“You’ve got to knock this off, Sam,” he said. “I can’t take the strain and worry.”
“Neither can I,” she said, slowing to allow the automatic exit gate to raise.
“What now?”
“Damn good question.”
“Who’s following you?”
“Another stumper.”
“What the hell is going on, Sam?”
She looked at him. He was upset. She touched his cheek with her hand. “Here’s what I know,” she said. She told him about 32A. She told him about someone else having been after Mark Severn’s things at the police station. She told him about the wrong body in the hospital morgue.
“Tell me about your side,” he said.
She gritted her teeth and told him the truth.
“Jesus Holy Shit Christ, Sam! You spotted a guy tailing you, so you decided to chase him through the city? You’ve already died once — wasn’t that enough?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t have much choice, baby.”
“What are you talking about? You couldn’t call someone? Ask for help? I can’t believe you went after these people by yourself, with no backup whatsoever.”
“Where would I have gotten help from? The United States? Five thousand miles away? If I hadn’t stirred the pot, I might very well have been taken out. My body would be cold by now.”
She knew instantly it was the wrong thing to say. A dark cloud came over Brock’s face. His fists clenched, and a long silence ensued.
“I can’t keep doing this,” he finally said. “Every time you leave the house, I wonder if it’s the last time I’ll ever see you. It’s no way to live.”
20
Sam checked the map on her phone, exited the E71 that circumnavigated the south side of Budapest, took a few surface streets, and came to a stop at the banks of the Danube. The ancient river was home to infinite secrets, and Sam intended to add a few more to the list. “Hand me your cell phone,” she said to Brock, grabbing her iPhone and government-issued Blackberry from her handbag.
“Want to read the texts from my girlfriends?”
“Funny,” Sam said. She got out of the car, walked to the river bank, and threw all three cell phones into the water.
“A rather extreme solution, don’t you think?” Brock asked as she sat back down in the driver’s seat.
“Extreme but necessary,” Sam said. “They can track your phone even with the power off these days,” Sam said.
“Creepy,” Brock said.
“Extremely,” Sam said. “Anyway, it’s kind of nice not to have that distraction all the time.”
“I’m going to bill your employer for the phone,” Brock said.
“Feel free. He has deep pockets.”
“What’s our plan?” Brock asked.
“Great question. We need to put some distance between us and this town, unfortunately. But they’re tracking our movements somehow, and it wouldn’t be smart to travel on your passport. You need a new ID.”
“Don’t you need one, too?”
Sam shook her head. She pulled her makeup case from her purse, opened the hasp, used her fingernail to manipulate a tiny lever. A spring-activated compartment revealed itself. Sam dumped a passport, identification card, and driver’s license onto Brock’s lap. The name on all the documents said Molly Rose Hillman. “I never leave home without a little documented schizophrenia,” she said.
“Nice. I needed that trick when I was in high school, trying to get into bars.”
Sam smiled. “You couldn’t find any hot cougars to buy drinks for you?”
“No comment,” Brock said.
“I don’t have any idea how we’re going to get a new passport,” she said, brow furrowed. She drove as fast as she felt prudent, just ten clicks over the speed limit. Best not to attract unwanted attention while driving a stolen car.
“We need to talk to Dan,” she said after a few moments of silence.
“Says the girl who just threw all our phones in the river.”
Sam smiled. “Desperate times. You have your laptop in your carry-on, right?”
“Good thinking,” Brock said. “A little voice-over-Internet.”
Sam nodded, scanned for the nearest exit, looking for the ubiquitous Starbucks logo.
Sam found a medium-sized town. They drove around, finally spotting a coffee shop. Not a Starbucks. Maybe the franchise hadn’t infested Hungary like locusts before mega-expansion turned into mega-contraction.
The coffee shop was closed, but Brock had a hunch the Wi-Fi would still be on.
He wasn’t wrong. When his laptop booted up, he selected the free internet option. Provided by Google. In a post-Iron Curtain country. Brave new world, Sam thought. She used an Internet chat application to dial Dan’s number. She woke him up.
“You again,” Dan said.
“Hi, Dan.”
“What do you have against your employees getting a good night’s sleep?”
“Sorry,” Sam said. “Brock is here with me.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, this little trip was supposed to be a milk run, if you’ll recall, and we were going to take a little vacation after.”
“The best-laid plans of mice and men.”
“You don’t say. There were three thugs at the airport when I picked him up. Waiting for him, me, or both of us.”
“So they’ve connected the dots.”
“It sure looks that way,” Sam said. “I think all of that means Brock needs new travel documents.”
Dan was quiet for a moment, thinking. “That’s going to be difficult. He’s not a Homeland employee.”
“We may have to outsource.”
“You mean, commit a felony?”
“Not to put too fine a point on it,” Sam said. “Unless you have better ideas.”
“I might,” Dan said. “Brock’s still in the Air Force, right?”
“He is. Colonel Brock James to you and me.” She gave Brock a playful pinch. He shook his head.
“I have a friend in the travel department,” Dan said. “He’s a friendly guy, and he has a lot of other friends. Give me just a sec.”
Sam heard Dan walking through his house. Then she heard the click of keystrokes.
“We have that small matter of the Atlantic Ocean hampering our logistics,” Sam said while Dan typed.
“We have embassies everywhere,” Dan said.
“Run by the CIA, with the State Department acting as shill. We aren’t exactly the closest of friends, and there was that scandal about State issuing false passports a while back, so I’m not sure how much help we can expect.”
“You’re right, in general. But espionage is a people business.”
More typing. “Can you get to London?” Dan finally asked.
“You know someone there?”
“The queen.”
“Very funny.”
“Seriously, I think I can get a new passport for Brock from the London embassy without too many questions. Can you get there?”
“I don’t know. Do we need passports to get from the Continent to the Isles?”
“Can’t you just take that tunnel under the channel?”
“In a stolen car?”
“Jesus, Sam. You stole a car?”
“Two, actually.”
“You are completely out of your mind.”
“It was either that or hitchhike,” Sam said.
“Jesus, Sam,” Dan said again. “I’ll leave you to figure that one out. Send me Brock’s picture, official-looking. I’ll have his new credentials ready to send to London first thing in the morning.”
“You’re a lifesaver,” Sam said.
“Literally.”
“Don’t let it go to your head. Do you have any information on the dead assholes from this morning?”
“Strange you should ask,” Dan said. “The business card you found in the dead guy’s sock was written in a Russian dialect. The business is a floral shop in Boston.”
“As in, Massachusetts?”
“As in the United States of America. And it gets better. The extremely relaxed gentleman with a hole in his chest went by the name Igor Kurilyenko. He was clearly of Russian descent. But he was a naturalized US citizen.”
“Shit,” Sam said. “I killed a US citizen in Budapest?”
“It looks that way.”
“I’m sure that muddies the jurisdictional waters. It could work to our advantage trying to get out of here if things go south.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Dan said. “Europe is a very small place these days.”
“What the hell is a US citizen doing chasing me around Budapest?”
“One does wonder,” Dan said. “It might explain how they were able to put a man on your flight out of DC on such short notice. The US citizenship angle, I mean.”
“Good point. We need to figure out who they were working for.”
“It’s on my to-do list already,” Dan said. “I have a few feelers out, and I’m hoping to learn more soon.”
Sam was silent, stirring things around in her head.
“You can say it,” Dan said after a moment.
“Say what?”
“I’m awesome.”
“And humble. Now get some sleep, and I’ll pester you again in a few hours.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Dan said. They ended the call.
Brock let out a little whistle. “The plot thickens,” he said.
Sam nodded. “I’m beyond confused.”
“Glad I’m not the only one.”
They got back on the road. Sam looked at her watch. Nine a.m. on a Saturday in Hungary. How many hours to London? A thousand miles, maybe? Twelve hundred? She had the instinct to look at the map on her phone, then remembered she’d sent it to sleep with the fishes. “It’s going to be one hell of a long drive,” she said.
“Maybe not,” Brock said. He fished around in his wallet and produced a small, light green card. The Federal Aviation Administration insignia was emblazoned across the top. His commercial pilot’s license. “Maybe we can travel in style.”
“I like the way you think,” Sam said. “Are you sure the Euros will let us buzz around their continent on the strength of a US pilot’s license?”
Brock shrugged. “I’m sure there will be some hassle. But I think we’re far enough east that policy takes a backseat to economics.”
“I don’t follow,” Sam said.
“I brought cash.”
“For bribes?”
Brock smiled. “No, love. For the requisite European airspace familiarization training. Form and substance at the discretion of the desk clerk at whatever airplane rental counter we happen to find.”
“For bribes, then.”
“That’s what I said.”
Life without telephones was damned near impossible. For example, where in the modern world would one discover the name and location of a suitable private aircraft rental business near Budapest, if not by using one’s telephone?
Would one look in a phone book? Those were usually found near a phone, the kind that gobbled coins and gathered graffiti. Which were extinct. Gone from the face of the earth, like the dodo. Or extremely endangered, at least.
The Internet knew all about aircraft rental businesses in central Hungary. And the Internet was everywhere, except when it was nowhere to be found, such as when driving like a bat out of hell — at a medium pace — away from Budapest in a stolen vehicle.
Stopping was hazardous.
Driving a stolen car was hazardous.
Not knowing where you were going while driving a stolen car was good epitaph fodder.
They picked a town named Tata. “Moral imperative,” Brock proclaimed. “A town named after tits. We have to stop here. And we have to take a picture next to the sign.”
“Seriously, doesn’t adolescence ever get old?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“And it’s only one tata, anyway. Not a pair of them.”
“All the more reason to stop. It’s probably lonely.”
Sam shook her head, a laugh on her lips. Brock’s affected imbecility was self-mocking and charming. She loved him all the more for it.
Sam exited the E60 onto Hungary’s Highway 1, drove north a few clicks, crested a promontory, and caught her breath. A medieval castle presided over a collection of neoclassical mansions perched on the edge of a sapphire lake. Sidewalk cafes and open-air shops straddled the strand. It appeared to exist in an era all its own.
“This place is unreal,” Sam said.
“Makes me want to quit America,” Brock said.
Sam chuckled. “Good luck. But I could definitely spend a few years in a place like this.”
“We’ll have to settle for a few minutes.”
“We’ll have to come back someday,” Sam said.
Not if you keep getting killed, Brock didn’t say.
His silence was plenty. The unmade point was made well enough, and Sam’s expression soured. A frown dug its way into her brow. “First things first, I suppose.”
Brock nodded. It wasn’t the time or place for that particular discussion. They both lacked the energy. He pointed to a Wi-Fi sticker in the window of a cafe.
Sam rounded the corner, parked the stolen Volkswagen behind the long row of shops, cafes, and restaurants, and threw the keys into the bushes.
“What’d you do that for?” Brock asked.
“Europe has almost as many cameras as the US. We need to distance ourselves before the license number hits the APB list.”
Brock grimaced. “Nice day for a walk, I guess.”
They chose a table at the cafe. Heads turned. They stood out immediately as Americans. It made Sam nervous. She hustled Brock along as he set up his laptop. The cafe’s Wi-Fi password contained Hungarian characters, and Brock had to fish around in the computer’s settings before he figured out how to enter them into the browser window.
Sam’s leg bounced with impatience. She was worried about being recognized by surveillance, and she also began to worry about using Brock’s laptop. It had its own IP address, akin to a digital fingerprint, and it wouldn’t take anywhere close to Dan Gable’s über-geek prowess for someone to start tracking their movements.
“We’re in luck,” Brock announced after entirely too long. “Aviation rental place right here in Tata. On the outskirts, I mean.”
They hailed a cab, a dangerous undertaking, but Sam didn’t feel comfortable breaking into a car and stealing it in such a cozy little town. Too many leisurely watchers with nothing better to do than take note of suspicious activity.
She held her breath as the cab pulled away, her hand wrapped around the silenced handgun she’d taken from the guy whose ticket to the Great Beyond she’d punched earlier in the day.
She eyed the cabbie suspiciously. He was all smiles and laughs. It was either great trade craft, or the sign of a non-operator. Sam reserved judgment, which didn’t stop her from quietly clicking the safety lever to the off position.
She felt fatigue announce itself in her life as the cab wound its way up the hill away from the lake and toward the plateau behind the castle. Her eyes burned. Her wound started to throb again. She gulped a pain pill to take the edge off the ache in her side, to let her mind focus on more pressing matters.
Her mind felt slow and muddled. Her thoughts sauntered lazily to her consciousness when summoned, a telltale sign of sleep deprivation. She needed to rest, and soon. Before she made another mistake. This time, it was more than just her life at stake.
Sam had the cab drop them off at the hotel adjacent to the airport. Misdirection always helped and never hurt. She nudged Brock to pay the cabbie while she kept the weapon ready in her purse. If there were going to be any shenanigans, now would be the time.
The cabbie took Brock’s money with more ebullient good cheer and drove away. Sam felt herself breathe a sigh of relief. She felt far less than ready for any further physical
confrontation.
They walked the quarter-mile between the hotel and the private aviation office, itself perched uncomfortably close to an uncomfortably short runway. Brock’s F-16 career exposed him to nothing shorter than eight thousand feet of concrete. Ten was much better. Those jets liked to go, and they didn’t like to stop. He still marveled that anything could take off or land from dinky little runways like the one above Tata.
They walked inside. “I’d like to take out one of your Cessna 172’s for the weekend,” Brock announced with a smile. “One with retractable gear, if possible.”
The clerk eyed Brock’s American flying license. A worried look crossed her face.
“I would be happy to take any local training that you think would be necessary,” Brock said, subtly but noticeably sliding a short stack of greenbacks beneath the registration form.
The clerk’s worried look disappeared. “We are always happy to accommodate our international friends,” she said.
Brock smiled. “Thank you for your hospitality.”
The desk clerk asked, “Would you like help preparing a flight plan?”
Brock shook his head. “I think we’ll just see where whim and fancy take us. But I do need a bunch of sectional charts.”
The clerk pointed over to a stack of shelves on the wall. Brock selected a handful of maps, and the clerk added them to the bill. Sam produced the American Express card belonging to the pretty redheaded non-person named Molly Rose Hillman.
The clerk used an old-school credit card swipe machine to make an impression of the card number on a three-color carbon-copy receipt. Circa mid-eighties. Sam smiled. There was evidently some truth to the adage that most parts of Europe lagged America by no less than two decades. She felt less worried that someone might trace the transaction.
Brock gathered the pile of maps, the aircraft’s maintenance records and flight manual, and a fuel tester. Nothing would kill an engine quicker than water in the fuel, and the Cessna’s gas caps were on the top of the wings. If the caps weren’t fastened tightly, rain and condensation could ruin the day. Hence the fuel tester, which was nothing more than a clear plastic container. The clarity test was highly sophisticated: pour some gas from the fuel tanks into the container, and look for bubbles.
The Essential Sam Jameson / Peter Kittredge Box Set: SEVEN bestsellers from international sensation Lars Emmerich Page 67
