Look-Alike

by Meredith Fletcher

  Chapter 9

  Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport

  Phoenix, Arizona

  Lean, hard and deadly looking around the eyes to anyone trained to see such things, Riley McLane was the kind of man who left an impression when he didn’t take pains to fade into the background. There was something predatory that lingered around him, a wolfish quality that made an impact even on Elle.

  Today he wore jeans and cowboy boots, a loose Western shirt unbuttoned over a white T-shirt and wraparound sunglasses. With his tan, most people would take him for a local. Elle had seen him look just as at home at a political function.

  He waited for them on the other side of the security area. So far, he hadn’t noticed them.

  Sam quietly took Elle’s hand and held her back. “Wait,” Sam said.

  Curious, Elle asked, “For what? Everything looks safe enough.” She’d been concerned on the way back. Even with the straight flight to Phoenix out of England on British Airways, there was a chance one of their adversaries had caught up with them. But they seemed to be safe now.

  A blush tinted Sam’s cheeks beneath her sunglasses. “Just to…to watch him. I like to watch him when he doesn’t know I’m there.”

  Elle smiled and shook her head. “And you always come across so serious. I swear, Sam, you do surprise me.”

  But a pang of envy touched Elle, too. Despite all her amorous adventures, she’d never met anyone who turned her head quite like Riley did Sam’s. Although she had had several entirely too intimate curiosities about Joachim on the long flights out of Amsterdam. She almost blushed herself, remembering how his hard body had felt against hers.

  “Why do I surprise you?” Sam asked, grinning. “Riley brings something out of me that I’ve never before experienced.”

  “Then you’re lucky.”

  Sam shook her head and the grin diminished somewhat. “Maybe. But it’s scary, too.”

  “Why?”

  “What if…one day it just goes away?”

  Looking at her sister, Elle saw the real fear in her then. She dropped an arm around Sam’s shoulders. “That’s not going to happen. Riley is crazy in love with you.”

  “I hope so.”

  He saw them then. Elle knew it from the way Riley’s stance changed. He became eager and wary at the same time. The airport was a big area to try to cover.

  Sam let go of Elle then and hurried over to Riley. They kissed briefly, but with enough passion to draw stares, a few shaking heads and a few chuckles from passersby, who were surprised, dismayed or reminded of their own feelings.

  “Come with me now,” Riley said as Elle joined them. “I’ve got a couple men in baggage claim to get your luggage. They can bring it out to Athena Academy for you.”

  “What about Tuenis Meijer?” Sam asked.

  At Riley’s insistence, the computer expert had flown in on a separate flight. So far the CIA had seemed more enamored of having Meijer in custody than with reprimanding Sam. Thank goodness.

  “He’ll be here this afternoon.” Riley led the way through the airport. Sam stayed at his side and they moved so in step it seemed as if they’d been practicing for years.

  Elle remembered Joachim as she watched her sister and prospective brother-in-law. Aboard the houseboat with the rocket streaking toward them, they’d moved together, too. Even in the water and on the bridge they had shared…something. She turned her thoughts away from that. Thinking about Joachim was an easy distraction.

  Hopefully she wouldn’t see him again. If she did, and he was on the wrong side, she might have to kill him. That was an uncomfortable possibility.

  “Director Stone agreed to let Alex Forsythe interview Meijer,” Riley was saying as he hustled them out into the sweltering heat of the hot June summer. “Sloan is allowing it as a courtesy. Allison Gracelyn is pulling strings—and she’s also protecting you two. Personally, I think Alex will find she’s beating a dead horse. Those old files they found are worthless.”

  “Marion Gracelyn might have been killed because of those files,” Sam said.

  Riley shook his head. “It doesn’t scan. Those files are nine years old, Sam. Some of them are older than that.”

  “Maybe,” Sam agreed. “But Allison Gracelyn was able to track some of the communications back to Tuenis Meijer.”

  “I still don’t understand that,” Riley said.

  “She explained it to me,” Sam said. “It has something to do with the coding of the utilities that Meijer was using then. Computer coders leave the equivalent of fingerprints behind when they write programs and utilities. The ones scripted into the e-mail exchanges and firewalls were definitely Meijer’s work. When she checked through his prison records and CIA files, Allison correlated the connection.”

  Riley opened the passenger’s door of a sleek black Suburban parked at the curb. Two CIA agents held the vehicle under observation and disappeared at Riley’s nod.

  “Geek police,” Riley growled, referring to the computer experts.

  “Without them, we’d never be able to do our jobs,” Sam said.

  Elle silently agreed as Riley let her into the second seat back.

  “I know,” Riley admitted with a sigh. “It’s just that I’d feel better knowing how they do what they do instead of just taking them on faith sometimes.”

  “Allison is money in the bank,” Sam said. “When it comes to computers, she’s one of the best.”

  “That’s why she works for the National Security Agency.” Riley went around the car and climbed in behind the steering wheel. “At any rate, Alex—and you—get Meijer for a couple days. Then the CIA gets him for a host of charges regarding threats to American security.”

  Elle sat in the backseat and gazed out at the White Tank Mountains. During her talks with her sister, Sam had told her a lot about the Athena Academy for the Advancement of Women. She was looking forward to seeing the school, but she really doubted that Tuenis Meijer would offer much information. Still, it would be an interesting visit.

  Dream Motors

  Leipzig, Germany

  Metal sanders screamed as Joachim walked through the large garage. Cutting torches sliced through metal bodies and created geysers of sparks that danced against the concrete floor.

  Two days had passed since the encounter in Amsterdam. The swelling in his nose had gone down, but he’d taken six stitches above his left eye and it was still black. He wore black clothing—his work clothes. Black slacks, black jacket cut to conceal his double shoulder holster rig, a black turtleneck and good shoes.

  He always wore good shoes when he went to see Günter Stahlmann after a problem had occurred. When things started to go wrong, one of the first things Günter did when he called a guy on the carpet was to point out that he—meaning Günter—put shoes on that man’s feet. If they weren’t good shoes, things went worse for the guy he was talking to.

  Nearly two dozen men worked at different bays in the garage. All of them were doing restoration work on vehicles. Some of the vehicles were American, Japanese and British, but most of them were German. All of them were sports cars or luxury cars.

  Dream Motors was one of Günter’s latest “legitimate” business ventures. The garage did mostly legal work restoring cars, but some nights cars stolen from Berlin or Munich rolled through and became different cars with different sets of papers before morning. They were shipped to other lots in eastern Europe and sold for a considerable profit that was never reported either.

  Günter stood by a sleek, dark blue automobile. The car’s lines made Günter’s wide body seem even wider. At six feet tall, he was four inches shorter than Joachim, but Günter was broader and built like a truck, wide and low to the ground, a monster once he got started full tilt. His hair was dark black, but the color came out of a bottle these days. He was fifty-three years old and still healthy as a horse. A cigar stuck out of the center of his mouth. He wore expensive Italian suits as a trademark.

  “Hey, Joachim,” he called in a
gruff, friendly voice.

  Good, Joachim thought. He doesn’t sound too upset.

  But that wasn’t totally relaxing. Joachim had seen Günter take a baseball bat to a man one night and literally beat his face off, leaving only a gaping hole surrounded by stumps of broken teeth for a mouth and a bloody pit where the sinus cavities had been. Günter hadn’t seemed upset that night, either, before or after the beating.

  Günter puffed on his cigar. “Have you been to see your family?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Good.” Günter waved to the car. “Do you know what this is?”

  Joachim scanned the car and read its name. “Jaguar. XKE.” He didn’t know the car model by heart. He preferred bigger cars that were innocuous in traffic and could take some considerable damage before folding up.

  “This is a serious car, Joachim.” Pride glowed in Günter’s voice. “In a car like this, a man could have his pick of women.”

  “If you say so.”

  Günter touched his nose, a purely wiseguy move he’d adopted from the American Mafia movies. “I know so. I don’t merely say it.” He patted the car affectionately, then paused. “Have you heard anything more from the woman?”

  “No.” Secretly, Joachim was glad. It was one less lie he had to weave.

  “You would tell me if you had been in touch with her.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m glad, Joachim.” Günter smiled happily. “I don’t want anyone or anything to come between the two of us.” His eyes stared into Joachim’s. “You have truly been like a son to me. I don’t tell you that enough.”

  Joachim had to steel himself against the emotions that flooded through him. Guilt stung him like a lash, followed immediately by anger at Günter because it had been his machinations—just like those in Amsterdam—that had ultimately left Joachim exposed to prosecution from the BND, Germany’s intelligence agency. Günter liked to play his own games, and sometimes that meant losing people.

  But Joachim was afraid, too. He’d been witness several times to the victims of Günter’s wrath. Joachim didn’t fear his own death nearly as much as his family’s, and he was certain Günter would make them pay the price as well.

  “You don’t have to,” Joachim said.

  “Ah, but I feel that I do.” Günter squeezed the back of Joachim’s neck, then cuffed the back of the younger man’s head. “I like you, Joachim. I have always liked you.” He took a puff off his cigar. “That’s why the business in Amsterdam was so disheartening.”

  Joachim said nothing. He had already apologized for Amsterdam.

  “I am hoping the woman will call back and talk to me again,” Günter said. “We have done a lot of business together. I would like to do more.”

  Joachim wanted to know the nature of that business. Schultz and the BND were anxious to know, and they weren’t telling Joachim why, either.

  “I have looked into this man Beck.” Günter knocked ash from the cigar. “He is a very dangerous man. Did you know he was originally from East Germany?”

  “Yes,” Joachim answered. Over the last two days, he had spent time investigating Beck. Nothing in any of the information he had been able to find offered a clue as to where he might find the mercenary.

  “Twenty years ago, he was a common criminal in the streets. A very violent man.” Günter breathed out a blue stream of cigar smoke. “For a time, I knew him. We were competitors for the same business.” He shrugged. “In those days, Beck got more business than I did. He worked for the Stasi. You’re too young to remember how bad the East German police were. Very corrupt. Someone conducting criminal enterprise could do very well for himself…if he had the price or was willing to do dirty work for the Stasi.”

  “Beck was successful.”

  “Yes. Sometimes if an East German citizen was successful in climbing the Berlin Wall or was spirited away by the Americans or the British, Beck was sent after them. During several of those occasions, he killed those people as well as Western secret agents. Then, one day he simply disappeared.”

  “Why?”

  Günter shook his head. “I’ve never been able to find out.”

  “I was told the Stasi might have killed him,” Joachim said.

  “There was a story that Beck assassinated a man named Klaus Stryker, a Stasi agent who ranked high in the East German espionage hierarchy, but it was never proven.”

  “I’d heard Beck and Stryker were partners.”

  Günter favored Joachim with a measured glance. “Partners, sometimes, are like the wind. Things change. This man, Stryker, had many enemies. Perhaps one of them paid Beck enough to reconsider his partnership.” He smiled and clapped Joachim on the shoulder. “I know such a thing could never happen to us.”

  “No,” Joachim replied. “It never could.”

  “I’m going to have to wait to see how things play out with the woman.” Günter sighed unhappily. “I have no control over that. In the meantime though, we have to work.”

  Joachim knew that Günter meant he had to work.

  “Do you know Paul Krieger?” Günter asked.

  Joachim did. “Krieger owns a clothing store here in the city.”

  “That’s right. This season, he has done well for himself. So well, in fact, that he has obviously forgotten the debt he owes me. I covered several of his gambling losses to keep his company solvent. I need you to remind him that he owes me.”

  The price of failing in Amsterdam was going to be a demotion, a return to the old days when Joachim served Günter as an enforcer. Relief unlocked some of the tightness in Joachim’s stomach. The work was ugly, but his family was out of the line of fire and he would live.

  “How hard do you want me to remind Krieger?” Joachim asked, dreading the answer and knowing of no way to get out of this assignment.

  “I don’t want Krieger hurt. He’s an old man.” Günter shrugged. “Several men half his age couldn’t keep up with the number of mistresses he maintains, either financially or physically. Somehow Krieger manages to do both.” A broad smile crinkled his eyes. “For that alone, I would respect him.” He opened the Jaguar’s door, reached inside and brought out a thin manila envelope.

  Joachim accepted the envelope, then lifted the flap and shook the contents out into his hand. A dozen color 35-millimeter pictures filled his palm. Two people, a man and a woman, were featured predominantly. Both were young and looked affluent.

  “That’s his son, Christian, and his favorite mistress, Marina. Remind Paul that I don’t want to hurt him because that would keep him from paying his debt. However, his son and mistress are expendable.”

  Remembering again why he wanted to get away from Günter and why he was willing to betray the man to get it done, Joachim shoved the pictures back into the envelope and put the envelope inside his jacket. “All right.”

  Chapter 10

  Athena Academy for the Advancement of Women

  Outside Athens, Arizona

  “It’s bigger than I thought,” Elle said as they crested the foothills of the White Tank Mountains and she saw Athena Academy for the first time. The approach view from Script Pass, the road that led out of Athens to the school, was breathtaking with the four-thousand-foot-tall mountains in the background. “Even after your descriptions and the courses you said you took here, I never imagined the school would be this big.”

  “It’s big,” Sam agreed. “But part of that is because the campus is spread out.”

  Mesmerized by the school, Elle studied buildings. What Sam said was true: the campus was spread out and nearly all of the buildings were only a single story tall.

  “The main building holds twenty classrooms in the middle section,” Sam said. “We’ll be meeting Allison and Alex in one of the offices on the right side of them later.” She pointed out the two-story auditorium on the far end.

  In addition to the classrooms, the campus included a horse stable with an accompanying riding ring, several athletic fields, and tennis and bask
etball courts.

  “The gymnasium is incredible,” Sam went on. “Growing up here after all those foster homes was like being forced to live at Disney World. I love the horses and the pool. I spent most of my free time there. And in the dojos.”

  “Tory told me that the school administration had to recruit instructors to teach Sam different disciplines,” Riley said. “Then she became an instructor. She still conducts specialty classes.”

  Elle heard the pride in his voice.

  “She learns martial arts quickly,” Riley said. “In fact, she picks up a lot of muscle memory techniques fast.”

  Was the double entendre in that claim intentional? Elle wondered.

  Sam colored but didn’t say anything.

  Oh, yes. Elle saw Sam glance at her self-consciously in the mirror and smiled sweetly. That was intentional.

  Riley drove blithely, as if he were totally innocent.

  If it weren’t for the mystery involving Tuenis Meijer and the parents she and Sam had never known, Elle would have enjoyed her sister’s discomfiture even more.

  “Before Athena Academy was a school,” Sam said into the silence that suddenly filled the Suburban, “it was a health spa.”

  “By that,” Riley put in, “Sam means that the rich and famous came here or sent family members here for detox or psych evals and treatment.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Sam said. “This is a school now. There are a lot of new buildings and facilities.”

  As she scanned the surrounding foothills, Elle saw horseback riders in the ring and students playing tennis on the courts and walking between the buildings.

  “Farther up in the hills,” Sam said, “there are rifle ranges and combat pistol courses.”

  “Is that a challenge?” Elle asked.

  “For me, yes.” Sam grinned. “For you, I’ll reserve some time at the dojo.”

  Riley followed the road into the circular drive in front of the main buildings. They took one of the few parking spaces out front.

  Gratefully, Elle climbed out of the Suburban and stretched her legs. After two days cooped up, first in the safe house and then on the airplane, she felt tense and tired. She needed to run and stretch.