Death and Deception

by Seeley James

  The men shifted in place. They seemed unsatisfied. He turned to Mammet and raised his brows.

  “Sir,” he said, “Didar did as you ordered.”

  “Ah, yes.” Amanow tapped a finger to his lips and marched back down the line. “You are concerned about his resignation. This is the most difficult decision to make as a leader. Do I follow the order to which I have sworn my allegiance and my life? Or do I allow a man to resign after he has sworn to remain a Knight of Mithras until death? There was no decision, really. It was a painful requirement of leadership. Not a required act I took lightly, I assure you. But it was necessary. Didar would have done the same had our roles been reversed. As I am certain all of you would execute your sworn duties without hesitation.”

  The electric charge in the air reduced a fraction. They were not happy, but they were no longer rebellious. Were they ready for the mission? He looked each of them in the eye before stepping to the next. They met his gaze.

  “There is much to do. Mammet, you and Zafar take a squad each and find Jacob Stearne. This is a higher priority than Gu Peng. Stearne can do far more damage than an old lady. Don’t mess about—kill him on sight.”

  CHAPTER 45

  “He dug a tunnel,” I said. Danny stared at me like a bird after his first encounter with glass. “He dug a tunnel in the cliff on the Austrian side. It’s a sheer wall of rock for two thousand vertical feet. No one in security would expect an assault from that side. They’ll watch it, but they aren’t looking for a tunnel high on the mountain. I need you to get over to Obermoos and start looking for a mountaineering operation. A team of Knights climbed up with ropes and pitons and picks. They dug through a thousand feet of rock, so they probably started last summer. Ask around at the campsites, the local shops, grocers, places like that. Turkmen would stick out like a sore thumb.”

  Danny didn’t like taking orders from me, especially over a video chat. Our weak alliance was about to break down altogether. I took a deep breath and considered different ways to reach him. I needed his help. Jenny and I had taken the train back to Garmisch, miles away. He was checking hotels near the Austrian border. He was closer and had more people to comb the cliffs.

  “It would take months to dig a tunnel like that,” Danny said. “You found the Stone two weeks ago.”

  “The Stone is a bonus to his plan. He’s had a plan to bring the G20 countries to their knees for months. We have to stop it.”

  “They couldn’t have an entrance into the building,” Danny said. “Security would have it sealed.”

  “I’m working on finding the other end. It could be covered in snow if they had enough lead time.”

  “You’re right.” Mark stepped into the video frame behind him. “We can cover the stores, then find the most likely trails they would’ve used. Whatever they excavated from the tunnel will be scattered below.”

  Danny gave his man a get-out-of-my-video-chat look, then turned back to me. “How will he get the Stone out of the tunnel and into the conference?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I said. “That’s the part I’m working on. If we find the tunnel, that will tell us his plan.”

  “Don’t worry,” Mark said, “we can find this, Jacob.”

  Danny added, “Let’s make it a race.”

  I liked his new attitude toward me. Or was it my attitude toward him that had improved?

  “You’re on,” I said and clicked off.

  Jenny said, “You balance each other well. Let go of your need for order long enough to let his need for chaos to work for him.”

  A snarky reply about shoving his chaos where the sun don’t shine came to mind, but I shelved it. I wanted this woman to stay with me the rest of my life.

  “Do you have a phone number for Pavard?” Jenny asked.

  “Until today, I thought he wanted me to die in jail, so … no.”

  I rented a car. With any luck, we could get back to the lift and catch Pavard on the way down. Maybe he would let us look around up at the top as extra eyes. The rental car company had only one car left, a hotrod Audi RS5. We took it and headed down Bundesstraße 23.

  Mercury leaned in from the back seat. There ain’t no room back here for adults, homie. You gotta scooch over so I can sit between you.

  I said, What? No. Why don’t you fly along outside and yell through the window?

  Mercury said, This is a mountain road, bro. Narrow lanes and big trucks comin’ atcha like cannonballs. I could get hurt.

  I said, I thought you were immortal.

  “Funny you should mention it,” Jenny said. “I was just going to tell you I feel immortal when I’m near you. You always walk out of deadly situations. It’s like you have a guardian angel looking out for you.”

  I said to Jenny, “Just lucky, that’s all. But don’t worry, I would never let anything bad happen to you.”

  She picked my hand off the gearshift and kissed it.

  Lucky? Mercury said What kinda bullshit izzat? She just opened the door for you with that guardian angel thing. All you gotta do now is tell her about your lord and savior: ME!

  I said, That might be more dangerous than you think.

  Mercury said, Oh yeah? More dangerous than the guy in the car behind you?

  I glanced in the mirror. An Audi just like mine passed the car behind me and snapped back into our lane. He was gaining on me with an extra twenty miles an hour. The sun glinted off his windshield. I couldn’t tell if a Knight was driving or a local. In Germany, even the grandmothers drive like Sebastian Vettel.

  The car careened toward me, recovering from his sudden swerving lane change.

  I peeked around the semi in front of us by pulling into the oncoming lane. A car zipped by going the other way. He leaned on his horn. Behind me, the Audi closed in fast. A man leaned out of the passenger window. There aren’t many scenarios where that’s a good thing.

  Shoving the gas pedal to the floor, I pulled into the other lane and forced a VW onto the shoulder. Mud flew up from his tires as his blaring horn raged past me. I overtook the semi with ALDI written large across a bright and colorful photo of fruits and vegetables. We were about to get squished like a blueberry. Another semi barreled straight for us.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Jenny asked.

  “Got a message from that guardian angel.”

  She noticed me checking the rearview mirror and craned around to check it out.

  Keeping the pedal down, I snaked in front of the Aldi truck while the Knight behind us was forced back. The stretch in front of us was open for a quarter mile. Ahead of us, ten cars followed another semi. Mountain roads are always blocked by slow trucks.

  “Do we have a rifle?” I asked. “A pistol? Anything?”

  “You said they’d be a liability with all the security.”

  “How about a rock? Is there anything you could lob out the window at the car behind us?”

  While she searched the empty glove compartment, I passed two of the ten cars. My nemesis caught up at the end of the line. I leapfrogged another car while he got around one. We both overtook another car, keeping two cars between us. Those drivers freaked out and pulled off the road, throwing up dust and dirt. When the Audi slid through, the reason became obvious: the passenger now leaned far out the window with an automatic rifle in his hand.

  I downshifted and slid into the oncoming lane. A BMW met me and refused to put two wheels on the shoulder, which left an inch between us. We smacked sideview mirrors with a BANG that made me jump. An A-class Mercedes in my lane slammed on his brakes and pulled over. I flew by him. He caused panic in the lane, slowing my pursuers for the moment.

  Jenny pointed to my left and started to say something, then changed her mind and grabbed the dashboard.

  I remained focused on passing the remaining four cars and the semi. We shot by two when the lead car, oblivious to me closing in on him at high speed, pulled out to pass. I tapped his bumper, scaring both of us. He picked up the pace, passed the tractor trailer an
d pulled back in his lane. As I flew by, he tapped his forehead with his index finger, the German gesture for you’re an idiot.

  The holdup gave the Knights a chance to catch me. They were around the clot of traffic and gaining on me. Worse, I realized there were two cars chasing me. A blue Audi like mine and behind him, a white Honda Civic Type R. A Japanese pocket hotrod.

  The road ahead was wide open. The engine screamed near redline. I upshifted quickly and maxed out on speed. Our two-lane autobahn swept through a valley, a railroad track on one side with a steep slope down to the river beyond it. On either side, massive mountains. Directly behind me, a man sat on the windowsill of an Audi with a raised rifle aimed at my head. Light puffs of smoke followed the bullets out of the barrel. His first shots went wide, smacking the pavement next to me.

  “That was our turn back there,” Jenny said. She’d been looking for a good time to tell me.

  I couldn’t answer. I needed to take out the gunman. I thought of ten ways to do it while more bullets pinged closer to me. He was learning how to compensate for the wind and buffeting. I settled on the quickest method of causing chaos.

  I stood on the brakes. The driver had no choice but to do the same. Both our cars stuttered, chirping and burning rubber as the automatic braking system kept us from locking up. The tires stopped and turned fifteen times per second. The steering remained straight. The road did not. As we headed across the oncoming lane and toward a fifty-foot drop to the river, I downshifted and floored it.

  When the Knight saw my maneuver, he followed me. He jerked his wheel to the right too quickly, nearly rolling the car before catching it. His slight left twist of the wheel to compensate for the overcorrection threw his passenger onto the pavement, rifle and all. His body rolled at high speed, leaving a smear of skin and bone behind him.

  Which made the Knight behind the wheel exponentially angrier.

  In the next sweeping left, he gained on me. I had the pedal down and tried downshifting, but the revs were too high. The transmission complained and I lost speed. The Knight tapped my rear bumper.

  As I slowed ever so slightly for the next right curve, he dove into the small space between me and the guardrail. The side of his car screeched against the metal rail. I looked to my left. The train tracks. A few pine trees. A small river. Traffic coming the other way. I knew exactly what he planned. Before I could move my foot to the brake pedal, he did it.

  He cranked his wheel to the left, shoving his car into mine.

  My car careened out of control, crossing oncoming traffic in between two cars. We flew off the side. When we hit the train tracks, the car rolled over sideways. Time slowed down. I became aware of many things at once.

  The blue Audi had accomplished his goal of forcing me off the road, but it had cost him the same fate. His car tumbled end-over-end in front of me. His engine compartment crushed into his passenger compartment on the first landing, ensuring his instant death.

  The next thing I became aware of was a pine tree that had been snapped into a sharp spear by a lightning bolt. It loomed directly in our path. It stood out of the ground about five feet. We bounced into the air and turned upside down. I heard my fiancé’s death-shriek as her fingernails dug deep into the dashboard.

  The next thing I became aware of was my used god screaming YAAAHHHOOOO! like a twelve-year-old boy on a rollercoaster.

  While we flew through the air for an eighth of a second, Mercury said, Homie, remember that story I told you about Jesus and the stoner in Malibu?

  In a surreal dream, I answered, Yes.

  Mercury said, You ain’t gonna be an ingrate if I save your ass, are you? None of this whoa-totally-rad shit, right?

  I said, OK.

  Mercury said, You’re gonna tell Jenny about me, right?

  I said, Sure.

  Mercury patted my shoulder and said, Who loves ya, baby?

  If you can save me, I said, I’ll always love you.

  We landed upside down. The spear of pine ripped through the sheet metal roof and through the center console and through the floor—which was now the roof.

  Everything stopped. Something creaked once. Then all was silent.

  Jenny stopped screaming. Then she started again. Gasping and screaming. Gasping and screaming. Gasping and screaming.

  “Jenny, are you hurt?” I called out around the tree stump between our shoulders.

  I leaned around the log. My weight was suspended by the seatbelt on one shoulder. She leaned around to meet me.

  She said, “I’ll always love you, too.”

  We were silent for another second. Then I said, “You’re all right?”

  “Not a scratch. You?”

  “Shaken, not stirred.”

  We both looked around at the impossible-to-survive scene.

  “Whoa,” she said and picked a splinter out of the pine. “Totally rad.”

  A knuckle rapped on my window. Someone familiar stood upside down. My head translated my position into something I could deal with. That’s when I recognized the face.

  Zafar Muhadow.

  CHAPTER 46

  Zafar rapped the glass again. This time, the window disintegrated into light blue chunks of safety glass. He dropped to his hands and knees and tilted his head. “You live, Jacob Stearne?”

  I was in the awkward position of being upside down, restrained, and unarmed. Not the best way to greet a foe. Yet he had drawn no weapon and made no aggressive moves. “Yes, Zafar. No thanks to you.”

  “And your lady?”

  “Same,” Jenny said lightly, as if she were sitting on a swinging bench in a garden.

  “I help you,” he said and reached for the seatbelt release.

  “Uh, that’s OK. I’m good here—”

  “No. You misunderstand.” He reexamined the situation. “I have difficult position. You spare my life. I spare your life. But I fail. Let me get you out. I explain. You see. I need help from you.”

  Without a good defensive position, I thought it best to let him extract us. Besides, if he’d wanted to finish us off, he could do it without getting me out of the car.

  He released the seatbelt. My body weight crunched to the ground on my neck. I wriggled out of the window. Together, we managed to pull Jenny out. Then the three of us stood and stared at the knife of wood sticking out the car’s undercarriage.

  Zafar slapped my shoulder. “Allah favor you.”

  “Yeah. Or someone,” I said, glancing at Mercury. “Thank you for getting us out.”

  He pointed down the hill where the blue Audi lay crunched to the size of a beachball. “Mammet not favor by Allah. He have order to kill you on sight. I have same order but not see you first. I try to stop him. I arrive too late.”

  Jenny looked the man over as if she planned to give him a hug. I’m a good deal more skeptical of battlefield conversions. Too many times I’ve seen Taliban or ISIS soldiers spin a good yarn and offer up seemingly good intel, only to blow up several good men the minute people relaxed.

  Sirens rang down the valley. Travelers stood at the top of the slope, looking down. They called out in German. Jenny replied, directing them to the other car.

  “Not much time. Explain quickly now. In Belize, you say my captain kill fifteen people. You say I have problem. You are correct. It get much worse.” He pointed at himself. “For Knights, I mean. He kill one of us. Didar. No reason.”

  “He’s a homicidal maniac,” I said. The term was lost on Zafar’s weak English. “Mr. Baldy likes killing people.”

  “Hawa. Yes.” He nodded. “Too much killing. No thinking.”

  “You need a way out of this mess, Zafar?” I asked.

  He looked left and right, then back at me. He nodded slowly. The admission pained him.

  It pained me as much. Can you trust a traitor? He could give me the information I sorely needed to track down Mr. Baldy. He could also walk me into a trap that could test my immortality.

  “We’ll get you out. Don’t worry.” Jenny s
troked Zafar’s arm, then looked at me. She added in a definitive tone, “Won’t we.”

  I gave her a look to make her back off.

  She returned my expression with one that said we were going to help this stranger. “Jacob, he just saved our lives.”

  We had a long way to go working out our yins and yangs. Or whatever.

  “It appears that way,” I said. “And I want to believe him. But this could be a deception. We don’t know if—”

  “Don’t worry,” she said to Zafar. “We’ll help you. What do you need?”

  Zafar held up a hand. “No. Jacob right. Easy trust, easy betray.”

  Something I’d once heard a terrorist say just before he pulled the pin on a grenade. Were it not for a good friend standing between us, I might’ve been the one who died that day. Jenny tossed an apologetic glance my way. She stepped back.

  “How can you prove your value to me?” I asked.

  Two police officers started down the hill. Behind the cops came two more Knights.

  Zafar saw the Knights as they picked their way down the steep and rugged hill. One officer stopped, turned to the Knights, and sent them back up the hill. Two EMTs appeared along with more police. The Knights had no choice but to turn back.

  “Where is the tunnel?” I asked.

  Zafar’s jaw worked as he processed my question. It packed a lot of information. That I knew they had a tunnel. That I expected him to give it up as a condition of rescue. On top of that, I was asking him to betray his comrades. A tough ask.

  “I show you,” he said, “Infrared beacon from entrance. You see it from ground. I use IR strobe on 1PN121 frequency. Shine this afternoon. Maybe this evening. When I get opportunity.”

  “Thank you for saving us.” I clapped his shoulder. “I’ll get you out of there. After you show me the tunnel entrance.”

  He nodded.

  The police arrived and started asking questions.