by David Wood
“Sievers, listen. I’m ready to deal.”
“No deals.”
“You don’t understand. There’s something big going on here. Something a lot bigger than the stolen data.”
“Uh, huh. And you’re one of the good guys now, is that it?”
“We may not agree on the definition of ‘good guys’ but Tam is Company.” He narrowed his gaze, imparting more gravity to his next words. “The real CIA.”
Ten months of studying Sievers and his fellow contractors had given Stone plenty of insight into the man’s personality. He knew exactly which buttons to push. Sievers, a Special Forces veteran, deeply regretted leaving the military to pursue a more lucrative paycheck in the private sector. Stone did not want to insult his patriotism so much as appeal to it. “She’s trying to stop something really bad. Like 9/11 bad, and she knows I can help. I think that’s important enough that I’m willing to give you what you want if that’s the only way to get your cooperation.” He paused a beat. “I may not have told you what you wanted to hear, but I never lied to you, Sievers. So I’m giving you my word. Let me help Tam, and when it’s done, I’ll give you the data.”
He read the conflict behind Sievers’ eyes. There was apprehension there, but not distrust. Sievers was more concerned about what his employers might do if he acceded to Stone’s request, and even that was not as strong as his desire to do the right thing. He was on the verge of relenting when Kasey made her move.
Stone had positioned himself so that Sievers would not see Kasey’s efforts to free herself. Working by touch alone, she had managed to unzip the duffel bag and use the Spear to slice apart her flexi-cuffs. Hefting the broad blade like a knife, she stole forward soundlessly and jabbed the tip into the small of Sievers’ back. The mercenary flinched at first contact but knew better than to make a more dramatic move.
“Move and I skewer your liver,” she said. “How do you like that for a rematch?”
Stone lowered his eyes to meet her gaze. “Kasey, it’s okay.”
“Sure it is. Get his weapons.”
Stone shook his head. “I gave him my word. He’s going to help us. Isn’t that right, Sievers?”
Sievers registered surprise at the question. “You’re serious?”
Stone gave a reassuring nod. “Always. Help us, and everyone wins. Deal? I’d offer you my hand, but…”
“Tell Xena Warrior Princess to take that knife out of my back, and I’ll cut you loose.”
The man’s tone was defiant, almost threatening, but Stone could tell that it was merely face-saving posturing. Sievers was being sincere. “Put it away, Kasey. We’re all on the same team now.”
Kasey was incredulous. “You don’t actually believe him?”
“I do. You’ve got to trust me on this.” Then he added, “Tam would.”
Kasey proved harder to convince than Sievers but after several seconds, she relaxed perceptibly. “I’ll trust you,” she said. “Him, not so much. You hear me, cowboy? Keep it real slow.”
With exaggerated purposefulness, Sievers reached into a pocket and took out a Leatherman multi-tool. He gestured for Stone to turn around and a moment later, Stone’s hands were free again. He turned back and extended his right hand.
Sievers stared at it with open suspicion then grudgingly took it. “If you double-cross me—”
“I won’t,” Stone said. “Welcome to the team.”
Tam’s ankle still hurt but it bore her weight, and the pain was diminishing with each step. That was about the only thing that was going right.
She reached the edge of the Prater amusement park just as Greg announced his intention to follow the Russian onto the Riesenrad. She knew that he had ignored her order to wait. In his place, she would have done the same.
She oriented toward the enormous Ferris wheel, walking at a brisk pace that was only a little slower than the jog that had got her through the woods. The ride towered above the park, a halo of electric brilliance, turning with deceptive slowness against the backdrop of the night sky. Her eyes were drawn to one of the fifteen enormous viewing gondolas, its windows lit up from within. She wondered if it was the car with the Russian. She wondered if Greg had made it aboard.
The wheel stopped to let more passengers on, or perhaps to let them off, and then resumed turning. Because she had focused all her attention on the illuminated car as it revolved, rising like the sweep second hand of a clock, Tam saw what evidently no one else in the park did: a man-shaped silhouette crawling along the rim of the wheel, toward the cabin with the Russian.
“Damn it, Greg.” She breathed the words but did not transmit them. Greg didn’t need the distraction.
She saw everything. Saw him reach his destination, saw him crawl out onto the roof of the car. Saw the Russian climbing out through his own window, likewise unnoticed by the wheel operator, even as the rotation brought the gondolas past the loading platform.
She saw them fight. Saw someone fall.
“Greg!” She keyed her mic. “Greg, talk to me!”
She had only glimpsed the silhouette for an instant, a man falling—she couldn’t tell whom—visible in the gap between two of the cars, and then…nothing.
There was no answer on the radio. She forgot about trying to appear inconspicuous and broke into a run. She was immediately rewarded with a fresh spike of pain in her ankle, but she ignored it, focusing completely on reaching the towering Ferris wheel.
The lit-up gondola reached the top of the circle and began to descend. Tam expected at any moment to hear voices raised in alarm, but the park visitors remained blissfully unaware of the drama playing out above them. In the time it took for her to reach the ride, the wheel completed the revolution, bringing the gondola once more to the platform, but even before it was level with the deck, the door burst open and the occupants began streaming out. The wheel stopped suddenly, the car still more than a foot above the platform. Tam heard someone shouting in German, probably the ride’s operator, frantic at this breach of safety procedures but none of the men issuing from the car paid any heed. Tam scanned their faces. She recognized only one: the Russian.
She closed her hand on the butt of her Makarov but did not draw it. The Russian stared down at her as if daring her to shoot, while behind him, his fellow passengers dispersed in every direction, some escaping down the stairs, others climbing over the rail and dropping to the ground. Tam held his gaze, but in the corner of her eye, she could see that he was now empty-handed. He had already made the hand-off.
When it became apparent that she was not going to make a move against him, the Russian raised a hand to his forehead in a mocking salute. “Do svedanya.” Then he turned and ran.
Tam made no attempt to stop him. Instead, she raced up the steps to the platform, shouting Greg’s name, praying for a miracle, fearing the worst. She peered down into the trough below the metal frame, then stared up at the web of girders and wires that formed the spokes of the wheel.
“Greg!”
“Little help.”
The voice was barely audible over the din of rides and music, but Tam caught it nevertheless, perhaps because the words were in English, but mostly because she recognized both the voice and the devil-may-care attitude. She looked around, frantic but hopeful, and found Greg clinging to a horizontal bar that stretched between the two outer rims of the wheel, halfway between two of the gondolas. He had fallen but only as far as the crosspiece, a distance of less than twenty feet, where he was hanging on for dear life.
Tam rushed to the end of the platform. She could see the pain etched across his face. The crossbar had saved his life, but the impact with it had not been gentle. Nevertheless, he was grinning like an idiot.
“Hang on,” she called. “I’ll get someone.”
“Never mind me,” Greg croaked. “Go after the Russian.”
“Too late. He’s long gone.” She stepped back as the operator brought out an aluminum ladder which he stretched out across the gap in the platform, direc
tly beneath Greg’s feet to form a makeshift bridge. Now that Tam knew he was safe, her relief gave way to a sharper emotion. “Lordy Jesus, Greg, what on earth possessed you? Why didn’t you wait for me? You could have gotten yourself killed, and for what?”
He grinned again, and then held up his phone. Fixed in the display was an image of the Russian. “For this.”
CHAPTER 12
After two years of working with Navy SEALs and CIA officers, Avery thought she had gotten over her sense of being an outsider, but as the team straggled in from the night’s operations, the old feeling returned with a vengeance. They were all soaking wet and bedraggled. Tam was limping. Greg was hugging his ribs protectively and moving like an old man. Kasey had fresh bruises on her face and both she and Stone were filthy. Worst of all, there was an aura of defeat, the kind of shared misery that she could only pretend to understand.
Their collective appearance was a reminder of the gulf that stood between her and the world the rest of the team inhabited. She was just a computer jockey, a bookworm. They were operators, people who actually went out and did stuff. Even Sievers, the brawny security contractor who had crashed the party and was now watching and listening quietly in an effort to figure out exactly what he had gotten mixed up in, looked more like he belonged in the room than Avery did. She knew, if only at an intellectual level, that her contribution was critical. The general failure of the mission affected her as much as them, but they were the ones who had gotten their asses handed to them.
“Hey,” she said, trying to fill the miserable silence. “At least we have the real Spear. That’s something, right?”
The others seemed to exchange a glance before Tam, in a patient voice, answered. “Unfortunately, if they don’t realize the Spear they took is a fake, they may go ahead with whatever it is they have planned.”
“But they must already know. Zanger and Karcher are Heilig Herrschaft.”
Stone leaned forward. “We’ve missed something. Something important.”
Avery stiffened defensively. “Really? Because it seems to me that this is exactly what we expected.”
Stone shook his head but instead of answering, got to his feet and went over to the suite’s writing desk where he took out a pad of hotel stationery and a pen. “There are more pieces in play than we first realized. Let’s start at the beginning.” He wrote something and then turned the pad to show everyone. In large letters that nearly filled the page, he had written: “Mexico.”
He tore the sheet off and placed it on the coffee table in the center of the room where they could all see it. “This all started with the events in Juarez, right? The massacre of the students, followed by the phone call that mentioned…” He glanced at Avery.
“Destiny,” she supplied.
Stone wrote the word down and tore off the page, placing it alongside the first.
“And Vienna,” Tam added.
“Vienna and an item related to General Patton,” Stone said, writing both words down and adding them to the others to form a row. “Okay. Those are things that we know to be factual. We are working under the assumption that the massacre in Mexico was carried out by a drug cartel…” He wrote something down. “And we suspect Dominion involvement.” He wrote out “Dominion” and laid that on the table as well. “Now, tonight we may have added another variable.”
Tam nodded. “The Russian.”
“Our Russian thief took the Spear replica, which the Dominion already knew it was a fake. What does that tell us?”
Avery spoke up quickly. “The spear Heilig Herrschaft knew it was fake.”
“Same difference,” said Greg, speaking up for the first time. “They’re the German branch of the Dominion.”
“True, but we know the Dominion utilizes cellular organization. Maybe the branch responsible for ‘Destiny’ isn’t talking to the Heilig Herschaft.”
Stone pointed a finger at Avery. “Good.” Then he turned to Tam. “We got lucky when we smoked out Zanger’s little switcheroo with the Spear, but as you said, the thief tonight may not realize he has a fake. We need to figure out exactly who he is and what his connection to the Dominion is.”
Avery felt obliged to check her email again, even though it had only been a few minutes since her last check, and less than half an hour since she had uploaded the video Greg had shot through the window of the Riesenrad gondola to the CIA for analysis. As expected, there was no response. It might be hours or days before positive identification could be established for the men in the video.
“Is there a Russian branch?” Stone asked.
“None that we’re aware of,” Tam said. “But that doesn’t mean they don’t have one.”
Stone wrote the word “Russian” on another sheet, then added it to the growing collection.
Mexico
Patton
Destiny
Vienna
Dominion
Russian
He stared at the papers, then moved the individual pages around on the table top, arranging them differently.
Vienna
Patton
Russian
Mexico
Dominion
Destiny
He turned to Tam again. “The phone call about Destiny. Exactly what did they say about Patton and Vienna?”
Avery fielded the question. “‘Get the Patton item from Vienna.’ That could only mean the Spear.”
Stone seemed on the verge of rebutting this, but instead he rearranged the papers, placing “Patton” in the center, and then arranging the others around it. “So, Patton connects to Vienna and Destiny, which in turn connects to the Dominion. Is there anything that connects Patton to the Russian or to Mexico?”
Avery was about to answer when Sievers unexpectedly spoke up. “Both, actually. Patton’s first taste of combat was during the Mexican Revolution. He accompanied Black Jack Pershing on the hunt for Pancho Villa, back in 1916. As for the Russkies, during World War II, Patton got in a lot of trouble with Allied command for insulting the Russians. He was convinced that the Soviet Union would be as big an enemy of the US as the Nazis had been. He actually favored rearming former Nazis and leading them against the Soviets. There’s a pretty compelling theory that Patton’s death was no accident but was actually an assassination carried out by an NKVD agent.” When he saw Stone’s look of surprise, Sievers gave a sheepish shrug. “Old Blood and Guts has always been a hero of mine.”
“I don’t buy it,” Greg said. “The Allies didn’t want to fight the Russians, so there’s no reason to assassinate him.”
Avery cleared her throat. “Actually, it makes a lot of sense. Patton wasn’t very popular with the leadership, but the American people loved him. He was planning to leave the Army and run for President. I suppose if he had done that, he might have gotten his war with Russia, after all.”
“He was?” Even Sievers was surprised by this revelation.
Avery nodded. “I don’t see how it’s relevant though.”
Stone’s eyebrows drew together in a frown. He stared at Sievers for a moment. “You didn’t know Patton wanted to be president?”
The contractor shook his head. “I’ve read a lot of books about General Patton, but I’ve never heard that. Doesn’t surprise me though. The Army was about to put him out to pasture, and he knew it. Without a war to fight, he had no purpose, and he knew that too. Running for office sounds exactly like the sort of thing he would do. Hell, I’m sure he would have won. If the Russkies knew about that, then they definitely would have had a good reason to ice him.”
Stone turned to Avery. “How did you know about Patton’s plans?”
“I must have read it somewhere. Probably during my research…” Avery trailed off as a strange cold feeling settled into the pit of her stomach. “Oh, no.”
Tam moved quickly, gripping her shoulders. “Avery, honey, what is it?”
Stone answered before Avery could find the words. “There’s another Patton item in Vienna, isn’t there?”
She nodded, now feeling as dejected as the others had upon returning from their respective missions. “Patton’s diary, where he wrote about the history of the Spear. It’s in the Library at the Hof.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Stone said in a grave voice. “Unless I’m very much mistaken, that diary was the item the Dominion agents requested in that phone call. And what that Russian was really after.”
“You can’t know that for sure.” Avery’s rebuttal was half-hearted. She knew he was right.
Stone raised his hands. “Call the library…or better yet, the police. If you can get them to cooperate, I’ll bet you money that the diary is missing.”
“A book?” scoffed Greg. “I’m not buying it. It’s not their style. Besides, they picked the name ‘Destiny.’ That points to the Spear.”
“Pun intended, I’m sure,” Stone replied. “The Spear may be a part of this, or it may be a ruse to throw us off the trail, but the diary is the important thing.”
“How can the ramblings of an old World War II general mean anything today? What does it have to do with what’s going on in Mexico? It just doesn’t fit.”
“Just because we can’t see the connection,” Stone insisted, “doesn’t mean there isn’t one. I suspect that if we could get a look at that diary, we’d find the answer.”
Tam faced Avery again. “How ‘bout it? You read the book. Did Patton mention Mexico at all?”
Avery half-closed her eyes, searching her memory. “I skimmed over the parts that didn’t relate to the Spear. He rambled a lot. Stuff about ancient battlefields and past lives.”
Sievers stood up suddenly. “Are you guys for real? You told me you were trying to stop some kind of terrorist attack. But first you’re going on about the Spear of Destiny, and now Patton’s diaries? Seriously? What the hell is this, a treasure hunt?”
Avery’s eyes flew open. “Treasure. He mentioned something about…” She faltered, the thought slipping away as quickly as it had come.
Sievers rolled his eyes. “For Christ’s sake.”
