by Trevor Scott
“I remember,” Jake said. “I was in England for a few months at the time.”
Toni nodded.
Kurt came and stood near the entrance to the kitchen. “I could use a beer,” he said. “By the way, I got the guy on the first floor. But one of them got away.”
“There were only two,” Jake said, moving out of the kitchen and across the living room.
Toni and Kurt followed Jake down the stairs to the first floor. A man lay crumpled at the midway point between the second and first floors.
On the first floor, Jake crouched down to the hard wood floor and pointed to a small spot of blood. “There. I thought I hit one,” Jake said, with the eagerness of a hunter on the trail of a wounded animal.
Polizia sirens alternated in higher and lower tones off in the distance. Jake cocked his head. He checked his watch. Time had stood still for less than ten minutes as the Hungarians chose their destiny, Jake thought.
Toni squeezed Jake’s shoulder. “You’ve got to get out of here. Now.”
Jake knew that it would be hard to explain his presence. Toni had a diplomatic passport, and Kurt his military NCIS identification. They could convince the authorities of nearly anything. And Toni had many friends. But his story would sound much too contrived. He had to leave. He rose and started to open the door. He hesitated.
“Go. I’ll explain everything.” Toni said. Her eyes sparkled as if tears had started to form.
“I’ll let you know how things go in Germany,” Jake said. He flung the door open and swiftly ran toward his car.
The sirens were getting closer. Jake cranked over the engine, made a U-turn, and sped away. He wound through back streets for a few kilometers and then entered the Autostrada and headed north toward Germany. He’d have to drive through the night to make it there by morning.
35
BALATON LAKE, HUNGARY
Isaac Lebovitz opened the heavy wooden door to the large cabin and ushered in two men with a gust of cold rain. He slammed the door hard and turned to view his guests. One had a bandage around his left shoulder. Blood was escaping regardless of the futile effort. The other, Jason Dalton, slipped his coat off and shook the rain from it.
“A few more degrees, Jason, and we’d have snow instead of that blasted freezing rain,” Isaac said, moving closer to the two men. “Would you like a shot of schnapps?”
They both nodded their heads. Isaac sat down at the large wooden table and poured three shots of clear schnapps. Isaac knew there was no cause for celebration. No time to waste. But he also knew that sometimes it was easier to get information, the right information, with a comfortable glass of schnapps.
All three quickly tilted their heads and downed the contents of the small glasses.
“Ah. Now, what do you have for me gentlemen?” Isaac asked. “Good news, I hope.”
The man with the bandage appeared to be in a great deal of pain. His eyes would close from time to time, and he grimaced when he moved wrong.
Dalton looked at the injured man and then back to Isaac. “We’ve got a little problem.”
“We wouldn’t be here if that weren’t the case,” Isaac said. “I heard through some of my sources that there was a terrorist attack in Rome yesterday. Even the news had something to say about three dead Hungarians and a whole lot of bullets shooting up a nice neighborhood. What happened?” Isaac eyed the injured man.
“We had the CIA agents cold,” the man said with a weak, raspy voice. “Then this other guy showed up out of nowhere.”
“Who? Did you get a good look at him?” Isaac inquired.
“Dark hair, medium height, athletic walk. He was an American. At first I thought he might have been Italian.”
“How do you know?”
“The girl, Toni, called out his name. Jake,” the man said. He coughed a few times. “He answered back in English.”
Isaac thought for a moment. “Shit.” He poured another round of schnapps and didn’t hesitate to be the first to drink. “Why in the hell does this have to happen to me?”
Dalton and the wounded man looked confused.
“The man, Jake? That’s Jake Adams. He was CIA, but I heard he left the agency about a year ago. Did he shoot you?” Isaac asked, pointing at the wounded man.
“Yes.”
“Then you are truly a lucky son of a bitch,” Isaac said. “You should be dead now. Jake Adams doesn’t miss much.”
Isaac went to the door and yelled to his driver. In a few seconds, the wounded man was escorted out of the cabin.
“He’ll bring him to a doctor in Budapest,” Isaac explained to Dalton. Deep down he knew the man wouldn’t make the trip alive.
Dalton shot down his glass of schnapps and set his glass on the heavy table gently. “We have another problem. My man on the USS Roosevelt is missing. As you know, he was supposed to deliver our last bit of information on the computer chips.”
“Missing?” Isaac asked, clenching his fists. “How could he be missing?”
“I don’t know for sure,” Dalton said. “I got word from diplomatic sources that there was a little trouble aboard the carrier. Maybe even a shooting. These are mostly rumors that I didn’t have time to check into. All I know is my man didn’t show as planned.”
“Probably Jake Adams,” Isaac said. “Now we’ll have to depend totally on Carlson in Germany.”
Dalton’s eye brows rose sharply. “Carlson? Why?”
Isaac tapped the side of his head. “I guess you have a right to know. Maybe you could even help me out. His name is Steve Carlson. He works for the company you were getting the computer technology from. Do you know him?”
Dalton’s face became red. “That son of a bitch. You’ve been working with him out of Germany?”
They stared at each other.
“Then you do know him?” Isaac asked.
“Yes. He’s my supplier.”
Isaac shook his head. “I guess Carlson has been playing both of us. I didn’t know that he was your boss.”
“Yeah, sort of. He planned the Italy scheme. He’s also most of my funding source for this partnership. Why was he selling to your men in Germany?”
Isaac smiled. “He wasn’t. One of his men sold him out.”
“What do you mean?”
“Steve Carlson is selling the same technology you’ve been selling to me to a German company called Bundenbach Electronics. His middle man, a guy named Johnson, decided to sell to us as well.”
“That asshole,” Dalton said, pouring himself another glass of schnapps. “I trusted him. It was Carlson’s idea in the first place to set up our arrangement. He wanted to get in on the ground floor of Europe’s monetary union. He expected great profits. But he also assumed great risk, and felt comfortable with those risks. Now I know why. He was padding his risk by diversifying. The German company was far more secure. No offense.”
“Jason, I have complete confidence in you,” Isaac said. “When you sold me on the partnership, I wasn’t buying only technology. I was buying into you. Your concern for our plight. You were a good salesman. I only hope we can continue working together.”
“What do I have to offer you now? If Carlson drops out, I’ll have to scurry for investors. I can find them. I’m sure of that. But it would take a little longer. I still have Wall Street connections.”
Isaac poured and drank another glass of schnapps. “I’ve got a better idea. Carlson is in Germany right now. Go to him and get the information we need.”
“What makes you think he has the information there?”
“I’m guessing. But if I were him, I’d hold out that last bit of information to the Germans the same as he’s done to us. It makes the most sense.”
Dalton gulped his schnapps. “Okay.”
Isaac slid a small folder across the table to Dalton. “Plane tickets to Frankfurt and then Bonn. There are instructions inside on where to meet. I’ve also signed a coded message saying who you are and why you are there. Give that to Vitaly when yo
u get there. Any questions?”
Dalton picked up the small folder the size of a plane ticket and slid it inside his coat pocket. “No.”
“Then good luck.”
Isaac sat at the great table alone. The door slammed behind Dalton. He scanned the empty chairs and dreamt of his friends sitting there with him and drinking to his health. Smoke would billow and linger in the air. Languages would switch from Hungarian to German to Czech to Slovak in a single sentence. No one seemed to notice the intermingled and eclectic changes.
He poured another glass of schnapps and raised it up in front of himself in a mock toast. Then he downed it quickly and smiled.
Muffled off in the distance, a shot rang out.
36
BONN, GERMANY
The Alfa Romeo hugged the corner without slipping as it quickly decelerated off the Autobahn at the Centrum exit. A light mist was freezing as soon as it hit the pavement. Early morning had failed to produce even a glimmer of light from the sun.
Jake Adams yawned as he turned right onto Kaiserstrasse and ran through the gears up to third, making each green light. The trip to Italy and back had given him a chance to become familiar with the new rental Alfa. It was a year newer than Toni Contardo’s, but none of the instruments had changed.
He turned left and drove along the Rhine. He checked his watch again; 1105. He was five minutes late. This was starting to become a habit, he thought. Glancing to the rear view mirror, he noticed his eyes were red and the lids drooped. He found little control over them. They would drop shut and he’d shake his head to make them rise temporarily.
Jake pulled over to the curb a block from the parking area for the public park that butted up to the Rhine and provided government and high tech employees a diversion for a lunch time stroll, or a place to eat and feed the ducks and swans.
When Jake set up the meeting with Herb Kline in the middle of the night from Switzerland, Herb must have forgotten that the freezing drizzle was in the forecast. Maybe the cold rain would keep him awake, he concluded.
From the bushes near the passenger side of the Alfa Romeo, Jake saw a slight movement. Then Herb appeared and approached the door. Jake unlocked the door for him.
“This is a change,” Jake said, gesturing for Herb to get in.
Herb brushed off as much rain as he could before getting in and sitting down. He put his briefcase on his lap and wiped the drops of water from the top. “Yeah, I thought I’d leave my car at the office to make it look like I’m there. I even left the office lights on. How was the drive?”
Jake paused for the right words. “Fast. I never like to see Switzerland that way.”
“I haven’t been there in years myself. Maybe I’ll get out and travel more when I retire.”
Jake nodded agreement. He started the engine and slowly drove away from the curb. Headlights were required with the dreary lighting. And the only thing keeping the windshield from icing over and the wipers from collecting ice, was a hot, blowing defroster.
“Where are they?” Jake asked brashly, not even looking toward Herb.
“Bundenbach Electronics.”
“How long have they been there?”
“All morning. I put a motion sensitive GPS tracker on Gunter’s car. It hasn’t moved an inch,” Herb said, patting his briefcase with his right hand.
“Left?”
“Yes. Bachstrasse”
“I thought so. I know I haven’t been gone that long, but I’ve been through so many cities in the last week.”
Jake could sense a tension from Herb that he hadn’t noticed before going to Italy. It was as if he had lost his confidence again, forgotten how important this case was. And what it meant to his self esteem, more than anything else. Something had changed him, Jake was sure. But what?
“So...what happened while I was gone?” Jake searched for an expression; a clue. Apprehension perhaps. Maybe concern. That would be understandable.
“I told you most everything on the phone.”
Jake made a right on Kolnstrasse and picked up speed slowly. He was in no real hurry, yet.
“How did you find out about Carlson coming?” Jake asked.
Herb glanced toward Jake. “The fat guy got a little careless. I’ve never felt like killing anyone, really. My ex-wife once or twice, maybe. But that was different. With the fat man, I had the opportunity and the actual desire to follow through. I had him cold. Beating him senseless as he had surely done to Walt. I don’t know what stopped me.”
Jake felt a flush over his body. Almost a newfound realization of his friend. Sure he knew that Herb had a special desire to succeed this one last time. He needed to take a case from beginning to end and come out the winner, like he had as a young rising star. But even with that burden or inner ambition, he had the self control to stay within the limits of the law. That was admirable, Jake thought.
“Herb. That’s what separates you from the Gunters of the world.”
“Maybe.”
Jake stopped along the curb with a long view of Bundenbach Electronics. The grass was dark green and the reflective glass glimmered even in the overcast darkness.
“You don’t have to follow through with this,” Jake said. “I’ll understand.”
“No. I had a feeling it would come to this. My boss is still too busy to see anything wrong. I don’t understand how anyone can be so blind in a position like his. I don’t trust him either.”
“Does he know anything about this?” Jake inquired.
“No, no. I stopped keeping him informed before you left for Rome. And he hasn’t even asked me for an update. If that isn’t irresponsible.”
“I’ve had assholes like that for bosses. They’re so caught up in their own little world they won’t take the time to see what you’re doing. Fucking bureaucrats.”
Herb laughed. “What exactly do we need to do now? I mean, how do the Hungarians fit into this?”
“Well, I have a theory. Remember I’ve been driving all night. I’ve had a lot of time to think about this. I believe that Carlson has been pulling the puppet strings all along both here and in Italy. He set up Johnson to transfer the technology to Gunter and Bundenbach Electronics. At the same time, he set up Burt Simpson and his guys aboard the USS Roosevelt to drop off the same stuff to Jason Dalton. Simpson gave me Dalton’s name but didn’t mention Steve Carlson. I didn’t push him as far as I could have, though.”
“Why is Carlson here?”
“That bothered me for quite awhile. Carlson couldn’t risk carrying the chips and all the technical information into Germany without getting caught. He needed a way to isolate himself from the entire process. So he had the U.S. Air Force fly everything into Bitburg Air Base. Customs doesn’t check military supply planes. Besides, that equipment was part of an approved retrofit. It was NATO restricted, but as long as the technology didn’t get into the wrong hands, no problem.”
“But why come now?” Herb asked.
Jake pointed at Herb. “Because Gunter fucked up. Gunter found out that Johnson was selling out to the Hungarians, right?”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“Well, Gunter jumped the gun a bit. He was only supposed to rough him up a bit to get the information. But Gunter is a sick son of a bitch. He doesn’t like someone taking advantage of him. So he and his men kill Johnson and throw him into the Rhine. The problem is, Johnson hasn’t sold everything that Bundenbach needs to make their super transputer.”
“So then Carlson is stuck. He can’t start over from scratch. He has to come here himself.”
“Exactly. Also, when I started working the case, we cut off Johnson’s supply chain. So Carlson couldn’t even send the information by military channels and pick it up once he got here. He had to carry whatever was left personally. Teredata had shut him down. Carlson tried to get me off the case before I was even hired.”
“Wasn’t Carlson afraid you’d see him with Gunter?”
“I told Milt Swenson I was going t
o Italy. He must have told Carlson. But they didn’t know about my ace in the hole.”
“What?” Herb looked confused.
“You. Carlson didn’t know you were here on the case.”
“What’s keeping Gunter from killing Carlson after Bundenbach gets the last bit of information?”
“I don’t know. But I’m sure he hasn’t left himself open for that.”
“His ace in the hole?” Herb smiled.
He seemed more comfortable now. Almost relaxed.
“This shit is getting crazy.” Jake rubbed his eyes and yawned. “I pulled over at an Autobahn stop in Switzerland for about two hours. Definitely not enough sleep. When I get back to Oregon, I’m going to sleep for a week.”
Freezing rain pelted the windshield and started to pile up on the wipers. Jake just watched. The weather would be a problem, he thought.
“We had a little problem in Italy just before I left,” Jake said solemnly.
Herb was silent.
“At least four Hungarians tried to hit Toni’s apartment. I had to leave in a hurry, without finding out who they were really after, and why. I could only speculate.”
“You couldn’t ask a few questions?” Herb asked.
“No. They weren’t able to talk.”
“Ah....”
“Unfortunately one of them got away. I don’t know why they would want Toni or Kurt killed. I assume they were getting too close to Dalton, and he ordered it. Maybe not though.”
They both sat in silence. The rhythmic sound of rain on the roof fluctuated from time to time as gusts of wind intensified and then became calm again. Bundenbach looked abandoned—nobody in sight. The rain must have kept only the hardy from coming and going, Jake thought.
“I missed having the company while you were gone,” Herb said. “I’m sorry about your friend, Walt. I should have been able to help him. I really blew it.”
Jake faced Herb. “Even if you could have gotten to him, Gunter wouldn’t have made it easy for you. His two men are heavily armed at all times. Numbers tend to enhance effectiveness. I got lucky. They had me cold. I could have been back in some Oregon deep freeze.”
