by K. J. Howe
He’d remembered.
“Join me downstairs. I have a surprise for you.”
All the cars outside—Johann prayed it wasn’t some stupid birthday party. Who could possibly be there but his father’s friends? It wasn’t as if he had many of his own.
Vater grabbed his arm, his face animated. “This is more than just your birthday—you’re about to become part of something bigger than all of this.” He waved his hands to indicate their surroundings.
“What—”
“You’ll see soon enough. Come.”
Dazed, Johann followed his father down the spiral staircase. Something bigger? What was his father talking about?
Johann hoped that Uncle Karl would be there. Karl Wagner wasn’t an actual relative, more a longtime friend of his father’s, a kind man who had taken a genuine interest in Johann. They had been playing chess together nearly every week, and Johann had started to win more matches lately.
The cavernous basement held an impressive wine cellar along with his father’s firearms collection. The Dietrich family had been in weapons manufacturing for generations. Johann had been going to the firing range since he was seven and was comfortable shooting everything from a Walther PPK to a .50 caliber machine gun.
The light dimmed as Johann entered the antechamber. Built like a bunker, the cellar had thick concrete walls and old-fashioned oil lamps. Twelve men were gathered around the grand mahogany table in the wine cellar, clasping metal beer steins or pewter goblets of wine. The cellar, with its heavy wrought-iron chandeliers and dark wood paneling, transported one back in time. It was also a little chilly, and a tiny shiver darted down Johann’s spine.
“We all wanted to wish you a happy birthday.” His father handed him a goblet of wine.
Johann looked around at the men’s expectant faces and forced a smile. He would have preferred beer over wine, but he didn’t dare interrupt his father.
Father lifted his beer stein. “Prost. To manhood.” The men raised their drinks and repeated the toast.
“Where’s Uncle Karl?” The one person he actually wanted at his party wasn’t there.
His father sipped his beer. “Karl had to leave town—something about a family illness. Not sure if he’ll be back tonight.”
Weird. Johann thought his uncle would have mentioned something like that. He’d send him a text, find out what was up. For now, though, he was stuck with Vater’s crew.
A small package with a black bow sat on the edge of the table. A gift?
“We should have brought him a woman. That’s probably what he really wants,” Leopold said. Raucous laughter filled the room. Johann tried not to cringe.
“Sit down, son.” His father pulled out an empty chair.
Johann collapsed onto the wooden seat, his long fingers gripping the carved arms. He wished he could go to his room and text Fatima. Instead, all eyes were focused on him.
“You’re seventeen, and it’s time to fully understand your responsibilities. When your great-grandfather, Otto Dietrich, returned from the Second World War, he understood that the communists posed a threat to our country—and the world.”
“Hear, hear, raise a glass to the Dietrich family for their foresight. Prost.” Leopold lifted his goblet. A faint wine stain lingered in his blond beard.
“Your great-grandfather was instrumental in founding a secret organization formed to guard against communism.” Father straightened his shoulders. “Otto supplied the arms. The Kommunisten were everywhere, and we had to protect ourselves from an invasion.”
“The CIA and British Secret Service helped train them.” Falco Kerner, a wealthy industrialist, rarely spoke, but when he did, he commanded attention with his rumbling baritone. “They were hidden throughout Europe.”
Johann tried to take it all in. What were they talking about? Secret armies and weapons . . . weren’t the communists ancient history?
Father placed a firm hand on his shoulder. “Even top officials in the Austrian government had no idea this group existed, but your great-grandfather considered participation his patriotic duty. And he built strong partnerships with other European nations and the United States by offering discounted munitions. The relationship resulted in profitable American contracts.” He smiled. “It is what enables us to live like this.”
Johann shifted in his seat, dying to get this over with. Some birthday celebration.
“Even the few who know about the existence of organizations like ours believe they became defunct years ago. But we’ve become stronger than ever. And we’d like you to join us.”
Several men pounded their fists on the table and raised their steins and goblets in another cheer. “Jawohl.”
Johann tried to process this information. His father was part of a secret society, and now he was being inducted into it? And no one had asked him if he was actually interested.
Father passed him the small box. Johann drew a deep breath and untied the black bow, steadying his hands. He sensed that this moment was important to his father, and he didn’t want to disappoint him.
Inside, a gold medallion hung on a simple chain. It seemed familiar, tugging on a memory he couldn’t quite access. He touched the pendant, then turned it over. On one side was the imprint of the Habsburg crest, on the other side the word Freiheitswächter was engraved on the medallion. Freedom Guardians.
Father secured the medallion around Johann’s neck. “I still remember the exact moment when my father gave me mine. We wear them on every mission.”
Missions?
There were solemn nods around the table. It felt odd, almost absurd, to be talking about secret armies and “missions,” but if that’s what it took to get closer to his father again, he’d try to understand exactly what being a Freiheitswächter meant.
“Will you join us?”
“I’d . . . be honored.” What else could he say?
“I couldn’t be prouder,” Vater said.
Johann’s skin pinkened, and his chest tightened. His father had never uttered those words before.
“You’ll need to swear an oath tonight. Normally your induction would be a gradual process, but at this moment we are teetering on the brink of history.” Father’s tone shifted. “I have something very important to show you. Follow me.”
Instead of heading up the stairs, his father strode to the ornate wooden mantelpiece and beckoned Johann closer. Vater pressed a series of previously hidden buttons. Johann felt utterly disoriented now, unable to resist the course of events.
The wall of shelves showcasing many of his father’s prized hunting trophies opened onto a tunnel that Johann had never known existed.
“Come,” Father said, a strange light in his fierce eyes.
Fingers of panic crawled up Johann’s throat, as if the dark tunnel led to a place from which he would never return.
Chapter 7
Rif Asker paced the situation room at Quantum International Security headquarters in London. He’d just finished a lengthy call with their top Latin American response consultant. Paco Martinez had negotiated the release of three female hostages who had been held captive in Argentina for 254 days. A strategic thinker gifted with more patience than Rif could ever muster, Paco had sounded simultaneously excited and exhausted as he shared the details of the ransom and exchange.
Debriefings like this were critical. There was always a lesson to be learned, and sharing these experiences allowed every member of the team to improve. When it was impossible for the whole team to be together in person, as it often was, debriefings would take place with a senior member of the team, such as Rif or Thea. And what a case it had been; the situation had gone on so long that continuing negotiations had been balancing on the razor’s edge of an attempted extraction. Had it come down to an exfiltration, Rif—director of operations at Quantum—would have stepped in. Rescues were attempted fewer than 10 percent of the time, because the risk of the hostages being injured or killed during exfil was high. Only when absolutely all effort
s at negotiation had been exhausted and the hostages’ lives were in peril, Rif would lead a team of operatives into the field for an extraction. But by using his familiarity with the relationships between the local police and cartel operatives, who had a mutual interest in keeping the peace in the region, Paco had been able to put pressure on the kidnappers to accept the final ransom offer.
In exchange for the assistance of the corrupt cops and traffickers in bringing the kidnappers to the table, Paco had offered to keep the Policía Federal Argentina in the dark about certain smuggling operations going across the Altiplano and into southern Bolivia. Thanks to Paco’s savvy and tenacity, not to mention Quantum’s state-of-the-art satellite and drone reconnaissance, three more hostages were on their way home without a shot fired.
It was a good ending, and Rif should have been pleased, but unease elbowed his gut. Something was wrong. His cell buzzed again in his pocket, reminding him that he had a message. He’d felt the phone vibrate twenty minutes ago when he was on the other line.
He pressed the button to start the message. His spirits rose for a second at the sound of Thea’s voice, then nosedived. Possible 7500. As a seasoned pilot, he knew the code well: skyjack. The room suddenly felt cold.
He pressed the end button and called her satphone. No answer.
Her cell. Nothing.
Rif thought back to his last conversation with Thea. It had been several hours ago, when Thea, Jabari, and Ayan had missed their connection in Nairobi. He’d phoned the owner of Transatlantic Airlines, a client of theirs, and secured seats for them on a Boeing Business Jet headed for London.
But where were they now?
The whooshing sound of the situation room door opening demanded his attention. Hakan Asker, the owner of Quantum—and Rif’s father—strode in. “How did it go with Paco?”
“He talked his way into the kidnappers’ hearts, the suave bastard—the hostages are on their way home. But listen: Thea’s plane might have been hijacked. I can’t reach her.”
“What do you know?”
Rif glanced at his watch. “She left me a message twenty-one minutes ago saying it was a possible 7500.”
“You have her flight number? I’ll call the authorities.”
Rif admired the way his father got straight down to business during a crisis. Unflappable, laser focused.
“Transatlantic 855, a business charter.” The fact that it was a BBJ meant fewer passengers than on a commercial flight, so finding out the reasons behind the skyjacking might be a little easier.
Father and son worked the phones for half an hour. If you knew whom to call, you could procure information quickly. Given there were more than eighty abductions a day worldwide, Quantum always had a finger on the pulse of the global security feed and had contacts in most countries.
Hakan clicked off his mobile and placed his left hand on the desk, his face drawn. “The Sudanese authorities lost contact with Flight 855 at 04:00, and the transponder isn’t transmitting. One of the air traffic controllers actually spoke to Thea. The captain had locked the copilot out of the flight deck and was unresponsive.”
Unresponsive. A pilot suicide? But why would the captain turn off the transponder if he only wanted to crash? Transponders were a secondary way to display an aircraft’s position on an air traffic controller’s radar screen, transmitting the location of the plane as well as details about the altitude, speed, and type of aircraft.
“What about ACARS?” Rif asked. The Aircraft Communications, Addressing and Reporting System was the unseen backbone of a plane’s communication with the ground, sending electronic messages back and forth. Often engineers on the ground would know about an engine malfunction long before the pilots suspected a thing.
“Disabled or not working.”
Someone wanted to obscure the location of the plane. The lack of communication could mean the jet had crashed, but he refused to give up hope—something unusual had happened here. Thea and the Kuria boys were out there, and if they were still alive, he would find them.
“I’ll call Inmarsat,” Rif said, referring to the satellite telecommunications company that had tracked the path of the doomed Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 that had seemingly vanished somewhere over the South China Sea in 2014. Inmarsat had ways of locating planes even if their transponders were shut off, and Rif had worked with them before.
“I’ll contact our people in Sudan,” Hakan said.
Rif’s phone buzzed with a text. Flight 855 had just been categorized as DETRESFA, meaning there was a real possibility of danger to the passengers and crew. The flight manifest listed several American passengers, which made him think of Gabrielle Farrah from the Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell. Thea and Rif had worked closely with the extremely capable Lebanese-American agent on Christos Paris’s kidnapping. A former CIA operative, Gabrielle was well connected on both sides of the pond. He searched for her name in his contacts and made the call.
Gabrielle answered with a laugh, her husky voice sounding as if she were next door instead of halfway around the world. “Rif Asker. Hmm, must be a desperate situation if you’re calling a Yankee in.”
He wished they could joke around, catch up, but Rif had no time to waste. “Our mutual friend is in trouble.”
“Thea? What can I do to help?” Her tone immediately changed to professional and serious, ready to assist.
“She’s on a BBJ that has been hijacked. Americans are on board, so you’ll undoubtedly be involved. I thought sooner would be better than later. Could you keep me posted if you hear anything?”
“Of course. Text me the info. And don’t worry: Thea can take care of herself.”
“She has two boys from the orphanage with her . . .”
“I get it—Mama Lion will be protecting the cubs. I’ll be in touch.”
Rif hit the end button, relieved the HRFC agent would be feeding them intel. Any extra background information on the passengers would help them figure out if one of them had been targeted in the hijacking or if there was another reason that particular plane had been attacked.
As Rif scanned his e-mails for updates, the door whooshed open again, and Aegis, the Paris family dog, ran straight for Rif, wildly wagging his tail. Rif loved the ridgeback as if it was his own. He reached down and gave him a good head scratch. Thea’s father, Christos, followed, his gait far slower; he’d lost part of a leg in Zimbabwe and been lucky he hadn’t lost his life as well.
Christos was Hakan’s longtime friend, Rif’s godfather, and one of the most prominent oilmen in the world. “I’m off to pick up Thea and the boys at the airport. Thought I’d drop in on the way.”
The brief flash of happiness Rif had experienced evaporated.
Rif looked at Hakan, his father’s expression mirroring the same dread.
“What’s with the long faces? I was hoping we could all go out to dinner, welcome Ayan and Jabari to jolly ole London. I bought jackets and gloves for the boys—they aren’t used to this frigid weather.” Christos brushed a light dusting of snow off his sleeves.
Rif swallowed hard. “We need to talk.”
Chapter 8
Johann followed his father and Leopold through the dimly lit tunnel, the cool cellar air dank and musty. The soft patter of his rubber soles echoed in the corridor. It was a surreal experience to be traveling this secret passageway in his own home, with Father and the rest of the Freiheitswächter, most of them strangers.
Are the Freedom Guardians a neighborhood watch or something?
They arrived at a dead end and stopped, facing a stucco wall. Father lifted a panel and typed in a long series of numbers on the keypad beneath it while Johann watched. The wall shifted, creating an opening.
Bright lights blinded him. He blinked as he surveyed the room. Behind a glass wall, high-wattage bulbs illuminated what looked to be a fully kitted-out lab. Stainless steel gleamed on every surface. Yellow hazmat suits hung on one wall. Two men dressed in the bug-like costumes waved to them as they entered the secret
area. Did Uncle Karl know about this part of the house? If so, why hadn’t he mentioned it?
Father stood tall, his voice commanding. “As you can see, we have positive pressure suits, a segregated air supply, multiple showers, and other safety measures in place. I’ve taken every precaution to protect us.”
Protect us from what?
“We still guard against communism, but the current threat to our democracy and safety is another kind of blasphemy.” His father tapped on the glass and signaled to the two suited figures inside the enclosed space, then turned back to Johann. “What threatens world peace the most today?”
Johann’s mind was paralyzed by the pace of these revelations. Seconds ticked by with agonizing slowness. What is the right answer?
“Arabs,” Leopold said. “You’ve seen what happened in Paris, Brussels, Orlando, Barcelona . . . and all the other endless jihads across the globe. And last week in Vienna, right here in Austria. These people must be stopped.”
“Arabs?” The word felt awkward on Johann’s lips.
“Yes. Muslim apologists say the Koran promotes peace, but their actions tell a different story,” Father said.
Several of the Freiheitswächter nodded. Arabs. One face filled his vision: Fatima’s. How could she possibly be the enemy?
“But I know some nice Arabs at school,” Johann said. “And one of them isn’t even Muslim.”
“World leaders are trying to fight jihad by conventional means, but that approach will never work. Lone warriors and small cells are the future of jihad, and they are impossible to ferret out before they strike,” Vater said, ignoring Johann’s comments. “The nations of the West are at great risk, unable to compete with the slick propaganda videos and networks of operatives who encourage self-radicalization. But we’ve found a solution.”
