Without Options

by Trevor Scott

  Their greeting at the front door security wasn’t overly pleasant. Toni figured part of that had to do with it being Sunday. A young man in his mid-twenties escorted the two of them into a conference room deep within the newer building on the BND complex. There they were offered a cup of coffee and made to wait. She guessed they were being watched and listened to, but saw no camera. She informed Franz to let her do all the talking. The Germans only allowed Franz into the complex on Toni’s insistence.

  The thick wood door opened and a man in his forties stepped in, followed by their younger escort.

  “Martin Mayer,” the man said, extending his hand to each of them. He pronounced his first name ‘Marteen.’ He reminded Toni of Tom Selleck, only a foot shorter and lacking his musculature. He did have the thick black mustache, though.

  They shook all around and then the young man stood in the corner while Herr Mayer sat at the head of the table, picking up a remote control.

  “How may I help you?” Mayer asked, his eyes directed more toward Franz than Toni.

  Toni quickly explained in English how they were seeking one of their assets, Jake Adams, and hoped for German cooperation.

  Mayer smiled continuously as Toni talked. “I met Jake a few years back,” Mayer said. “He was speaking on counter terrorism at Oberammergau. An interesting man. But I guess I don’t need to tell you that.”

  This guy was fishing, Toni guessed. “Right. He was with the CIA and spent many years in Germany. I’m sure you’re aware of that.” She figured he already knew this about Jake.

  “Do you know that Interpol has a Red Notice out on him?” Mayer asked derisively.

  “Yes, we’re working on getting that lifted. They had no right to issue that notice.”

  Mayer released air through his nose. “He killed a man in Austria. He beat a German Polizei officer in Garmish, a family man who was just doing his job.”

  Franz interjected. “He killed that Serb in self defense.” He covered his mouth and coughed into his clenched fist. “They were hit men sent to kill Jake.”

  “And our Polizei officer?”

  Toni placed her hand on Franz’s arm and said, “The Red Notice is for the death of the Serb in Austria. You have no evidence that Jake did anything to the German Polizei officer. Coffee in the crotch makes for an unreliable witness.”

  The BND officer stared at Toni trying to intimidate her, but he obviously didn’t know her at all, she thought. This puke couldn’t intimidate a Southern debutante. She didn’t want to tip her hand, but she also wanted to leave with some information and the hope of cooperation from German Intel. To do so she’d have to play the diplomat, much like she was forced to do while the station chief in Vienna.

  “All right,” she said. “I need your help. Mr. Adams is an important Agency asset.”

  “With a million Euro price on his head,” Mayer interrupted.

  “So you know,” Franz said, and saw Toni’s staunch gaze upon him, shutting him down.

  “Of course we know, Herr Martini,” Mayer sneered in German. “We also know you are dying from cancer and are on medical leave. So. . .is your presence here on official Austrian State Polizei business, or is this personal for you?”

  Franz started to rise in his chair but Toni settled him back down with a hand against his chest. Under his breath, Franz called the German a whore-screwing pig in Italian. Toni smiled at that. Her father had used that phrase many times while watching football on the television.

  “Okay,” Toni started. “Herr Martini is working for me as a liaison.” She switched to German and said, “Now, can we cut through the bullshit and get to the business at hand? I know you’ve gotten a call from the director of our CIA, because he assured me you would cooperate fully with our investigation. Do you understand my German?”

  The BND officer shifted in his chair and seemed to have broken out in a slight sprinkling of sweat. “Yes,” he said reluctantly. He was back with English.

  “Well, come on,” she said. “We’re burning daylight.”

  Mayer glanced at his young associate, who hit the lights. They were in total darkness for a split second until an LCD panel that filled much of the far wall came on, with photographs of a man on a train platform. The man’s head was down, but Toni still recognized Jake. Others would’ve had a tough time, though. The next couple of slides were equally obscured. Jake knew he was being photographed.

  “Who is that?” Toni asked.

  “Jake Adams.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  Mayer hit pause and clicked his remote. Sound above was of a phone conversation between a man and a woman. It was cryptic, the man asking for a ride, and the woman calling the man her cousin.

  “The voice matches Jake Adams from his lectures,” Mayer explained.

  “And the woman?” Toni already knew the answer.

  Hesitating, Mayer finally said. “An asset of ours.”

  “Where was this?” she asked.

  “That’s the main Pullach Bahnhof. Yesterday.”

  “The woman,” Toni repeated with more force.

  Without answering, Mayer clicked another button and the photo of Jake switched to a video clip of Jake coming out of an apartment, a backpack over his shoulder, following a pretty woman. He threw the pack in the back seat of a black BMW and the two of them drove off. The camera followed them down the street and then the BMW sped up and evaded. Good driving, Toni thought.

  The video stopped and the lights came on.

  “When was that?” Toni asked.

  “Just hours ago. And I’m sure you recognize the woman. She worked with you a few years ago in Vienna when you were the station chief there.”

  “I thought she looked familiar,” Toni said, no shock in her voice. “But her hair was a different color. So, why do you have one of your own under surveillance?”

  That caught the BND officer for a moment. “We thought she might be in some kind of trouble.”

  Okay, that was a total line of crap, Toni thought. But then she wouldn’t have told him about an internal investigation at the Agency either. No need to push the issue.

  “Where are they now?” she asked him.

  “We don’t know.”

  “No GPS tracking? Maybe an RFID embedded under her skin somewhere, being picked up by Autobahn scanners like some Big Brother grocery store check-out line?”

  Mayer’s eyes raised to the ceiling, as if he was considering the possibility. “Afraid not,” he finally muttered.

  She wasn’t going to get anything from these folks. Toni thanked them for all their help, such as it was, and the young officer escorted she and Franz out the way they had come.

  They’d driven from Innsbruck in Toni’s rental car, so she got behind the wheel and sat while Franz finished smoking a long-awaited cigarette outside. Although Mayer thought he’d given her nothing at all, that wasn’t entirely true. She could learn as much by what they didn’t say as by what they did reveal. They didn’t have to let her see their officer, Alexandra. They could have doctored the digital file to crop her out, or only showed that portion with Jake. Yet, for some reason they’d allowed her to not only see her with Jake, but to imply that she’d done something wrong. They also hadn’t blocked the license plate of Alexandra’s car, which she’d placed in her memory. She made a quick call on her cell and hung up.

  Franz smiled at her and stamped out his cigarette before getting into the passenger seat.

  “You can smoke in here,” Toni assured him. “Living in Europe so long, I’m used to it.”

  He put on his seat belt. “I thought you were assigned to Langley now.”

  “I am. But I’m on the road more than not. Special assignments.”

  Glancing at her left hand, he said, “I thought you were married.”

  Funny, she thought. He had noticed no ring since the first five minutes the night before and now finally mentioned it. “I am. But I can usually get more information from men if they think I’m available to
screw their brains out.”

  He laughed aloud.

  She started the car and pulled out of the BND facility parking lot.

  “What just happened back there?” Franz asked.

  “Games. We ask for help and they give us just enough to keep us satisfied. I report their level of help and we give them just a little less next time they ask for assistance.”

  Franz shook his head. “At that rate the level will be zero soon enough. Did you leave anything behind?”

  “A bug? No. The building is shielded against that. Even room to room. You notice how dead the sound was in that conference room?”

  “Yes. No echo at all. You recognized the woman, I’m sure.”

  “Your eyes said you did too.”

  “She was at Anna’s funeral,” Franz revealed. “I thought you might be there.”

  “As I said, I just found out about it yesterday.”

  “Your Agency didn’t mention it to you? I personally notified them that Jake had been injured. And Jake said they had even checked into some of his old cases to see if the hit on him was somehow related to those.”

  She drove around a residential neighborhood slowly and pulled over in front of an old house, turning off the engine. “What do you want from me?”

  Franz looked confused. “I want you to be open with me. I just thought you and Jake were still good friends. Why else would you be here now?”

  “I was assigned to find him. Nothing more. Any time a former officer is nearly killed, we need to find out why.”

  “My point exactly. He was nearly killed more than eight weeks ago.”

  She’d thought about that, wondering on the flight why they’d waited so long. She called from the jet to ask that very question. “I was told they’d been looking into it but had not gotten anywhere. Jake was debriefed in his hospital bed by our Vienna office but had no clue who had done it. It was only after these recent attempts that the Agency decided to take a more active role.”

  “I see.” He tapped his fingers on his leg.

  “Need another cigarette?”

  Toni’s phone buzzed and she picked up. She listened carefully, memorizing what was said. She thanked the caller and flipped the phone shut. Now she knew.

  “Something to do with the other call you made in the parking lot?” he asked her.

  “Yep.” She turned on the car and sped off toward the closest Autobahn. “They just passed through Trier.”

  “Jake and the woman? How do you know that?”

  She smiled. “German Polizei.”

  “How’d you get them to cooperate? Better yet, how did they find them so fast?”

  “German Intel wanted me to do their job for them. They let me see the license plate of Alexandra’s car, knowing I would contact the Polizei to track down the auto.”

  “And you went along with this? Why?”

  She was still trying to figure that out herself. But she needed the Polizei and the BND. “People use each other in this business all the time. It all works out in the end. They didn’t want to make a direct request, since she works for them. But now they can go ahead and call the Polizei and ask who’s been asking. Of course they won’t find out it was me. I used an FBI persona.”

  Franz shook his head. “But I’m still confused. How did they track down the license so fast?”

  “You honestly don’t know? I mentioned it to Martin Mayer.” She mocked the man’s first name.

  “RFID? I thought you were kidding.”

  “You see the look on Mayer’s face? I was briefed a year ago on the German system, which has been in place for almost five years now. They’ve been implanting RFID in newly issued license plates. Since plates only last four years, they should have full coverage by now.”

  “Why don’t I know about this?”

  “It’s one of Germany’s best kept secrets.”

  “This is amazing. Big Brother. But your car is from Austria. So they can’t track any car coming from other EU countries.”

  “Not yet, with the exception of the Swiss. But they put their RFID in their Autobahn stickers.”

  “Brilliant. Not only are they being tracked, but they’re paying for the privilege.”

  “I hear Austria is coming next,” she said.

  He lowered his head. “As a Polizei officer I can see the benefit. But as a citizen. . .”

  She agreed. Big Brother was great when you needed him, but as Jake could find out, not so good if you’re on the run. Toni only hoped nobody else was using the technology. But she guessed it was only a matter of time before the system made it to America. God knew they could sure use it to catch criminals. Yet, a part of her longed for the days when one still had to get up from the sofa to change channels.

  14

  Berlin, Germany

  It had taken Gustav Vogler’s assistant, Andreas Grosskreuz, a few hours to access the proper video with the Turk walking from the train through the main train terminal in Berlin’s central area, and finally dropping off a bag in a locker before scooting down to the U-bahn connection that would bring him to his final destination—the site of his death by strangulation and broken neck.

  Grosskreuz had to break open three lockers to find the right one. The one with the backpack that contained an automatic handgun, a Glock 17, along with paperwork that provided Gustav with a direction that he hadn’t expected.

  Now, Gustav sat in his office looking over the papers, his assistant in a chair across from him eagerly waiting for his boss’s response to his find.

  They’d brought in lunch and ate their curry wurst and fries as each took turns flipping through the paperwork.

  “What do you think?” Gustav finally asked his young associate.

  Andreas had his laptop computer on the edge of Gustav’s desk, open to a website referenced in the papers. “This is interesting. It looks like our Turkish friend not only printed up the location for this meeting, but also for a meeting of some sort in Innsbruck.”

  “Check on that address with Austrian State Polizei,” Gustav ordered.

  Andreas started clicking away on his computer. “I can do that quicker through Interpol.” After a few moments he said, “Wow. You’re not going to believe this.”

  Gustav turned the laptop toward him and read what his associate had found. “A hit of some sort. Another Turk killed by this American in his apartment.”

  “And now a Red Notice out on this American,” Andreas said. “What’s going on?”

  Quickly picking up his phone, Gustav punched in a number and waited. “You run the gun through Interpol’s database?” he said briskly into the phone. He listened carefully, his eyes drifting toward Andreas and a smile forming on the edge of his mouth. “Thanks. No, don’t upload that information yet.”

  “Ballistics on the Turk’s gun?” Andreas asked.

  “Got him.” Gustav slapped his hands together. “The Turk’s gun was used at the Innsbruck apartment. Bullets match.” He ran the events through his mind. The Turk takes a train from Istanbul to Innsbruck. Attempts a hit on an American there. And then takes another train to Berlin. “Pay off,” he said softly.

  “Pay off?”

  “Yes, my young friend.” Gustav rose from his chair and adjusted his pants on his waist, shifting his gun on his right hip. “He attempts the hit in Innsbruck and then comes here to Berlin to get paid.”

  Andreas had a confused expression on his face. “But he didn’t finish the hit.”

  “Exactly.” Gustav pointed at his friend. “And that probably got him killed.”

  “So this has nothing to do with the other murders?”

  Gustav ran his hand over his bristly face. “I don’t know.” What if it did? Regardless, they had a fresh murder with a direction. Whereas, with the other bodies found around the city recently, they had no leads whatsoever.

  Andreas clicked onto a location on the internet, which opened a window with a login and password required. He looked at his boss, who’d sat back down behind his
desk. “I’ve come to a secure site.”

  “Wait a minute.” Gustav shuffled through the paperwork from the Turk’s backpack. He found a small piece of paper that had made no sense until now, which he flipped to Andreas. “Try this.”

  It was two series of letters and numbers. Andreas clicked them into the login and password and the site opened. But he could only access one set of information.

  “What is it?” Gustav asked as he leaned across the desk toward the laptop.

  “Information on this Jake Adams, the American who the Turks tried to hit in Innsbruck.” He read slowly and then turned the computer for this boss to read also.

  Reading carefully, the first thing Gustav noticed was the lack of information on the man. Much of what was there was speculation and supposition. Someone had outed the man, so even if it wasn’t true, he was still in a whole lot of trouble. When he was done reading, Gustav said, “My God. This Adams could have been an American spy. Might still be. What have we gotten ourselves into now?”

  “If it’s true. But that was going to be my question to you.”

  Were all these bodies espionage related? Gustav wondered. There was a couple ways to find out for sure. He had a contact with the BND in Berlin. He could simply ask the question. No. They’d try to insert themselves into his investigation. Maybe cut him off completely. And there was no way of knowing for sure if any of these were related. This last death was interesting. Perhaps not of the same motivation as the others. But still. . .someone was killing people in his city. And that was his problem. His responsibility.

  “Where do we go from here?” Andreas asked.

  “Someone has to be reporting these men missing. Let’s assume those we found in the Spree were not from Berlin either. They could be from anywhere in the world.”

  “They were all European,” Andreas corrected.