by AD Starrling
Conrad gripped the steel handrails and bounded swiftly from landing to landing, his chest heaving with his rapid breaths. Motion outside drew his gaze. A line of trucks with dark canvas roofs emerged from beneath the high-rise several floors down and headed rapidly for the road behind the building.
‘No,’ he breathed.
A screech of tires brought his eyes up. The Bastian Hunters’ sedan came into view some two hundred feet up the thoroughfare. The vehicle shot through the contraflow, juddered onto the curb, and slewed sideways across the garage exit.
Conrad’s heart stuttered against his ribs. The lead truck had accelerated. It plowed mercilessly into the Merc, the force of the collision loud enough to penetrate through the glazing of the tower wall. The car spun across the lanes.
Fury filled the immortal. He raced down the stairs, his blood a thunderous roar in his ears.
By the time he located an external door and reached the access road to the underground parking, the trucks had disappeared. Traffic had piled to a stop behind the heavily mangled wreckage of the sedan. Both sides of the vehicle had been smashed in repeatedly. Steam curled up from under the hood. The figures inside were ominously still.
Conrad bolted toward the car. Sirens sounded dimly in the distance. He skidded to a stop by the driver’s door and looked through the cracked window. Bile flooded the back of his throat.
He grabbed the handle and pulled. A whiff of diesel reached his nostrils. Metal shrieked in the distorted frame under his grip; the panel was jammed. He ignored the shouts of alarm from the growing crowd on the sidewalks, braced one foot against the center pillar, and tugged with all his might.
Veins and muscles bulged in his neck, and a harsh cry left his lips as the door finally gave way with a tortuous creak. Conrad reached inside the sedan and heaved the heavily bleeding driver and front passenger to the safety of the opposite sidewalk. He returned to the vehicle, air leaving his lips in tortured gasps. He ducked inside the car in time to see one of the Hunters in the back stir.
‘Open the door!’ he shouted. The immortal blinked at him.
Conrad raced around to the other side and saw the Hunter push weakly against the damaged rear door. Sparks flashed under the vehicle’s carriage. Icy fear danced down Conrad’s spine as he tugged on the door handle in vain. The stench of diesel grew stronger. A dark trail of fuel flamed up.
His eyes flared. ‘Shit!’
About the only two things immortals could not survive were decapitation and being pulverized into tiny pieces by an explosion.
The crowd scattered amid panicked screams as the blaze took hold of the rear of the sedan. Conrad finally managed to wrench the back door open and helped the dazed Hunter grab the last two men under their shoulders. The roar of the flames drowned the sound of their wheezing breaths as they hauled the inert figures out of the sedan and staggered backward across the asphalt.
They got twenty feet away from the vehicle before the fuel tank exploded.
Heat scorched Conrad’s face and chest. He caught the smell of singed hair.
The pressure wave from the blast wrapped around their bodies and hurled them a dozen feet through the air. They landed hard on the road and rolled over several times before finally rocking to a stop.
Further detonations erupted from the direction of the burning sedan. Conrad blinked at the smoke trails blurring the patch of blue sky above him, the explosions echoing dully in his ears. He lifted his head and stared at the blazing remains of the car.
On the other side of the flames, the two Bastians who had been in the front of the vehicle were rising to their feet.
Conrad pushed himself up slowly, his chest heaving with painful pants. He looked down at his trembling, bloodied hands, stunned that he had somehow managed to rescue the five men.
‘You okay?’ gasped someone beside him. It was the Hunter he had pulled out from the rear of the car.
‘Yeah,’ muttered Conrad. He climbed unsteadily to his knees. ‘You?’
The Hunter groaned. ‘I’ve been better.’
The two men they had pulled out of the sedan started to come around. The Bastian driver and passenger stumbled across the road to join them. Conrad ignored the simmering anger still plaguing him and quickly assessed the Hunters’ injuries. He healed one man’s lacerated liver and spleen, another’s shattered pelvis and torn gut, and a third man’s contused lung. The rest he deemed their immortal bodies able to repair.
He ignored the flashing lights and sirens of the police vehicles and ambulances hurtling down the road, and headed back inside the complex of towers. Streams of people surged past him when he reached the glass atrium; the buildings were being cleared. Conrad marched against the living tide and negotiated a path to the bank of lifts in the main tower. His bloodied clothes earned him a few fearful glances. He turned a blind eye and took the elevator to the twentieth floor.
The frosted entrance to Strabo Corp. lay wide open as he jogged toward it a moment later, his gun held low in his hands. The security panel on the wall had acquired several spiderweb fractures from a spray of bullets.
Conrad slowed when he reached the foyer of the drug company. He glanced at the blonde cowering on the ground behind the bullet-riddled reception desk, loaded a fresh magazine in his pistol, and barged through the open door on the left. He stopped at the scene that met his eyes.
Anatole was leaning casually against the wall backing a metal walkway some ten feet ahead, a pair of AK74 assault rifles sitting comfortably in his grip and a makeshift tourniquet wrapped around a wound on his thigh. Blood oozed from dozens of grazes and cuts on his face and hands. The skin over his knuckles was raw.
Although he looked relaxed, the dangerous glint in his eyes told Conrad that his friend had had one of his infamous “moments.”
A roomful of people sprawled quietly on their bellies on the floor of a lab some fifteen feet below, their interlinked fingers resting submissively on the back of their heads. Conrad gaped. By the looks of things, Anatole had detained the entire company. A familiar figure caught Conrad’s eye.
The Strabo Corp. security chief was lying on the ground at the bottom of a short flight of stairs to the right, amid a group of similarly unconscious and battered uniformed guards. Drying blood caked the man’s face from a broken nose and torn lips, while the bruised swelling on his left cheek suggested a fractured jaw. A dark pool congealed beneath his leg, evidence of bullet wounds.
A thin, dusky man with white hair and glasses sat behind the security men, alongside another dark-skinned individual in a suit. Both of them gripped bleeding arms where they had been injured.
Anatole looked around at the sound of Conrad’s footsteps. He smiled, uncrossed his legs, and straightened from the wall. ‘Ah, the prodigal son returns! Did you catch her?’
Conrad shook his head, bitterness rising in his throat once more. Anatole’s expression sobered. Conrad indicated the silent figures beneath them. ‘What happened?’
Anatole glanced over the railing. ‘Oh, that? I made a citizen’s arrest.’
Conrad raised an eyebrow. ‘And them?’ He cocked a thumb at the gunshot victims at the bottom of the steps.
Anatole shrugged, unrepentant. ‘What can I say? They resisted.’
‘That—that man is a lunatic!’ spat the old guy with the glasses and white hair. ‘How dare you savages—!’ A short burst of gunfire interrupted his tirade. He blanched and looked at the fresh line of bullet marks dotting the floor next to his leg.
‘Don’t tempt me, grandpa,’ Anatole growled. He raised the barrel of an AK74 back toward the ceiling.
Conrad swallowed a sigh and studied the rifles in the red-haired immortal’s hands. ‘Where did you get those?’
A fierce smile lit Anatole’s face. ‘Would you believe they had an armory in their security room?�
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French Judicial Police arrived at the scene minutes later, on the heels of two local SWAT teams. Conrad and Anatole were briefly detained before someone from the French Ministry of Interior approved their release.
By one thirty in the afternoon, the headquarters of Strabo Corp. was swarming with police officers, French Central Intelligence agents, and an Interpol Incident Response Team.
The two immortals were standing in the middle of a lab on the twenty-first floor when a tall detective with brown hair and eyes came up to them.
‘It’s Anatole, isn’t it?’ he said hesitantly. His English was good, with a trace of a Lyon accent.
Anatole’s face brightened in recognition. ‘Hey. Long time no see, Lacroix.’
The man sighed. He looked around guardedly and leaned closer. ‘I take it by your presence here that your—people are involved in this international fiasco?’ he murmured.
Anatole pulled a face. ‘Yeah, sorry about that. President Westwood put this guy here in charge of the US investigation.’ He indicated Conrad.
The French detective observed Conrad for a beat. His gaze shifted back to Anatole. ‘How’s Soul?’
A grin stretched Anatole’s lips. ‘Busy changing diapers,’ he said with a low chuckle. ‘He just had twins.’
The man arched an eyebrow in evident disbelief. ‘Somehow, I can’t quite imagine that.’ Someone called his name from across the room.
‘I’ve got to go,’ the detective said tersely. He started to walk away, paused, and looked over his shoulder. ‘Is it true that you arrested the entire company?’
Anatole’s ears reddened. He shuffled his feet. ‘Er, yeah.’
‘I see.’ The man muttered something under his breath and headed toward his colleague.
‘I don’t think that was a compliment,’ said Conrad. He cast a quizzical frown at his second in command. ‘Who was that?’
‘His name’s Christophe Lacroix,’ said Anatole. ‘He helped us out last year, during the incident with the Crovirs.’
Conrad recalled what Horatio had told him in Rio as he watched the figure disappearing across the floor. ‘Was that the one that resulted in the deaths of Agatha Vellacrus and Felix Thorne?’
‘Uh-huh.’
Conrad hesitated, troubled. ‘He said Soul. Did he mean—?’
‘Yes,’ Anatole interjected. ‘He was referring to the Lucas Soul.’ The immortal’s pale eyes considered him. ‘Actually, in some ways, you kinda remind me of him. Especially with that stunt you pulled in the elevator shaft. He was always doing shit like that.’
‘What about you? I thought you’d mellowed,’ retorted Conrad.
‘Oh, come on!’ Anatole protested. ‘A hundred years ago, I would have riddled these bastards with bullets until they looked like Swiss cheese!’
It didn’t take long to determine that the two olive-skinned men whose arms Anatole had grazed with bullets were the Strabo Corp. head of research and development, and the company director. It was another hour before they were allowed to question the pair.
‘Who is she?’ Conrad demanded. He indicated the video display on the wall.
They were inside the Strabo Corp. security office, on the twentieth floor of the tower. A row of monitors dominated a workstation spanning the curved wall of the ergonomically designed chamber. The upscale impression of sleek efficiency was somewhat spoiled by the broken door of the weapons and ammunition cage at the back of the room.
Volkan Sahin sat with his hands cuffed behind his back in front of the terminal. He stared blankly at the screen in front of him and remained silent.
The security camera recording had been frozen to show a shot of the woman who had escaped from the facility. She was standing in one of the underground garages, where she watched workers loading a truck with steel crates.
‘What’s her name?’ asked Conrad.
Sahin stayed mute.
Conrad quelled a flicker of irritation. He leaned against the console and crossed his arms. ‘Does she work for you?’ he said, his tone still deadly calm.
A smirk flitted across the company director’s features, as if the question amused him.
Conrad studied Sahin thoughtfully. ‘I have it the wrong way round, don’t I?’ he mused. ‘You work for her.’
Sahin leaned back in the chair and assumed a bored expression. Conrad noted the infinitesimal flash in the man’s eyes with a degree of satisfaction. He was right; the director of Strabo Corp. was employed by the enemy.
The immortal decided to change tactics and pointed at the containers being stored inside the truck. ‘What was in those crates?’
Sahin glanced at him and kept tight-lipped. Several minutes later, he had still not spoken a word. Conrad scowled. This was getting them nowhere. He stepped in front of the company director, leaned down, and gripped the armrests of the chair.
‘The only thing stopping me from putting a bullet in you right now are these gentlemen,’ the immortal hissed inches from the man’s face. His eyes moved briefly to the French agents and detectives at the back of the room. ‘Once we confirm that your company had something to do with the assassination attempt on their president, I don’t think they’re gonna give a damn. After the French have finished with you, we’ll have you extradited to the US to face charges concerning the FedEx Field incident. You’ll be behind bars for a long time while awaiting trial, Sahin.’ Conrad stood back. ‘It’s a shame how often accidents happen in prison. And not just accidents,’ he added with a mirthless smile.
Trepidation darted across the man’s face. Despite this brief show of anxiety, Volkan Sahin refused to answer any of Conrad’s or the French officers’ questions.
To the immortal’s growing frustration, Ridvan Kadir was just as taciturn when he was brought in for interrogation. Following fifteen minutes of fruitless questioning, the head of R&D for Strabo Corp. was taken away by French police. He sneered and spat at Conrad as he disappeared through the door, a litany of hate-filled, foreign words finally escaping his lips.
Moreau, the lead French Central Intelligence agent overseeing the local investigation with the Judicial Police, stared at the departing man. ‘What was that?’
Conrad watched the empty doorway, startled by what Ridvan Kadir had revealed in that one sentence.
‘“Soon, the Rightful Heir will rise and walk over your bloodied corpses,”’ the immortal translated slowly. ‘It was Turkish,’ he explained at the agent’s puzzled expression. He glanced at Anatole. ‘Did you notice?’
‘Yes,’ said Anatole. ‘He used the ancient Ottoman Turkish word for “heir.”’
Anatole’s troubled tone mirrored Conrad’s own unease. He could not help but think of the haiku that had led him to uncover the assassination attempt on Westwood’s life; it had also used the words “Rightful Heir.” He ran a hand through his hair and let out a sigh of frustration. ‘Shit! Looks like we have no option but to go through this place inch by inch.’
Anatole gave him a look. ‘Gee, that sounds like fun.’
Conrad turned to one of the French detectives. ‘Any luck tracing those trucks?’
The man placed a hand over the mouthpiece of his cell and shook his head, a dejected look on his face. ‘Cameras lost them somewhere in the tunnels. We have no idea where they went.’
Conrad clenched his teeth. ‘And the number plates?’
‘They were all fakes. There’s no way to trace where the vehicles came from,’ came the glum reply.
‘Goddammit!’ hissed the immortal.
The door opened. Harry Stevens entered the room. Relief flooded Conrad when he saw the woman behind the agent.
‘What have you got?’ said Laura.
Chapter Twenty-One
‘Volkan Sahin was born in Manisa, in West Turkey, in 1958. Parents deceased, no si
blings. He is unmarried and has no dependents. He has diplomas and degrees from several internationally renowned business schools and worked in senior managerial roles in the US and Switzerland before being appointed executive director of Strabo Corp. in 1995.’ The French Central Intelligence agent scrutinized the paperwork in his hand. ‘According to this, he has no prior felony or criminal convictions and is not a subject of interest to any intelligence community or counterintelligence organization.’
The fax machine next to him spat out another sheet. Moreau lifted it off the tray and perused the contents with a tiny frown.
‘Says here Ridvan Kadir was also born in Manisa, in 1953. Parents deceased. He had an older brother who died in a car accident in 1970. He’s divorced with no children and holds PhDs in medicinal and organic chemistry. He became the head of Strabo Corp.’s R&D program in 1995. Prior to that, he held high-ranking scientific positions in a number of organizations.’ The agent paused. ‘Hmm.’
‘What?’ said Conrad.
‘He was briefly investigated by Mossad in 1984, when he was seen in the company of a weapons dealer. The case was closed by the Israelis after two months. They thought he was clean.’ Moreau placed the record on the table.
Conrad studied the passport photographs on the intelligence reports of the two Strabo Corp. employees. He could not help but feel that the Anatolian Peninsula had a key role to play in their investigation.
‘So we have two men born in the same city a few years apart who end up working for the same company several decades later. Somehow I doubt it’s a simple coincidence.’ Conrad glanced at Moreau. ‘Did they know each other before they joined Strabo Corp.?’
‘This is just the basic data we have on them,’ said Moreau. ‘We’ll have to contact the Turkish authorities if we want further details on their backgrounds.’
‘What about the company?’ said Laura.
