by David Nees
She looked over at Dan beaming at her accomplishment.
“Great job. You’re quite the navigator.”
“See, we make a good team,” she said still smiling at her display of usefulness.
When they reached the paved road, Evangeline directed Dan. She used the navigation system as a map source since it kept trying to route them on the main routes. They stayed on the secondary ones which, thankfully, were well paved and smooth. With the Terrain Response menu in pavement selection he could maintain a fast pace even along the winding roads.
By dawn they had put many twisting miles between them and the chalet. The GPS system indicated a trip length of two and a half hours by using the main roads. Dan figured it would take five hours, double the time, by staying on the back roads.
The sun rose higher. Dan had Evangeline retrieve something to eat and drink from the back seats. They ate some rolls and cheese and drank some juice. Dan kept up his pace, driving with one hand most of the time.
“You’re going to get us killed, driving like this,” Evangeline said. “Why don’t we stop and eat.”
“No. We’re already going the longer and slower way south. I don’t want to add extra time. Don’t worry, I’m not anywhere near my driving limits.”
She snorted in a very unlady-like fashion. “All men think they’re great drivers. Most aren’t worth a crap at it.”
“But you saw me in action before, so you know.”
“I wasn’t in much shape to pay close attention. I only know we didn’t get killed. But it seemed like we came close a lot.”
“Well, I’m not planning to crash. If everything goes well, we’ll be in Slovenia by noon.”
Dan sensed his relationship with Evangeline was getting stronger. Maybe this afternoon they’d have time to talk more deeply and he could get to the truth that was somewhere hidden inside of her.
The heavy SUV barreled down the twisting roads, following the valleys, occasionally climbing over hills to drop into another valley. He slowed down to a serene pace to pass through each village or cluster of houses at a crossroads. He didn’t want cause anyone to take notice them.
The Range Rover did its best to deliver what Dan asked of it but it was no match for a high-performance sedan even with its top speed. Still Dan coaxed what he could while protecting the brakes and tires as they struggled to handle the two-ton load. Evangeline complained now and again as the machine lurched around corners causing her to push the wrong buttons on the GPS system.
They picked up a main road, the A2, south of Wolfsberg. Dan was tense. They had to follow it for ten miles before Evangeline said they could veer off on another back road. It was 11:00 am when they picked up the road running into Pfarrdorf. It was a small village on the Drava River. They had to cross the river at Pfarrdorf and then continue another fifteen miles to the border of Slovenia.
Evangeline turned off the GPS system and sat up craning her neck around to watch in every direction. The traffic was light. Both kept an eye out for the polizei but Dan wasn’t sure what he’d do if they were spotted and stopped. Running would just cause a general alert that could spread to Slovenia. Right now, if they made it across the border, Dan felt the danger would dissipate.
A half hour later they passed the abandoned customs building, hardly more than a large box and crossed into Slovenia. Evangeline let out her breath as if she had been holding it since Pfarrdorf. They high-fived each other in a spontaneous gesture of success. From the border, Dan headed southwest towards the Adriatic coast with the intent of bypassing north of Ljubljana. He slowed his pace which made for a more comfortable ride.
“Anything more to eat in the back?” he asked.
Evangeline turned back in her seat and rooted around in the bags she had brought.
“Some cheese, ham, and bread,” she reported.
“Something to drink?”
“Same as before, juice and some water. Can we stop and eat? I need to stretch and I have to pee,” Evangeline said.
Chapter 26
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D an found a pull-off where the Rover would not be right next to the road. He didn’t anticipate much traffic but still wanted to be discrete. He pulled a blanket out of the SUV and spread it on the ground away from the road; the vehicle would shield them from being seen. They ate in silence, savoring both the food and their escape.
After eating, Evangeline went over to Dan. “Let me look at your wound,” she said.
He pulled up his shirt which had a blood stain on it.
“It’s bleeding a little. Should we change the bandage?”
“No, we’ll wait until tonight or tomorrow. I don’t have a lot of supplies and there’s not a lot of blood. We’ll wait.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Hurts like hell. I think I have a cracked rib. A couple of inches to the inside and I would have been in serious trouble.”
Dan pulled his shirt back down. Evangeline leaned back and looked at him.
“Have you been shot before?”
He nodded.
“How often?”
“A couple of times. It’s not something I want to record and memorialize.”
“But any one of those could have killed you.”
He nodded. “I told you, I live a dangerous life.”
She changed the subject.
“What happens now? Where do we go?”
With the immediate threat of the two men gone, Dan could see she was now beginning to worry again about his ultimate plan. Would he return her to her father?
“Those men were sent by Conti. I’m trying to understand why he’d do that.”
“I told you. Aebischer wants to eliminate any trail back to him. You don’t know what he’s capable of doing.”
“I wish you’d tell me.”
She leaned forward so he would look at her. “Are you going to deliver me to Conti?”
“I don’t know.” He looked across the field full of grain. “What I do know is that the Watcher said you were the key. You could expose the greater evil that I need to attack.” Dan turned to look into her eyes. He held them with his sharp stare. “I need you to tell me. Tell me the truth or I can’t help you.”
She dropped her gaze and began to shake her head. Dan grabbed her chin in his hand and turned her face back to him.
“Don’t look away and shake your head. There’s no more time for that. I need to know and if I know, I can help you. Tell me what’s going on. Why did you run away?”
She gave him a helpless look. There was terror in her eyes. They filled with tears.
“It’s too painful…too hard—”
“I’ll listen. I won’t judge. But I have to know.” Dan held her chin and forced her to keep looking at him.
Evangeline was shaking, her breath coming in gasps.
“Take a deep breath, take a couple if you need to, and just start telling me the story.”
She took a few breaths and began in a timorous voice.
“I ran away when my m…m…mother died.”
Dan nodded. She had said that before.
“Aebischer’s wife.”
Evangeline shook her head violently, breaking Dan’s hold on her chin.
“Nein. His wife died before I was born.”
“Your step-mother?”
She shook her head again.
“He didn’t marry again then?”
She shook her head once more.
“My sister raised me. She died and I ran away.”
“Evangeline tell me the truth. Don’t try to confuse me. You said you ran away when your mother died, but Aebischer didn’t remarry. Did he have a mistress?”
“Nein.”
“And then you say you ran away when your sister died. Did both of them die? What happened?”
“My sister and my mother died.”
“Both of them? Together?”
She nodded.
“What happened?”
“They
said it was suicide, that she hung herself.”
“Your mother or your sister?”
“Both. I ran away the night she hung herself.”
Dan clenched his fists in frustration. “Which person? Evangeline, you said there were two people who died.”
“No,” she said in a voice so quiet he could hardly hear it. “One person…my sister…and my mother.”
Her body shook with sobs as she turned her head away from Dan but not before he saw the look of abject horror in her face.
“Oh my God, Evangeline!” Dan exclaimed as the reality of what she said flooded over him. He reached out to her but she pulled away. His head swirled with emotions. What could he say? Was there anything to say? He sat stunned by the revelation.
“I’m a freak. I’m not good for anything. I buried all of this until you came along. Damn you!” She broke down into more sobs.
No words came to Dan. He grabbed her and pulled her close even as she tried to pull away. The horror of what she felt flooded over him; the self-loathing that accompanied the fact of her existence. When he leaned close to her, he could almost see the scenes in his head. His body was filled with her anguish, how she didn’t feel normal. He understood the word she used, “freak”. Her alienation from being normal, her shame, the pain over her mother/sister dying washed over him. He moaned with the burden she felt as he rocked her in his arms.
When her sobs quieted, she looked up at Dan. She seemed comforted by his embrace.
“You, you understand. You can feel what I’ve felt. I sense that. How?”
“I don’t know. The Indian shaman said he had given me a gift. Maybe it was one of empathy or understanding. But this was more. I felt the pain you felt, the shame and anguish. But I also felt the love, your mother’s love for you and yours for her. You had something precious. She protected you, somehow.”
Evangeline nodded. “Ja, she protected me. He wanted to take me, but she placed herself in between. She gave herself up to him and his twisted urges in order to protect me.”
“What I’m feeling is that she was strong for you. I don’t get the feeling that she would leave you…kill herself.”
“If I go back, Aebischer will lock me away. He suspects I know too much.”
“What do you know?” Dan asked with trepidation. He could sense the story was going to get darker than even what he’d heard so far.
Evangeline shuddered. She took a deep breath. “Sophia, that’s her name, let him do unspeakable things to her. But she began to fight back when he showed a desire to take me. She threatened to expose him, not only for the incest but his business dealings as well.” She paused to gather herself together. “The night she died, he had tied her to his bed. After he had used her, he placed a pillow over her head and smothered her.” Her words now tumbled out in rapid succession, like a dam that had held flood waters back too long and finally burst.
“I was watching. After she was dead, he carried her to her room and took a rope and put it around her neck. He…he…pulled her up by her neck and hung her! Like a rag doll! In her bedroom! I ran back to my room and barricaded myself in. But he didn’t come. The monster was satiated for the night. I lost one of my slippers that night. I dropped it outside of my mother’s bedroom. I’m sure he found it. That night I slipped out while he was asleep.
“I ran. I went to Italy. Feriz found me. I was doing tricks to survive. He promised a better life making movies. He gave me drugs. They helped me to forget. And then you found me.”
She looked at him, her face full of accusation.
“I can’t go back. He killed his daughter, my sister and mother. He’ll kill me. He’s a monster.”
Dan’s face was gray. He had felt everything Evangeline described, as if he had been watching it happen. How could a man do such evil, with his own children?
“We should go to the police—”
“Nein! Don’t you understand? He’s rich and powerful. He’ll just get me declared insane and have me locked away. Out of the goodness of his heart, he’ll rescue me from a sanitarium and keep me locked up in his mansion. Then he can protect his secrets. If he doesn’t kill me, he’ll abuse me until he gets bored. No! I can’t go back and I can’t go to the police.”
She composed herself and said in a calmer voice, “It goes deeper yet. Sophia found some documents. Aebischer is involved in money laundering for evil men, terrorists and Neo Nazi’s. I know where the documents are hidden in the mansion. He’d kill me just for that, if nothing else.”
“He’s involved with terrorists?”
“Ja. His father was a Nazi sympathizer. He’s an anti-Semite but more than that, he is getting rich off of money laundering and arranging payments through shell companies to fund terrorists. He doesn’t care. It’s all about making money to him, even if innocent people are killed.”
Was this the darker evil the Watcher referred to? Dan now knew where he had to strike. But how?
Chapter 27
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T he computer showed an incoming email. It was sent to an address that handled fully encrypted emails. Only the receiver and a few customers knew the code. The message stated that a Saudi businessman, Rashid al-Din Said, would be arriving the next day to talk about money matters. Jan Aebischer smiled a thin smile. Rashid was a cautious man. He didn’t like giving out information, even on a secure email system. The unencrypted emails could be printed and left lying around for someone to find. Better to talk in person, even if that meant traveling from the mid-East to Zürich.
Rashid would fly in his private jet. He would dress in a western business suit. He would look like a typical Arab millionaire doing business and managing his money. In short, he would not attract any undue attention in place like Zürich. Aebischer knew that whatever Rashid was asking it would involve a large fee for his services. Over the past five years, Rashid had grown increasingly active moving money around in the shell companies that Herr Aebischer had set up, and funneling them to drug dealers, gun brokers, and sometimes, directly to terrorists. The world was going crazy, but Aebischer felt safe from the growing violence in Zürich. The terrorists didn’t touch Switzerland; it was an important nexus for the transfer of money. And Aebischer wanted to make his share from the insanity. Who knew how long it would last?
Aebischer kept a ninety-foot yacht in Villefranche sur Mer just east of Nice. The marina was a half hour drive from the airport. The boat was a converted Russian ice breaker. Aebischer had purchased it at a bargain price when the Soviet Union collapsed and state assets were being sold off cheap. He had spent millions to have it towed to the Black Sea, and refitted into a first-class luxury yacht. What Aebischer liked about the vessel was how strong it was. He could go anywhere in the world with it. If things ever got too crazy, Aebischer would close his business, retreat to his yacht, and depart for distant ports.
He had his world under control except for one thing: his daughter. Some affection faintly stirred within when he thought about Evangeline. She was so beautiful. How well she turned out being the daughter of her sister. In his mind the stirrings of affection mixed with the stirrings of desire for her. He lamented losing Sarah, but that had been necessary. She had become unstable and could have brought the wrong attention to him. His clients would have stepped back, distancing themselves from a man with a scandal erupting. He couldn’t let that happen even as much as he had enjoyed her.
He picked up his phone.
Pietro Conti had not received any word from the two men. It was now mid-morning. They had set out yesterday from Graz. They told him the job would be completed that evening. Yet there was no call. Something had gone wrong. Pietro knew to trust his instincts. The men were punctual and not checking in indicated something was wrong. If the job had gone well, he would have heard. Even if it had not gone well, they would have alerted him. Pietro had to assume the worst. They were either dead or compromised so they couldn’t communicate.
He started calling his connectio
ns in Austria. Within an hour the polizei around the country were told to keep an eye out for a Land Rover with a certain Italian license plate. He sat back. It was now getting worse, more complicated. He didn’t like complications and neither did his employer.
When his phone rang, Pietro picked it up, hopeful that the caller was giving him news of the Land Rover.
“Conti here,” he said.
“Pietro,” Herr Aebischer said. “How is the recovery going?”
Pietro swallowed. “We haven’t found them yet.”
“But you said you knew where they were…Austria. We have contacts there. They haven’t found them yet?”
Pietro had learned long ago to not leave anything out when report to his employer. Herr Aebischer had ways of finding out what went on without going through Pietro. He would learn what happened whether Pietro told him or not.
“We located a vehicle meeting the description in Sankt Nikolai. I sent our two best men to finish the job last night. I haven’t heard back from them so I have to assume the worst. I’ve sent out another call to find the SUV. They’ll be on the run if anything happened in the chalet.”
“Where are they headed?”
“My guess is Italy. That’s where I contacted the assassin and that’s where I said we’d make the transfer.”
“He’ll go back to Italy? After your men may have tried to kill him? Unsuccessfully?”
“Where else is he going to go? I think he lives somewhere in Italy.”
“You think he’ll take Evangeline to his home?”
“Herr Aebischer, I just don’t know. He could kill her and just disappear. He could attempt to transfer her to me. There is a half million Euros still in it for him. If he goes to ground, I don’t know if we’ll ever find him. If he comes to drop her off, we can get Evangeline back and maybe tie up the loose end.”
“I want my daughter back and I want this loose end tied up. I don’t like loose ends, you eventually trip over them.”
“Jawohl mein herr.”
Pietro hung up. If the Land Rover wasn’t found his only play was the half million. He wasn’t sure the assassin would be motivated by the money; he had not seemed to be so at the start. Maybe now with more time invested he would want the full payoff. It was his only play at this point…aside from waiting.
