“The usuals?”
The woman smiled, nodded then turned to her male companions. Soon they were deep in whispered conversation. Juan Carlos mixed her martini and brought Czech beers for the men.
Within a half hour the bar was full. Thirty-foot ceilings and plush Oriental rugs kept the noise at an acceptable level. A couple of businessmen, probably Russian, were chatting up the French girls. They bought a round, then another. Juan Carlos smiled – the girls would keep the conversation sufficiently stimulating to get some free drinks, but this situation would ultimately go nowhere for the hopeful men. It was the same way every night – the hotel’s guests were easy to spot because they were the only non-regulars in the house. Most of them drank at the bar; a few, like these two, made valiant, usually unsuccessful attempts to snag a date – or more – for the evening.
It was 7:15 before the pace began to slow. The girls were gone, the Russian men were on their fourth Scotches at the bar and the American trio had finished their quiet discussion. After her martini, the woman switched to Pouilly-Fuisse. The men were on their second round of beer, drinking more slowly as their boss sipped her wine. Juan Carlos walked to their end of the bar.
“Staying busy?” he asked her in his flawless Oxford-accented English.
“Always.” She was around thirty-five and impeccably dressed in a black skirt and jacket. “The life of an attaché never slows down.”
“I can only imagine.” Although these three carried the titles and credentials of attachés, it was no secret that in most embassies those persons were actually intelligence agents of one type or another. And Juan Carlos Sebastian knew exactly who these people worked for. He knew this lady very, very well. In fact, he worked for the same organization she did.
A year ago, on a rainy night when the bar was almost deserted, she’d lingered after her associates went home. She’d sat at the bar until closing time then taken the handsome bartender home to her apartment. The next day he had been torn between fear and passion. He regretted letting his guard down even for a moment, but he also hadn’t been with a woman in a long, long time. And she wasn’t just any woman. She was very good at what she did. Both in bed, it turned out, and at the embassy.
After a few months their relationship moved to a different level. One night she approached him with an idea, a plan to make some significant money. She couldn’t have known that Juan Carlos, the handsome bartender, was a millionaire many times over. And the rich, bored bartender was interested in her idea not for the reason she thought – the money – but for the excitement he desperately wanted in his life.
It all began with a small job here and there. Maybe he’d pick up a parcel and deliver it somewhere else. Other times he met a flight at the airport and followed someone to a hotel. He never knew what lay behind the assignments, but they got more and more involved as time went by. Finally one day she offered him what he had seen coming.
They both understood that their situation – the occasional meetings for a night of steamy sex – wasn’t a long-term thing. She asked Juan Carlos one night if, in exchange for giving up what had been a lot of fun in bed, he was willing to do a big job, to make over a hundred thousand dollars. And his comic response – “Who do I have to kill?” – received an answer which really didn’t surprise him.
I’ll let you know when the time comes.
He’d felt no remorse when he killed Andrey Bodrov nearly a decade ago. In his analytical mind he easily separated emotion from fact. Although she had no idea he’d killed before, she told him he was a natural – intelligent, smooth, calculating. The only question was if he wanted to move into something way beyond the norm.
As it turned out, that was exactly what Juan Carlos Sebastian wanted. He transitioned smoothly from being the woman’s lover to having her as his handler, and he began doing the occasional wet-ops job for the unnamed agency of the US government she worked for.
Tonight at the bar the American lady signaled for a check as they stood. She paid their bill in Czech crowns, stuck a hundred more in a tip jar on the bar and handed a US twenty-dollar bill to Juan Carlos with a smile.
“This is for you, my old friend. Thanks for the great service. See you in a day or so.”
He put the bill in his pocket and bid her goodbye.
By midnight only a couple of customers remained. When they tabbed out, Juan Carlos closed the massive doors to the lobby and cleaned up for a half hour. As always, he walked several blocks, took a Metro, doubled back, walked the streets again, carefully noting pedestrians and cars around him, and finally took another subway to his street. The exercise took half an hour twice a day; it was inconvenient, especially on nights when he was tired, but it was unavoidable. Living a double life was dangerous. He had to be careful. Always.
His four-room apartment was rented in the name of a German company. It was in a nice part of town but not the best – comfort was great but opulence could attract attention. There was no doorman, no concierge to notice his comings and goings. He buzzed himself into the building and took the lift to his fifth-floor flat. A tiny piece of tape was affixed to the bottom of the door, exactly as he had placed it when he left around noon. No one had entered.
He performed his usual walk-through in the dark, listening and looking for signs of anything out of place. Everything was exactly as it should be – the beautiful golden artifacts in his living room cabinets glistened as moonlight beamed through the expansive windows overlooking a park across the street.
The man called Juan Carlos undressed, showered, poured a drink and set up an ultraviolet light on his kitchen table. He took the twenty-dollar tip the American woman had given him and put it under the lamp. All around the edges on both sides was writing, invisible without the purple bulb. He read the words several times then used scissors to cut the bill into tiny pieces. Those he flushed down the toilet. He sent a text to his boss at the hotel, advising he needed two days off – that wasn’t a problem. Juan Carlos was the favorite at the Princi Palace bar. The clientele loved him, and his manager willingly granted a day off now and then.
He went to bed, bringing a plan together in his head. He had a plane to catch tomorrow.
CHAPTER FIVE
Dubrovnik, Croatia
When the afternoon session of the Summit of Former Soviet States ended around four, Sergei Godunov left the large meeting room quickly. It had been a long day and he was ready for a drink. He walked purposefully to the sprawling veranda that wrapped around the Metropol Hotel and took a seat. The beautiful vista of the azure Adriatic Sea stretched before him. It was early enough that he was the only customer. He signaled a waiter and ordered a double Stolichnaya over ice. When it came, he asked for another. As the waiter turned away, he downed his first drink in two massive gulps.
Sergei unbuttoned his collar and loosened his tie. It was warm and he was sweating profusely. There’d been no time today to break away and nurse his addiction. By the time he left his boss and the rest of the Ukraine delegation, his hands were beginning to shake. He’d made it just in time; he wiped his brow as the second drink came. He asked for a third.
“Actually, just bring me two more.” Why waste time having the man run back and forth?
It would be easier if they did it like in Russia. There they just bring the vodka bottle and a glass to your table.
But in Croatia things were different. It was nice here, like Yalta on the Black Sea back home. Here the Adriatic was serene and peaceful. Relaxing a little, Sergei reflected that he was a lucky man. Only recently had he begun to enjoy the good life. He made nothing working for the government, but he’d gotten a break. Some Americans from the embassy in Kiev talked to him one night, and within months he had more money than he’d ever dreamed of. Over a thousand US dollars stashed away already, and more to come, just from his American friends. Now Sergei Godunov had gone one step further and become a double agent. It sounded so clandestine – he was a spy! From a simple desk job handling secret transmissions, he’d
become an operative not only for the American CIA but also the Russian FSB, the successor to the KGB. He loved every minute of his new, exciting life.
Finishing his fourth double vodka, Sergei paid the tab and walked to the elevators. He was a little unsteady, but he was accustomed to copious quantities of alcohol. It would take more than a few drinks to stop this secret double agent.
He fumbled with the key to his room, opened the door and stepped inside. The curtains were shut, and when the door closed, his eyes took a moment to adjust. He saw a man sitting in the chair across the bedroom and jumped, startled.
“What the hell…” Sergei yelled in his native language.
The response was also in perfect Ukrainian, not a hint of accent. The man was an accomplished linguist, after all.
“Party’s over, Sergei. You’ve been a bad boy. Good night.”
Juan Carlos Sebastian shot the man once in the forehead with a silenced Sig Sauer pistol. The bullet exited the back of his head and lodged somewhere near the ceiling. That slug didn’t matter; he dropped the gun on the floor and walked out. He stripped off the latex gloves he wore, stuck them in his pocket, took the elevator to the lobby and left the hotel. No one gave him a glance.
CHAPTER SIX
Three Years Later
Prague, 2007
Juan Carlos Sebastian’s last day in Prague began uneventfully. It was a Sunday and he strolled the narrow, crooked streets of Old Town, finally ending up in the massive square, its beautiful cathedral looming high above him. At noon its bells began to toll and a series of small doors opened in the spires above the square. Mechanical boy and girl figures emerged and circled around a track, finally returning through another pair of doors. It was a stirring sight and thousands of tourists in the square watched it happen every hour.
The day was gorgeous, and Juan Carlos sipped champagne as he reflected once again on his good fortune. After leaving Russia with a new identity, the sixteen-year-old suddenly became twenty-four thanks to a perfect Spanish passport. His fluency in that language had been helpful; he sounded like a native. So Juan Carlos Sebastian came to Prague, systematically blackmailed one Russian executive, cleric or government official after another, and ended up with nearly two hundred million dollars in bank accounts, real estate investments and stock holdings around the world. And thanks to smart investing, his money was compounding every day.
There were many, many men who had each remitted two million US dollars. Some of his “installment plan” clients still paid today. Despite Juan Carlos’s promises to destroy the evidence against them, he kept the files secure in a safe deposit box. They were his insurance against ever being poor again.
I’m probably the wealthiest bartender in the world. He laughed to himself. He had needed an airtight identity, and with his wealth, he’d created one. Juan Carlos could have lived the life of luxury, but he was young, so he carefully donned the façade of a working man. He didn’t need inquiring minds wondering how a youth could afford to live without a job. To the world, Juan Carlos was a bartender.
Actually his work was great. He loved the interaction with customers. The job was fun, it was a great cover for his clandestine activities with the CIA, and he could get plenty of time off whenever work or play necessitated it.
Every time he was out around town, Juan Carlos was on alert. When he strolled or sat at a café, he took in the scenery, noticing anything that might be out of the ordinary – anyone who might be looking for him. There would always be those hundred Russian men who would pay a fortune for his execution, but his identity was secure, the payments to his bank accounts flushed through a set of pipelines, and no danger lurked around him. At least up to this point that had been the case.
Only recently, after years in this identity, did Juan Carlos finally begin to feel like a free man. As usual he kept an eye out for activity around him as he blended with the tourists in Prague’s Old Town Square, but he also read the paper, sipped his drink and simply enjoyed the day. If any of his patrons from the bar at the Princi Palace Hotel happened by, they’d see their favorite bartender taking advantage of a gorgeous Sunday afternoon off.
In reality Juan Carlos had let his guard down a little over the past three years. If he’d been as watchful today as he had then, he might have noticed the tourist couple a block away, snapping pictures of the cathedral, the square and Juan Carlos.
Sunday evenings were generally quiet in the hotel’s bar and tonight had been no exception. Juan Carlos locked things up at 11:30; although it was early, only a half dozen people had been in all evening. From a briefing report the hotel’s front desk sent every afternoon, he knew occupancy was only 20% for tonight, so the chance of a late patron wanting a drink was slim.
He took the usual circuitous route home. Despite his failure to notice anything in the square earlier today, now he was aware of a couple strolling arm-in-arm behind him as he headed to the Metro station. He made a couple of turns, including one that took him around a corner into a cul-de-sac. Half a block before the street dead-ended, Juan Carlos stepped into the shadows of a doorway and waited. Within thirty seconds he saw the couple, still casually talking and smiling, coming down the narrow street. Just tourists, it seemed, but they were absolutely following him. There was no reason for them to be here otherwise. This quiet residential street went nowhere.
They walked past his hiding place then saw the dead-end ahead. The man whispered something. As they turned, Juan Carlos stepped out into the cobblestoned street, blocking their way back.
“Dobri vecher,” he said in Russian. Good evening.
The startled woman reached for her pocket as Juan Carlos aimed his pistol at them. He continued in Russian. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
The man began to move away from his partner, making it impossible for Juan Carlos to keep his gun aimed at them both. In one swift move the man pulled a knife and threw it. Juan Carlos moved just in time, but the knife sliced the sleeve of his jacket. During the confusion, the woman took a small revolver from her pocket.
As she brought it up, Juan Carlos pulled the trigger, his aim a little off but still hitting the shoulder of the hand that held the gun. With a scream she dropped it. In Russian she cursed, “Damn you, Slava Sergenko! You’ll die soon enough, you bastard!”
Keeping the gun on the man, Juan Carlos answered her. “Sorry I hit your shoulder. I meant to kill you, but I fired too quickly and my aim was off. Speaking of dying soon enough, obviously you know who I am. Sadly then, my next shot will be in your heart.”
A light came on in the house next to where they stood. Someone had heard the noise of the gun and their voices.
Police would be coming soon. There was no time to find out who these people were. Juan Carlos fired two more shots in rapid succession. Each found its mark. The couple lay dead in the narrow street.
It would have been helpful to know who had sent the couple, but things hadn’t worked out that way. All he knew was that they had orders to kill him and sadly his time in Prague was finished. Somehow his cover was blown. Juan Carlos, nee Slava Sergenko, had to leave this city and this life he’d come to enjoy. Tonight.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Dresden, Germany/Lucerne, Switzerland
At two a.m. Juan Carlos Sebastian transformed into a new person in the backseat of a taxi he’d hired in Prague. The Spaniard’s passport, Czech identity card, driver’s license and credit cards went into a manila envelope, then a packet for overnight delivery. He found a FedEx drop box at a large brightly lit truck stop on the German border. Tomorrow the items would arrive at Roberto Maas’s house in Lucerne. They’d go into the wall safe until Juan Carlos’s services were required again.
The taxi driver had picked up Juan Carlos Sebastian three blocks from his apartment in Prague, and two hours later he dropped Roberto Maas at the Dresden train station. Same person, different identity. Roberto had a passport, credit cards, money, everything he needed. He was a twenty-nine-year-old Luxembourg citize
n residing in Switzerland. As he killed three hours waiting for the train to Lucerne, he double-checked all of Roberto’s information – he had to know it perfectly because it was his from now on.
Juan Carlos had needed to get out of Prague fast. He had no idea what resources the people stalking him had at their disposal, but it was possible they were already watching the airport and train station. He had to get into Germany. Dresden was the opposite direction from Lucerne, but it was the closest major city outside the Czech Republic that had rail service throughout Europe.
The taxi’s late-night border crossing had been a nonevent. It was his first use of Roberto Maas’s passport and it had worked perfectly. A sleepy border guard with a cigarette hanging from his lips gave him hardly a glance. He waved the taxi through and went back to a flickering television in a guardhouse.
After killing the two Russians, Juan Carlos had taken a cab to his apartment. He pulled his emergency suitcase from under the bed; it contained clothes and toiletries for two days. He emptied his wall safe, taking papers for his new identity and fifty thousand euros. Into a backpack went his laptop, iPad and two paper notebooks full of encrypted information. He left everything else – clothes, furniture, books, food – even his collection of artifacts.
After years of safety the encounter tonight rattled Juan Carlos. How did the couple find him? Who sent them? It was likely he’d never know the answer to either question. In all the years since he left Moscow, no one had caught up with him. Not until now. He chastised himself for becoming complacent. That couldn’t happen again. He’d have to remain on guard forever.
Tonight he’d had no idea how much time he had or how many others were waiting for him. He spent only twenty minutes at his flat in Prague. Giving the apartment a quick once-over, he walked out and shut the door to this stage of his life. Juan Carlos would resurface again someday when his services as a hired killer were required. But now he was Roberto. Roberto Maas.
The Crypt Trilogy Bundle Page 3
