The Spy Game

by Remington Kane

  “Where’s Mrs. Marks? She’s my nanny.”

  “I’m not sure, honey,” Tanner lied.

  “I want my Mum.”

  “You’ll see her soon.”

  As he talked, Tanner had reached inside his shirt. The padding he wore as part of his disguise doubled as a waist pack. He withdrew an Israeli emergency bandage and tore open the packaging by using his teeth. He had to keep pressure on the little girl’s wound as long as he could. Her skin was clammy, and she was breathing rapidly in reaction to losing so much blood.

  “You’re Australian, aren’t you, honey?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I thought so. I’ve been there before and hope to go back someday.”

  Tanner had to use both hands to apply the bandage properly. He winced as blood again squirted from the laceration on Olivia’s leg.

  Benedetti’s voice boomed in his ear.

  “Tanner, what the hell are you doing? Leave the girl and look for Vernon. He must still be nearby.”

  Tanner ignored Benedetti. He didn’t want to frighten Olivia by acting as if he were talking to himself.

  “I’m sleepy,” Olivia said. She wasn’t sleepy, she was losing consciousness. When Tanner had the bandage tight and the pressure bar lying flush, he looked at Olivia’s face and saw that she had passed out. Despite the bandage she would still bleed to death in minutes without emergency care.

  A shape leapt at him from out of the thickening smoke and Tanner leaned back and slapped it away. It had been a kick delivered by Cal Vernon in a sneak attack. If Tanner’s reflexes weren’t what they were, Vernon would have stunned him with a blow to the head.

  Having failed, Vernon turned and began running away.

  “Was that Vernon?” Benedetti asked in the earpiece. “Don’t let him get away.”

  Tanner had already leapt up and was closing in on Vernon when he remembered Olivia. The child would die if he left her. One last look at Vernon’s fleeing back and Tanner went back to Olivia.

  He gently lifted the injured girl with the intention of carrying her to the hospital, which was a block from the hotel. It was her best bet for survival.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Benedetti asked. “Drop that child and get after Vernon.”

  “She’ll die if she doesn’t get to the hospital.”

  “Fine, let her die. That data drive is worth a thousand children.”

  “You’re warped, lady. As for Vernon, I’ll find him again.”

  “No! You’ll get him now. Do you hear me, Tanner? Let the child die and get Vernon. He cannot be allowed to get away.”

  Tanner cradled Olivia in one arm as he removed the earpiece.

  “Go to hell, Benedetti.”

  Tanner tossed the earpiece through the blown-out window and began running down the stairs. Each step made the pain in his torso ache more. He was on the twentieth floor and thought about taking the regular elevators on a lower level. Then, he realized that they would have been shut down because of the explosion and the fire, to avoid the risk of people becoming trapped in the cars.

  When he came to the conclusion the backpack was slowing him down, Tanner loosened the straps and shrugged out of it while still moving.

  Residents of the hotel were beginning to drift into the hallway with confused and fearful faces. Tanner moved past them as fast as he could and was thankful the stairs weren’t yet crowded.

  Magyar appeared as Tanner left a landing near the fourteenth floor and headed down another flight. Tanner knew the man from photos he’d seen. Magyar was rushing up the stairs while panting and wore a desperate expression.

  They locked eyes for an instant and both saw the recognition in the other’s gaze.

  “You did this!” Tanner said, stated as a fact.

  Magyar called to him in a pleading voice.

  “Have you seen my daughter?”

  Tanner ignored him and kept moving.

  By the time Magyar reached the level of the suites he was exhausted, and his legs felt numb. His gasping breaths pulled smoke into his lungs and he began to cough.

  “Mirella… Mirella are you here?”

  Magyar’s knees gave out after he moved through a wall of smoke and saw the dead body of Mrs. Marks. He had thought he was looking at his daughter with a blonde wig on. A wave of self-revulsion inundated Magyar with the realization that he had killed his own daughter to keep from going to prison. A great sob of grief escaped him, but a longer look at the body made him realize that the dead woman was larger than his daughter. He collapsed with relief upon the floor.

  Seconds later the smoke in the hallway increased exponentially and filled the area. Magyar had to crawl through filth and debris to escape being a victim of his own bomb. After making it back to the stairwell he collapsed on the first landing and wondered what happened to his daughter.

  Mirella saw the pilot of the helicopter eye her with a lecherous gaze. As she followed his eyes she saw that her dress was torn open and her breasts were partially exposed. She covered herself with a hand and climbed in beside Vernon.

  The pilot laughed at her attempt at modesty. He was a small Frenchman with a thin moustache and graying hair.

  “I see why you wanted to get out of here in a hurry,” the pilot told Vernon. “You should have told me the hotel was on fire. They won’t take my license for landing here once they know it was an emergency.”

  Vernon wasn’t listening to the man. He was staring back at the door to the roof and wondering why Tanner wasn’t pursuing him.

  “Just get us out of here, pilot,” Vernon said, then he turned to speak to Mirella. “Do you have any money?”

  Mirella moaned, then said, “My purse! I forgot all about it. We have to go back and look for it.”

  “No way. I was lucky to escape from Tanner as it is, and I need someplace to hide.”

  “I know a place,” Mirella said.

  “Is it close?”

  “It’s in Antwerp. It belongs to a girlfriend and she’ll be away on holiday.”

  “Perfect,” Vernon said.

  The lobby was a scene of chaos, and smoke seeped up from the parking level through the elevator shafts. Tanner moved among a crowd of confused and frightened faces and hit the street.

  “Damn.”

  He had been hoping to find an ambulance, but none had arrived yet, although he could hear the faint sound of sirens. He sprinted in the direction of the hospital and looked up to see a helicopter receding in the distance.

  Seconds after entering the hospital Tanner handed Olivia over to a doctor. When he described the severity of her wound she was placed on a gurney and rushed down a corridor.

  After his relationship to Olivia had been explained, Tanner relayed her full name and said she had been staying in Suite D.

  An older nurse with gray hair led him to a bathroom where he could wash. He had kept his head down to avoid security cameras, but it had been unnecessary. His face was so streaked with smoke and dust particles that it altered his appearance. There was also blood on one cheek that belonged to Olivia.

  Tanner’s hands appeared bloody, but they weren’t. He had slipped on a pair of ultra-thin latex gloves before entering Vernon’s suite. The suit he wore was a loss. It was stained with yet more blood, while the knee area was soaked and crimson from kneeling beside Olivia.

  More blood appeared as Tanner urinated and saw a trace of red. He wondered if he had suffered an internal injury from the blast. He still ached, although it had lessened considerably from its initial intensity. He felt he would recover from whatever slight damage he’d sustained.

  He did an inventory and found that Vernon’s phone had been broken. The screen was cracked but it powered on. The data drive had concerned him; however, it had come through in one piece. Cal Vernon might have gotten away, despite that, he had no wallet or passport. He could solve that problem with the millions he had available, but it would take time.

  Tanner stripped down to his boxers and washed as well a
s he could with paper towels. When he answered a knock at the door, the gray-haired nurse handed him a set of blue scrubs.

  “How is the little girl doing?”

  The woman beamed at him. “She’ll live thanks to you.”

  “Were there any more injured at the hotel?”

  “We’ve heard there were several casualties, and more injured. Lord, how I hate the damn terrorists.”

  “Yes,” Tanner said, although he knew that Magyar was to blame. He had told the man that he would kill him if he betrayed him. If not for the desperate need to get Olivia to the hospital, Tanner would have slain Magyar on the stairs.

  “The police will want to talk to you, sir, please have a seat in the waiting room when you’re ready.”

  Tanner nodded his agreement to the nurse, although he had no intention of speaking to the cops. He left the bathroom wearing the scrubs, walked out of the hospital through the loading dock, and dropped his bloody clothing in a blue dumpster.

  He had known Magyar might double-cross him, yet he never expected a bomb. Whatever went wrong with his plan, Magyar may have injured or killed his own daughter. He would recover from that, whatever her condition was, and he would send men to look for Tanner, to look for him and kill him. Tanner would be ready for them, then he would make Magyar pay.

  36

  Invalid

  Cal Vernon stumbled and fell back against a tall toolbox cabinet. One of the drawers was sitting open and closed on Vernon’s right wrist as his back struck it.

  He was inside an airplane hangar at a small airfield that mainly serviced agricultural aircraft, such as crop dusters or planes used in hydroseeding.

  The pilot of the helicopter had just given Vernon a hard shove after learning the man was unable to pay him. At six-foot-seven Vernon towered above the smaller man, but the helicopter pilot was enraged and aggressive.

  When he had Vernon off balance he unsheathed a knife that was hanging on his belt. Mirella called to the man, telling him to leave Vernon alone. He turned his head to look at her and sneered.

  “Shut up, you little slut.”

  The man had taken his eyes off Vernon. That would prove to be a mistake. Vernon slammed an adjustable wrench into the pilot’s left temple. The man staggered and dropped the knife, then collapsed to the hangar floor as Vernon hit him again.

  Vernon stood over the man ready to administer a killing blow when Mirella grabbed his wrist.

  “Don’t, Cal. You might kill him.”

  Vernon snorted, released the wrench, then got on his knees and began going through the pilot’s pockets. When he stood again, he had the man’s wallet, phone, and a set of car keys for a Renault Megane.

  “You’re robbing him?” Mirella said.

  “We need a car and money. Besides, he’s lucky I don’t kill him for pulling a knife on me.”

  “Why didn’t you just pay him?”

  “My funds are… unavailable right now. I need a place to rest so I can think. There’s something important I need to remember. By the way, does your friend have a computer at her place?”

  “Yeah, a laptop.”

  “Good, I’ll be able to transfer money once I remember the damn password to the account.”

  Before leaving, Vernon dragged the pilot into the hangar’s small bathroom. When Mirella wasn’t looking, he kicked the man on the side of the head, and stomped his face, breaking his nose.

  He joined Mirella while chuckling to himself, and after finding the pilot’s car they drove toward Antwerp.

  Magyar had returned to his car, where he made a series of phone calls while watching the fire and emergency personnel deal with the results of his bomb.

  Tanner would come after him if he didn’t kill him first. To make that a reality, Magyar tripled the reward for anyone locating the hit man while telling Hugo to get all three teams ready to move.

  “I saw the news. I thought Tanner would be dead.”

  “He took the bait and appeared, but… it didn’t work out the way I’d planned. If we don’t find this man and kill him, I’ll soon be dead.”

  “We’ll get him, Boldizsár. This is our city. We’ll hunt him down.”

  “Be careful, Hugo. The man has a reputation for craftiness.”

  “I’ll remind the men, but tricks won’t save him from us.”

  Magyar received good news less than two hours later. Tanner had been spotted just outside the city by a prostitute. The woman was unable to follow him, and yet, she did forward a description of the car he was driving, along with the tag numbers.

  A second call came in not long afterwards. It was Hugo, and Magyar heard the glee in his voice.

  “We found him, Boldizsár. Tanner is hiding out in an old warehouse and we have him trapped. Hans and Albert found the car and said the hood was still warm. They called me and kept watch over the entrances. No one has come out.”

  “How soon can you get all the men there?”

  “Eight of us are already here and the others are coming soon.”

  “It could be a trap. The man is devious.”

  “We’ll be careful.”

  “There’s also a chance he’s not alone. The CIA hired him to kill Cal Vernon, maybe they have agents inside the building. Are there any other vehicles there?”

  “One, it’s parked across the street; the tires are flat, and it’s covered in dust.”

  “Have one of the men check the trunk.”

  Hugo laughed.

  “I already did that. It’s empty. The thing looks like it was abandoned.”

  “Move in when the other men arrive, and again, be careful.”

  “I see more of the men arriving.”

  “Good. Call me back when Tanner is dead.”

  The apartment owned by Mirella’s girlfriend was about as big as the bedroom in the suite Vernon had been staying in. However, the building was well-maintained and offered a view of Nachtegalen Park.

  Vernon thought Mirella’s vacationing friend Annabelle was a slob, as the place was filthy. The door lock was electronic, and Mirella opened it with a four-digit combination, 0-9-1-7. The numbers were the same as Vernon’s birthdate. He took it as a sign his luck was changing.

  Vernon took pain relief medication he found in the bathroom then sat on the closed lid of the toilet while Mirella cleaned the wound on his scalp. The cut had stopped bleeding, but Vernon’s head continued to ache.

  Mirella slipped out of her torn dress and grabbed clothes from a closet.

  “Annabelle and I are about the same size. I’m going to take a shower and change.”

  “Before you do that, let me have your friend’s computer.”

  “It should be on the desk in the corner of the living room,” Mirella said, as she disappeared into the bathroom.

  “Does it have a password?” Vernon called to her.

  “I don’t know; you could probably sign on as a guest though.”

  Vernon found the laptop buried under a small stack of fashion magazines. There was a password required. He typed in the same numbers that opened the door lock and the welcome screen came on. It displayed the near-naked body of a young man who had hair longer than Mirella’s.

  Vernon went to the website where he had deposited the money from the auction. He calmed himself and recalled the password he’d memorized.

  INVALID

  He tried again, after remembering that there were two capital letters at the password’s end.

  INVALID

  After three more futile attempts he slammed the laptop shut. Mirella was still in the shower, so Vernon took out the phone he’d stolen from the pilot and called Magyar.

  Great, I can remember Magyar’s damn phone number but not the password to an account where I have millions.

  The call was answered swiftly. “Hello? Mirella?”

  “I have your daughter, Magyar, and I know you tried to blow me up, and Tanner too, hmm?”

  “What do you want, Vernon?”

  “Money.”

 
“Money? You must have millions after killing the winner of the auction. Let me speak to my daughter.”

  “I’ll kill her, Magyar. I’ll strangle the life out of her if you don’t do what I say.”

  “Don’t hurt Mirella; I’ll pay you, but I want to speak to her first.”

  “Hold on.”

  Vernon opened the bathroom door and called to Mirella, who was still in the shower. He held out the phone, so Magyar could listen as he spoke to Mirella.

  “I’m hungry; why don’t we order something?”

  Mirella called back in a loud voice to be heard over the sound of falling water.

  “I could eat too. I haven’t had anything but toast today.”

  “We’ll do that then,” Vernon said. He shut the door and walked back into the living room.

  “Did you hear her?”

  “Yes. How much money do you want?”

  “I’m not greedy, like you said, I have money already. A hundred-thousand euros should be enough.”

  “I’ll pay. How do I get the money to you?”

  “Hmm, let me think about that. I’ll have to come up with a way that doesn’t involve running into those killers of yours. Still, I’d better not take too long, or Tanner might get to you first.”

  “Tanner is no longer a problem. My assassins have him trapped inside a warehouse.”

  “Hugo and all the others are there?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want his body.”

  “What?”

  “Tanner’s body. I want it, and everything on it. The bastard has my phone and I want it back.”

  “Why don’t I just bring you the phone?”

  “Because I want to see with my own eyes that’s he’s dead and that you’re not pulling another stunt like that bomb.”

  “You think I was responsible for the explosion?”

  “I know it was you, and somehow you tricked Tanner into going to that hotel. I have to admit, it was a good plan, you nearly took us both out.”

  “Vernon, Mirella was in the hotel. Do you think I would kill my own daughter?”