by Hawk, Nate
“Several years,” she said through the increased adrenaline. “I owed him a big favor before this but I think we are even now.”
Megan assessed the deepness of the shoulder wound first. It was still bleeding and would need some help sealing up.
“You need about ten stitches. When you come back, I will take them out.”
Brooke didn’t want to owe anyone a favor.
“Let me at least pay you for the work.”
“I won’t accept money for this. I want to help Kelly. Any friend of his is a friend of mine.” Then Megan added, “Besides, you need to be in your best condition so you can take care of him.”
Brooke looked at Megan, understanding that she must have thought that they had something going. She shook her head and curled her lip on one side.
“We tried once… him and me, I mean. It was two or three years ago. He thinks that I’m too tough for him… whatever that means. I guess it is his way of saying he wants a lady.”
Megan’s eyes perked up some as she nodded her head in understanding. “He does seem like the type that appreciates being in charge,” Megan confirmed.
It sounded a lot like how home life had been when she was married.
“Yeah, his father ran their household growing up. His mother was the type that had dinner on the table as soon as he got home. Probably hemmed pants and baked apple pies, you know?”
“I didn’t realize that those types still existed. Sounds like a fifties fantasy.”
Megan stopped talking and concentrated on her work. Her needle was threaded and the local anesthetic had been prepared.
“You’ll feel a little prick,” she said.
The contents of the needle were administered and soon took effect. Megan went to work on the stitches. Brooke didn’t talk during the procedure. When the nurse had finished up with what turned out to be nine stitches, Brooke spoke up.
“You know he likes you, don’t you?”
“Me?” Megan asked.
“Yes. I saw it that day in the hospital. He looks at you in a way that he doesn’t look at the rest of us. Obviously, he’s not ready now, but if he was… Well, I know him well enough to see it.”
Megan thought about what Brooke had said. She cleaned her patient’s ear wounds and applied a small bandage. She also gave her some oral antibiotics to fight the bacteria that had accumulated in the wounds.
“It’s terrible what happened to his family,” Megan said. “I don’t know if he’ll ever be ready.”
She thought back to other patients that had been forever troubled due to the trauma that they had sustained. Then she contemplated her own life and her own trauma.
“There is another bedroom with a bath down the hallway. On the left. Get some rest and I’ll make sure you have something to eat when you wake up.”
It was easy for Brooke to see the nurturing qualities that Megan displayed genuinely. She still couldn’t understand why Megan would risk treating someone with a gunshot wound in her home. The process seemed routine to Megan. Like it was no big deal. Brooke didn’t figure it out either. She was too tired to think. She headed down the hallway with something inside encouraging her to go inside Kelly’s room. She quietly opened it. She was happy to see that Kelly was getting some rest. She thought he looked his most peaceful when he was asleep. She closed the door behind her.
Then she turned across the hall and she opened the door to the other guest room.
***
Chapter 50
Angelo was sent in because of his addictive personality and handsome face. The PAG knew that with those qualities, Angelo was best suited to get a quick answer. It was the third hostel that the PAG group had been in that day. The first two were medium sized operations full of mostly college-aged kids. Most had chosen a life of partying and traveling over one of studying. Some of them accomplished all three. They all seemed to be having the time of their lives exploring Europe. The third hostel was even more of what the first two were. It was bigger in every way, including the atmosphere as Angelo walked through the door. There were people on computers and others playing table foosball. There was a pool out back that was half indoors and half outdoors. Through the glass, Angelo could see a couple of coeds throwing a Frisbee around on the pool deck. The door dinged as he entered and a young lady looked up from the ledger that she was writing in. Angelo preferred women for this kind of thing because he was good talking to them. Men always despised his good looks and charm.
“Can I help you?”
“I hope so. I’m looking for a friend,” he said with a wink.
“Aren’t we all?” she asked amusingly. “You know, a lot of people come through here.”
Angelo laughed. “You’d remember this one. He is twice the age of these kids.”
“Right,” she said. “I do remember. He was wearing a suit. He said his luggage had been stolen.”
“Yeah, that’s him. He was traveling light. Did he say where he was going?”
Before the young lady could respond, two friendly looking guys walked through the door, holding hands. Angelo couldn’t help but stare. They seemed so out of place. So vibrantly out of place. It wasn’t so much that the two men were holding hands. What stuck out was their clothing choice. They were wearing tight-fitting, bright shirts and shorts with advertisements and sponsors all over them.
“You know,” Angelo said as he turned back to the cashier. I think I know where to find my friend. Thanks for your help.”
As he started to turn, the girl wished him luck. A clever smile crept over Angelo’s face.
“I hope you find him!” she said.
Oh, I will, Angelo thought. I will.
Angelo opened the side door to the surveillance van. He slid inside, keeping the door tight to his body the entire time. Without much to-do, he pulled the door closed behind him.
“I’ve got it. Listen. Do we think he is planning to meet up with the German terror group?”
“Yes,” Laura Banks answered for the team.
“Are we all confident that this guy is smart enough not to take mass transit to his final objective?”
There were a few calculating, yet affirmative answers. Each person seemed to display a different level of enthusiasm behind their answer. In the end, they agreed that he was probably smart enough that he wouldn’t leave a digital trail all the way to his peers.
“So as I see it there are four simple options for him to exit Saarbrucken, if not by mass transit. I doubt he stole a car, for example, as I think it is too high risk for him, and he’d have to ditch it when he gets there. That would involve too much risk of being tracked.
So, here are the four simple options. One, I doubt he took a taxi. He may be remembered taking a drive anywhere outside the city. Two, I doubt he walked. The next city is like twenty miles away. Who does that in dress shoes?”
Owen said. “Maybe he bought new shoes here.”
“Yes, but stay with me. He’s desperate and on the run. I doubt he would take the time. Three, his friends could have picked him up. I doubt that happened as these guys are foreigners, likely operating under fake IDs. It’s just more attention they don’t want.”
“You’ve eliminated three,” Stan added, as if Angelo needed some numeric encouragement. “Now tell us how he did it!”
“A bike. I think he took a bicycle to meet up with his friends. If we can find some place that rented or sold him a bike, then we’ll be right back on him. I think we’re getting close, guys. I mean how far can one asshole go in one morning of riding a bike?”
“Well, remember he is a very motivated asshole,” Owen said.
***
Chapter 51
The phone rang four times before Kelly awoke and bolted upright in the bed. He glanced at the time on his phone and the caller ID. Based on both assessments, it was time to for him to get his ass moving. He had slept plenty long enough and besides, Steven only called if it was important.
“Hey.”
“Kelly, y
ou’ve exceeded my expectations this time.”
Kelly didn’t say anything. He was slow to respond as he was still trying to remember how to get the gears in his head to turn without coffee to douse the flames of dreariness.
Steven continued. “As you know, you apprehended Mohammad Vargas. We ran his prints through the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. Those fingers that were still printable, that is. It is a definite match. IAFIS is never wrong with that type of hit. Thanks for handing him over instead of eliminating him. Your assumption was correct, this will do wonders for my career.”
“Yeah, don’t mention it,” Kelly said. “I guess he’s been hiding out with that group for the last ten years. Doesn’t seem like much of a life.”
“Well, the rest of his will be spent in a Federal Penitentiary. Now he has even less of a life. Good work, Kelly. Your homework paid off big time for my career.”
“Thanks, but I wish it felt better than it does,” Kelly admitted.
“There’s something else,” Steven began. See, the barrel has been changed on the Makarov.”
“I guess good criminals aren’t dumb. Was the gun useful at all from a forensics standpoint?”
“That’s the thing. He didn’t change out the firing pin. That takes a lot more finesse. Also, our lab ran a priority metallurgy test and they got a match. Apparently, the gun has been fired since the new barrel was installed. The ammunition that was used is a chemical match to bullets pulled out of three bodies last year. They were shot during a multiple homicide that involved a fourth victim, too, who was stabbed multiple times in a mosque. Three were shot to death and our lab has concluded that this exact ammo was used. The firing pin is also a match to the shell casings we picked up at the scene. So in addition to pulling in a member of the FBI’s top ten list, we will be able to clear four murders. So again, outstanding work!”
“Who is going to take the rap for the killings?” Kelly asked.
“Mohammad Vargas will for now. At the very least we have him on four fresh counts of felony murder. His fingerprints were inside a stolen Jeep that our lab has determined to be the vehicle used during the commission of the crimes.”
“Damn. Nothing seems to stick to Niko. But maybe that’s for the best. I just don’t see him being taken alive and extradited back to the US. Abbas, or Mohammad…,” he corrected, “…told me that Niko was at a mosque in Hamburg,” Kelly explained.
“Yeah, that’s where the Bureau’s Intel ends, too. Hamburg, Germany is so far out of my jurisdiction that I’d need the Mar’s rover to make the arrest! I’ve got a well-connected friend within the Bureau that went with me to pick up Mohammad last night. I’ll see if he has heard anything.”
“I appreciate it Steven. Stay safe out there.”
“Yeah. You too.”
Kelly put his phone down on the nightstand. He grabbed his clothes and saw they had been washed and dried. A mosque in Hamburg, he kept thinking to himself as he pulled on his pants. Kelly was contemplating the prior night and wishing that he would have had a good place and a few more minutes to conduct a thorough interrogation. He thought back through the man’s answer. Then Kelly had a new thought. In his rush to leave in the truck, he hadn’t been thorough. He had slipped up. Abbas hadn’t said a mosque in Hamburg. He had said the mosque in Hamburg.
Like there was only one. What did that mean? It didn’t make any sense because there wasn’t only one mosque in Hamburg. There had to be dozens. But then Kelly had a different thought. Had Abbas actually said Hamburg? Kelly had assumed so since that was where Niko had flown to. But, what if Kelly had misunderstood?
There was a knock at the door that interrupted Kelly’s thought.
“Come in,” he said.
Megan came through the door with a smile. She immediately noticed the scars on his chest. They were still fresh and pink colored like she remembered them. It gave her an odd feeling. She’d helped Kelly with nearly every personal task imaginable. He assumed the scars brought up images of him in the hospital so seeing him here, healthy, in her personal environment must have been strange. He tried to picture the two mutually exclusive worlds suddenly colliding.
“I brought you coffee,” she said.
“I could use it, thanks! How is Brooke?”
“She’s ok. No shrapnel in her eyes. She’ll heal up but she’ll have a scar.”
“She’ll probably like that,” Kelly assured.
“What will you do next?”
“Probably put on a shirt,” he said with a laugh. “Thanks for washing this stuff.”
Kelly laughed a little as he finished dressing. Megan liked to see him in good spirits. It was a notable improvement from his condition in mid April.
“Between me and you?” he asked, looking for a confirmation from her.
“Of course. Confidentiality is part of my oath.”
“I’ve still got to stop a guy from killing other people’s families.”
“Why don’t you tell the FBI what you know and let them handle it?”
“My problem is not in the states. It’s in Deutschland. That’s way out of the FBI’s jurisdiction.”
“Germany?” she asked.
“Potato, potato,” he said.
The way he articulated the letters caused the one word to sound like two different words.
“Pronunciation is precisely my point.”
It was clear that Megan wasn’t following Kelly’s thought process. He continued thinking about what Abbas had said. Kelly had a thought to follow up on.
“Do you have a map?” he asked with a changing tone and some added excitement in his voice.
“Sure, I can pull one up on my computer.”
“Good idea! Better yet, we can just do a Google search.”
Megan noticed how Kelly had used the word “we”. Of course, she liked to feel appreciated but she found herself thinking about the term ‘we’ in a different light. She gave a gesture as if to say follow me, as she led the way. Kelly trailed her through the doorway. Brooke’s door was still closed and he figured it was a good sign that she was getting some rest. They walked out into a great room where the ceiling opened up and displayed two and a half stories of openness. A small area on one side was set under a second story floor so it created a cozy den, even with two sides of the area open to the larger room. There were columns and large glass windows that went from the floor to the ceiling. The large space reminded Kelly of one of Saddam’s palaces that his Marine unit had commandeered in Iraq. He chuckled to himself when he thought of all the dumb photos that he and his buddies took there.
Certainly Megan had a different decorating style than Saddam. His palaces had seemed much more crudely built than hers. They walked over to a desktop computer and Kelly glanced away out of respect as Megan typed in a password. The screen blinked to life. She motioned for Kelly to sit down but he just leaned over. He googled “Map Homburg, Germany”. Instantly, a map was displayed showing a small town. It was the type of town that would probably only have one mosque.
The mosque, he thought. Kelly had mistaken the last word of the phrase. He thought Abbas had said Hamburg when he had actually said Homburg. It was just a one letter difference in spelling but it was a three hundred mile difference in geographic location. Kelly had let the man’s accent fool him.
“I misinterpreted something yesterday and I just caught it.”
Kelly pointed to the computer screen.
“That is where my guy is,” he said pointing to the city of Homburg on the computer’s screen. Kelly zoomed out to locate the nearest city with mass transit: Saarbrucken. Now he knew where he was going. Kelly sat down at the computer and put together an itinerary. Now that he knew where he was going, he planned to leave right away. He got out his credit card and booked a last minute flight.
***
Chapter 52
“Steven, it’s Kelly. I figured out where this guy is.
“You mean which mosque?”
“You sho
uld ask me which city. These guys are in Homburg, not Hamburg,” he said with careful articulation. “It’s a completely different city,” he added. “I’ve just booked a flight for Frankfurt that leaves tomorrow evening. I’ll be staying at the Kloster Hornbach Hotel just to the south of Homburg.
“You know I have to try and talk you out of this. Why not give the information to the CIA? I know a guy who knows a guy…”
“There’s no need to rehash this old topic. I’ll stay in touch, Steven.”
Kelly hung up. Then he walked back inside the stone house with the notebook that he had retrieved from the truck. He noticed there were some imprints where the top sheets of paper pressed through to the pad that he held. He grabbed a pencil and carefully shaded across the imprinted lines. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything legible that he could make out. Well, maybe an “A” and an “L”, he thought. Maybe.
Brooke walked out like she was sore head-to-toe. All three of them were in their mid-thirties. Brooke and Kelly had both been running through the woods doing maneuvers that would have made twenty year old bodies ache so soreness was a predictable outcome. She bent over, grabbing her ankles and pulling her back parallel with the ground. She gave her feet a kind of shake. The maneuver stretched her injured shoulder in a way that hurt so she backed off.
“How do you feel?” Megan asked.
“Better, I guess,”
Kelly was in the middle of his second sandwich. He held a fresh one up as if it was on offer, but Brooke needed to move fast before he ate it.
“Looks good,” she said, figuring she’d rather eat and finish her stretches later. “I’m starving.”
“When you’re done eating, I’ll change your dressings one more time.”
“Thank you. I’m ready to get home, though. Feels like I’ve been away for a week.”
***
Kelly made it back home to his apartment, uneventfully. He thought about what Brooke had said and gave her some credit. It did feel like they’d been away for a week. Kelly pulled off a length of packing tape and finished sealing up the box. It sure was heavy for an international shipment. He figured it would cost a fortune, too. It was a drop-in-the-bucket, though. It couldn’t be much compared to the thousands that he had spent on the last minute flight across the Atlantic. He made out the address in large black letters.
