The Unknown

by Brett Battles

  Quinn reversed some more, then, with Jar guiding him, turned off the road into the brush. It wasn’t until after he passed through the initial growth that he could finally see the way ahead. An official road it was not. More a pair of tire ruts between trees than anything else.

  Jar climbed back in.

  The condition of the new route meant an even slower drive than before, and it took them ten minutes to travel three-quarters of a kilometer to where the ruts ended. Quinn and Jar climbed out and opened the prisoner-lock-enabled back doors so Daeng and Kincaid could join them.

  Kincaid unfolded from his seat and grimaced as he stretched next to the car. Daeng, on the other hand, hopped right out.

  “That was kind of fun,” Daeng said.

  Kincaid grunted something that did not sound like agreement. Though Quinn had been driving slowly, the sedan had still jostled enough to be unpleasant.

  Until Orlando and Nate arrived with the gear they were picking up in Vienna after their flight from Zurich, Quinn’s group was limited to the weapons they had on hand. This consisted of four batons, a Taser disguised as an electric shaver, the police pistol and HK G38 rifle Quinn had obtained during the escape from the Ferber estate—with only the ammo in each weapon’s magazine—and a surprisingly large knife that Jar had put together from pieces hidden in a metal hairbrush and the structure of her travel bag.

  “You design that yourself?” Daeng asked her, impressed.

  She looked at him. “Of course. Why does this surprise you?”

  “No…it…I just think it’s pretty ingenious.”

  “I have a very high IQ,” she said.

  Trying not to laugh, he said, “Oh, believe me, I know.”

  “What did I say that is funny?”

  “Nothing, sorry.” He nodded at her knife. “What I was trying to get at is, can you make me one of those?”

  “This is the only one I brought.”

  “I don’t mean now. I mean a rig like that. Later.”

  “Oh, then yes. I can do that.”

  “If you two are done,” Quinn said, an eyebrow raised.

  “Sure. All set,” Daeng said.

  Quinn pointed into the woods. “The airfield?”

  “No,” Jar said. “Five degrees to your left.”

  Quinn adjusted his aim.

  “That is correct.”

  Quinn led the group into the forest, and over the uneven ground toward the airport.

  Seven minutes into their hike, Jar whispered, “Light.”

  Ahead, a twinkle of artificial illumination leaked through the trees, at least four hundred meters away.

  “Hand signals from this point forward,” Quinn said. Along with the scarcity of proper weapons, they had no communication gear other than their phones. “You need my attention, tap me.”

  They continued forward, taking care with each step. Soon the single pinpoint of light turned into half a dozen, all concentrated in the same area.

  Ten meters before the trees ended, Quinn motioned for the others to stop and stay there. He crept up to the edge of the woods alone, keeping as low to the ground as he could without crawling.

  Using a pair of pines to shield his presence, he scanned the clearing beyond. The airport was dead ahead, the runway a hundred meters away, stretching off to the left and right. Between the landing strip and his current position stood a three meter-high, chain-link fence, topped by barbed wire.

  At the runway’s midpoint, about fifty meters on the other side of the strip, sat the rectangular, concrete building the guards in the satellite image had been watching over. The six lights encircled the structure, four in front and one each on the left and right side. From the images, Quinn knew there were two more lights on the backside.

  He pulled out his phone and zoomed the camera in on the building. No windows along the front, just a single, double-wide door, currently shut. He focused on the roof and spotted the pair of guards. One sat near the apex looking away from Quinn, while the other was pacing lower down the shallow slope.

  Quinn checked the grounds around the building but saw no one else. Turning his attention to the fence, he scanned it for a gate, but the barrier was unbroken as far as he could see in either direction.

  He returned to the others and led them back into the woods, until he felt they’d gone far enough to whisper without being detected.

  He described what he had seen, then said, “The fence is the immediate problem. Worst case, we find a spot we can cut through, but a gate would be better. Daeng, you and Kincaid go north and see what you can find. Jar and I will head south.” He checked the time. “If Orlando and Nate are on schedule, they should be here within the hour. So, let’s meet back right here in forty minutes. Questions?”

  There were none.

  Orlando and Nate landed in Vienna a half hour before sunset.

  Nate spotted a man with a sign reading CALIBRATION INDUSTRIES near the terminal’s exit and said, “There’s our guy.”

  The man greeted them with the proper recognition code, led them to a dark gray sedan parked at the curb, and drove them into the Austrian capital. On a quiet street, in the middle of the Ottakring district, the driver pulled the car into the garage of a bakery delivery service. The moment the vehicle passed through the archway, the door descended.

  Two men who’d been waiting in the garage opened the sedan’s rear doors so Orlando and Nate could climb out.

  “Hier entlang,” one of the men said, directing them to a door along the back wall of the garage.

  “Our bags, please,” Orlando said in German.

  “We can get them for you.”

  Smirking, she shook her head and said, “We’ll take them with us.”

  The man frowned, then tapped on the trunk. “Open.”

  The driver, still in the front seat, did as ordered.

  “Thank you,” Orlando said.

  Nate pulled the bags out and followed her through the doorway into a back office. Behind a desk sat a well-groomed, middle-aged man, in a crisp white-collared shirt and gray tie. He glanced up at them from his computer screen, then stood up, smiling, and came around the desk.

  “Orlando, it’s been a long time.”

  “Baron, you’re looking fit as ever.”

  He extended his arms and hugged her.

  “You remember Nate,” she said after they parted.

  “Of course.” Baron Langer held his hand out to Nate. “Good to see you again.”

  Nate set one of the suitcases down and shook the man’s hand. “Same.”

  “Can I get you anything?” Langer asked. “Something to eat? To drink, perhaps? I believe we’ve just received a batch of fresh muffins.”

  “Nothing, thanks,” Orlando said. “We’re kind of in a hurry.”

  “Straight to business, then.”

  “I’m afraid so. Is everything ready?”

  “Of course. Please follow me.”

  The Austrian led them back into the garage, then through another exit, and down a hall to a steel door with no knob. On the wall next to the door was a finger scanner. Langer placed the middle finger of his left hand on the glass. A moment later, he pushed it open, waved Orlando and Nate through, and followed them inside.

  The room they entered was approximately ten meters square, with shelves running through the middle and along both walls. On these were industrial-sized packages of flour and sugar and other items used in the baking business.

  Langer led them down the left wall and stopped about seven meters from the end. He reached under a shelf.

  A soft click.

  He moved down another meter and a half and reached below a different shelf.

  Another click. This time he pushed and a section of wall, shelf included, moved straight back.

  “After you,” he said, motioning at the opening. “But stop just inside.”

  Orlando and Nate entered a dark passageway. It was so narrow that Nate had to carry one bag in front of him and one behind. When Langer e
ntered, he tapped his foot against the floorboard and the false wall moved back in place. The moment it sealed them inside, lights popped on overhead.

  Three meters to the right of the door, the passage ended abruptly at a downward staircase.

  Langer put a hand on the suitcase between him and Nate. “It’ll be easier if I take one of these.”

  Nate relinquished the handle and they headed down the stairs, traveling what felt like two stories before reaching an antechamber at the bottom. The only way out was through a closed door controlled by another scanner. Langer used his right ring finger on this one. As soon as he removed it, the lights went out.

  “You will have to move back a little,” Langer said.

  Nate and Orlando scooted backward until their heels hit the bottom of the stairs. Nate heard a door open, but since no light leaked through, he saw nothing. His sense of smell, however, was working overtime.

  Clamping a hand over his nose, he said, “What the hell is that?”

  The room had filled with the stink of decay and rot.

  “Like it?” Langer said.

  “Not particularly.” Though Nate worked around death all the time, most of the bodies he dealt with were fresh. And on those times they weren’t, he was normally equipped with something to dull the odorous onslaught.

  “Good. Then it’s doing its job.”

  The sound of movement and the clank of something metallic dropping on the floor.

  Langer cursed. “Hold on.”

  A moment later, the beam of a flashlight cut through the darkness.

  “Can one of you take this?”

  Orlando grabbed the flashlight from him.

  “If you could aim it through the door.”

  The beam whipped through the room and spilled through a doorway, lighting up an ancient-looking iron gate a meter beyond.

  Langer pulled out some keys and unlocked a padlock hanging from a chain wrapped through the gate. Once the chain was removed and the gate pushed out of the way, he said, “Watch your step.”

  As Nate left the room, he spotted several dead rats on either side of the doorway, between it and the gate. These were the source of the smell.

  “We have to put new ones out every couple days,” Langer said, noticing Nate’s glance. “It helps deter anyone from approaching the gate.”

  “You see a lot of foot traffic down here, do you?” Nate asked.

  “You’d be surprised.”

  Beyond the gate was a brick-walled tunnel through which a steady flow of water ran down the middle. They had entered part of the city’s drainage system.

  “Just a little farther,” Langer said as he took the flashlight from Orlando.

  They walked along the left side, and within half a dozen steps, the smell of the dead rats was replaced by the musty odor oozing from the walls and floor.

  At a junction with two other tunnels, Langer went left. Three minutes later, he stopped in front of another iron gate. No smell of death here, so either the entrance was due for some rat carcasses, or the nasal deterrent had been deemed unnecessary because this tunnel was less traveled than the other.

  Beyond the gate, a set of stairs led to another secret doorway, this one opening into what appeared to be a restaurant kitchen under construction. Langer took them into a hallway, past a pair of restrooms, and through another fingerprint-operated door—left index this time—into a parking garage. The space was large enough for at least a dozen cars, more if they were parked end to end. At the moment, only three vehicles were present—two delivery vans and a blue Audi A4.

  Langer walked up to the Audi and patted the hood. “For you.”

  “And the supplies?” Orlando asked.

  He circled around to the trunk and popped it open. The main storage area was empty. He pulled back the carpet covering the floor and exposed the spare tire.

  “Watch,” he said. He touched the valve stem. “Turn twice.” He twisted the value so that it made two full revolutions. “Now, what would you like to see first?”

  “Guns?” Nate said.

  With the smile of a showroom salesman, Langer opened a back door and lowered the armrest in the middle of the seat. After pushing twice on the seat belt-release button just to the right of the armrest, a drawer the length of the entire backseat slid forward into the footwells. Nestled in dedicated slots were a dozen pistols, four automatic rifles, a sniper’s rifle, and magazines and ammunition for everything.

  “Undetectable?” Orlando asked.

  “Absolutely. Will pass all scans. But that shouldn’t even be an issue. Most of the time, the Slovakian border officials will just wave you through.”

  “Say they do and decide to perform a physical search,” Nate said.

  “Without knowing the unlocking sequence, they won’t be able to open anything.”

  “And if they try to tear the car apart?”

  “In that case, I would suggest you get as far away as possible before they begin.”

  “Self-destruct?” Orlando said.

  “Naturally.”

  Nate winced. “There’s no chance of that going off accidentally, is there?”

  “It’s only happened once.”

  “That doesn’t quite fill me with confidence.”

  “Minor injuries only. And besides, the problem has been fixed. You will be perfectly safe.”

  “What about the rest of the equipment on our list?” Orlando said.

  Langer’s smile returned, and he showed them several other hidden compartments built into the car, one holding the flash bangs, another tracking bugs and comm gear, and others holding the additional items she’d requested.

  After their suitcases were loaded into the trunk, Orlando triggered Langer’s final payment on her phone.

  “Best of luck,” Langer said as he held out the keys. “Try to keep the car in one piece.”

  Nate looked at Orlando, an eyebrow raised.

  “You drive,” she said. “I’m working.”

  Nate took the keys. “I’ll treat it like it’s my own.”

  “I have a question for you before we go,” Orlando said to Langer. “It’s, um, one you might not be able to answer.”

  “What’s the question?”

  “Do you know anything about someone hiring a Ghost 1A1 in the past few days? Probably some gear, too.”

  “I don’t deal in helicopters.”

  “You deal in everything.”

  A smile of acknowledgment. “You’re right. There are some questions I can’t answer.”

  “So, you did help them.”

  “What? No, of course not!” He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, he said in a calmer voice, “Hypothetically, if I had been approached by someone looking for a Ghost, I would have told them I couldn’t get it for them.”

  “I can’t imagine you turning down business. Unless you’re saying you couldn’t get your hands on one.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Getting my hands on one is not the problem. It’s just…dammit, Orlando. I told you I can’t talk about this.”

  “You already are. Why didn’t you help them?”

  He paused before speaking again. “As a general practice, if I don’t get a good feeling about a client, I’ll find some way not to take the job.”

  “These guys scared you off?”

  “As I said, as a general practice—”

  “Who were they?”

  “Orlando, I can’t.”

  “You didn’t take the job, Baron. Which means they probably never paid you a dime. So, technically, they were never your client and you owe them nothing. Unlike me, who just sent a nice chunk of change to your bank account. Not for the first time, I might add.”

  “I’ve given you what you paid for. I don’t owe you anything more.”

  “Other than loyalty to a good customer?”

  “Shit.” He took a deep breath. “Okay, look, I don’t actually know who the client was. They came to me through Zimmerman.”

  “Ka
rl Zimmerman?” Nate said.

  Langer nodded.

  Zimmerman was an operative and sometime middleman who worked for whoever was willing to pay him, no matter their ideology.

  “And he never told you who his client was?” Orlando asked.

  “He brought one of them to meet with me. But she never gave me her name.”

  “And after you met with her, you decided you didn’t want the job?”

  “Yes. There was something…I don’t know, fanatical about her. I don’t like working with fanatics. They tend to be not as careful, and don’t care if they damage something I might have loaned them.”

  “Describe the woman,” Nate said.

  “Young. Late twenties, probably. Light brown hair down to her shoulders. Cute, but with intense eyes. Grayish, I think, though they could have been blue. Or light brown. Or she could have even been wearing contacts. I don’t know.”

  “Tall? Short? Skinny? Fat?”

  “Around one hundred and seventy centimeters, I guess. Not fat, but not skinny, either. Toned.”

  It was by no means a perfect description, but it sure sounded a lot like the woman involved in Brunner’s kidnapping.

  “Thanks,” Orlando said. “We appreciate the information.”

  “If you talk to Zimmerman, you can’t let him know you found out through me.”

  Orlando feigned dismay. “I’m actually a little insulted. You should know us well enough to realize that we never sell out our friends.” She climbed into the car, but before she closed the door, she said, “We’ll let you know where you can find the car when we’re done.”

  She shut the door and Nate started the engine.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Oh, God. Not again. Not again.

  Brunner jumped off the bed and raced to the bucket in the corner of the room, dropping his pants and sitting down just in time.

  He’d lost count of how many trips he’d made to his makeshift toilet. At first, he’d thought it was a nervous reaction to his situation. But the diarrhea kept coming. He was shocked he still had anything left to give.

  That bottle of disgusting liquid they’d given him to drink hours earlier must have been magnesium citrate. That was the stuff used by people cleaning out their intestines in preparation for a colonoscopy.