This had been last minute.
He mentally returned to the gate area and watched the flight deplane, and he searched the waiting passengers, saw his sister among them, and the Russian, and he followed his own path into the terminal. The pieces came at him, over and over.
Kill team. Russian. Him. Jill.
Time and again he got stuck on Jill.
What was it she’d just said?
We get a call . . . There was no we.
The hit squad hadn’t come after them, it’d come after him.
They’d picked him up in Dallas, followed him through Frankfurt, staked out his connecting flight to Berlin, and all the while there’d been not a whiff of surveillance on Jill, not in Frankfurt, and not in Dallas the day before, when he’d played observer on the outbound side of her flight.
But the Russian spotter had known them both.
If, intentionally or unintentionally, Dmitry-in-finger-quotes had pointed the Americans to him, the Americans would have also known them both. And if it hadn’t been Dmitry, then Jill should have been the one with a target on her back, not him.
She was the one who’d taken contracts.
She was the one who, in defiance of everything Clare had taught them, had gone off to work for the Broker. He hadn’t pinged that underworld radar, she had.
But if not for Dmitry’s invitation, he’d have remained invisible.
This flight was what had drawn him out into the open, and that left Dmitry seeming not so that Dmitry, after all. And that took him back to the beginning and back to questions without answers.
Jill said, “So?”
He shook his head. “All I’ve got is mud.”
It was, perhaps, the most honest thing either of them had offered since leaving Dallas.
She said, “Come on, John, stop with the bullshit. You left the terminal. You’re holding out on me. Quid pro quo, brother dearest. How far did you get?”
Resentment he’d held back during the long wait for her to arrive morphed into anger over her button-pushing hypocrisy, and against his better judgment, it came rolling out his mouth. “You want to call bullshit?” he said. “I made it around the airport and back and still managed to get to my seat before you. What took you so long?”
She said, “I needed a drink.”
“Oh, sure, you had a drink. A White Russian, singular?”
“Clever.”
He raised his wrist and tapped his watch. “How many guys did you hit up? Four? Five? Or did you manage to score the harder stuff this time?”
She cocked her head, as if running numbers, let the questions go without comment, and reached for a book.
He clenched his jaw and bit back spite.
She knew better than to carry drugs when she traveled, and he’d gone behind her back to search her luggage to make sure she hadn’t tried to smuggle them along anyway, but that didn’t mean she’d stay clean after they arrived.
The intercom dinged, signaling cabin attendants that takeoff was imminent.
Shoulder inching into the aisle, he said, “You almost missed the flight.”
The aircraft picked up speed.
He said, “Where. Were. You.”
She leaned toward him, close enough that they were nearly face-to-face, patted his cheek, and said, “I’m here, John. I made the flight. Let it go.”
Frustration ground to a hard stop at a sudden fork.
Her eyes were clear. There was no alcohol on her breath, or foreign smells on her skin or clothes or hair. Drink and drugs were predictable if worrying variables, but she hadn’t been drinking and she wasn’t high, and the absence of explanation was worse than the one he’d imagined. “What are you not telling me?” he said.
She smiled a dangerous, power-flaunting smile.
The core of him shut down.
He knew better than to trust her, knew better than to accept at face value that she wanted this trip for the same reason he did, knew that setting himself up to depend on her was the same as putting money in front of a thief and drugs in front of an addict—knew it the way he knew his lungs needed air and his stomach needed food—and had done it anyway because she’d promised this time would be different, and he’d wanted so much to believe.
But this was who she was, and all she’d ever be, a woman who treated jobs, friends, lovers like collectible trophies in a winner-takes-all game of life in which nothing could ever hurt as long as she didn’t care enough for it to matter. In her reductive, zero-sum way of thinking, not losing was the same as winning, and Dmitry was a prize she’d rather watch slip away than risk letting him have.
His hands demanded what his vocal chords couldn’t.
She said, “Don’t pick a fight you can’t win.”
In a different mood she might have slugged him, and if she had, he’d have been forced to take the beating, because to retaliate was to escalate, and she was twisted enough to set the world on fire even if that meant burning in the flames.
He couldn’t out-crazy her crazy. He cared too much to take that risk.
He shoved the second earbud into place, and turned the volume up, way up.
The wheels lifted off the ground.
Pressure in the cabin built alongside the pressure in his head.
For her, this search for Dmitry might, at best, put meaning to their mother’s past and make some sense of an upturned childhood.
Answers would be nothing more than potential weapons.
But for him they were atonement, a way to avoid repeating the mistakes of a past in which he’d taken time and opportunity for granted and lost the man who’d been the closest thing he’d known to a father.
He was willing to pay just about any price to get them.
And his sister, by forcing him to cede, had just forced his hand.
CHAPTER 6
Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof
Frankfurt, Germany
HOLDEN
HE NUDGED THE PLATE TOWARD THE TABLE’S CENTER AND ANGLED for a better view of the promenade. They were out there, three would-be killers, one browsing magazines at the newsstand across the walkway, another in the curio shop next door, the third somewhere in the direction of the long-distance tracks.
They didn’t care if he saw them.
He’d tipped his hat and said hello, and they in turn had moved on to the pack predator strategy of tundra wolves nipping at the edges to keep the herd running until exhaustion singled out weakness. They had the resources to keep him moving, sleep deprived, until he wore down and made mistakes.
Better to get this over with now.
He ordered espresso, one final round before the chase, and he retrieved a packet of SIM cards from his jacket liner. They were burner numbers, activated over time as part of the ongoing process required to stay connected in a life that called for complete disconnection. They were utterly worthless without phones, but about the only thing that’d have drawn more unwanted attention than hauling a bag of cell phones through airport security was if he’d tried a bag of cash or a bottle of water, so he’d split the difference with minis, unlocked GSM devices about the size of a pack of gum.
They were shit quality and had no Wi-Fi capability, but they were cheap, disposable, easy to hide, and right now they were all he had.
One SIM, one location, one call, that was the burn rate of attrition.
He had started with three, had burned one at the airport to give his would-be murderers a signal to follow, and had led them here.
He didn’t want to kill them, not on any personal level.
He wanted to be left alone—wanted to get to Berlin—needed to get to Berlin before he lost the twins and the trail went cold, and dealing with this ate away time he didn’t have and would cost them a whole lot more than they thought it would.
They’d have been better served waiting for another day.
He’d warned them.
He’d taken one of their team while on the flight, the one with the pilot bag.
H
ad waited until the meal service was done and the cabin lights went off and the woman in the seat behind him had left to use the restroom, and he’d slipped in to take her place. In a dark filled with noise-reduction headphones, face masks, and movie screens, no one had noticed—hadn’t noticed him, or the gloved hand between seatbacks, or the piece of gauze as it rested against the man’s skin.
A few seconds was all he’d needed.
There was no ego in sneaking in and sneaking away, but that’s why he still breathed when others more skilled didn’t.
In his world longevity required invisibility.
He’d been content to let carfentanil do his work.
The big-game tranquilizer was a hundred times more potent than fentanyl, which was in itself fifty times more potent than heroin. It didn’t need to be injected or imbibed to work, and a dose no larger than a couple grains of salt brushed up against unprotected skin was enough to shut down the involuntary nervous system.
No violence. No sense of foul play.
Until an autopsy showed otherwise, he’d have simply gone to sleep and never woken—an easier, happier death than Holden could have expected had the roles been reversed—but the man’s teammates would understand and know.
Holden’s mistake was hoping they’d heed the warning.
He found the French SIM and nudged it into a waiting slot.
Every niche, no matter how small, had someone willing to supply the market.
Assassins were perhaps the smallest niche of all.
He powered up and dialed.
A gruff voice answered in Euskara-tinged French.
There weren’t many people Holden would trust with his location or his life, but the wiry sixty-year-old Basque who ran Janssens Outfitting out of Brussels was among them. Holden said, “Do you still offer courier service?”
“This depends on the location and the order.”
“Bonn. Germany,” Holden said. “Forty-nine and fifty-two.”
Silence hung over the line for a surprised beat, followed by a laugh—spontaneous laughter, which Holden read as relief—and Itzal said, “It is good to know you are alive, my friend. Much bad weather this week, so many accidents. You’ve heard?”
“I’ve heard.”
“A difficult season, fewer customers, the couriers don’t come to work. But give me the address. For you, I make delivery myself.”
A delivery would put the man directly in the crosshairs, and Holden couldn’t in good conscience allow that. Not that Itzal couldn’t hold his own—he’d been fighting one war or other since he was a young teenager among the Basque separatists—but this wasn’t his war to wage.
Holden said, “I’m not well. A drop would be better.”
“Then you should rest. I will come to you.”
Message received, message rejected.
Itzal would do what Itzal would do.
Holden said, “Be safe like Mozart, my friend.”
“There’s no one safer.”
Given the man’s life and all he’d survived, that was probably true.
Holden ended the call.
The SIM was trash, the phone was trash.
He had fifteen minutes to make the train.
He dropped the steak knife off the table’s edge, slid it up his sleeve, and when the server cleared the plate, he smiled his most charming, distracting smile.
He paid the bill, waited for a group at a nearby table to finish, and followed them toward the long-distance tracks and high-speed trains.
The assassin hunters fell in not far behind.
He could feel them at his elbows, woman at the right, short black hair now long and brown, jeans and jacket converted to slacks and a chic blouse, and the hipster to his left, flannel shirt and jeans, easy to pick out of the crowd because no self-respecting German would be caught looking like a lumberjack from early last century.
The Asian guy was ahead, by the tracks.
Voices echoed beneath the towering glass arch.
Pigeons squabbled and scattered in a rush of aerial acrobatics.
The restaurant group veered off for an exit, leaving him exposed.
He walked faster, senses heightened, adrenaline rushing up his skin.
Crowds were his protection.
Cameras were his protection.
United States operatives, guests on foreign soil working without the cooperation of their local hosts, required invisibility more than he did. They’d need to come in close, clean and quiet, with no witnesses, no collateral damage.
Human shields deprived them of opportunity.
That was why he’d gone from terminal to public transportation to Frankfurt’s central station. That and he needed an alternate route to the old capital.
Holden turned down a track, boarded a train, destination Berlin, and hurried the aisle from car to car. The woman kept pace along the platform.
The Asian guy had gotten on the train ahead.
The hipster boarded behind, boxing him in the middle.
Holden’s walk became a run. The cars were still near empty, not enough witnesses to prevent a bullet in his back. Distance ticked out inside his head, distance and speed and the rate at which they closed in.
A vestibule loomed ahead, the space between cars where a metal floor and an accordion of thick rubber were all that separated passengers from the tracks. He tugged a hairpiece from his sleeve, slid the door open, shut it behind him, and off to the side of its small window, he shrugged out of the jacket, flipped it inside itself, stuffed his hat down into the mix, and pulled tight.
Jacket and hat became canvas bag.
Backpack went into bag.
Short black hair became straggly blond.
Glasses went from pocket to face.
Ripped fingerless wool gloves went on both hands, and a spritz of au de garbage across his chest. Shoulders slumped, focus to the floor, he pulled the door open and lurched back the way he’d come, moving slowly, drunkenly, searching seats and picking up stray newspapers and magazines.
The hipster dude caught a whiff, stepped aside to let him pass.
Holden dropped steak knife into palm and, with the same feral will that had consumed his thirteen-year-old self in Calamar, sent the knife plunging, stab after stab, in a train-car version of the prison-yard rush. He gripped the hipster’s arms to steady him, dropped him into the empty seat at his knees, rolled him over to drift into forever sleep, and continued on.
He took no pleasure in the kill and felt no pain.
They were a tactical team doing a job, just as he’d done similar jobs. He’d have been content to walk away if they’d been willing to leave him alone.
A life for a life.
It didn’t have to be this way.
He limped to the end of the car, hobbled down to the platform, and shuffled back to the concourse. Inside his head the clock ticked down.
Three minutes until departure to Bonn.
He still had half the tracks to cross.
The inexperienced would be tempted to hurry.
He’d been surviving longer than the hipster had been alive.
He limped steadily forward, consistent, never breaking character.
Far behind him, the woman shouted.
He reached the track, the train to Bonn, closed in on the rear car, gripped the handrail, hauled himself slowly up the stairs, and hitched down the aisle for an empty seat that put distance between his body and the window.
He could see them still, the two of them, running full out across the terminal, closing in on him in a race against time.
The car lurched.
The carriage moved, picking up speed.
He slid closer to the window and watched the chase, human against train, and last he saw them they were halfway down the platform, trying to catch their breath.
CHAPTER 7
Hotel Mozart
Bonn, Germany
HOLDEN
A FIVE-MINUTE WALK FROM THE STATION TOOK HIM TO THE BOUTIQUE hotel, a
stately prewar house in a quiet neighborhood of similar stately homes, and he jogged its stairs for private doors that led to a reception area that might have been a parlor in more genteel times. Itzal had arrived first. Holden caught sight of him in the hall, seated on an upholstered high-backed bench, with hard cases on the floor beside each leg and, Holden knew, handguns strapped to each shin, and two more at least beneath the leather coat.
The old Basque wore time like a badge of honor. His dark eyes and weathered face tracked Holden from door to desk to check-in to stairs and Holden finally lost sight of him on the first landing. He continued up, testing carpet tread and bannister strength, and made a full run of the third-floor hallways before looping back for his own door.
The room, small, updated, modern, had a street-facing window.
He dumped his bag on the bed, rounded for the curtains, and scanned left and right. The hotel sat at the bend of a Y junction, he had only a partial view, and the seven minutes between entering hotel and entering room were an eternity in shooter years, which left him working blind.
The killers would come—might already be here—he’d guaranteed it by calling ahead from the train to confirm the reservation, adding another radar blip to the same phone and same SIM he’d used to make the booking at Frankfurt Airport.
They knew he wasn’t careless.
They’d recognize the call as the lure it was.
But they had already shown him they had no choice but to pursue and so they’d come, and they’d compensate with resources he couldn’t see—drones, satellite access, database connections to every repository known to man.
What they wouldn’t have was on-the-ground resources.
There’d be no local police or SWAT equivalent tossing flash bangs through the windows, not unless those who ran these killers were ready to loop a diplomatic ally in on the fact they’d been running a dark op under their noses after the thing had gone to shit, and he didn’t think they were ready to burn that bridge quite yet.
They’d come quietly.
He hoped they’d come quickly.
He had two hours before the next departure to Berlin. One way or the other, he was going to be on that train, preferably without his executioners in tow.
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