Relentless Pursuit: A Kelly Maclean Novel

by Hawk, Nate

  Im Klosterbezirk Hornbach

  C/O Kelly Maclean

  RP 66500

  Germany

  The box had to weigh about thirty-five pounds. He cleaned up the newspaper and tape that he had strewn out on the floor and put the orange lid back on the paint can. He was confident this part of his plan would work. If it didn’t, he was sure he could find another way. He tossed the ACOG scope into his checked luggage bag and moved it over towards the door. Satisfied that it was done he took one last look around his apartment. He noticed an uneasy feeling building inside of himself. He wondered if he would ever return there, to the place that once held his dreams and his future.

  He envisioned Brady looking out the south facing windows. The memory weaved its way through his consciousness with a sudden alacrity, ricocheting against every one of Kelly’s emotional receptors that would still function. The boy used to stare out the windows at the surrounding trees. It was with such intensity that he studied the birds and rodents as they scurried around in their constant effort to satisfy their own survival. That was all sort of an entry-level interest though. Brady’s true aspiration had been to work amongst the oceans’ ecosystems as a marine biologist. The kid had been so smart. Wouldn’t it have been nice if they could have taken that cruise, he thought. Kelly reconsidered the discussions to advance Brady up an additional grade level. At that moment, he would have been satisfied to give Brady just one more hug.

  Just one. Planning out the boy’s entire future had tragically become so irrelevant. Kelly’s stream of thought progressed to Brady’s other attributes. He had a unique set of qualities. There was something that brought out the best in those who surrounded the boy. The thought of bombs or the friends that he lost in Iraq never surfaced in Brady’s company. Kelly was always engaged on some intellectual level with the kid. Brady had been so much more mature than the seven years that he had been on earth.

  Kelly shook his head and snapped out of it. He wouldn’t let himself dwell in the past too long lest he forget what needed to be done to balance the scales of justice. Maybe some more killing would make him feel better. He doubted that it would improve his morale much but he rationalized that the killing needed done. Niko had to be stopped. Kelly stacked the heavy box on top of his rolling luggage and walked out of his apartment. He hailed a taxi to the nearest UPS store where he paid to overnight the package to himself on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. He then took the same taxi to Logan International Airport where he checked in and made his way to the awaiting gate.

  ***

  Chapter 53

  Special Agent Owen “Tiny” Tucker had been walking the trendy tourist districts of Saarbrucken for a couple of hours. He was entrenched in the beautiful city and would not have minded if he had gotten lost there for several days. Too bad he had work to do. The place had a magnetism that attracted him. The culture and the history were as alluring as the women that the area produced. And through the occasional glance or wink, he surmised that the women were intrigued by his uniqueness too. His short stay in the city had been so much more gratifying than he’d anticipated. He was enjoying his assignment but looking forward to eliminating Niko and moving on. Then his phone rang. He didn’t have time for unimportant calls. He checked the caller ID, just to be sure. Then he realized that the call could only be important.

  “Hey, usually I am the one calling you,” he said with curiosity.

  “Tiny, I need to ask you a big favor.”

  “Well,” he said, thinking back on the years they’d known each other. “We both know that I owe you more than one. What’s up?”

  “It’s a big one.”

  “OK. What’s up?” Owen asked a second time, more seriously.

  “I’ve got a friend who is looking for a man that was involved with the Boston Bombings. He’s on his way to Germany.”

  There was a brief pause on the line as Owen processed the information.

  “Come on. You’re kidd’n me? You should tell him it’s covered. We got it.”

  “I’m serious. Now you mentioned that you’d been stationed over there…”

  “Where exactly is this friend of yours going?”

  “Somewhere in the vicinity of Saarbrucken.”

  “You’ve gotta be bullshitting me. Tell me who put you up to this!”

  “Listen. I’m not kidding. This guy is funding his own attempt to stop the remainder of the terror cell. I don’t think he will but if he gets in the way I’m asking you to spare him.”

  “Look…You know how things go. We don’t leave loose ends. They can easily pull down operations. Loose ends get our people killed. You of all people know that’s true.”

  Owen was right. The caller knew Owen’s statement to be true. It was painfully impossible to forget.

  “And that’s why I’m calling you. This man is more than capable so you may very well run into him. I don’t think he’ll get in your way. I’m asking this favor just in case.”

  There was another awkward pause.

  “Owen, he was a Marine in Fallujah.”

  “Hmm.”

  Owen didn’t like it. It was a big favor. It was probably best to go scare the guy off than have him show up at a bad time.

  “Consider us even after this. Or put me in the red,” the caller pleaded.

  Owen exhaled, trying to rid his body of the anxiety that the conversation was beginning to cause.

  “You know this is completely against protocol. I can’t promise anything.”

  Owen was busy considering how the circumstance might unfold. Shit like this had a way of turning out badly for everyone involved. He sure didn’t want his budding career pruned by Murphy’s Law.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Kelly Maclean,” his friend said. “He lost his family in the attack.”

  Owen didn’t say anything for a moment as he had stopped to consider the man’s name. Hadn’t he heard it somewhere before? Then he placed it.

  “Are you talking about that guy that was nearly blown up himself? I think I read an article in Time or Newsweek, a few weeks back. Some cop.”

  “That’s him. He’s tall with a reddish tint to his hair. Handsome. Trust me, the ladies like him. He developed a slight limp on his left foot. It’s better but it’s still noticeable.”

  “I remember. He had one of those stories that gives the rest of us our inspiration to work longer and to push further.”

  “Yeah. Believe me, I know what you mean.”

  “Like I said, I’m not promising anything but if it comes to it… Well, I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Hey, that’s all that I could ask for. Thank you.”

  Owen hung up the phone and continued walking along the Saar River. Maybe it would be better if a few members of the team took a quick break to scare this Kelly guy off. If he showed up Owen figured he would probably just get himself killed. And maybe take some PAG team members with him.

  Owen knew that the CIA crew wasn’t going to like him asking a big favor on his first assignment with them. What other option did he have? Owen figured that he owed it to Kelly as a fellow American, veteran and law enforcement guy. Hopefully the team could scare the guy off and that would be that. Owen called Laura Banks and informed her that there was an issue.

  She thought about what Owen had told her and developed a plan. After all, her husband had been a Marine too. Laura suspected Kelly would be easy to track down. She was right.

  The imposing Saarbrucken Castle symbolized its role to contain the power and prestige that had fueled its royal occupants for hundreds of years. The nearby vendors cheapened the atmosphere of the castle some but Owen figured they had been there in some form for hundreds of years too. He eyed another bicycle rental shop up ahead. As he walked towards it he saw a sign in English displaying their services: “Sales, Rentals, Repairs”. Owen saw Angelo working his way toward him and paused before hunting down the attendant.

  “Any luck?” he asked of Angelo.

  “
Nada. Nobody’s rented a bike to a forty year old guy in a suit.”

  “Maybe he changed his clothes.”

  “Beginning to wonder, myself. Still thinking he was in too much of a hurry. Still, a single forty-year-old man, speaking English should be memorable for a day or two.”

  “Could be the attendant that was working went home sick.”

  “Or their shift ended,” Owen admitted.

  Just then the proprietor poked his head up from the end of a long line of bikes. He had been bent over doing some type of repair work.

  “Guten Tag,” he said.

  “Hello,” Owen returned. “We’re looking for a friend that might have rented a bike here. White guy. Dark hair. Maybe in a suit.”

  “Ah, yes,” he said as he glanced up and left, trying to recall.

  The tinkerer was spinning a socket wrench around backwards in his hand.

  “He purchased a bicycle just this morning. Gave me some line about finding himself, yes he did. I recommended that he should find some riding clothes first.”

  “Did he say where he was headed?” Angelo inquired.

  “He did,” said the man.

  The two men looked at each other and back to the man. The old guy was going to make them dig it out of him.

  “Listen, it would really help us if you could tell us where he was going.”

  “Can’t,” he said.

  The two men didn’t have time for the Bavarian man’s bullshit. He probably talked to everybody like that. Everything seemed like a riddle or a joke. Angelo took a breath and then took a stride toward the man like he was going to rough him up. Owen held up his hand and placed it on Angelo’s chest in a gesture to stay calm.

  “Is there a reason that you won’t tell us?” Owen asked dryly.

  The man’s eyes got real big like he was about to let the other two men in on a secret. Like he was going out of his way to be helpful.

  “Customer privacy concerns,” he said with a false sincerity.

  The man was obviously digging for a tip for going against his own policy. He began laughing and carrying on. Angelo was chomping at the bit. He was past irritation. If Owen hadn’t been there he would have already been smacking the old man around. In fact, Owen’s patience had expired too. He looked the man in the eyes and took a step towards him. The proprietor realized that his pockets weren’t going to be filled in exchange for any information.

  “OK, OK,” he said. “Your friend said he was working his way to France and then Spain, I think it was.”

  “Did you see which way he went from here?”

  “See that’s the funny thing. He didn’t go towards France.”

  Angelo and Owen glanced at each other again as if they expected the old guy to start yanking them around some more. Then they looked back with more curiosity than patience.

  “Well…he rode off that way,” the man said as he pointed towards a small city on the boarder of Germany and Austria.

  Now we got this son-of-a-bitch, Angelo thought to himself.

  ***

  Chapter 54

  The woman eyed Kelly as he approached. He seemed pleasant and was clearly handsome. He was nicely dressed, too. That’s always a good sign, she thought to herself.

  “Purpose for your visit?”

  “Bucket list,” he said casually.

  “I’m sorry?” she said like a question, rather than a statement.

  “I’ve always wanted to hike the German Alps. That’s number twenty-three on my bucket list. I hope to be in the mountains within a few hours,” he said politely.

  “I see,” the woman said as she opened his passport and compared his face with the one displayed in the photograph. She turned a few pages and found an area that was free of ink.

  “Maybe even see the Neuschwanstein Castle, if I have time,” he added.

  She rolled her stamp on a black inkpad and pressed it on his passport.

  “Have a nice time,” she said.

  Her mind was already preparing for the following person.

  “Next!”

  The woman behind the glass hadn’t been interested in hassling Kelly. Her world was one of respect. Give respect to her and she would reciprocate. Entering the country had been a simple process and Kelly was awarded a ninety-day tourist visa. The immigration officer never gave Kelly a second thought. So after breezing through Customs and Immigration, Kelly continued doing the usual things that an arriving tourist does. He picked up his luggage from the carousel. Then he swapped out several hundred dollars for about thirty percent less Euros, not including the fee. Then he hailed a cab to the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof. The main station was the only place in town to take a direct train to Homburg. Arriving, he rolled his luggage across the hard floor and made arrangements that would carry him directly to Homburg. He purchased a ticket on IC 2054, which would take just over two hours to make its way to his destination. He walked the concourse and eventually found the train that he would be riding. He always liked the atmosphere around a train station. All of the people running around and traveling to different parts of the region. All of them with their own individual stories. Kelly walked past an olive skinned man who was propped against a support column and reading a paper. The man seemed to make accidental eye contact and quickly looked away. Kelly thought nothing of it as he boarded the high-speed train. He considered taking a seat in a second-class cabin. He sure was in the mood to clear his mind. It felt to him as if maybe he really was pursuing his dream of exploring the Alps.

  Relaxation put up a valiant fight but in that moment it was his hunger that prevailed. It was mid-day now and Kelly couldn’t shake the lethargic feeling of his body being depleted of calories. Instead of the cabin, he opted for the dining car. He slid the glass door aside and walked into a small area where he ordered a coffee, two cheeseburgers and a German item called a BiFi. The advertising on the BiFi package said that it was a “must have” so he gave it a whirl. This version was the equivalent of a salami stick covered with white bread and he was surprised that it tasted as good as it did. He quickly consumed the whole meal. He hadn’t realized how hungry he had allowed himself to become. It was far from a gourmet meal but it was satisfying enough to put relaxation back behind the helm of his mind. On his way to the quietness of the cabin, he purchased five more BiFis.

  “These things are great,” he told the stewardess.

  She had a slight hesitation as she contemplated a response. Then she gave him a smile.

  “Everything in Deutschland is better,” she had said with a warm smile. Kelly realized they were no longer talking about the cuisine.

  He figured he wasn’t the first guy that had heard that line. He gave her a wink and continued on. He walked through two second-class cars and saw that there were no empty cabins. He chose a cabin that contained one other soul, a businessman, presumably. Kelly took the big man as a consultant. He knew that was a popular profession, abroad. The man seemed deep into the reading of what looked like a German newspaper. Der Spiegel, it was titled. There were photos of the floodwaters that had unmercifully risen to record levels that spring. Areas of the country looked like disaster zones. Farms and buildings were under water. Thousands of people had been displaced from their homes. Some had even died. Kelly would have happily traded his set of problems to deal with only floodwaters.

  The man looked up. The contrast of his white eyes on his black face added a level of intensity to his already large frame. Kelly opened the glass door and entered the cabin.

  “Sit down, Kelly,” he said. “We need to talk.”

  Kelly was completely caught off guard. Who the hell is this guy? he asked himself. Owen was sitting there like he knew Kelly would walk through the door any moment. Kelly hadn’t even known where he was going to sit thirty seconds before. This guy is good, Kelly thought. He was only a couple of inches taller than Kelly but outweighed him by twenty or thirty pounds.

  Both assessments were notable in their own right.

  Kelly wasn�
��t a small man. He wasn’t intimidated but the other man did receive his undivided attention. As Owen attempted to continue, Kelly cut in, in an effort to gain the conversational upper hand.

  “Who are you?” Kelly asked.

  He maintained eye contact and sat down.

  “I’m the guy that comes after men like you when they put their nose where it ought not be.”

  “What do you want with me?” Kelly asked, hoping to steer the discussion.

  Kelly knew he was treading water but he was working to exploit any conversational advantage that he could.

  “Listen carefully, Kelly. I know who you are and I know why you’re here. I’m telling you to back off. Just go to Amsterdam and get laid. Go to Africa and climb Kilimanjaro. Start a new life in California. I don’t give a shit where you go but you’ve got to leave Germany. There is nothing for you around here but death.”

  Kelly was processing the man’s angle. If he wanted Kelly to stay out of the way then he surmised that both of them must be after the same objective: Niko. The man also sounded American. Kelly thought that, perhaps, he had noticed an East Coast accent. Plain clothes and operating outside the US. Probably CIA then, he thought.

  Steven had been right. Seeing that he had blindly stumbled into the man told Kelly that there were likely other operatives nearby. There were probably others on the same train. There could be one in each of the second-class cabins. Others could be roaming the train in search of him. The black man clearly had good Intel and Kelly was feeling outplayed. Kelly was eyeing the man and asking himself how dangerous this guy and his team could be to his own efforts. He wasn’t going to leave Germany until he met up with Niko. He would have to figure out how to dodge the CIA. Could he keep the Agency off of his back long enough to find Niko? He looked at the monster of a man in front of him. Again, he wished to himself that rising water was his biggest problem.