Relentless Pursuit: A Kelly Maclean Novel

by Hawk, Nate

  The man didn’t care about Niko’s personal problems but he accepted the two fifty Euro bills and led him to the door. Niko had hoped that for the price he had paid, the man would put a hundred Euro’s worth of hurry into his step. Painfully, he did not. The man with odd piercings had been prepaid so what did he care? They walked past several small bedrooms that contained much smaller bathrooms. Most of the doors had been closed but two had been cracked enough, granting Niko a quick look inside as he passed by. There was nothing inside that he hadn’t seen before. The two men eventually arrived at the back door. The man with peacock colored hair threw some latches and bolts aside. The heavy door opened to the thick darkness outside. Knowing he was out of other better options, Niko stepped outside fearlessly. His eyes began to adjust back to the darkness and he hastily made his way onward. He wasn’t going back to his hotel. Not with what he knew then. The suspender man had accidently given him a look that could kill. And Niko knew he would be killed if he didn’t disappear quickly.

  It was a shame that he would have to buy new clothes and toiletries but that was better than getting dropped in the street. Niko knew he must alter his appearance some, if even just a quick twist to his outfit. Passing a street full of partiers and chairs and tables, he looked for abandoned coats. It didn’t take long to find a couple that might work. He snatched them up and kept walking as if they were his. No reason to look back. He was already on the run. The first one he tried on looked the best but was a little too snug. He knew it would work in a pinch but he waited to make his final decision. Then he tried on the second one. It didn’t go quite as well with his outfit but it would be more comfortable.

  Niko discarded the first coat. After seeing something else that could help, Niko offered another reveler fifty euros for his flat cap. It fit snugly to his head. It did smell of the other man’s shampoo and hair gel but both men were satisfied with the arrangement. It might have been a twenty-five euro hat when it was new, which it clearly wasn’t. All decked out, Niko caught a cab and headed to the main station. He was tiring, and needed to sit and think and plan. He bought a ticket on the first train that would be departing. He would be traveling to Stuttgart; alone, he hoped.

  A cat and mouse game had begun. Niko would tour the country by train and bus while attempting to lose the CIA assassins. He had hoped for a more direct route to meet up with his new ISIS comrades but circumstances had changed. As long as he arrived alive and without any Agency companionship, he would be satisfied. He boarded the train and settled down inside an unoccupied cabin. He adjusted his new hat over his face and quickly dozed off looking like just another tired traveler. The high-speed train roared through the countryside, indifferent to the sleeping killer that was on board.

  ***

  Chapter 39

  Kelly had dozed off again into a cloudy world of partial consciousness several times that night. Each time he dozed off, the nightmares would summon him. Some booze would sure help take off the edge. He wasn’t getting the quality sleep he needed but he was tough and did his best to stay focused. Maybe tonight he should take one of the Xanax pills that the doctor had prescribed him. He thought about how much good some calm rest would do him. On the other hand, now that he had ditched the alcohol, he hated to start taking pills.

  Kelly laid there and thought about all of the gear that would be arriving that morning. By ten a.m., he had most of the items that he’d ordered. They were laid out on his bed, away from the prying eyes of the deliverymen. Kelly was expecting more deliveries so he wasn’t surprised when he heard a knock at the door.

  “Just a minute,” he yelled from the other room, not wanting the deliveryman to think nobody was around.

  He sure didn’t want to drive around Boston trying to track down one of these packages in person. He envisioned the warren of trucks and offices that must make up the system. There was too much risk of getting caught to be driving around, searching for combat gear.

  Kelly opened fiddled with the locks and opened the door. He was surprised to see Brooke Moore there. He was expecting her at … he looked at his watch. Oh…it is ten, he suddenly realized.

  “Hey, I lost track of time.”

  “I can come back later.”

  “No need. Come in.”

  “Do you have all of the deliveries?” she asked.

  “Most but not all. I’m keeping them out of sight in my room. Wanna see what I got?” he asked rhetorically, as he motioned her to follow him.

  Brooke trailed behind. Kelly’s room looked like a Marine armorer’s shop. Most of the boxes had been opened and were discarded on the far side of the bed. Several packing peanuts had scattered and were clinging around. Two long black guns were stretched out, barrels tilting upwards on their mounted bipods. They had cheap black dirt caps on the ends.

  Brooke noticed the caps and said, “Man, you think of everything.”

  Kelly waved his hand as if he were discounting her comment. They had come that way but he didn’t tell her.

  “Look at these optics. Are you familiar with ACOGs?”

  “Yes, my brothers used them.”

  “Then you know that the reticle basically glows in the dark.”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “Great! Also, we just zero these in one time and use the chevron and series of lines to gauge distance and bullet drop. The line width is the width of an average person’s shoulders at that corresponding distance. The lower the chevron is in the series, the narrower it is and the further away your target is. Line ‘em up and bang,” he said dryly.

  “Got it. Are we still on to sight these in on the way?”

  “Yeah. We’ll pick a good spot down south. As soon as these are sighted in, we’re going to kick some ass.”

  ***

  In Stuttgart, Niko would have preferred to meander around for a while. Maybe have another German breakfast. Perhaps some early afternoon shots, though surely Allah’s tolerance for that was getting thin. He knew, though, that it wasn’t to be. He realized that the group in pursuit of him would be reviewing security tapes and trying to figure out where he was going next. He had to move and he had to move fast.

  For the next leg of the journey he would not be using a train. Too easy for the agents to track me, he thought. Instead, Niko took a taxi to a different station that serviced the bus line. He found the ticket office inside without any effort. It was like any other banal transportation hub in Europe, with a dull looking exterior that lacked any sort of exciting color.

  Niko talked to the woman who was standing behind the bars that kept their money safe. She had trouble with his English accent so he put his mouth near the circular vent where his voice could be better understood.

  “Heidelberg, Bitte.”

  “Elf Uhr?” she asked him of his preferred time.

  “Ja,” he did in fact want the eleven o’clock bus.

  “Fuenfzehn, Euro,” she said curtly as if she had already sold a hundred tickets at the same price that day. She probably had.

  Niko was handed his ticket and the woman was already hollering for the next person in line. She didn’t bother telling him which direction to go but he was observant so he quickly figured it out. The bus was a smooth lined Mercedes with a big front window and dark-tinted privacy windows along the side. The bus was very comfortable but Niko was stuck sitting next to a talkative older man. Niko saw it coming and told the man in Russian that he didn’t speak German. The man didn’t have a clue what Niko had said and so the two were able to ignore each other during the short trip. This didn’t stop the balding man from chatting up the other people who were sitting around him. Thankfully, the conversations died off mostly after the first twenty minutes. The rest of the ride was enjoyable. They rode through a maze of tunnels and hills. It was a clean country and everywhere the bus went appeared to be well kept. The tops of many of the hills housed castles in various conditions of repair. Niko’s mind wandered to the castles’ early days and what life must have been like. Unfair, fill
ed with unexplainable suffering that came to an abruptly short ending, as most life spans did in those days… The castles looked majestic from a distance but he knew living in modern times had to be a huge improvement over the past.

  From Heidelberg, he paid a little more per mile in order to take a mini-bus to Mannheim. It was a quick drive and the mini-bus was much more nimble than the big interstate cruiser he had taken to Heidelberg. From Mannheim he traveled to Frankfurt, this time, once again by train. Niko felt like he must have ridden past every smog-producing factory in Germany as they crisscrossed on the tracks of Frankfurt. Of course every country had factories but the ones in Germany were somehow uglier. Niko figured it was because they were up against the backdrop of the brilliant beauty and purity that encompassed the rest of the nation.

  After arriving in Frankfurt he purchased bus fare to Saarbrucken. This took him nearly to the border of France. He thought about crossing knowing he was unlikely to be stopped by customs, crossing into another part of the Eurozone. At this point in his journey he knew that he was incredibly close to the ISIS members that he was to meet up with. He was getting tired though. He needed to sleep, but he didn’t want the attention of securing a hotel room. Obviously, his John Lambert cover had been blown. He knew they’d require ID and he wasn’t going to use the false passport name he’d assumed. Niko had a better idea. He hailed a taxi from the main station. Taxis were expensive, he knew, but it was not just the ride that he was after. He asked the driver what the name of that big hostel in town was, acting as if he’d been there before. Niko was in luck, the driver knew just the place that he was talking about.

  ***

  Chapter 40

  The white van was speeding down E41, just past Wurzburg, on its way to Stuttgart. The four agents within the Political Action Group had a driver very familiar with the Autobahn and he was making great time. The van itself was equipped with two, high-tech computers where the agents could scour the Internet and private databases on the go. They had been able to locate the train that Niko had escaped from Hamburg on. There had been some debate within the team regarding whether to have German law enforcement pick him up or not. The agents had decided against it. Niko was extremely dangerous and to finish this properly they wanted to catch him somewhat off-guard. He might escape local law enforcement’s grasp if they moved in carelessly. Those types always had wild-card officers that wanted to move in early and take all of the credit themselves. If that happened Niko was smart enough to escape and he’d probably kill more people in the process. The team decided to pursue him and end this themselves as quickly and quietly as possible.

  “So Stan, tell me one more time. How did he figure out you were on to him?”

  Stan was getting irritated at the ceaseless questioning. Nobody on the team was sure which determining factor had tipped Niko off and led to his escape. The team was grilling Stan with no end in sight. Laura Banks had been all over his ass ever since they’d lost Niko in the crowd. Stan spoke his mind again.

  “Listen. This guy is walking around Hamburg. He probably suspects that the government is monitoring him. I’m guessing he thinks the dead woman in the alley was working with us. He isn’t sure but he knifes her. Maybe just because he’s a sick puppy that likes that shit. Or maybe some reason that we have yet to piece together. Then he gets a new suit because his first outfit has blood all over it.”

  “C’mon Stan, we’re growing old here,” Angelo said sarcastically.

  Stan continued in the same tone as if he had not heard Angelo’s comment.

  “Anyway, the guy’s looking to get off the streets for a bit. It’s probably been a while since he got laid so why not shack up with a working gal? So he goes and gets some tail but the broad makes a mistake somewhere. I don’t know, some quirk that this guy has.”

  “Apparently he has a quite a few,” Laura pointed out. “It’s a good thing that we’ve gotten the official blessing to eliminate him.”

  Getting back on track, Stan wrapped it up.

  “So she triggers him somehow and he loses it. Beats her to death. Maybe Niko planned the second killing, too. Who knows?”

  Owen Tucker cut in, “You said when you saw him he looked like a guy with a million bucks in his pocket who had just gotten laid. That doesn’t sound like somebody who lost it. That sounds like somebody who enjoyed it.”

  “Look, I stand by my assessment. This guy clearly lives on the edge. He’s lost control. He’s lost his mind completely. We’ve all read the profile on him. Now we’ve seen a first-person account of the real-life side of a psychopath. He has some ability to move in and out of perceived sanity, instantly. Maybe he has a split personality. Maybe his deviant behavior seems normal to him.”

  Laura looked at her team and thought through everything that had been said. The bases had been covered and this part of the operation needed wrapping up.

  “Yeah, I really hoped that we could follow him to the rendezvous with the German ISIS team. I can feel it. We’re close. What could they possibly be using this maniac for? I mean, he’s good with guns and knives and apparently has links to explosives.”

  The van hit a rough patch on the Autobahn that jolted its occupants, and momentarily shook their concentration. Then, Angelo got serious for once and elaborated on his thoughts.

  “We all know these fundamentalist Islamists are pretty rudimentary with their explosives. I mean, they generally have two tricks depending on the bomber’s commitment. IEDs or explosive vests. I’m guessing they are going to target the ICE trains. It is a symbol of Germany’s advanced engineering capabilities and an integral part of their transportation infrastructure. It’s gotta be the trains.”

  “There are hundreds of trains running every day! Right now we don’t know the location of the intended target or the location of the ISIS radicals,” Stan pointed out.

  “Niko may be the single most dangerous person that one of my teams has ever targeted,” Laura assessed. “We need to pick up his trail again and finish this operation. We know he went to Stuttgart,” she said, pointing to a grainy and shadowy image taken from a surveillance camera at the main station. “We also know that he didn’t take the train anywhere else. So he is either still there or he has hitched a ride on a different mode of transportation. Keep digging through surveillance and I bet he’ll turn up. As far as the ISIS group, the Agency has analysts working all of the time. They’ll deliver. Believe me, one of them will find the clue that we need.”

  Owen thought back to what Rick Quinn had said about 9-11. He knew they had to dig deeper. And fast.

  ***

  Chapter 41

  On most days, Kelly kept his gear in the closet, ready to go. He didn’t know when a riot would break out or when an asteroid might hit the earth. All he had to do was turn on cable TV for a scary reminder of what’s lurking outside his door and he’d be too intimidated to even get out of his La-Z-Boy. Sensationalism, he found himself thinking. He didn’t need a reminder why he refused to spend much time watching the television. Kelly didn’t know if there would ever be that type of crisis but he thought it prudent to keep some gear and supplies stowed. And if nothing else, he had used most of the gear several times for hiking.

  When Kelly received his honorable discharge from the Marine Corps, he was able to keep a lot of the personal gear that he had used. He had all of the camouflage clothing that one man could ever use. He still had a few MREs that provided great portable food if you could stand the taste. The flavors and textures had never bothered him. He had packed enough for two in his pack but Brooke wasn’t having it.

  She had brought her own pack and insisted on carrying all of her own gear. Kelly didn’t care one way or the other. He was confident that Brooke could take care of herself or he wouldn’t have agreed to position her in an over watch capacity. He still had a ton of apprehension inside but he needed someone and he knew she could fight. Kelly had broken down the gear into two piles and then both had repacked. Where Kelly’s pack looked like so
mething out of a war-room locker, Brooke’s pack looked like one made to climb K2. Kelly saw that the zipper pulls had reflective material on them. The words “The North Face” were embroidered in white in a couple areas. Kelly grabbed a knife and removed the white zipper pulls and the reflective emblems.

  “Something against brand name gear?” Brooke inquired sarcastically.

  “Only if it is going to give away our position. These areas are too reflective.”

  Brooke nodded in understanding. She trusted Kelly’s abilities and immediately saw that he was right.

  “I set burlap and cable ties over there by the boxes.” He pointed. “Will you attach a small amount of burlap to the length of the rifles? It will help break up the starkness of the black.”

  “Which side should I put it on?”

  “Both, if you can. Just make sure it doesn’t interfere with the action or the field of view on the ACOGs.”

  They worked simultaneously at preparing their gear. It was packed and inspected. There were areas with compression straps that required adjustments. Then they put on their gear and jumped up and down, simulating a run with the packs. A few rattles were addressed. At some point mid-day came and went, and both were getting hungry. They preferred the simplicity of ordering a pizza.

  The fact that the two had been lovers once added an odd element to their interactions. Kelly wasn’t the type of guy to pursue a woman solely for his own selfish need of sexual release. It didn’t matter how much he wanted it. Truth was he’d rather jackoff and get on with his day than hurt a woman like that. That’s how he’d made it through the desert all of those months. That’s how most of his battalion had made it through.

  Additionally, he was practical about his own sexuality. There were times in his past when women had used him. He’d hated how it felt to be played with so he despised those type of sexual pursuits from either perspective. The end of Kelly and Brooke’s relationship had come after the two of them had returned from Arkansas. They had both seen each other in their worst lights. Where Brooke looked to Kelly for his contagious strength and courage, he had come to see the worst of himself in her. She was like a mirror that reflected his inner-most animalistic instincts.