G 8

by Mike Brogan

  “Where’d he intercept it?”

  “Dusseldorf. When he heard we’re interested in pictographs, he faxed it over. I’ll get it to Maccabee Singh.”

  “Good idea.”

  “But we’re damned lucky, Donovan!”

  “I know. She can translate Sumerian!”

  “Yeah that, but we’re also lucky because the Verizon guy fixed her phones this morning.”

  Donovan spilled his scotch. “Did you say Verizon?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “I saw a Comcast phone bill on Singh’s desk!”

  Director Madigan paused, cleared his throat. “You think the Verizon guy’s dirty?”

  “I think he probably bugged her phone!”

  Madigan cleared his throat. “So they know she just translated the message.”

  Donovan’s heart pounded. “She’s in danger!”

  “I’ll call her – ”

  “No, They’ll hear! I’ll call her cell phone.”

  “Do it!” Director Madigan said. “You have any agents near her?”

  Donovan had to think. “One guy maybe six minutes away.”

  “Send him. I’ll send people too.”

  They hung up. Donovan pulled out a scrap of paper with Maccabee’s cell phone number and dialed.

  The phone rang and he was bounced into voice mail. He left her a ‘get out of the apartment fast’ message. Then he called Special Agent Pete Carvell, a smart, tough, case officer at the Plaza Hotel. No answer. He tried Pete’s pager and waited, gulping more scotch as he stared down at the Atlantic waves.

  Seconds later, Carvell phoned him back. Donovan explained and Carvell raced off toward her apartment.

  As Donovan hung up, the Gulfstream dipped, then hit heavy turbulence. Some of his second double scotch spilled on his tray. He wiped it up and started to ask the steward for a refill. Then he paused and stared at his glass.

  He’d been drinking too damn much. His nasty little secret. The heavy drinking started right after Emma’s murder and tended to get heavier when things came down hard on him. Things like the death of Benny Ahrens, and the death of Sohan Singh, and the lack of time he was spending with Tish, and now, the concern he had for Maccabee. He had to ease up on the sauce. Especially in the next few days.

  He pushed the glass away.

  The phone rang. He checked Caller ID. Director Madigan.

  “Verizon sent no one to her apartment building today or this month.”

  Donovan tried to swallow, but couldn’t.

  “Where’s your case officer?”

  “Maybe… four minutes away.”

  They hung up. Donovan turned and stared down at the waves curling atop the ocean seven miles below. He realized he had one more option. The apartment phone. Even though it was probably tapped, he could tell her to leave immediately. Maybe she could get out before they got to her.

  He dialed the number. No one answered.

  * * *

  Maccabee wiped perspiration from her eyes as she jogged on the treadmill in the exercise room off her father’s bedroom. She thought of the many hours her father had jogged on this treadmill, how his doctor told him he was in excellent shape, had no serious health problems, and would probably live into his nineties.

  Then came the bullet.

  She hoped the running would ease her stress a bit. She cranked up her pace and the volume on her iPod earphones and listened to Addicted to Love. She liked the song, even though it always reminded her that she’d once been addicted to love.

  Love lost!

  His name was Andrew. Four weeks before their wedding, he disappeared from her life.

  Like her father just disappeared. She still couldn’t believe he was dead. She would miss him terribly. Her daily chats with him. His guidance, his encouragement, his suggestions, his warnings. He was the kindest man she’d ever known. He would want her to help Donovan, but also to be safe.

  She was helping Donovan. And she was safe, since only Director Madigan and Donovan knew she was translating.

  She thought she heard the apartment phone ringing. But then she always thought the phone was ringing when iPod music was pounding in her ears.

  * * *

  Milan Slavitch stepped into the empty hall of the fifth floor. Classy building. Thick, plush carpeting. Oil paintings in gold frames. Fancy chandeliers. The place smelled rich.

  Sometimes he wondered how he would have turned out if he’d grown up in fancy joint like this… instead of the Orphanage From Hell in Sarajevo.

  Slavitch remembered that cesspool every day, the sewer smells, the rats crawling into his bed at night, the same rats who’d eaten some toes off screaming two-year-old Josif while the fat supervisor, Gernisa, drank his vodka in the next room. The same Gernisa who’d raped eleven-year-old Anna until she committed suicide five years later.

  But Slavitch helped Gernisa pay for his sins. Slavitch remembered fondly the night he swung the crowbar into Gernisa’s fat head over and over until it looked like a steamroller ran over it.

  The elevator dinged open and Slavitch ducked into a small alcove. A man got off and walked the opposite direction. But then he stopped in the hall and talked on his cell phone. Finally, two minutes later the guy entered an apartment.

  Slavitch walked down to Singh’s door. He smiled when he saw the lock had not been changed. Quickly, he inserted the same key he’d used the other night. He pulled out his silenced Beretta, opened the door and stepped inside. He looked toward the study where he’d greased her old man. No one there. No TV on. Maybe she’d gone out. If so, he’d just wait for her.

  Then he heard something. A machine running, shoes hitting a hard surface. A treadmill maybe.

  He turned and walked toward the sound. He looked into the master bedroom and heard someone in an adjoining room, running. He glimpsed the shadow of a female jogger. Young and curvaceous.

  Just the way he liked them.

  * * *

  Agent Pete Carvell slammed on his Chevy brakes and blasted his horn at the stalled Allied Van Lines semi-trailer blocking all traffic at Columbus Circle. Carvell drove his Impala up onto the sidewalk and raced ahead. Two hundred yards later, he was blocked again, this time by construction scaffolding.

  “SHIT!” he shouted as he jumped out and sprinted down Central Park West.

  He heard a traffic cop shouting for him to come back and move his car.

  He kept running. Her apartment was still several blocks ahead.

  * * *

  Milan Slavitch stepped into the bedroom, walked over and peeked through the door of the exercise room. A wall mirror gave him a partial view of her. Nice, long legs, gleaming with perspiration. Real wraparounds. Nice melons, too. Nice everything. Her smooth, tawny skin reminded him of Hala, a seventeen-year-old hooker he had his way with one night in Kosovo.

  Slavitch’s gaze crept slowly down Maccabee Singh’s firm, glistening body.

  He felt himself getting aroused.

  Hey, nobody said he couldn’t have some fun.

  * * *

  Pete Carvell sprinted into the lobby of the apartment building and flashed his ID badge at the confused concierge.

  “Singh apartment?”

  “Fifth floor, 502.”

  Carvell hurried to the elevator, pushed the button and saw the car was up on Eleven.

  Cursing his luck, he ran to the stairwell.

  He took out his Glock, ran up the steps two at a time, and moments later, gasping for breath, yanked open the door to the fifth floor. He dashed down to 502 and turned the knob. Unlocked. Bad sign.

  He moved into the foyer and looked around. No one.

  Then he saw it. A large shoe imprint on a plush carpet. To the left, he heard a machine running. He moved silently toward the sound, trying to hush his breathing. He peered through the crack in the bedroom door.

  No one.

  Then a long thin shadow inched across the wall.

  The shadow of a handgun with suppressor.

  C
arvell spun into the bedroom, surprising a large, thick-shouldered man standing beside the door to the exercise room. The man swung his gun around toward Carvell.

  “Drop it NOW!” Carvell shouted.

  “Yeah, yeah, okay!”

  Then, with amazing speed, the big man leapt sideways and fired off two shots as Carvell dove beside the bed. The bullets missed Carvell by inches and split off chunks of the wooden bedpost.

  Carvell crawled to the far end of the bed, leaned out and fired twice. The first bullet entered the man’s left eye, the second, his heart area. The big man froze, swayed a bit, then collapsed to the floor.

  Keeping his gun on the man, Carvell reached down and yanked the Beretta from his fingers and then a small pistol from an ankle holster. The man’s remaining eye was locked open. Carvell couldn’t detect a pulse. He was gone. And so was any chance of learning who sent him here, or who was behind this attempt.

  Carvell stepped over the large pool of blood and moved to the door of the exercise room. The treadmill was still running, but there was no sight of Maccabee.

  “Ms. Singh?”

  Silence.

  “Ma’am, if you’re in there, you’re safe now. I’m Agent Pete Carvell. I work with Donovan Rourke. He realized your phones were tapped and you were in danger right after you phoned Director Madigan. Are you okay?”

  No response.

  “Ma’am… ?”

  Then a faint whisper, “Yes.”

  “It’s safe now.”

  She stepped tentatively from the exercise room, glanced down at the bloody body and turned away.

  Carvell could see she was frightened and shaky. He eased her from the bedroom to a chair in the foyer.

  “Is he the Verizon man you saw this morning?”

  She nodded.

  “We should leave. Others may show up when he fails to report in.”

  “Give me a minute….”

  * * *

  Maccabee shut her bedroom door and leaned against it, her body trembling faster than her pulse. A man had been seconds from murdering her… and would have if Donovan hadn’t put it all together.

  Donovan was right. She was in a game of life and death. A game she was not prepared for. Should she get out now? Leave this to the professionals?

  Or should she help with the translations her father gave his life for?

  She sat on the side of the bed as her eyes filled with tears.

  NINE

  This jerkwad actually thinks he’s turning into a Dutch elm! Nikko Nikolin thought. Is he nuts?

  Nikko loved the Jerry Springer Show. He probably watched it too much, but hey, the guests were so weird they made him feel normal.

  What wasn’t normal was that Milan had not returned from Maccabee Singh’s apartment. He’d been gone for over an hour and hadn’t phoned in. Milan always phoned in.

  I better go check things out.

  Minutes later, as he approached the Singh apartment building, he saw the flashing lights of an ambulance and two cop cars. He relaxed, realizing Milan had nailed her and was probably lying low until the cops left.

  The apartment building entrance opened and attendants rolled out a gurney with a covered body. Mission accomplished! As the gurney bounced down the steps, an arm flopped out.

  A thick, muscular arm tattooed with a Slovakian flag!

  Milan! Dead!

  Jesus! This is in-fucking-credible!

  Nikko felt like he’d been whacked upside the head. He must be hallucinating. He leaned against a street pole and sucked air into his lungs.

  Milan dead! No way this could happen! Milan was a pro. Always delivered. For seven years, time after time, he’d delivered dead bodies like the US Mail delivered junk mail. Nikko couldn’t believe it.

  More EMS people walked inside. Maybe Milan killed her. Maybe a second gurney would roll out.

  He hurried over to the ambulance attendant, a fat blond guy with silver ear studs and a nasty harelip.

  “My sister lives here. Any more bodies up there?”

  “No. Just this man. That your sister over there?” The attendant pointed at a police car. Nikko turned and saw Maccabee Singh in the back seat talking with a cop and another guy wearing a suit.

  She’s alive! Simon Bennett would go ape-shit! Nikko walked into a nearby alley, flipped open his cell phone and dialed Bennett’s private number.

  “I told you not to call this number!”

  “Milan’s dead and Maccabee’s alive!”

  Bennett cursed for several seconds.

  “Where is she?”

  “Here.”

  “Handle her. Fast!” The line went dead.

  TEN

  DUSSELDORF, GERMANY

  Katill scraped Anna’s fresh blood from beneath his fingernails.

  She’d bled from her mouth just seconds after he gave her a whiff of Novichok, a delightfully lethal nerve gas. Just one quick inhale and her eyes shot wide open in fear, then, as expected, she began to shake, gasp and bleed out, and then eighteen seconds later, she died.

  He wiped the blood off his X-ACTO blade and put it back in its sheath.

  Of course, Anna would have died soon anyway. From starvation, just like the seven other stray alley cats he’d tested Novichok on.

  Novichok was the little known, instant death Russian chemical weapon that could be inhaled or absorbed through the skin. It even passed through most masks and human protective gear. The perfect weapon. Just one of many in his arsenal.

  Valek Stahl, born Valek Stahl, but also known as Axel Braun, Horst Speerman and other aliases, walked to his window and looked down at the Rhine River meandering past his penthouse in Dusseldorf’s posh Carlstadt area.

  Beside him, a cell phone rang. An untraceable phone. Only one person had the number. Stahl answered.

  “Herr Braun?”

  “Yes,” Stahl said.

  “Medusa has received its final go-ahead.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Yes indeed.”

  “Upon completion, I’ll expect the additional fifty percent of my fee immediately.”

  “Of course. Wired to the Nevis bank?”

  “No. To my Belize account.”

  “As you wish.”

  Stahl hung up and looked back at the Rhine… flowing as smoothly as Medusa. Stahl was pleased. Not just for the twenty-five million dollars already earning interest in his protected Nevis account, or the additional twenty-five million that would be deposited in a numbered Belize account. Fifty million was appropriate, considering the significance of Medusa.

  The irony was that even if they decided to call off Medusa at the last second, he would complete it anyway. He would even complete it for free. He had his reasons. And money was just one. Besides, he already had more than enough money to live very comfortably for the rest of his life.

  As Stahl stretched his powerful six-foot-three frame, he caught his reflection in the window. He realized the face looking back at him would no longer exist in a few days.

  He checked his watch. It was time to visit his favorite antique dealer. He pulled out a phone directory, found the number for Wolfgang Rutten, and dialed.

  “Antiquitäten Cologne,” Herr Rutten wheezed.

  “How’s the antique business?”

  “Ah, Herr Braun, it’s always better after talking to you.”

  “Can we talk in a couple of hours?”

  “I’ll be waiting.” Herr Rutten sputtered into a coughing fit.

  Stahl hung up, walked over and punched in the combination to his large walk-in wall vault. He stepped inside the safe and took a large black briefcase. He opened it and studied its contents for a few moments, then carried the briefcase from the vault.

  An hour later, with the briefcase on his passenger seat, Stahl drove his BMW 760 onto the autobahn and headed toward Cologne twenty-five kilometers away. He listened to Wagner’s Tannhauser swirl around him. He loved Wagner’s operas, as did one of Stahl’s heroes, Adolph Hitler.

  Stahl
hummed the melody.

  His thoughts turned to Medusa. The most significant jihad in history. Armageddon for the eight major infidel democracies. The world’s most powerful leaders would die horrifically and deservedly for their crimes against Muslims.

  He, Valek Stahl, would exact vengeance against those governments whose immoral occupying armies have desecrated and continued to defile sacred Islamic land. And he would exact revenge against the Israelis who slaughtered his family many years ago.

  In Cologne, he drove toward the gigantic twin spires of the 12th century Cathedral, the Kolner Dom. The Cathedral, despite taking seventy-one hits by Allied bombing in World War II, had remained standing, while every building around it was flattened. He parked down the street from the Cathedral and got out with the black briefcase.

  Stahl walked past the popular Café Reichard, then entered Rutten’s antique shop, tinkling the doorbell. Stale, moldy air filled his nostrils as he looked around the dimly lit room. He strolled down an aisle of dusty antiques that some idiots would pay outrageous amounts of money for.

  Along a back wall he saw a row of antique porcelain dolls. Beside them, World War II German toy soldiers stood next to three Zyklon B canisters, cherished keepsakes of Herr Rutten’s days as a teenage guard at Sobibor.

  In the back of the shop, a door opened, and yellow light spilled out, silhouetting the hunched-over shape of Wolfgang Rutten. He looked even more bent over and decrepit than four months ago. His black cigar drooped from lips that looked like aged veal.

  “Herr Braun, how nice to see you.”

  “Good to see you too, Herr Rutten.”

  Rutten rubbed his bushy eyebrows, then coughed serious phlegm into a blood-smeared handkerchief.

  Stahl opened his suitcase and showed him the contents and the photos. He explained in detail what he wanted.

  “So, can you make this?”

  The old man used a magnifying glass to study the contents and photo more closely.

  “Yes.”

  “Exactly like this?”

  “No problem.”

  “It cannot fail!”

  The old man’s grin revealed flakes of tobacco between his yellowed teeth. “Have I ever let you down before?”