‘Okay?’
‘Yep. He’ll only see the transmitter wire if he goes looking for it.’
Sam opened the portable computer on his lap, waiting for the red dot to appear on the screen which would tell him the tracer was working. It came up a split second before Schenk re-emerged from the hotel with Julie.
‘Well done, Malc. We’re go for launch.’
Harry Jackman’s daughter wore a jacket and skirt and looked drawn and tense. Sam caught her glancing about to see if she could spot him.
The Audi started up and turned onto the Ringstrasse. Malcolm swung the Passat out to follow it. On the roof of the rented car a small additional antenna had been fixed by magnets to pick up the transmissions from the car in front. The lead from it came down through a gap in the window and connected to a small receiver the size of a Walkman. Sam put on a pair of headphones and listened, praying the system would work. Malcolm kept glancing at him to check.
Sam gave a thumbs-up. As they progressed through the evening traffic the signals broke up now and then, which was to be expected. The transmitter taped to the inside of Julie’s jacket was low powered, its output weakened by the metal shell of Schenk’s Audi.
Sam had spent most of the afternoon with Collins planning the operation. The station chief had remained sceptical about a link between Jackman’s cargo and the Brussels virus and was insisting on keeping a diplomatic distance from his activities. He’d offered the assistance of a junior, however, a man who worked for a British bank in Vienna, but freelanced for SIS. According to Collins he was reliable and knew the city well.
The kit they were using was commercial, bought by Malcolm at a ‘spy shop’ that afternoon. Sam had taken it to the Marriott at around eight to wire Julie up. He’d hidden the tiny microphone in the lapel of a dark blue blazer which she’d bought after their lunch together, taping into the lining the slim transmitter box and a credit-card-sized digital recorder that would provide back-up if there was a failure of the radio link. He’d warned her to be careful not to snag the thin wire antenna that hung down the inside of the jacket.
‘Wherever you go, I’ll be right behind you,’ he’d told her, less confident than he sounded. He’d shown her the small black object half the size of a matchbox they would attach to Schenk’s car. ‘It’s a tracer which sends a tiny signal to a satellite.’
‘Will it take my pulse?’ she’d quipped, momentarily allowing humour to lighten her terror.
The car braked suddenly, Malcolm mouthing expletives. A tram had turned at a junction in front of them, cutting them off from the Audi. ‘You have to watch these bastards,’ he hissed. ‘They’ve got priority and they use it.’
Seconds later the headphones died. ‘Now we’ve bloody lost them,’ Sam snapped. Then the traffic lights went red, compounding their problems.
‘Damn!’ Malcolm banged on the wheel.
The notebook computer on Sam’s lap was linked through the car’s cellphone to a satellite terminal in the Embassy. Its glowing screen showed a street map of Vienna. Superimposed was the flashing dot of the tracer. Waiting for the lights to change, Malcolm leaned over to look.
‘He’s going for the Franzen bridge, then towards the Prater,’ he opined, pointing out where he meant. When the lights turned green he jammed his foot down, glancing in the mirror for police cars.
Sam had become anxious about what he was putting Julie through this evening. If Max Schenk discovered that wire, he might not be the gentleman she thought he was. A fresh crackle in the earphones brought some relief. They were getting back in range.
‘. . . taking me . . .’
‘. . . nice and quiet. We can . . .’
Tantalising but useless. Sam loathed so-called hi-tech devices that promised more than they delivered.
‘Catch up, for Christ’s sake,’ he fumed. ‘I’m getting sod all.’
They accelerated past a bus, then braked for a fresh set of lights turning amber.
‘God, you’re no bloody Schumacher, are you?’
‘Look. If the police stop us because I jump a light it’ll be game over,’ Malcolm protested, his hands fidgeting on the wheel.
More headphone crackles.
‘. . . changed your mind?’
Sam winced. Schenk had started to question her.
‘Which way at the Praterstern?’ Malcolm asked, glancing down at the screen then back up at the lights.
Sam checked. ‘Looks like they’ve gone straight ahead.’
‘Show me.’
Sam swung the laptop towards him.
‘Okay. No problem. I know that road. We can still catch them.’ The green came up and he zoomed off.
Collins had been full of praise for Malcolm’s navigational skills that afternoon. Knows Vienna better than the shape of his own wedding tackle was the way he’d put it. He’d better, thought Sam. He’d bloody better.
To their right the sky flashed and flickered with the lights of the amusement park, the spill from them illuminating the cabins of the giant Ferris wheel as it ground slowly round. They were close to where Kovalenko’s corpse had been found that morning. It would have taken two killers to slay a man with a garrotte, Sam had calculated, one to restrain the victim while the other screwed the cutting bolt into his spinal cord. Two people of a very special mindset. The same kind, he realised, as might use a virus to addle a man’s brain.
The trouble was, everything they had was supposition, not fact. The link between Jackman’s death and Kovalenko’s, the connection between Max Schenk and Jackman. And his suspicion about Schenk had weakened after Collins’s enquiries with the Austrian Security Police had turned up nothing on the doctor.
He was due some luck, but tonight they weren’t getting any. The earphones had gone dead again and the tracer dot was streaking away from them. His anxiety began ratcheting up.
‘Bloody move it, Malcolm. If you get booked, I’ll pay the fine.’
‘It’s not the money, Mr Packer, I can assure you of that.’
Malcolm was a nervous driver, hunching over the wheel. He drove with a jerky unevenness that made Sam want to retch. Goaded by the drumming of Sam’s fingers on the dashboard he suddenly swung out to overtake a bus, putting his foot hard down.
Ahead was another junction. More lights. ‘Oh Jesus!’ Sam moaned as they clicked to amber. Malcolm dabbed the brakes, but Sam swore at him and he trod the accelerator again. ‘Good man . . .’ His voice trailed away. Out of the corner of his eye he’d seen a small shape dart from a side street. ‘For fuck’s sake!’
Malcolm swerved, but too late. The motorcyclist skidded, wobbled and banged against their rear wing.
‘Shit!’
Malcolm swung over to the kerb. They looked back. The bike was on its side in the middle of the road, its rider getting gingerly to his feet.
‘He’s okay, Malc,’ Sam insisted, glowering at the laptop and its winking red dot. ‘Forget him. He’s okay . . .’ But he heard the door open and Malcolm sprinting back. ‘Bloody hell!’
He was imagining the worst by now. Schenk’s arm round Julie’s shoulders. A groping hand slipping inside the jacket. The unexpected feel of wires and metal against the back of his fingers . . .
He wrenched open the door. ‘Malcolm!’
A few seconds later the young man was back, checking the rear wing before slipping behind the wheel again.
‘Pissed, thank God,’ Malcolm muttered as he crunched in the gear. ‘Unhurt. And fortunately the bugger thought it was his own fault.’ He accelerated away. ‘Where does the tracer put them?’
‘In Germany,’ Sam snarled. He would have words with Collins later, to tell him Malcolm’s knowledge of his own genitalia was winning hands down.
‘Seriously.’
‘They’ve crossed the Danube already.’
‘Floridsdorf Bridge?’
‘If you say so.’
‘Then I’ve a bloody good idea where they’re headed.’
‘Where’s that?’
&n
bsp; ‘Stammersdorf. It’s a village right on the edge of the city. There’s a street full of Heurigen there. You know, wine taverns. Not like the tourist traps in the Wienerwald. It’s where the locals go for a quiet jug.’
They had no chance of catching up. Schenk was driving fast and had been luckier with the lights. But Malcolm had guessed right. Ten minutes later the red dot ceased moving in Stammersdorf. Three minutes after that they arrived there too, a pretty village whose straight main street was lined with pastel-painted hostelries. Halfway down they spotted the Audi, parked by the kerb and empty. They pulled up near it.
Sam’s nerves were like crushed bamboo by now. They should have been picking up signals from Julie’s wire again, yet they weren’t.They looked up and down the narrow, lamplit street. There were at least half a dozen taverns close by.
‘Any ideas?’ Sam demanded. Malcolm shook his head.
Sam slipped the Walkman-like audio receiver inside his jacket and they began to move, praying for a sudden earphone crackle to tell them they’d got near.
‘Shall I try this one?’ Malcolm suggested, pushing at the door of the first tavern they came to.
‘Might as well.’
Within a couple of seconds he was out again.
‘Closing. And the place was empty.’
The next they came to was the same. Then Malcolm touched Sam’s arm and pointed across the road. The zumphing sounds of an accordion wafted through an archway which formed the entrance to a cream yellow tavern with bottle-glass windows.
‘That one’s got life in it.’
They crossed the road. Beyond the arch was a vine-bedecked, cobbled courtyard set with tables and lit by coloured lights in the trees.
‘Check it out,’ Sam ordered. ‘If Julie’s in there and sees me it’ll put her off her stroke.’
As Malcolm walked in, a waitress came up to him, tapping her watch. ‘Looking for a friend,’ Sam heard him say.
Suddenly he jumped. The headphones had come alive. A male voice, crisp and close, with a strong Germanic accent. Schenk. And he was angry.
‘You tell me on the telephone you have a new thought about us. That you change your mind from last night. But now you say you don’t want to make love. You must explain to me, Julie.’
‘I told you in the car. I just want to talk.’
Sam was extraordinarily relieved to hear Julie’s voice. She seemed okay, if understandably tense.
‘I just felt I should give us another chance,’ she went on, unconvincingly. ‘We’ve been seeing each other for a year, yet I hardly know you. I’ve no idea what you think about a lot of things. We never talk about anything important.’
‘Important? What d’you mean?’
‘Well, personal things. I don’t even know where you live. Is it a house, a flat? Large, small? I know you have a wife called Cara. I know you have children, but you’ve never given me their names or their ages.’
‘These things you have no need to know,’ he answered, icily.
‘You know a lot more about me. Even when we first met, you seemed to know loads already. I’ve no idea how.’
Sam heard a fluffing noise that sounded as if the microphone was being banged.
‘No, Max! Get off me!’
He imagined Schenk trying to remove her blazer.
‘N’ja Julie. Why do you want to know such unimportant things?’ There was a kissing sound and Schenk’s nasally breathing. ‘You enjoy it with me. That’s what matter. I don’t believe you have been pretending when we are in bed.’ Another clunk on the lapel mike. ‘You cannot have all of my life, Julie. A part of me belongs to other people. You know that. It is our understanding.’
More grappling noises, then a squeak of protest.
‘No, Max. I . . . I’ll only have sex with you if you tell me some things I want to know.’
Sam winced. Her commitment to his cause was beginning to astonish him.
‘What things?’ Schenk’s voice had turned into a menacing growl. ‘What is it you want to know?’
‘How you knew so much about me when we first met?’
There was no reply. Somewhere in that room they were in a clock was ticking.
‘Was it from my father?’
Another silence. Even Schenk’s breathing had stopped.
‘Why do you think that?’
‘Oh, because I know he used to talk about me a lot . . . Even to strangers, sometimes.’
If there’d been a pin in that room Sam would have heard it drop.
‘I didn’t meet your father, Julie.’
Sam’s heart sank. Was that it? All over. End of story.
‘Didn’t you?’ Julie persisted. ‘That’s odd. I could have sworn I saw you with him earlier that evening.’
Sam perked up again. She wasn’t giving in easily.
‘Well, you were wrong,’ Schenk told her with a little laugh. ‘What is this game you play with me, Julie? What is it? Mmm? What do you want, you funny little girl?’
More rustling against the microphone. Much more. Then a sharp intake of breath.
‘Hands off, Max. I do not want to go to bed with you.’
‘But I have answered your question.’
‘I don’t know if you were telling the truth.’
Schenk exploded with rage.
‘Get off!’ Julie squealed.
Sam whirled round, trying to use the receiver as a direction finder, but the level was almost constant wherever he pointed it.
‘You play some game this evening. What it is?’ Schenk repeated, gravel voiced.
Sam looked about wildly. Blank walls everywhere. She was only a few paces away yet he didn’t know where.
‘Take me back to the Marriott,’ Julie begged. ‘Please, Max.’
‘Oh no. I don’t take you anywhere yet. We are not finished. Perhaps you don’t understand what we have been doing for the past year.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘I think maybe you have never understood.’
‘I want to go back, Max.’ Julie’s voice was beginning to crack. ‘Please let go of me. I’ll get a taxi.’
‘We are not finished.’
‘Yes, Max. It’s over. I love someone else . . .’
Schenk snorted in surprise. Then he chuckled.
‘Well then, I am happy for you. I too love someone else. But what you and I have done this year, it has never been love.’
‘That’s true.’
‘And we didn’t pretend so.’
‘No.’
‘Because it was just business, yes?’
‘Business?’
‘I give you airplane tickets, clothes, good food and wine, take you to beautiful places. And . . . in return, you give me what I want. It is simple, Julie. We have been like customer and supplier for each other.’
No response. Sam knew what was coming next.
‘And you still owe me for this time, my little Julie.’
‘Look, Max, I’ll pay you for it.’ Her voice trembled. ‘The flight, the dinner, the hotel. I’ll write you a cheque . . .’
All of a sudden Malcolm emerged from the Heurige, shaking his head. ‘Not here,’ he grunted.
Sam held up a hand to silence him. ‘They’re in a bedroom,’ he snapped. ‘Which of these places lets rooms?’
Malcolm peered round looking for ZIMMER FREI signs. ‘I’ll ask inside.’
‘Be quick, for Christ’s sake.’
Sam heard more rustling of clothing near the microphone, then Julie’s voice, much more frightened than before. ‘All right, Max. Fine. We’ll do it. But I have to go to the bathroom first.’
‘No. First I undress you.’
‘I don’t want you to.’
‘It doesn’t matter what you want . . .’ His hiss tailed away suddenly. Then he grunted with surprise. The mike banged and grew muffled, as if fingers had closed over it.
‘What is this?’
‘Please, Max . . .’
Sam heard a slap, then a whimper of prot
est. There were sounds of the jacket being wrenched off.
‘Verdammt!’
Then silence. Total electronic death. Not even a hiss. The antenna or microphone ripped from its socket. Sam’s throat was blocked by a huge lump. He’d promised to protect her.
He began walking, listening for raised voices from behind the windows closest to him. Seconds were ticking away. Soon they’d be minutes and Schenk was doing God knew what to her.
Suddenly there was a bang from the other side of the road. He shot a glance at the tavern opposite. Curtains moved in an upstairs window. A dark-haired head was being shoved back against the glass.
He ran, bursting in through the bottle-glass door. Ignoring the protests of the landlord, he saw some stairs and pounded up them. At the top was a pine-floored landing with a handful of doors. Thumps and muffled sobs came from behind one of them. He tried the handle. Locked, but it gave way to his shoulder.
Inside, it smelled of Schenk’s vile cigar habit. Julie was cowering on the bed, her shirt half off, one small and vulnerable breast pulled free from the bra. Schenk was whipping her, her handbag bunched in his fist like a lash. At the sound of Sam’s entry he lurched round, face white with rage and fear. Then he flung the bag at Sam’s head and barged towards the door.
Sam ducked low and went in with a tackle, but Schenk showed a surprising agility and twisted from his grip, hammering both fists down. Sam staggered from the blow to his head. By the time he could steady himself, Schenk was out of the room.
Sam grabbed Julie by the shoulders, mouthing apologies. Her face was red with slap marks, her lower lip split and bleeding. Eyes locked shut, her body shook with sobs. He pulled her shirt back on, then held her in his arms and hugged her.
And it had all been for nothing. The secret of Harry Jackman’s damnable deal was as obscure as ever.
He heard feet on the stairs. The landlord appeared at the door.
‘N’ja. Was geht los hier?’
‘Can you walk?’ Sam asked. Julie nodded. ‘Then let’s get out of here.’ He draped the torn blazer over her shoulders, then gathered up her bag and the pieces of bugging equipment that lay scattered on the floor.
Malcolm was at the foot of the stairs as he helped her down. ‘Schenk came crashing out of the place like a mad bull,’ he announced breathlessly.
The Lucifer Network Page 29
