by Rob Jones
“Kvashnin?”
“Right - an ape like that wouldn’t be working solo. Who’s his organ grinder?”
“We don’t know. He’s worked for every scumbag in Russia and a good many in the Middle East over the years too, so it could be anyone. Clearly if he’s trying to take out Lexi Zhang then this has to be about the map and nothing else, so I’m guessing Sorokin was just collateral damage. We can safely presume someone else has heard chatter about the search for immortality and wants some for himself.”
“And we can get an idea of how serious he is by the fact he hired Kodiak.”
“Indeed, which is why you’re going to Berlin. We know Dragonfly is there with the map, and I want you to retrieve it.”
“When?”
“As soon as possible. We’ll coordinate with Lexi but I want you to get there in advance and check the place for any trouble first.”
“Of course.”
“And you’re going with Karlsson.”
“Oh, please. Can’t I take a potato instead? It’d be of more use.”
Eden sighed, unamused. “The Americans are forcefully insisting on being part of this and he’s the man they want in it. I get the feeling someone pretty high up the food chain in DC has started pulling strings on this one. Is that going to be a problem?”
Scarlet leaned back in her chair and swung her boots up onto Eden’s desk, causing him to raise an eyebrow. “Bradley Karlsson? I’ve known tougher Teddy Bears. I can bring him to heel.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Hawke didn’t have to break the door down. That had already happened when the knifeman snatched Nightingale. Now it was closed in the frame but unlocked, and the lock mechanism was smashed out leaving a rugged hole where it had once protected her, or so she had probably thought.
He and Lea split up and searched the apartment for any trouble while Ryan stayed outside and watched the corridor.
It was a spacious loft apartment with polished hardwood floors and neat white walls, one of which was an enormous bookcase from floor to ceiling. A large semi-circle window looked out over a chilly Manhattan and let in the sound of the traffic far below.
Built-in spotlights shone down from the ceiling, and several well-kept house plants added a splash of color throughout the long, tidy room. In the center of the space was a circular desk with a serious array of laptops and computers on it. No sign of any struggle in here.
Lea looked at the tidy apartment. “She was pretty organized. My flat looks like a cross between a food fight competition and Tornado Alley.”
“I remember only too well,” Hawke said as he moved through to the bedroom where the trouble had begun. In here, a pot plant had been knocked over and the soil was all over a plush, cream rug. In the obvious struggle, books and ornaments had been smashed off the shelves and were now strewn over the floor.
Worse than that was the sight of a wheelchair on its side in the center of the bedroom. It looked like someone had given it a good kicking and one of the main wheels was slightly bent off its axle. Hawke felt like he was intruding into the very heart of Nightingale’s secret world, but he knew he had no choice if he was to stand the slightest chance of getting her back – of bringing this nightmare to an end once and for all.
Lea joined him. “All clear back there, but… wait – is that a wheelchair?”
Hawke nodded grimly. “I had no idea. She never told me anything about it.” He opened the wardrobe door and looked inside. “This is where she took the pictures of the guy who snatched her. I recognize the view from inside. Bastards.”
Lea put her gun in the holster and looked at Hawke. “What’s our next play?”
Hawke sighed and took a second to think. Whoever had taken Nightingale must have had a damned good reason to do so, and whoever it was had nearly a full day’s head-start on them.
He turned to Lea. “Ryan needs to get those computers fired up, don’t you think?”
Lea nodded gently and went to get Ryan.
Hawke picked up the wheelchair and set it back on its wheels, drumming his fingers on the handles at the rear as his mind wandered. Just who the hell would smash into Nightingale’s apartment and kidnap her, but leave all of her computer gear? Clearly no one from her CIA past, he thought. This was starting to look personal, and his feeling that her disappearance might be connected to the hunt for the map was getting stronger – it would be just too much of a coincidence for it to be anything else.
He glanced quickly over her bedroom one more time, but the feeling of guilt returned. He had spoken to this woman so many times before, and she had saved his life, but she had never really invited him into her personal life. Now she was gone, and he was standing in the center of her universe, it all felt wrong.
On the side of her bed was a framed photo of a woman he presumed was her, with another man. He picked it up and looked at Nightingale for the first time. She was slim, with pale brown curly hair and sparkling green eyes. An innocent, honest smile made her look young and kind, but he knew this was a woman with a past. The man in the picture had seriously perfect hair with a dash of silver at the temples. At first glance he thought it must be a boyfriend, but then he thought he saw a resemblance and decided the man could easily be her brother. Whoever he was, Hawke thought he reminded him strongly of someone else, but couldn’t put his finger on it.
“Joe!” It was Lea, calling him from the main room. He set the picture carefully down on the side table and stepped back into the other room to see Ryan walking around the table activating all the computers, his face a study of solemn determination.
“Any luck?” he asked.
“Just firing these babies up,” Ryan said. Since the murder of Sophie Durand back in Tokyo, Hawke had noticed that Ryan was avoiding eye contact with him whenever he could, and keeping his quips to a minimum. Not surprising, Hawke thought, but he hoped that inside, Ryan had everything under control. He had gone through the same when Liz was killed in Hanoi – shot right in front of him – and it had been hard enough for a man with his training to deal with. How a loose-cannon like Ryan Bale might react was impossible to guess, but Hawke feared the worst. Most concerning was Ryan’s refusal to talk about it, but he knew he shouldn’t be pushed.
Ryan pulled a swivel chair over from another desk and began to work with the various screens in front of him around the table. “Looks like she didn’t get out much,” he said, and then stopped himself before going any further. “Sorry, Joe… I didn’t mean anything by that.”
“Forget about it,” said the former SBS man. “I only found out about the wheelchair a few moments ago myself.”
Ryan made no reply, but carried on looking through the computers. Hawke made a search through the bookshelves and anywhere else he could think of – inside kitchen cupboards, under the furniture, even inside the air-conditioning ducts, but he found nothing.
“Looks like she was pretty lonely,” Lea said, glancing around the apartment.
Hawke nodded in response but said nothing.
Lea looked at him for a moment. “What is it, Joe?”
“Nothing… just that it’s suddenly hit me just how little I really know about her – there’s nothing here even with her name on it – nothing. She’s gone out of her way to remove herself from the world, even inside her own apartment.”
“Spooky, if you ask me,” Lea said.
“What about on there?” Hawke asked Ryan. “Any names or anything that can help identify her?”
Ryan shook his head. “Not really. First, the only name I can find anywhere is Nightingale, and second, whoever she is, as far as computer skills go she’s way above my pay grade…”
Lea sighed. “I don’t know what to make of it.”
“Exactly,” Hawke replied. “We really are coming to a dead end.”
“No, I mean that Ryan just admitted someone else was better than him at something and I really can’t believe I heard that right.”
Ryan sighed. “The only way you could get any f
unnier, Lea, is if you put on a clown outfit, you know that, right?”
“Zip it, Ry.”
“With a big, red nose.”
Hawke looked at them both. “Guys, I need some focus in here right now, yeah?”
“Sorry…”
“What about the desktop?” Hawke asked.
“I’ll fire it up.”
“Woah!” Ryan said.
“What is it?” Hawke leaned in to look.
“Looks like your little Nightingale has more than a passing interest in the Map of Immortality – check this out!”
Hawke looked at the screen and saw a long list of files. “What are they?”
“These ones here are all named after Egyptian gods.”
Ryan clicked on a file and opened it.
Lea whistled. “Oh my…”
“My sentiments exactly,” Ryan said.
They were now looking at a PDF full of text and symbols.
“Isn’t that one called a wank or something?” Lea said, winking at Hawke behind Ryan’s back.
“It’s called an Ankh,” Ryan said, sighing and shaking his head. “It’s the ancient Egyptian symbol of eternal life, called the crux ansata in Latin, which means the cross with a handle.”
“And they called it that because it looks like a cross with a handle on it, right?”
Ryan craned his neck to look at Lea. “You are kidding me, yes?”
Lea laughed. “Of course I’m kidding, Ry! You are so easy…”
Ryan was unamused. “The ancients called this symbol the breath of life or the key of the Nile and it’s one of the oldest symbols in the world. It’s found on carvings thousands of years old but no two Egyptologists can agree on its true origins.”
Hawke frowned. “Which is a mystery almost as interesting as why Nightingale has hundreds of files relating to ancient Egypt and immortality on her computer.”
“Hey! A girl can be interested in ancient Egypt, can’t she?” Lea said.
Ryan stared at the laptop. “Sure she can, but I think this goes way above interested – there are countless files on here, and the research just goes on and on. There’s also an email trail here to a mystery man called Mercurio who seems to know more about this stuff than anyone.”
Hawke stood up and scratched the stubble on his chin. “When did she start researching all this and talking to this…Mercurio?”
Ryan took a few moments to flick through the files. “Er… looks like around the time we were trying to stop Zaugg finding the vault of Poseidon.”
Lea sighed. “Great, so we’re to blame…”
“It gets better,” Ryan said,
“What is it?”
“A lot of these files look like they originated in the US Defense Department – the Pentagon.”
Hawke looked shocked. “Really?”
Ryan nodded. “And they’re pretty highly classified as well, unfortunately someone’s spoiled all the fun and all the good bits have been redacted.”
“Eh?” Hawke said.
“Blacked out,” Lea said. “We say blacked out in English, but they say redacted in Nerdish, right Ryan?”
He ignored her, transfixed by the information unfolding on the screen in front of him. Since Sophie’s murder in Tokyo, Ryan had gotten a lot less interested in sparring with Lea, or anyone else for that matter. He had gone back inside himself again, back to where he had hidden after his divorce. Now, all this seemed to be dragging him back to life.
“So all her research was pointing to Egypt?” Hawke asked.
Ryan nodded. “She seems to have followed a path from Poseidon back from Greece to Ancient Egypt, which isn’t that surprising.”
Lea frowned. “Why not?”
Ryan nodded. “The ancient Egyptians were very big on anything to do with immortality. They believed that eternal life was possible in the sense that their souls could be reincarnated in the next world so long as they led an honest, good life and never offended the gods.”
“Sounds simple enough,” Lea said.
“Not really. Like I said, they took it very seriously. There was a specific ritual of mummification that you had to go through if you were to going to be successful in reaching the next world.”
“Like what?”
“For one thing, their internal organs were removed, dried out, and placed in Canopic jars.”
“In what?”
“Large pottery jars with lids moulded into likenesses of the gods. Placing the viscera…”
“Ryan!”
“Sorry, Lea… placing the organs inside these jars after a process of drying them in salts was an important part of ensuring the soul would be reincarnated in the next world, thereby achieving immortality, so to speak. The stomach went inside the jackal jar, the liver went inside the human jar, the lungs went in the baboon jar and they put the intestines inside the hawk jar.”
“Someone say my name?” Hawke said, turning to face them.
“No, I said…”
“I know what you said, mate,” Hawke said, smiling. “But something’s bothering me.”
Ryan scratched his head. “What?”
“All this talk of taking people apart as part of the mummification process…”
“Yeah?”
“It’s not quite the same kind of immortality that we’re searching after, is it?”
Ryan turned in his chair to face Hawke. “How do you mean?”
“The stuff you’re talking about here is about the immortality of the soul, but that’s not what Hugo Zaugg or Sheng Fang were risking their lives to get hold of, and I doubt that it’s what’s motivating whoever’s kidnapped Nightingale to get their hands on her knowledge of all of this stuff.”
“I see what you mean.”
“Those nutcases were trying to achieve immortality of the body – the power to live forever in their bodies, as they live and breathe now. They weren’t seeking some kind of eternity in the spirit world.”
Ryan looked a little deflated. “I guess.”
“So what’s the connection between the two?” Lea said.
“It’s possible the gods were immortal in both the spiritual way and the way you’ve described here, and…”
“And everyone hold it right there!”
Hawke and the others looked up to see a man in the door. He was in a serious black suit and firmly pointing a Sig Sauer P229R in their faces. Worse, two other men in similar suits with guns were standing right behind him.
“Who the hell are you?” Hawke asked.
“I’m Agent Dempsey from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.”
“Yeah,” Hawke said. “And I’m…”
“You’re coming with us,” Dempsey said flatly, cutting Hawke off. “Right now.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Scarlet Sloane switched off the Passat’s engine and watched the hotel for any signs of Lexi Zhang. This was the place where the renegade Chinese assassin had told Eden she would meet Scarlet – the Waldorf Astoria on Berlin’s Hardenbergstrasse, but the Englishwoman wasn’t taking any chances. She wanted to take a good look at things before stepping into any trouble – that was how she’d survived all these years.
Beside her, the former American Seal Bradley Karlsson dipped a bear-like paw into a bag of potato chips and jammed them into his mouth before snapping open the ring-pull on a can of Vanilla Coke.
Scarlet shifted over in her seat and brushed the crumbs from her leg. “It’s like watching a gorilla at feeding time.”
“Hey!” As he spoke, he exhaled a shower of potato crumbs over his lap.
Scarlet gave an exasperated sigh and stared at him. “Do you think you could try and get at least a quarter of them in your mouth next time?”
“Well, you know what you can put in your mouth…”
“I don’t even want to know what that means. I presume something vulgar and American, but if you think… hey – there she is!” Scarlet pointed to the unmistakable figure of Lexi Zhang as she walked along the sidewalk outside the
hotel. Their view was blocked for a second by a man walking with his young daughter, who was holding a bright red helium balloon on a little string, but then she was back in view for a second before stepping inside out of sight.
“That’s the Dragonfly all right,” Karlsson said, placing the bag of chips into the foot-well and pulling out his gun.
“Put the shooting iron away, Bradley. Do use your loaf.”
“Use my what?” he said, confused.
“I’ll explain later, darling,” she said. “Americans…”
They left the car and jaywalked across the wide boulevard. The temperature had dropped below freezing, allowing them to see their breath as it condensed in the frozen air around them. Karlsson belched loudly.
“Was that strictly necessary, Brad?” Scarlet said reproachfully. “Any louder and they’d have heard you in Frankfurt.”
“What can I say?” he said, grinning. “I’m a big guy and I don’t hold back, as you well know.”
Scarlet rolled her eyes. “Oh please, do spare me the innuendo. You weren’t that good.”
“I’m not going to say that doesn’t hurt, Scarlet.”
“You’ll get over it, He-Man. Now, shall we do our thing?”
They linked arms and entered the lobby, pretending to be just another couple staying in Berlin for the weekend. They held back while Lexi crossed the floor to the elevators. She was the only one to enter, so they watched the lights above the door to see at which floor she got off. They had already been told, but they wanted to make sure nothing funny was going on.
A few moments later they were in the elevator, shooting up to her floor. When they arrived, the corridor was quiet and plush, and Scarlet wasted no time in tapping on Lexi’s door, gun in hand.
Lexi Zhang opened the door and raised her arms. She took a tentative step back and beckoned them inside. “Please, come in,” she said quietly. “I was expecting you.”
“Yeah, right,” Scarlet said, and waved the gun in Lexi’s face. “Ladies first.”
Lexi turned and stepped back into the luxurious hotel room.
“And hands up, if you please.”
