Before Max and Tom could get behind the cluster, Blade turned. He seemed like he wasn’t paying attention to anyone in the promenade, but maybe he was. If so, Max hoped to remain anonymous.
Max held back and waited for a handful of people to fall in behind Blade. After they did, he closed in, using the pedestrians for cover, but now he was too far back, and the people were too slow, stretching the gap longer between the hunters and their prey. Blade turned again, and Max lost sight of him. Tom stayed with the cluster of people for cover, but Max pressed forward into the open.
“Dude,” Tom muttered under his breath.
If Max’s aggressive move worked, it’d be daring. If it didn’t work, it’d be stupid.
Max rounded the corner and spotted Blade, but once again, Max was exposed. He moved in behind a vendor selling Christmas trees and used the evergreens for concealment. He inhaled their fresh green scent before he moved behind a crowd to the side. He hoped Blade didn’t have a countersurveillance team in place.
People gathered around a church and gazed at the colored lights forming a Christmas tree, stars, and angels. The words Frohe Weihnachten lit the night, and Max guessed they meant Merry Christmas. A choir sang, but he didn’t recognize the tune. Now more people stood, and fewer walked, and Max had to press through the crowd, making his movement stand out more.
Max lost sight of Blade near an Aida café. He didn’t remember seeing the place on the map between Blade’s condo and the restaurant. Now the city confused him, and he was lost. “Where the hell is he?” Max whispered in his throat mic.
“Where are we?” Tom’s voice came in Max’s earbuds.
Max was so focused on Blade that he hadn’t realized Tom had stayed with him. “Let’s turn up here at the end of the block,” Max said.
Max passed the church area, and the crowd thinned out a bit. At the corner Max turned. The Chameleon restaurant was just up the street, Swiss flags flying from it. But Blade wasn’t in sight. “Damn,” Max said.
Squelch broke once on his radio. Dad.
“You got him?” Tom asked.
Hank broke squelch one more time. Affirmative.
Max did a fist pump. Yes—mission accomplished! He ducked into the nearest shop to get out of the open and avoid any possible countersurveillance. Behind a partition made of decorative glass stood a woman whose white pearl necklace contrasted her onyx black dress and raven hair. Although the cut glass made one eye appear larger than the other and twisted her nose one way and her mouth the other, there was a regal beauty about her, and Max wanted to see the real woman behind the partition. Mentally, he named her with one of the few German names he knew, “Heidi.” She smiled at him.
Max returned the smile before he and Tom crossed over into another shop in the same building. Max’s body wanted to return to Heidi, but his mind told him otherwise. He didn’t know where he’d heard the song “Minnie the Moocher,” but it came to mind, and he quietly sang “Heidi, Heidi, Heidi, hi.”
Tom shook his head. “Women and food. Is there anything else you think about?”
“Guns.”
Max exited the building of shops, passed over the pedestrian avenue they’d taken earlier, and took a different route, just in case someone was preparing to surprise them on their way back to the hotel. It was a longer route, but better safe than sorry.
Up ahead, Arabic voices yelled and screamed, so Max took a detour to avoid the commotion. They ended up in a wide alley that was void of clutter or stench. Police sirens sounded in the distance. Up ahead in the alley, a gang of more than a dozen young men, in their teens and early twenties, called out in Arabic to three young men who walked away, muttering what sounded like Chechen. On both sides, the men wore athletic wear and carried wooden bats, metal pipes, and knives. Although the trio of Chechens was sorely outnumbered, they stopped walking away from the Arabs and turned to face them.
Bad things were about to happen, and it was best not to be involved. They did an about-face and picked up their pace. Another dozen-plus young men in gym suits, chattering in Arabic, arrived with improvised weapons and angry faces, closing off the opposite end of the alley.
Tom pressed his palm forward as if to halt the approaching men. “We don’t want any trouble” he said in Arabic. At the same time, Tom’s other hand neared his weapon.
Max turned a doorknob in the alley—locked. He gave the door a kick, but it wouldn’t budge. Damn.
With their baseball bats and metal pipes, the first group of Arabs charged the Chechens, but the Chechens fought back like lions. Even so, the mob of Arabs overcame the three.
From the second group of Arabs at the opposite end of the alley, a slimy man stepped forward and mimicked Tom. “You don’t want any trouble.”
Another inched toward Tom and said, “You’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Tom pulled his pistol first and aimed at Slimy. “Don’t take another step this way, or I’ll shoot!”
The first mob beat the Chechens into a bloody heap and trampled them. One of the Arabs held a baseball bat and looked at Max’s threads with covetous eyes. “Nice clothes.”
Max drew his Glock and sighted it on the closest man. Max’s palms sweated, and adrenaline shook his frame. His voice quaked with power and determination. “I may not shoot all of you, but I will shoot some of you!”
The lead guy wisely turned away, but his own group prevented him from escaping. While Max focused on them, Tom’s pistol reported behind him.
A man with a pipe raised it to strike Max, who aimed at his head and squeezed the trigger. The man’s egg cracked, and his yolk spilled out. With Max and Tom back-to-back, shooting in opposite directions, the alley popped like water mixing with oil on a hot skillet.
The gang in front of Max evidently realized they’d only brought Middle Age weapons to a Modern Age gunfight, because a slew of them turned and ran. Even the slow-thinking ones figured out to follow their friends. Two more staggered away. They left two of their buddies behind in a wet pool of blood.
Max turned to help his brother, but his situation was similar—two tangos down and the others running for shelter. “Merry Christmas, bitches,” Max said.
Sirens raged as if the whole Vienna police force and all of its ambulances were coming.
“You okay?” Max asked.
“Yeah,” Tom replied. “You?”
“Dandy. Let’s get the hell out of here before the law arrives.”
They passed over the two hoodlums and three Chechens lying on the ground and left the alley. The sirens came closer. They returned to the church, where they melted into the crowd.
“Those punks turned their own countries into shit piles and lit them on fire,” Max said. “Now they’re making the same shit piles here and lighting them on fire.”
“Without immigrants, countries like America would cease to be America,” Tom said.
Max worked his way through the crowd. “With these kinds of immigrants, no country can survive.”
“What kinds of immigrants?”
Max followed a trickle of people who left the church crowd. “The kind that just tried to kill us.”
“Not all immigrants are like that,” Tom said.
“You know that, and I know that, but the media and the politicians don’t seem to. Do they even say illegal immigrants anymore? They talk about illegal immigrants and legal immigrants as if they’re the same, and they’re not. It’s an insult to the legal immigrants.”
“We don’t know if the guys who tried to kill us were legal or illegal,” Tom said.
“If those thugs are in Vienna legally, something’s screwed up with the system that allowed that.”
“Are you suggesting banning Muslim immigrants?” Tom asked.
“No. I’m suggesting banning terrorists and criminals. I don’t give a damn if they’re Muslim or Christian—if they’re terrorists or Charles Manson—keep them the hell out.”
Max and Tom headed in the direction of their hotel. Th
ey passed the French bakery, returned to their room, and waited for Hank.
Minutes later, a coded knock sounded: knock, knock-knock-knock. Max checked the peephole to be sure. It was him. Max opened the door.
Hank entered. “The intel seems legit. I think tomorrow night we should wrap up Blade.”
“Don’t you think we should follow Blade another night to make sure his routine is really a routine?” Tom asked.
“I don’t,” Hank said. “Ringvereine attacked once. The longer we wait to get him, the longer Ringvereine has to attack again. I want to wrap him up tomorrow night.”
After what happened to Charlotte, Max couldn’t believe that now Tom was playing devil’s advocate.
Both Tom and Hank looked at Max as if waiting for him to choose a side.
Max was tired in his mind and in his bones, and he didn’t want to hear them argue again, and he especially didn’t want to be in the middle of it. “The early bird gathers more moss,” he said.
Tom looked at him puzzled. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Let’s wrap him up tomorrow night,” Max said.
Normally, Tom would debate ad nauseam, but this time he said, “Okay. Let’s do it.”
15
Early the next morning, Max left his room with a pocketful of plastic wrap and a devious plan. He walked over to Hank’s room and knocked. The peephole blackened for a moment before Hank unlocked the door and opened it. Max entered the room. “Our toilet is broken, can I use yours?”
Hank stood there with a cell phone in his hand, and his eyes were wide awake as if he’d already been working on something. “Did you call the front desk to have them fix it?”
“Yes,” he said in his I’m-not-stupid tone. “Tom is waiting for the repairman, but I can’t wait.”
Hank scratched his head. “And I thought Tommy was the one with the weak bladder.” Hank’s phone vibrated. He looked at the caller ID and answered before it vibrated again. “Yeah, Willy.” There was a pause, and Hank waved at Max to go use the bathroom. Hank spoke into the phone again, “My drop dead time for the delivery is six thirty tonight, or else …”
Max slipped inside the bathroom and closed the door. The toilet seat was already up, and he quickly pulled out the plastic wrap and spread it across the toilet. He pulled tight, so there were no wrinkles, and he sealed it completely. Then he smoothed out some ripples on the top and the side to make the wrap nearly invisible to the unsuspecting eye. Perfect. Then he flushed the toilet to make it sound like he’d actually used it, and he walked out.
Hank was still on the phone talking to Willy.
“Thanks,” Max said.
Hank waved at him.
Max left the room and returned to his own. Then he told Tom what he’d just done.
“Dude, you didn’t,” Tom said.
“Yes, I did. Ready for breakfast?”
“Just let me finish getting dressed.” Tom put on deodorant, a shirt, and then socks.
“Take your sweet time,” Max said sarcastically. “It ain’t like I’m hungry.”
“You were born hungry.”
A shout came from next door—it was Hank’s voice. “What the hell?!” There was a pause. “Max, damn it! Max!”
Max and Tom laughed.
Then Hank shouted a string of f-bombs, which only made his sons laugh harder. Hank shouted something unintelligible.
“Breakfast time,” Max said.
“Dad’s going to kill you,” Tom said.
Max opened the door. “He’s got to catch me first.”
Max and Tom took the elevator down to the second floor, where a lick-her-boots lovely lady watched BBC news on a monitor above. The restaurant hadn’t opened yet, and she seemed to be waiting.
“She looks like Martha Jones on the TV show Doctor Who,” Tom whispered.
“Doctor what?” Max asked.
“Doctor Who.”
“You don’t know the name?”
“I do,” Tom insisted.
“What’s the name of the doctor?” Max asked.
“Doctor Who.”
“If you say that one more time, I’m going to punch you.”
“She looks like the companion—Doctor Who is the name of the show.”
“Sounds like a stupid show,” Max said.
“You’ve never seen it.”
“Let’s keep it that way.” Max stopped next to her and pretended to watch the news while he checked her out. She had good posture without appearing haughty, and her face was exotic.
A familiar nighttime scene with Christmas lights appeared on the news and a reporter said, “Last night in Vienna, migrant gangs clashed, leaving at least five dead and others hospitalized. Witnesses say that an argument had broken out in a nearby youth center earlier between three members of a Chechen gang and more than a dozen Syrian gang members. One witness said the argument was drug related. The Chechen gang members left the youth center and the Syrian gang followed them. Police say that the Syrians assaulted the Chechens with baseball bats, pipes, and knives, killing all three …”
“Oh, my,” the Martha Jones lookalike said. “That’s just up the street from where I was last night.”
“Small world, isn’t it?” Max said.
The reporter continued, “Two men armed with pistols attacked the Syrians, killing two. Syrian gang members gave mixed reports of the identities of the two men—some say they were Arab, others say they were Chechen, and still others identified the two men as Austrian. Police are still searching for the two shooters.” A composite sketch of Max and Tom appeared on the screen.
Holy shit, Max thought. He looked at Tom, who seemed to think the same thing.
“Those two look scary,” Martha said. Then she gazed at Max.
“Like me?” Max said awkwardly.
“You don’t look scary.” She had a British accent that rolled off her tongue smooth and silky.
“I don’t know whether to take that as a compliment or an attack on my manhood,” Max said.
Martha smiled and her eyes twinkled. “You can take it as a compliment.”
A man wearing a long-sleeved white polo shirt and khaki slacks appeared, and Martha turned to him. They hugged. Max didn’t hide his disappointment.
A restaurant staff member opened the door and said, “Willkommen.”
Martha glanced at Max and smiled again before she and her friend entered the restaurant.
Max smiled back but she was gone.
Suddenly, a voice grumbled from behind, surprising him: “When you least expect it, expect it.” It was Hank.
Max laughed.
“Laugh it up, comedian boy,” Hank said.
Tom snickered.
“You, too,” Hank warned Tom.
“I’m just bustin’ your balls a little, Dad,” Max said.
Hank shook his head. “You realize I’m going to have to give the maid a thousand-dollar tip—this is the situation you’ve put me in.”
Max and Tom laughed. A little dark humor had a way of lightening up dark situations. Maybe laughter wasn’t the best medicine, but it helped.
Hank smiled.
Max passed through the restaurant door and left the world outside—Syrian moon dust, Vienna cold, getting shot at, Maman’s and Charlotte’s deaths, and Ringvereine. The pain of the past didn’t matter, and frets about the future didn’t matter; all that mattered was the now. He was determined to savor the restaurant—these moments were too few and far between to let escape.
Breakfast was laid out buffet-style. A radiant Viennese waitress with eyes as blue as the September sky smiled at him. Her presence took Max out of shooter mode and made him feel human again. Like a dream, he might not ever see her again, except in his memories.
He grabbed a plate and stacked it with hot Wiener schnitzel, smoked meat, cold sauerkraut, steaming dumplings, and shredded pancakes with fruit compotes.
“Save some for the rest of the guests,” Tom teased.
Max poured steaming c
offee into a cup. It warmed his hands. With a full plate, he sat down at a table out of the hearing distance of others. He smelled fresh from his morning shower and felt clean. Hank and Tom jabbered while they ate, but Max focused on his food. Tom ate like a civilized human being, but Max and Hank ate like wolves.
Max came up for air and spoke with a full mouth, “This is the chef’s chef d’oeuvre.”
Tom and Hank grinned. They seemed to be enjoying their meals, too.
Sitting together as a family in the light, warmth, and peace was like sitting in heaven. It was moments like this that made family worthwhile. Sometimes Max thought they were a dysfunctional family, but all families were dysfunctional in one way or another. This was his family, and he wouldn’t trade it for any other. Family was worth sacrificing for, fighting for, and even dying for. This moment was a dream within a dream, and Max didn’t want to wake up. He embraced the moment before it evaporated.
More guests arrived in the restaurant, and Hank spoke in a quiet voice: “Tonight, in the hotel parking lot, Willy will be waiting in a van marked with a carpet installation logo. At 6:30 p.m., Willy and I will exchange vehicles. Inside the van will be workman’s coveralls for each of us. I’ll change before starting up the engine and moving out.”
“Do you want us to put surveillance on Blade to make sure he goes out to dinner?” Max asked.
“Exactly,” Hank said.
“We can see him leave from our hotel room,” Tom said. “That way we won’t risk him seeing us on the street.”
“That way we’ll stay warm,” Max said.
Hank swallowed some coffee. “I’ll wait in the parking lot with the engine running. When Blade is out of sight, join me in the van. You’ll change into coveralls, and I’ll drive you to the target building and drop you off. You’ll carry a carpet up to Blade’s condo, pick the lock, and go inside, where you’ll wait for him. When he returns, you’ll secure him, roll him up in the carpet, and bring him down to the van. Then we’ll drive him out to Willy’s plane, and Willy’s guys will take him to a black site for interrogation.”
Assassin's Sons: [#4] A Special Operations Group Thriller Page 10
