I think Miss al-Rashid and you and I will be leaving out the back way, now!”

  Heinrich pointed his pistol at Jacques’ midsection. “Don’t anyone move or this one is dead,” threatened Heinrich.

  Karl held his pistol at Desiree’s waist with his right hand, and grabbed her by the arm with his left hand and boosted her up from her chair.

  With his gun pointed at Jacques, Heinrich moved around to the back of the table next to Karl.

  Serena berated herself for not having packed a weapon and letting these two get the best of her, Jacques, and Desiree. Never underestimate your opponent was her guiding rule, and in this case she had underestimated Karl’s desperation and Heinrich’s paranoia.

  Karl kept his pistol pointed at Desiree and shoved her down the hallway toward Mani’s back entrance. Heinrich followed Karl, walking backwards with his pistol now pointed at Serena. Serena followed Heinrich down the hall, keeping him in sight.

  Jacques leaned down to retrieve his pistol from his ankle holster. As he stood, Kurt grabbed Jacques’ arm and demanded, “What’s going on?”

  Jacques shook off Kurt’s grip, and started down the hall.

  Kurt followed. “Who are you people?”

  Jacques replied, “I’m sorry, Kurt. We came here to investigate your father’s possible involvement in a terrorist attack against the United States. We didn’t expect a confrontation in a public restaurant.”

  “You know my name. Are you some kind of police?”

  Jacques arrived at the door, looked for Serena, and spotted her a few feet from Heinrich’s SUV.

  Jacques felt Kurt’s hand on his shoulder, and ordered, “Go back. Your father has kidnapped our friend.”

  Jacques approached Serena. Heinrich had his pistol pointed at her.

  Karl, with his pistol pointed at Desiree’s head, shoved her into the back seat, then climbed in next to her.

  Heinrich kept his pistol pointed at Serena as he climbed into the driver’s seat and sped out of the parking lot.

  Forty-Seven

  Jacques took the wheel of Serena’s Audi A6 rental car. “Serena, hand me the keys. You know I’m the faster driver, and we don’t have any time to waste.”

  Reluctantly, Serena took shotgun. “I have an address for his country home, but it doesn’t show up on my GPS. We’ll have to rely on our tracking devices.”

  Jacques sped away, spinning tires. “Give me a heads up before the turns.”

  Serena reached under the passenger seat and retrieved the locked briefcase containing two Browning .45-caliber pistols she’d brought under special authorization from the CIA and the Agencia Brasileira de Inteligencia. She unlocked the briefcase, inspected and loaded the weapons, and checked their safeties. She handed one pistol to Jacques, who tucked it into his jacket pocket.

  Serena’s cell phone rang. She answered, “Ian, where are you?. . . I see. Get a rental car and we’ll vector you to our position. We had a blowup at a restaurant. We’re chasing Karl Brandt. He’s taken Desiree hostage . . . It couldn’t be helped. We think he may be going to his country home. Call back when you’re on the road.”

  Serena checked the tracker output and said, “Both Heinrich’s tracking device and the one in Desiree’s purse are at maximum ranges and providing only weak signals, we need to close the gap. Pronto.”

  Desiree couldn’t ascertain the mental status of her captors. On one hand, she hoped they would take her to Karl’s secret lab where she could assess the biological weapons and cures he may have developed. She hoped he had used his German ingrained organizational methodology to make her job easier once she gained access to his lab. He seemed like a person who did everything purposely. On the other hand, she feared for her life.

  Their purpose in kidnapping her was unclear. They may have been able to escape from Mani’s without using her as a shield. Did Karl see a medical person who could praise him for his incredible work on viruses? On the other hand, was he a madman operating solely on adrenaline and would do anything to preserve his own life? She knew Heinrich would be a dangerous adversary inclined to do whatever Karl asked him to do, but Karl was an unknown quantity.

  Jacques raced down Highway 60 toward the airpo
rt. It wouldn’t do for him to create interest in the Sao Paulo version of the Highway Patrol. Even a few minutes’ lost time hassling with an officer and they would lose the signals from the GPS trackers in Desiree’s purse and on Heinrich’s car. Serena told Jacques to go faster as they were at a marginal range for the bugs to provide data to her GPS tracker on her iPad.

  Serena told Jacques, “Take the next ramp.”

  Jacques slowed just enough to make the ramp and not fly off the road into the forest. Serena gripped the armrest on the passenger seat door. Jacques roared along the ramp until power sliding onto the Marginal Road which bordered the west end of the Sao Paulo Guarulhos International Airport. A short distance down the road the icons on the GPS display showed Heinrich’s car passing the Super Mercado of a small community.

  Desiree sat uncomfortably close to Karl in the back seat of Heinrich’s black SUV and watched Heinrich race down the road as fast as desperate driving would allow. He skidded around the curves, barely slowed down at the stop signs, and kept the RPMs of the six-cylinder engine near red line, shifting gears as if he were trying to win at Le Mans. He had the advantage over Desiree’s friends, since he had driven these roads at night many times. Desiree would like to use the martial arts training her friends had provided over the years and bash Karl in the face in the worst way, but he kept the pistol aimed at her head no matter how much Heinrich drove like a crazed lunatic.

  She tried to remember the route Heinrich was taking in case she needed to tell the others how to find her. She hoped the tracker bug in her purse was working, and was glad that neither Heinrich nor Karl had taken the time to search her purse. She was Karl and Heinrich’s prisoner, so perhaps they would not wantonly kill her as long as she provided some value. She was after all a CDC employee.

  Ian called Serena again.

  Serena answered, “We’re on Marginal Road bordering the west side of the airport. We’re passing the Super Mercado, and will soon enter the Avenida Silvestre Pires de Freitas. Do you have GPS? . . . Good. Catch up to us as soon as you can. By the way, are you armed? . . . . Sky Marshal. Good thinking.”

  Jacques slowed down to less than 100 km per hour, as he passed the Mercado, but he violated several stop signs. Fortunately, traffic was light. The icons on Serena’s iPad tracking program showed Heinrich had entered the clearly marked Avenida Silvestre Pires de Freitas, and Jacques sped up again. Jacques’ daredevil driving tactics improved the tracker signal by closing the distance between them and Heinrich. They entered the countryside and needed the GPS tracker more, since turnoffs were not clearly marked, and did not have street names on the GPS map.

  Jacques weaved his way along the unlit two-lane road at high speed. A few miles down the road, the tracking icon turned off the asphalt-paved road toward the north, but the display didn’t indicate any road.

  Serena said, “He turned off this road into the woods somewhere ahead.”

  Jacques grunted acknowledgement, never taking his eyes off the road.

  “Slow down or we’ll sail by the exit!” Serena shouted. “Stop! You just passed a gap in the trees that looked like a turnout!”

  Jacques swung the car around in a jarring 180-degrees slide that jammed Serena against the passenger door. He drove a few feet and maneuvered through the barely visible turnout in the trees.

  Serena said, “Stop here. Ian will miss this turnout if we don’t leave him a sign.” She retrieved the emergency case from under the passenger seat and took out a yellow emergency tripod and a battery-powered flashing red light. She got out of the car, set the tripod in the middle of the turnout, and turned on the flashing emergency light under the tripod. Serena got back into the passenger seat, and Jacques sped off, burning rubber into the dark woods.

  Serena called Ian and said, “Ian, where are you? . . . Just passed the Mercado. OK, follow Avenida Freitas for about three to four miles. Look for a yellow emergency tripod and a flashing red light on the left side of the road and turn in. Hurry!”

  Jacques drove about three quarters of a mile down the dark concrete paved road to a foliage camouflaged gate. He pulled up to the gate, exited the car, and examined the gate. It was locked, but not of massive construction. A post on the side of the road had a keypad for unlocking the gate. Jacques got back into the car, bumped the front of the car against the gate, and pressed forward. The gate screeched and ground in resistance until it broke loose from its lock and sprung open.

  Flooring the gas, he roared down the asphalt-covered road to a second gate, where he again pushed the locked gate open with the front of the car. A quarter of a mile farther on he pulled into a roundabout in front of a building which looked more like a business building than a country home.

  Heinrich’s black SUV was abandoned in the turnaround. He had not taken time to pull it into the garage.

  Jacques and Serena scrambled out of the car, weapons ready. They ran up to the front door and tried to enter, but the door was locked. Serena and Jacques both slammed their bodies against the door at the same time to no avail. Hearing an automobile roar up the road toward the house, they turned and saw Ian slam on the brakes and slide to a stop behind their rental car.

  Ian jumped out of his vehicle and ran up to them with a pistol in his right hand.

  Jacques said, “You got here fast.”

  Ian replied, “You guys opened the gates for me.”

  Jacques laughed in spite of himself and said, “You’re welcome.”

  “Whose SUV is that?” Ian asked.

  “Heinrich’s. They have Desiree,” Serena replied.

  Ian stepped close to Heinrich’s SUV and fired a shot into the right front tire. “Bring your rental car keys,” the SUV isn’t going anywhere.

  Serena said, “Jacques, come with me. We’ll go left around the house. Ian, you go right. We need to find a way in.”

  Ian bolted right and followed the building around to the side. There were no windows on the ground floor, but there were on the second. Ian looked for handgrips and footholds for climbing the side of the building and, finding none, ran toward the back of the building. A twelve feet high stucco-covered block wall barred the entrance to the back yard. Ian stepped back a few feet from the wall and, running at full speed toward the wall, jumped up and caught the top with his fingertips and hauled himself up and over. The high wall surrounded a large patio, an Olympic sized swimming pool, and two tennis courts.

  Ian heard Jacques and Serena call to him from the other side of the patio. He placed a patio table against the wall, jumped from the table to the top of the wall, hauled himself up, and reached down for Serena as Jacques boosted her up. Ian helped her up and over the wall. He then reached down for Jacques who jumped up enough so Ian could catch his hand and hauled him up and over. Together they walked through a well-appointed patio with lounge chairs, tables, and wall mounted television.

  Ian tried the patio sliding glass door and found it locked. Showing restraint, Ian said, “We may be walking into an ambush. Let’s shoot out the lock, open the door, and try to not get shot in the process.”

  Jacques nodded in agreement. Ian shot the sliding door lock with his Les Bauer 1911 Boss .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol. The door lock released, but the glass in the doorframe shattered.

  Jacques stepped over the broken glass and cautiously tried to slide the door open. Two shots originating from inside the house narrowly missed Jacques. Jacques dropped down to his hands and knees.

  Ian dropped down prone to the ground and fired three rounds into the house at waist height, dividing the interior into three sectors. “Hold back here,” Ian ordered Jacques and Serena, “I’m going in.” Ian brushed aside pieces of broken glass and started to crawl in. He wished he had his Kevlar flak jacket and helmet for protection. Inside the room, he heard scuffling as if someone was trying to escape. Ian kept calm, crawled over to the kitchen island, and sat behind it. He considered, there might be more than one person to deal with in the house.

  Jacques scurried up be
side Ian. “What now?” he asked.

  “We need to spread out, find out how many individuals we have to deal with, and take them all out except Karl if we can . . . without harming Desiree. We need Karl to find his laboratory and his secrets. Where’s Serena?”

  “She’s grappling her way to a second story balcony.”

  “I wish she didn’t do that. I think whoever was in the room cleared out. Let’s get him.” Ian ran across the kitchen to the dining room doorway. Checking the room quickly, Ian rushed to the next door, which led into a grand living room. Jacques shown his keychain light around the otherwise dark living room. The room was unoccupied. An alarm went off. It appeared that whoever had been in the house ran out the front door, set off the security alarm, and turned on the foyer lights.

  Serena padded down the stairs from the second floor and whispered, “There’s no one on the second floor.”

  Ian strode to the front door, opened the door, looked around outside, then closed and locked the door.

  “Whoever ran out the front door isn’t going anywhere unless they can jack a rental car.”

  The loud high-pitched squeal of the alarm continued to sound off until Jacques spotted the alarm control box on the wall and smashed it with his pistol grip. They all walked back to the kitchen patio door.

  Serena said, “Let’s go back through the patio and look for a path into the woods. I’m guessing if there’s a laboratory on the property, it’s in the woods behind the house. That’s probably where they took Desiree.”

  Ian led the way through the back yard past the tennis courts and the Olympic-size swimming pool to a gate in the back wall. He put one .45-caliber round into the control box, releasing the electric latch on the gate. He threw dirt onto the gate and sparks flew in all directions, so he kicked the gate open with his leather soled right boot, then he, Jacques and Serena rushed through to the flagstone path beyond. As they ran along the path through the jungle, Ian heard monkeys howling in the trees. Ian held his pistol at the ready, prepared to shoot Karl or his bodyguard Heinrich on sight. He knew they needed to capture at least one of them alive so they could find Desiree.