The Essential Sam Jameson / Peter Kittredge Box Set: SEVEN bestsellers from international sensation Lars Emmerich

by Lars Emmerich

  But the killer was swift, efficient, and clean. Even the carve-up was done neatly and professionally. The giant spent less than ten minutes inside Mathias’ apartment. He doffed the bunny suit, which was minimally stained even after the grisly work the man had just accomplished, and folded it into the pack.

  Fleischer looked at his watch. Just a bit before eight p.m. His friend would probably still be at the office, but Fleischer tried his cell phone just to be sure.

  Viktor Kohlhaas answered on the second ring. “This is a serious problem,” Fleischer said. “But there’s plenty to work with, and I can find these people.”

  “That’s why I hired you,” Kohlhaas said. There was little collegiality in his voice, Fleischer noted. But how could there be? Fleischer couldn’t imagine the burden that Viktor Kohlhaas bore.

  “No police,” Kohlhaas said. “And utter discretion.”

  “Of course,” Fleischer said, a quiet calmness in his voice to communicate his competency and understanding. “I will need to reach out to trusted friends. Experts.”

  “I understand,” Kohlhaas said. “Spend whatever you feel necessary. Please make this your highest priority.”

  28

  “What’s wrong, Peter?” Nora wanted to know. “You look like you’ve seen a corpse.”

  Holy hell, does she know? His mind raced for an explanation that didn’t involve a full disclosure of the day’s truly fucked-up events, but that somehow communicated the danger he knew they were in.

  “Someone broke into your flat today,” he finally managed to say. His heart thudded dully in his chest, and he noticed his breathing was shallow and more rapid than usual. He could tell that Nora noticed those things, too. Her gaze kept looking between his eyes and the rest of his face, observing his obvious agitation.

  “Oh my God, Peter, are you sure?”

  He nodded. “I saw the guy.” True. “I was in the bathroom, and he was standing in front of the computer screen when I came out.” Also true.

  “Oh my God,” Nora repeated. “What happened?”

  “He saw me.” True. Here came the whopper: “He ran out the door before I could catch him.” Sonuvabitch, I hope I wasn’t too obvious. He had always sucked at deception. It wasn’t that he was a particularly honest guy — he had once sold secret State Department documents for cash — it was just that he always felt like people could see through a lie. Which, when the lie was delivered in such a state of mind, was almost always true.

  But it looked like Nora believed him. “My God,” she said for a third time, her hand coming to her mouth in shock and worry. “Did he threaten you? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” It was also clearly a lie, but it was the lesser of the two lies he could have told in response to her query.

  “What did he want? Did he steal anything?”

  “Not as far as I could tell,” Kittredge said. “I think he had a key to your apartment.”

  Nora’s face turned ashen. “Oh my God,” she said again. “That freaks me out. Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure,” Kittredge said. As in, I’m perfectly certain the guy had your key because it’s now in my pocket, he didn’t say.

  “I wonder if it was related to the guy who attacked you in the hotel,” Nora said, looking at the floor, the gears clearly turning inside her head.

  Strange you should mention it, Kittredge thought sardonically. The truth felt like it wanted to come bursting out of him, like in that Edgar Allan Poe story, or in those Russian crime novels. “It certainly could be. He had the same build.” It was a truth told obliquely, designed to deceive.

  “Peter, we need to call the police.”

  He was afraid she was going to say that. It was the rational thing to do, after all, unless you happen to have gone psychotic and stabbed the guy thirty times. And then cut the mutilated body up into parts. And stuffed them into a trash compactor. Those were tough details to explain. He sure as hell didn’t want anyone gathering forensic evidence at the scene. He was sure there would be enough blood residuals to light the place up like a disco under the black lights the forensics guys used.

  So he told the only lie that made sense. “I called them already. Strauss came back out. He looked around, couldn’t find anything. He told me we should get out of here, just to be safe.”

  “Peter, that’s two serious crimes in as many days. Why didn’t they offer us protection?”

  Hell, I hadn’t thought of that. He couldn’t think of a plausible reason. He just looked at her and shrugged. “Maybe they do things differently over here than in the States.” Had she caught the worry on his face? If so, did she recognize it as progeny of an attempt to deceive her?

  He pressed on, more than eager to change the subject. “We should pack a few things and find someplace to stay for a few days. Just until this thing settles down a little.”

  Nora nodded. She wrapped her arms around herself, the way women often do when they feel vulnerable. “I can’t believe someone broke in here,” she said, shaking her head.

  Then she looked back at Kittredge. “Why didn’t you call me at work? If they came here, they could just as easily have found me at the office.”

  “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t want to freak you out. At least until I had a chance to talk to the police. I thought maybe they’d have an idea of who it might have been, and what they might have wanted.” He could tell she hadn’t yet decided to buy it.

  “Plus I was a little freaked out myself,” he went on, his eyes moving up and to the left, the way people often do when they’re making shit up. “I mean, I thought that if they had a key to your apartment, and they weren’t here to steal anything, maybe they were watching us.”

  She frowned. “You mean like a bug or something?”

  He nodded. “Maybe. I know it sounds a little paranoid…” But it’s happened to me before, he didn’t say.

  But maybe he should have. If it really was Kittredge they were after, as the two attempts on his life over the last two days might logically attest, Nora certainly deserved that important bit of insight.

  And he wasn’t positive, but he figured it all had to be related to Venezuela somehow. What else could it be? He tried to think of a way to tell her, to bring her up to speed on the bad people in his past. But the moment passed, and Kittredge, lamely and gutlessly silent on a pivotal point, was left with another deception on his ledger, this one committed by omission.

  “I suppose it’s possible they’re watching us,” she said, and shuddered at the thought. “You’re sure you didn’t go out somewhere and leave the door unlocked?”

  “Positive. I didn’t go anywhere,” he said, grateful for the conversation’s turn into more benign territory. “But I also didn’t check the lock. Are you sure you locked it when you left for work?”

  “Always. I live alone and I’m very security-conscious. I always lock it from the outside using my key. That way I know it’s locked, and I know I have my key with me.”

  He nodded. “Smart. But that means they either do have a key, or they’re very good at picking locks,” Kittredge said. “Which is possible. I mean, I was in the bathroom so it’s possible I didn’t hear them working the lock. But Strauss didn’t find any fresh scratches around the lock slit.” He was making this up and possibly laying on a little thick, he knew, but he kept going. “He told me he’d expect to find scratches of some sort if they had picked the lock.”

  She looked at him a long moment, during which Kittredge half feared that Nora would somehow divine the truth of the whole ghastly situation. When did this happen? When did I become a maniac and a liar? Just this morning? It didn’t seem to make any sense. Was this really how people went off the deep end? They just found themselves in a crazy situation and — poof — snapped? Would he spend the rest of forever trying to cover everything up? My God, who the hell am I?

  Nora’s eyes ran over his body again, as if taking him in for the first time. “Why did you go out to get new clothes?”

&nbs
p; Enough already! He felt exhausted, enervated by all the deception. “I only had that one outfit, since everything I own is either at my apartment or in that hotel room I abandoned yesterday.”

  “But why today? Right after someone broke in?”

  Because my other clothes were covered in shit, barf, and blood. “Because I felt like if they were onto us for some reason, I needed to change my appearance.”

  She looked in the shopping bag that he’d set atop the counter while they spoke. “Are those my sweats in there?”

  How many lies am I going to have to tell her? “I wanted to get something for you, too, and I wanted to make sure I got the right size.”

  Her look softened, and she smiled. “It was sweet of you to think of me.”

  “I didn’t find anything I thought you’d like, though,” he said, wondering if he was overdoing the sad expression on his face.

  She touched his face and kissed him. “It was sweet of you to think of me.”

  She opened a new bottle of Beaujolais and poured a glass of wine for both of them. If she noticed her supply was diminished by several bottles, she didn’t comment. “I agree that we should probably get out of here for a while,” she said. “I’m going to clean up, and then we’ll pack up and head out.”

  He nodded, and watched as she walked into the bathroom. His adrenaline surged again, and his heart pounded anew in his chest. Jesus, I hope I cleaned everything up in there. He was paranoid that she would find gore or spattered blood that he’d somehow missed during his frantic cleanup effort.

  He downed his wine in a single gulp and poured another glass.

  29

  Gunther Fleischer looked at his computer screen and allowed himself a small sigh of frustration. He’d created a false Facebook account, captured a still frame from the video feed from Mathias Kohlhaas’ apartment surveillance camera, and uploaded the skinny access agent’s face — the young man with whom Mathias Kohlhaas had enjoyed his last carnal encounter — as a Facebook update. He was hoping that Facebook’s photo recognition technology would provide a match, giving him some information to guide his search for the young gay man, but there was no match.

  So, the hard way. He looked at his watch. It was nine p.m. in Cologne, which made it three p.m. in Washington, DC. The famously horrible DC commute would just be getting underway. He wondered if his inside man was still inside the office. When you needed the resources of a police state, there was no better place to turn than an actual police state. Nobody was better than the Americans. Fortunately, Fleischer’s small social community had afforded him the opportunity to cultivate many interesting friends over the years, friends who already belonged to a clandestine coterie of homosexual professionals in the strongly homophobic and puritanical American government. Sharing one secret made it much easier to share more secrets.

  Fleischer dialed. Someone picked up after five rings. “Department of Homeland Security, Computer Security Division, Jefferson Ames speaking.”

  It was good to hear his voice, Fleischer thought, but he stuck to the prearranged contact protocol they’d established. “I believe I may have dialed in error,” he said, the language deliberately stilted. “I was hoping to speak with someone in the Cyber Crimes division.”

  Ames was silent for a moment on the other end of the line, undoubtedly absorbing the import of the call, and mentally checking his schedule for the next half hour. “If you wouldn’t mind leaving your name and number with me,” he finally said, “I’d be happy to deliver the message to them.”

  Fleischer gave his prearranged pseudonym, and the number of his current burner phone. “I’ll pass along the message to Cyber Crimes,” Ames said in response, “and they should be in touch shortly.”

  The call ended. Fleischer waited, imagining the large Homeland building disgorging Jefferson Ames into the subterranean parking garage, imagining Ames walking to his car with that pronounced limp from his military days, imagining him pulling out the “emergency” pre-paid telephone he always carried in the glove compartment of his car, imagined him dialing all of the digits that would make Fleischer’s burner ring half way around the world in Cologne, Germany.

  “It’s been a long time,” Ames said when their phones connected.

  “Too long, my friend,” Fleischer said.

  “That goddamn Atlantic Ocean.”

  “It’s a long trip,” Fleischer agreed.

  “How can I help?” Ames asked, declaring an end to the personal portion of the call, stunted though it was.

  “I need to match a name and location to a face I’ve pulled from a surveillance camera.”

  “You’ve tried Facebook?” Ames asked. “No sense using a Howitzer when a pistol will do the trick.”

  Fleischer smiled. “He’s not on Facebook, and he’s somehow managed not to be tagged in anyone else’s photos, either. Maybe the only European gay man who’s not flamboyantly Facebooked.”

  Ames chuckled. “Still in the closet, eh?”

  “That’s a good guess, but I don’t know. I have nothing else on him.”

  Ames thought for a moment. “Does the photo clearly show his facial features? No hats, masks, sunglasses?”

  “It’s a clear image,” Fleischer said. “How do you want me to get it to you?”

  “Easy,” Ames said. “Go to a martial arts website called ‘Serious Sensei Strength’ and register in the forum as ‘Roger Rabbit Punch.’ Upload the photo you want me to trace as your profile picture. Then leave a message on the message board.”

  Roger Rabbit Punch on Serious Sensei Strength. Fleischer made a mental note, but made no physical notes. He had long ago learned ruthless evidentiary discipline and strove to leave as little behind as possible. “Got it,” he said. “Payment?”

  “Twenty big. Cash only,” Ames said. “Dead-drop, non-sequential bills. I’ll contact you via private message on the martial arts forum when I have drop instructions.”

  “I’m in Europe,” Fleischer said. “Is there a chance we can arrange an alternative payment?”

  “I’m sorry. Cash only. Everything else leaves a trail.”

  Fleischer understood. “What if this man has never been to America? Will you be able to find him?”

  Ames chuckled. “If he’s ever used an ATM anywhere on the earth, I’ll be able to match him.”

  Fleischer was amazed. “How?”

  “My friend, in twenty years, there will be more video cameras than humans. You plug your card into the ATM slot, type in your PIN, and the security system takes a snapshot of your face for posterity. Our system is tied into every bank on the planet.”

  “The banks give you access to their account holder information?”

  Ames laughed. “Not exactly. But we have access.”

  “Mein Gott,” Fleischer said.

  “It’s a brave new world, my friend.”

  Fleischer thought about the mechanics of the deal. He would have to wire money to a courier on the east coast, who would then make the dead drop for Ames to pick up. He had a person in mind. “It will take me a little bit of time to arrange things with my courier,” he said.

  “No problem. Don’t leave your message on the martial arts forum until you have things greased with your courier. When I see your message pop up, I’ll know you’re ready to roll.”

  “Deal. I am in your debt,” Fleischer said.

  Ames laughed. “I know you’re good for it.”

  “It was good to hear your voice.” It was a bit of a risk, but Fleischer felt the homage to their personal history was worth it.

  “You too. I hope you’re well.”

  The call ended, and Fleischer’s mind lingered on his old friend and occasional consort for a little longer. Then he got back to work. He had more arrangements to make on the East Coast of the States, and he wanted to do that before everyone he needed to talk to found themselves stuck in rush hour traffic.

  30

  Evelyn Paulson wandered in a daze from the hospital door toward her car in the
parking lot. She barely noticed the February chill in the New York air. She barely noticed the asphalt beneath her feet, and she didn’t register the pangs of hunger gnawing at her stomach. Her mind was on her little Sarah.

  After a brief upswing that had included several tantalizing hours of consciousness and even lucidity, Sarah’s condition had taken a turn for the worse again. These episodes were normal during the progression of the disease, Sarah’s doctors had said. That language had bothered Evelyn. It was normal in the disease’s progression, not normal in the body’s healing process, a linguistic subtlety not lost on her. The implied message hit her like a freight train: the bacteria was again calling the shots. Not the doctors, and certainly not Sarah’s battered immune system.

  After nearly two solid days spent inside the biohazard isolation suit, her gloved hand squeezing Sarah’s, her life aligning with the beeping rhythm of Sarah’s heart monitor, her needs set aside entirely for Sarah’s, Evelyn felt she was at a breaking point. She needed a change of clothes, a meal, a shower, and some sleep.

  During Sarah’s brief upswing, Evelyn had allowed herself to imagine how it would feel to leave the NIH hospital hand-in-hand with Sarah, smiles on their faces and warm gratitude in their hearts that their life together would continue as before. As Evelyn pushed the unlock button on her key fob and watched for the flash of her headlights, her eyes watered at the dreadful thought that perhaps Sarah was already too far gone, that the infection was just too pervasive inside her little body, and that there would be no more sunny days together.

  Her pace slowed. She felt her diaphragm flutter. Tears blurred her vision. Exhaustion and grief wracked her mind and heart. Sarah was all she had left. There was no one else in her life. She had never felt more alone.

  “Ms. Paulson? Ms. Paulson!”

  Evelyn didn’t recognize the voice, but she turned to locate its source. A tall, handsome man with a friendly face jogged toward her. “Ms. Paulson, may I have a word with you?”