by Tom Abrahams
The room is empty. A chair in the middle of the space is on its side. Another chair is against the wall under the window. The pane is open. Whoever was in here is gone.
I scramble to the window and push myself against the sill and through the opening onto the ground above. I’m just inside the main pedestrian gate, where I first confronted the sergeant.
“Bella! Bella!”
“Jackson!!”
I scramble to my feet and run to the left toward the alley where I saw the Citroen.
“Jackson, help me!” I run toward the rear of the compound, toward the sound of her voice, when I see her running toward me.
Her hands are bound in front of her, her ponytail bouncing wildly behind her. “Jackson!! Jackson!!”
I lower the AK and open my arms and she runs into them. She buries her face in my chest, breathing heavily, but not crying.
“Are you okay?” I ask her, my free arm wrapped around her. There’s no obvious threat.
Where’s Blogis?
“I’m okay,” she says. “They didn’t hurt me. They just want the process, that’s all.”
“Where’s Blogis?” My own voice is muffled, the ringing in my ears from the underground gun battle hasn’t subsided.
“I don’t know,” she says. “He left before all the shooting happened. I was alone in a room with two other men. They ran out to get you and I got out through that window and ran for the car. Then I heard you calling and I ran back.”
“Blogis is gone?”
“I don’t know. I just want to get out of here.”
“There were three men, other than Blogis, who kidnapped you. That means we’re missing —”
I’m interrupted by the squealing of tires and the high pitched whine of a car engine. We turn toward the parking lot to see a black SUV bouncing over a curb, heading straight for us. In the passenger’s seat is the man I suspect is Blogis.
I wrap my arms around Bella and tackle her, driving her into a hedge, and land on top of her. Despite its waxy, thorny leaves, the hedge provides cushion for us as the SUV bounds past us, its suspension clanging and creaking. The driver navigates another elevated curb and a pair of yellow concrete turtarriers marking the end of the lot’s parking spaces. The AK strapped to my back bangs into the back of my head, and thankfully doesn’t discharge.
I expect the SUV to turn around or back up to make another run at us, but the driver guns the vehicle toward the exit gate and plows through it onto the street. The SUV fishtails a right hand turn, tires screaming against the pavement, and rumbles off.
“Are you okay?” I ask Bella for the second time in as many minutes.
“I think so.” She pushes on my chest, trying to move me off of her. “A little scratched up from this hedge. I’m okay though.”
I roll off of her and then struggle to my feet so I can help pull her up, then I grab the second AK, which is a couple of feet from us, propped against the curb.
“Weird,” I say, plucking leaves from my clothing.
“What?” she asks, doing the same.
“Why did Blogis take off?”
“Cause you went Rambo on him,” she says. “He lost control of the situation. I remember him telling you on the phone he likes to be in control.”
“Good point. That means he’ll be back. He needs the two drives and he knows we have them.” I point toward the white Citroen, still parked in the alley about twenty yards from us.
“How does he know?” She follows my lead and starts walking toward the car. “I didn’t tell him anything. In fact, they didn’t really ask me anything, come to think of it. They just scared the living daylights out of me.”
“He knows.” I try the driver’s side door and find it unlocked. “Sir Spencer told him.” I pull the sling over my head with one hand and lock the AK-12.
“He what?” She pulls open the passenger’s door and ducks into the seat. I lock the second AK and put both of them on the floorboard behind Bella’s seat. “He’s playing us, as we both suspected. It’s far more diabolical than what we could have imagined.” The pistol finds its place under the driver’s seat. It’s still got three shots in it.
Conveniently enough, the keys are still in the car, and the gas tank has plenty of fuel. We should be able to make it to Heidelberg without stopping.
“What’s his play?”
“Hang on.” I get back out of the car and walk around the back to get the GPS out of my pack. We’re going to need it.
The highway signs in Germany don’t give directional instructions. They list the names of two towns in opposite directions. If drivers don’t know which town is where, they will invariably head in the wrong direction. Then they’re thirty kilometers down the road before they realize they have to turn around. The GPS will prevent that from happening.
I quickly return to my seat, start the engine, and put the Citroen into drive. There’s a crowd starting to gather at what used to be the front gate. We zoom past without slowing down, and bounce a wide turn onto the street.
“Okay, here’s what I know...”
***
“You’re kidding me.” Bella looks like she’s trying not to smile, but it’s a combination of shock and disgust she can’t conceal. “He said that? He said I was collateral damage?”
“He did.” I follow the GPS onto the A5 toward Kreuz/Basel/Flughafen and our destination, Heidelberg. “We were right that he couldn’t be trusted, but it amazes me how much I continue to underestimate him.”
“He said the same thing about you,” Bella says, that hint of a smile perhaps more genuine now. She tugs on the seatbelt across her chest, loosening it while she slides down in her seat. “What now? How do we avoid getting killed? Let’s be honest, he’s not telling you he’s going to kill you because he needs you to finish the job. But once that happens…”
“I’ve already thought of that. I have a plan.”
“You do?” She turns her body toward me with interest.
“Kinda,” I say. “Don’t sound so surprised, sheesh.”
“I’m not,” she admonishes. I glance at her and then at the speedometer. We’re entering the part of the autobahn without a speed limit. I’m in the right lane going about one hundred kilometers an hour.
“Okay,” she admits, “maybe I am a little. But really, what’s your plan?”
For a woman who was essentially comatose in the lobby of the Hotel Odessa two days ago, Bella’s holding up remarkably well. She seems to have adjusted quickly to the constant threat of violence. Since I met her four or five days ago, I can’t keep count from the lack of sleep and food, she’s been kidnapped twice, shot at, and chased. Now she’s asking how we avoid our deaths like we’re planning her quinceañera.
I accelerate and push the car into the left lane, past a lumbering soft-sided tractor trailer. “First of all, we’re not bringing our pieces of the process with us.”
“What?” Her voice slips an octave higher than usual. “Where are they?”
“In a safe place.” I check the speedometer, which indicates we’re cruising at one hundred fifty kilometers, or ninety miles, per hour. “They’re not going anywhere.”
“I don’t understand,” she says, her brows knitted. “What did you do with them? If we don’t have them, aren’t we at a disadvantage? What if Blogis just decides to kill you because he’s fed up? What am I going to do if you get killed?”
I take back what I said about her handling this like a pro. I engage the cruise control at one hundred and sixty kilometers per hour. The Citroen eases into the right lane and a Porsche 911 whisks by us like we’re standing still. The car shimmies from the sports car’s wake. “That’s a lot of questions at once. I’ll take them one by one.”
Bella folds her arms and glares at me. Apparently Blogis isn’t the only one who doesn’t appreciate losing the illusion of control.
“I left them in a post office box in Frankfurt. They’ll be fine there. We’re not at any disadvantage by leaving them there.”
; “Why not?” she snips.
I put both of my hands on the wheel as a large Mercedes hums by us on the left. “I’m trying to explain it to you, okay?”
She pouts like a tween. It’s actually more endearing than annoying.
“They’re a lot less likely to kill either of us if we don’t have the drives with us,” I explain. “The parts they have are essentially useless without the two we have. They might torture me to get the location out of me, but they won’t kill me until they have it.” My mind flashes to the first time I met Sir Spencer.
It was in Austin while I was still working for the governor and dating my dead ex-girlfriend Charlie. He’d drugged me and chained me up, trying to find out if I’d spill the beans on the governor’s plans. He didn’t get it out of me. Then again, he was actually on my side then.
“That torture could include killing me!” Her eyes widen, her pupils shrink. “You’re putting me in danger by not bringing them and not telling me where they are. You know these people are ruthless. I’m collateral damage, remember?”
She has a point I hadn’t considered, though I’m not letting her know I agree with her. “That’s not going to happen,” I say. “It won’t get to that point.” There’s a slower moving SUV up ahead, so I check my rear and side view mirrors and dart into the passing lane. The car responds almost too quickly at this speed and I have to overcorrect to center the car in the lane.
“I missed something,” she says.
“What?”
“You said they have pieces of the process.” She shifts in her seat again, wagging a finger at me. “Who do you mean they?”
Oops.
“Oh,” I chuckle. “Sir Spencer has a piece too. Didn’t I already mention that?”
“Uh…no!” She moves her neck like a dancer in a Bollywood movie. “You said he wanted control of the pieces, but you neglected to mention that he has one of the pieces himself. How did he get them?”
“Mack.”
“Mack?”
“Mack.”
“You were right.” She turns to face the front of the car and sinks further into her seat. “The blank drive was Mack’s doing. He betrayed me. I don’t get it.”
“I should clarify something,” I say, interrupting her momentary malaise. “Sir Spencer claims to have only one of the pieces. Blogis has the other. Each of them has one. I made it sound like Sir Spencer has more than —”
“Really?” she turns toward me, her chin lowered. “That doesn’t make it any better.” She’s right again. I may have misplayed this. Sir Spencer probably does have the upper hand, no matter how this ends up. He’s holding a piece.
If we somehow manage to recover Blogis’ piece, that’ll give us three of four. If we get the lone remaining piece in Heidelberg…
Epiphany. “Hey!”
“What?”
“What are we looking for in Heidelberg?” It’s the obvious question I never thought to ask. “Where are we going exactly?”
“Wolf worked there for a while, remember?”
“Yeah,” I nod, checking that the cruise control is still engaged. “So?”
“Well,” she sighs, “he still has — had — a place there. He rents it out.”
“Wolf has a place in Heidelberg and we wouldn’t check there first?” There’s more than a hint of condescending disbelief in my voice.
“Sir Spencer suggested that we start —” and it dawns on her. “Mother fu—”
“He’s too good,” I say. “He’s probably already got that piece. He told me that Mack was procuring it for him. He wanted us in Ukraine while he went straight to Germany. We’re driving into a trap.”
Bella throws her head back against her seat, looking up through the skylight. “I’m not cut out for this. My father was right.”
“What do you mean?” I bite. Nothing like a little impromptu autobahn therapy on the way to a massacre.
“He told me more than once, as much as he loved me, that I wasn’t really cut out to lead Nanergetix. He said there were things I wouldn’t have the fortaleza to do.” She rolls her head on the headrest to look at me. Her eyes are welled, barely holding the tears ready to stream. “That’s fortitude in Spanish,” she says and rolls back to look through the sunroof. “He said there were things,” she sniffs, “things I was too pure hearted to do, that it took a certain type of malvado to be good in business, a wickedness I could never have, no matter how hard I tried.”
“That must have been difficult,” I say, mirroring what my therapist must have said to me a thousand times. At least.
“Yes. I always wanted his approval more than anyone else’s. To hear him say that I didn’t have what it took…”
“Do you think he was saying that he didn’t want to you be what he’d become?” I propose. “Is it a possibility that he thought you were too good a person?”
“I don’t know.” She sits up straight in her seat. “I can do this. We can do this, Jackson. We need to do this. We need all five pieces of the process. Nanergetix needs to control this.”
“So that you can prove something to yourself?”
“No,” she says. “Maybe. I don’t know. Regardless, if I fail here, I’ll lose my job. There are already too many people at Nanergetix who want to see me go down in flames. This would do it. The board would lose its wavering faith in me.”
“I thought this was a secret? I didn’t think anyone knew about this, really.”
“True,” she admits. “They only know we’re working on something big. I promised the board a huge breakthrough that would have us drowning in government contracts.”
I check our speed and look at the GPS. We’ve got maybe twenty minutes until we hit the exit for Heidelberg. My phone rings, vibrating against the center console between Bella and me. I glance at it and don’t recognize the number.
“You gonna answer it?” Bella asks, her hands over her head adjusting her ponytail. “It’s probably important.”
“It’s never good when I get a phone call.”
She picks up the phone. “I’ll answer it.” She connects the call and pulls the phone to her ear. “Hello?”
I can hear a man’s voice on the other end of the call, but I can’t distinguish whose it is. My attention’s split between Bella and the road in front of us. Both of my hands are gripping the Citroen’s steering wheel. I check the rear view mirror. There’s a familiar SUV growing perilously larger in the reflection.
Bella pulls the phone from her ear. “It’s Blogis. He’s behind us.”
***
Bam!
The first time the SUV slams into the rear of the Citroen, I almost lose control of the vehicle, not believing Blogis would actually ram us. I accelerate after that first crushing hit, trying to stay ahead of Blogis and his driver. Blogis is armed.
Bella’s turned sideways in her seat. She dropped the phone when the SUV hit us.
“What did he say?” I ask after I’ve put two car lengths between us and Blogis.
“He said he’s tired of being patient.” She peeks between the two front seats at our pursuers. “He says he’ll get what he needs one way or the other. Then he hung up!”
I notice the SUV making another run at us. “We’re about to take another hit. Hold on.” I accelerate again to lessen the impact. The speedometer reads one hundred and eighty kilometers per hour. Even the slightest adjustment on the steering wheel sends the Citroen careening in that direction. Bella braces herself against the passenger door and the dashboard, locking her elbows and squeezing shut her eyes.
Bam!
Bella’s body flies toward the dash before the locking seatbelt pulls her back against her seat. She cries out and reaches for her right shoulder.
Part of the Citroen is dragging behind us, scraping loudly against the autobahn’s pavement and sending a spray of sparks in the car’s wake.
There’s no traffic ahead of us. In the rear view, Blogis is motioning for us to pull over, waving a handgun toward the shoulder.
“You okay?” I ask Bella.
“Yeah,” she winces. “That belt dug into my shoulder though. It hurts.”
“This car isn’t gonna take another hit from that SUV.”
She nods, her face still scrunched in pain.
I check the left lane in the side view mirror. “Next time it guns for us I’m moving to the left and braking really, really fast, okay?”
Her eyes pop open in protest. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“We’ll be fine!”
“Just take that exit!” Bella points ahead to a sign that reads L531 Dossenheim/ Handschulsheim. “Take the exit at the last second.”
“Worth a try.” The front of the SUV tilts upward and the driver accelerates toward us again as I brake and slip the wheel to the right to take the exit. The SUV clips what’s left of the right rear bumper, pushing the left side of the Citroen into the concrete retaining wall.
I’m going way too fast for the two hundred and forty degree looped exit, which should take us back under the A5, but the friction of the car against the concrete slows us enough that it actually prevents us from flipping over the barrier. The side view mirror is shredded and slams into my window before tumbling in pieces to the road beneath us.
I’m almost standing in my seat, my foot trying to mash the brakes through the floor while the car rumbles against the pressure of it. Bella has her palms flat against the dash, her screaming louder than the nauseating sound of the Citroen’s metal grinding against the waist-high concrete wall.
I overcorrect to the right and accelerate off the wall toward the road at the end of the ramp. “It worked!” I shout, still trying to navigate the car with what might be a bent rim on the front left wheel.
Bella’s face is nearly translucent with fear. Her mouth is agape, no sound coming out, and her chest is heaving. Her palms are still pushing against the dash as I decelerate at the intersection of the ramp and the street running perpendicular to and underneath the A5.
“I can go left or right here. What do you think? Left or right?”
Bella just shakes her head.
I turn right, thinking we’ve lost Blogis and his flunky, but the black SUV reappears, speeding, in reverse, down the entrance ramp and toward us. Blogis is hanging out of the window, pushed up against the roof of the SUV. He’s aiming his handgun at us. I can’t tell if he’s firing off any shots until one of the them hits the left rear tire.
