by Trevor Scott
“What happened,” Anna said, concerned.
“It was a set-up,” he said. “Emil and two friends. That fuckin’ concierge.” Jake turned and saw the three men at the corner of Emil’s kiosk. One man now had a gun at his side. “Let’s go. We gotta move.”
Pulling her toward the Metro stop, Jake rushed to the steps, the two of them hand-in-hand, jumping down two steps at a time. Down at the bottom and into the station platform, Jake could feel a rush of air and hear a train approaching. He pulled Anna toward the end of the platform so they would be on the first car.
The train pulled in, the doors opened, and before Jake and Anna got inside, he saw the three men coming down the stairs. They would also make the train.
Moments later the train’s doors closed and it pulled away. Jake wasn’t entirely familiar with the train route, but knew when they got out the men would see them and do the same. Standing and holding onto a bar, Jake looked above the train door for a route map. Opera. Oktogon. There. It came to him. The Szechenyi Furdo stop. He had been there before. The Szechenyi Baths. But he had no intention of going to the baths. It was what was near there that made the most sense. He noticed a few people on the train had ice skates.
“Jake,” Anna said, her arm around his waist. Her eyes looked down to the train floor. Blood was dripping there from his arm.
Jake held onto the metal bar with his stabbed arm and grasped the wound on his arm with his right hand. Then he stepped onto his blood on the floor to cover it. “Damn it. That means there’s a hole in my leather jacket.”
“Very funny. It looks bad.”
“Listen, look at the map above. We’re going to the Szechenyi Furdo stop. The second to the last on this line. I’ve got an idea.”
She nodded her head.
A few minutes later they reached their stop. Jake noticed the stairs were toward the front of the train. Good. They wouldn’t have to pass the men.
Jake hurried out, Anna at his heels, and they rushed up the stairs. Behind them, Jake saw the three men shoving their way through people to take up chase. He thought about simply pulling his gun once they got to the top of the stairs. They’d have the high ground and the obvious advantage. But with all the people making their way up the stairs, someone would take a stray shot.
Instead, at the top of the stairs, Jake took off in a fast run across an open area toward a brightly lit area. The closest buildings were more than a block away. The Szechenyi Baths were to the north, Vajdahunyad Castle within that complex just to the south of the baths, and, he knew, adjacent to that at this time of year was a huge pond frozen and turned into a public skating rink.
Anna seemed to sense where Jake was heading, her strides keeping up with his easily.
The first bullet whizzed by, the sound coming a microsecond later. Jake and Anna came to a road. They didn’t stop, weaving through the traffic, cars honking and skidding to a halt. Ignoring that, they kept on running, the skating rink just ahead over a small rise. They were now running through four inches of crunchy snow.
The second bullet hit a tree. Jake pulled his gun and yanked Anna behind the large oak. Cars honked as the three men made their way across the road. Jake shot once toward the three men. They stopped suddenly and looked for cover, but they were pretty much in the open. They only found a few naked bushes to scoot behind. The man returned fire with two shots. They hit the tree with a thud.
“We can’t stay here,” Anna said. She now had her gun out, had taken two shots, and her eyes searched for a better location. Looking toward the skating rink a hundred meters away, the bright lights were blinding. Turning back, she said, “Damn, Jake. I’m glad you’re on my side. They’re blinded as they look at us, but we’ve got a great view of them in the light.”
“Right. I just hoped it had been cold enough in the past few weeks to freeze the pond. Seeing the people with skates, I knew it had to be open.”
Another bullet smashed into the tree.
Suddenly sirens approached from the south, their wailing getting closer.
“Do you know your Budapest counterparts in Interpol?” Jake asked her.
“Not well,” she said. “And I sure as hell have no reason to be here pulling my weapon.”
Neither did Jake. He couldn’t explain either gun. His permit was for Austria. “Then you better get going. We’ll have to split up.” Sliding around the edge of the tree, Jake shot twice and pulled back behind the tree trunk.
“Where do we meet up?”
“Go around the outside of the ice rink. There’s a path around the castle to the Baths. Wait in the trees for me to show up.”
“And if you don’t?” Her face was filled with incertitude.
“I’ll be there,” he said. “They won’t stay here long with the police coming.” He thought for a moment, hoping his logic would hold. “Go,” he yelled at her.
She ran across an open area toward the ice rink. As she did, Jake shot a few more times slowly, giving her time to run.
Two more shots came his way.
Jake shot again and then tried to remember how many shots he had taken.
As it was, he didn’t have time to think about that. He could see two cop cars wind around the square. Glancing around the tree, he saw the three men take off toward the Metro stop. Jake shoved his gun in his holster and casually walked toward the ice rink.
He never looked back toward the police cars.
Fifteen minutes later, Jake walked cautiously toward the front entrance to the Szechenyi Baths. It was the largest complex of spa baths in Europe, built in the late 1800s in a Neo-Baroque style.
People came and went through the entrance, and Jake lingered there for a moment, his gaze cast across an open area to a group of low trees. Having time to think, he now felt the pain from his knife wound in his left arm. He guessed the bleeding must have stopped, even with his constant movement. That was a good sign. It couldn’t have been as bad as he first thought.
Movement at the trees. Anna walked slowly toward him, her eyes still concerned, shifting from side to side to scan for the shooters. Breathing through her mouth, her frozen breath billowed out to him as she stepped up to him and kissed him on both cheeks.
“You’re shaking,” Jake said, his hands rubbing her arms.
“I’ve never been shot at before.”
He smiled. “You haven’t been hanging around with me very long.”
“Very funny.” She gently touched his left arm. “How’s this? We need to get you to a doctor.”
Jake glanced about the street, thinking of their current situation. Now he was pissed off. Happened every time someone took a shot at him, his adrenalin coursing through his body.
A few cars came and went from the front of the Baths, dropping off people and picking them up.
When a cab came and did the same with two older men, Jake said, “Come on.” He pulled Anna toward the cab. “I have a first aid kit in my car.”
13
It was 284 kilometers from Prague to Vienna. On a good day with light traffic and good weather, the drive would take two and a half hours. Miko had made the drive once a couple of years ago in two hours. But that was crazy driving and Miko had grown to his current age, forty-five, by not taking risks like that anymore. So, the drive with Jiri in the front passenger seat and Grago sleeping in the back had taken three hours.
The dark Skoda cruised now along the Opern Ring in Vienna, the State Opera coming up on the left.
“She never misses the opera,” Miko said. He turned right on the next road. He’d have to drive around the block and set up the car on an avenue facing the front of the opera house. That way they could see the woman’s Audi A8 limo pull up to whisk her away.
“Are you sure the president won’t be with her tonight?” Jiri asked.
Miko turned right again and drove slowly. “Two reasons, my friend. First, he’s attending a performance of the Boys Choir with the president of Argentina, followed by the obligatory viewing of the Lipizzaner h
orses. And second, the opera tonight is Carmen. The president hates French opera more than the French.”
“Good for him,” Grago said from the back seat.
“Hey, you’re with us back there,” Miko said, viewing him in the rearview mirror, and then turning right again. There just ahead was the State Opera House, the lights from outside shining up on the front of the Baroque façade.
“Should we talk with Conrad before we kidnap the president’s wife?” Jiri asked nervously.
Miko thought about that and pulled over to the curb in a no parking zone. “Did the Teutonic Knights ask the Grand Master for permission before they acted? No.”
Grago rubbed his face and then combed his hair with his fingers. “Jiri has a point, though. This could be a huge problem. We would have every member of the Staatpolizei, the army, and every intelligence organization in Austria looking for us.”
Miko had to admit they had a good point. “What do you suggest, Grago?”
“Simple. We have a friend inside. He can look up Albrecht’s financials. His Visa. His Eurocard. Check his bank accounts and look for activity. We could find him that way.”
Squeezing down on the steering wheel, Miko lowered his head and closed his eyes. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
Grago patted Miko on the shoulder. “That’s why I was the goalie and you were the enforcer.”
Looking over his shoulder, Miko said, “Right. That’s why they call you the Butcher of Prague. . .and why you just killed an innocent bartender and two of Albrecht’s security guards.”
Grago shrugged. “Different times, my friend.”
Miko pulled out his cell phone and punched in a series of numbers. A local call. Their man would be at home now, but still had access to his computer. Once that was done, and their man agreed to look into it, Miko tried calling Hermann Conrad. No answer. That was strange.
●
At that same moment in Budapest, Jake Adams sat behind the wheel of his Volkswagen Golf TDI, the engine purring and the heater working to keep them warm, Jake’s eyes concentrating on the apartment a block away. They were a couple of blocks off of Attila Ut, a main street on the west bank of the Danube just below the Castle District. Anna had done an outstanding job patching up his arm with materials from his car first aid kit.
“Thanks again for the arm,” Jake said to Anna.
“No problem. That liquid bandage works great.”
“I’ve been using super glue for years,” Jake said, his arm raised. “Now they boost the price and call it a band aid. Amazing marketing job.” He noticed she had settled down somewhat from the time they left the Baths in the cab, while they picked up his car, and through the bandaging.
“You think he’ll go right to bed?” Anna asked.
Moments ago they had watched the concierge, Viktor Kopari, walk from the bus stop on Attila Ut to his apartment complex, his stride more confident than his speech had been at the Hilton hours ago. Of course that had been before the shooting, Jake knew.
“Maybe not bed,” Jake said. “But he’ll be in the shower. Let’s go find out.”
He turned off the car and the two of them headed toward the apartment. Jake had checked out the place on the second floor before Kopari had arrived. The door was thin and the lock was flimsy. When they got to the door, Jake could hear soft music, drowned out by the shower.
“Told ya,” Jake whispered. He swiveled around, took a step back, and blasted the door with his right foot. The wood splintered and the door burst inward.
Anna was able to close the door, but it wouldn’t lock.
Guns drawn, the two of them slipped through the apartment, Anna to the kitchen and Jake toward the sound of the shower in the back.
Seconds later, Jake led Viktor Kopari to the living room at gunpoint, completely naked, and the man’s non-existent penis trying to fight it out with his balls back up into his bowels.
Anna, her gun on the man, tried to concentrate on the man’s face.
Jake shoved Kopari to the sofa. “Might want to get him something to cover what little he has,” he said, shifting his head at Anna toward the bedroom. She left the two men there.
Kopari had not said a word. It was as if he expected them there.
“So, you send us to see your friend Emil on Vaci Street,” Jake said, his gun swishing from side to side. “Then you call Emil and have him and a couple of his goons try to kill us. What’s up with that?”
“You’re dead,” Kopari said, his voice decidedly masculine.
“Is that any way to treat your guests?” Anna said, coming from the back bedroom and throwing a pair of Adidas warm-ups at the man.
Kopari hurried to put them on. Now only his hairy chest, rings in each nipple, was exposed to them.
There was a light knock on the door and Jake and Anna both aimed their guns at the door. Kopari started to get up, but Jake thrust his left foot into the man’s chest sending him back to the sofa, his breath taken away. Kopari, in great agony, rolled to his side and grasped his chest with both arms.
Jake slid his gun into his holster and zipped up his leather jacket on his way to the door. His foot six inches from the door, Jake opened it and peered at an old woman, her hair in a net, and her tiny, hunched frail frame covered by a robe. He knew exactly three phrases in Hungarian. ‘Fuck you!’ ‘I don’t want to buy that.’ And, ‘get lost.’ He used the third one and kept the first in spare. She took the hint and left. Jake closed the door and went back to Kopari, who had recovered somewhat.
“Now, where were we?” Jake said. He decided to keep his gun inside his jacket.
“Fuck you!” Kopari said in Hungarian.
See, Jake knew that. “No, you’d like that too much. Let’s talk about your friend Emil and why they wanted to kill us.”
Switching to English, Kopari said, “I said you’re a dead man.”
“I know that. I just want to know why I’m a dead man. You gotta give me that.”
Kopari didn’t say a word.
Jake wandered around the back of the sofa. “Nice place you have here, Mr. Concierge. I know you’re in it up to your ass with Miko and Jiri and now Emil, but I’m wondering why.” Reaching around the man, Jake grasped Kopari’s chin with his left hand, pulling his head back, and then planted his right hand on the man’s right nipple ring and twisted. Kopari tried to scream, but with his head thrust back all that came out was a gurgling sound.
Reaching up with his arms, Kopari grabbed onto Jake’s arms. Jake twisted the nipple ring and it came out in his hand, along with a chunk of skin. Kopari let go, the pain on his face evident as the nipple trickled blood onto his chest.
Jake threw the nipple ring across the room, switched hands, his right hand now pulling back the man’s neck, and his left hand twisted Kopari’s hand back by his pinkie and ring finger to the point of breaking.
Anna, her gun now at her side, winced in pain right along with the man.
Kopari’s neck looked like it would burst, his face as red as the blood flowing on his chest hair.
“You can make this a lot easier,” Jake said. “I need to find your friends Jiri and Miko. Just tell me what I want to know and you can keep your other nipple ring.” Jake lowered his head next to the man’s right ear. “Along with your life. Is it worth that?”
“They’ll kill me,” he said.
Simultaneously, Jake pressed down with his thumb and forefinger on Kopari’s neck, while he twisted his finger back until his pinkie snapped. The man tried to scream again, but all that came out of his mouth was foaming spittle.
Anna had actually flinched when the finger broke.
“Now, Viktor,” Jake said. “You still have one nipple and nine fingers. I’ve got all night. No place to go.”
The man nodded his head, his eyes wild with pain.
Jake released the man’s neck, reached down and pulled Kopari’s right arm back like the left one, and waited. He spilled his guts, Anna having to put her gun in its holster so she could write
down everything he said. Thirty minutes later, Kopari assured them that was all he knew. Considering the pain he had to be in, Jake believed him.
They left him in his apartment around midnight and got back to the car. Jake drove away. Anna was silent. He could feel the pain in his arm throbbing, but didn’t want to take anything right now. He would need the pain to keep him awake.
Finally, Anna said, “Remind me not to piss you off.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry about that. . .I didn’t have time to fuck around with him. Besides, the moment he called Emil he had to know. . . .”
“What?”
“He tried to have us killed, Anna.”
She let out a deep sigh. “I’m not mad, Jake. I’ve just never seen anybody do that to anyone else. I’m sorry, too. I should be more professional. We just can’t do things like that in Interpol.”
“That’s why they hired me,” he said, knowing that was probably one of the best reasons, along with his intelligence and security experience. “Also why they sent you on a covert Christmas vacation. Desperate times.”
“You’re right,” she said. “I don’t know if I could do it, though.”
“Listen,” he said. “You pulled the trigger tonight. Many people freeze in a shoot out.”
She seemed to smile with that thought. “I had never shot at anyone before tonight. A lot of firsts for me.”
“You did great,” he said, taking her hand in his and holding it tight.
“Thank you.”
Jake pulled his hand back to downshift at a light.
She said, “Do you think we should call the local Interpol office and have our friend The Concierge picked up? I mean, he could call Miko and Jiri and warn them.”
Jake laughed. “I’m counting on it. I want those bastards looking over their shoulders twenty-four seven. Still, they won’t see me coming.”
Now she reached over and took his hand.
●
The Concierge stood before his kitchen sink rinsing his nipple, and then placing a band aid over the small torn skin. Then he went to the freezer and pulled out a tray of ice, wrapped some in a towel and wound that around his left hand. He shook his head. Damn it. He had broken the same finger playing hockey when he was eighteen. That game against Canada. Canadians, Americans, they’re all the same—a bunch of brutal goons. No finesse.
