Once Dead

by Richard Phillips

  It wasn’t what Janet wanted to hear, but it was all she was going to get.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The call ended and Janet tossed the cell phone onto her bed in disgust. Her wheels had just come off and Riles wanted her to keep him informed of her progress! Leaning back into the reading chair, she linked her fingers behind her head and stared up at the ceiling, replaying the conversation in her mind.

  Something about the way Riles had phrased his last response struck her as odd. He’d told her to continue her Gregory mission and to talk to Levi. But he hadn’t exactly addressed her accusation that she was cut off from all the NSA intelligence resources, implying that the only information that would be denied was that specifically dealing with Roskov or Koenig. And he hadn’t ordered her not to do her own investigation into Jack’s Roskov and Koenig connections.

  Had he intentionally left open a window of deniability for her to crawl through? In her experience, Admiral Riles always knew precisely what he was saying and how others were likely to interpret his words. While she wouldn’t have access to Big John’s correlative prowess, she was still free to gather information broadly related to her Jack Gregory mission and make her own inferences, even drawing on Levi Elias’s expertise so long as she carefully worded her requests.

  Clearly, Admiral Riles intended to comply with the letter, if not the spirit, of the president’s order. Janet fully intended to violate them both.

  Stripping out of her clothes, Janet stepped into the shower, letting the steaming water wash her tension away. Although it was a little after five p.m. back in D.C., here in Berlin, the nightclubs were just getting cranked up. And even though it was Wednesday night, she felt the need to work out her frustration on a dance floor. She loved cavorting with the wolves that hunted those night spots. Brimming with testosterone, they’d sweep her across the dance floor, writhing to the dance beat as they pressed against her lithe body, little knowing that tonight they danced with death itself.

  CHAPTER 45

  Thursday found Jack on the move after having reequipped himself, which included the purchase of the powerful red Honda motorcycle he now straddled. It had been two days since he’d posted the encrypted message to Janet Price and so far there had been no response. Although he’d told her she had until midnight on Friday to get him the information on Roskov’s location, he’d hoped she’d be a little more proactive.

  The morning fog burned off as he passed just west of Leipzig. As much as Jack loved driving on a German autobahn, it couldn’t compare to riding an autobahn on a powerful motorcycle. When traffic moved well, like it did this morning along the A9, the slower traffic stayed to the right or moved right quickly upon seeing the flashing headlights of a Porsche coming up behind them at two hundred kilometers per hour. Riding the Honda, with the throttle wide open, Jack hadn’t seen anyone coming up on his ass.

  As he approached Bayreuth, Jack took the Bayreuth Süd exit and turned southeast onto Nurnberger Strasse, passing a collection of auto dealerships before stopping at a small pension on Oberkonnersreuther Strasse.

  Jack removed his helmet and surveyed the establishment. It had several things going for it: it looked nice, it sat in the middle of a well-kept neighborhood just off the A9, and the street address alone was enough to ensure that this wasn’t a heavily trafficked tourist destination. Right now, with the dull blade of depression carving its way through his tired brain, he wasn’t too picky. This would do.

  Carrying his bag inside, Jack booked a room on the second floor, made his way up the narrow staircase, and settled in. Typically German, his room had a double bed, twin mattresses separated by a small board in the center, and a thick duvet atop each mattress. A single would have been fine, but this had been the last available room. It was nice, but the inviting double bed and romantic decorations left him feeling a bit cold. It was probably that he hadn’t had anyone with whom to share a bed like that for a long time. Too long.

  Or maybe it was the lowering clouds from the incoming storm front that had brought on this sudden chill. Walking across to the white radiator on the far wall, Jack turned the knob to allow the hot steam to flow in. He retrieved the laptop from his bag and set it atop the small round table that occupied the southeast corner, just below the window. After plugging it into the 220-volt outlet to charge, he shrugged out of his leather jacket and tossed it atop the second of the two wooden chairs before making his way to the water closet.

  In addition to the sink, the tiled WC had a toilet and a glass-encased shower. All in all, quite a step up from his recent accommodations. Washing his face in cold water, Jack thought he’d better enjoy it while he could, but as he rubbed his face dry with the soft white hand towel, Rita’s image swam into his mind, lying naked on their hotel bed, her laughing eyes staring up at him as he slipped into his shirt and slacks. She wasn’t his most recent lover, but she’d been wonderful. Too bad he’d just gotten her tortured to death.

  Jack found himself staring into his own eyes in the mirror, the pupils glinting red as they always did when his blood was up. He’d first noticed it shortly after his deathbed experience. As much as he was tempted to attribute it to a supernatural cause, there was a more earthly explanation. He had been dead for so long that lack of blood pressure to his eyes had changed them, causing his pupils to expand and contract differently whenever his blood pressure was elevated. The distortion allowed more light than usual into his eyes, illuminating the blood vessels on the back of each eye. At least that was an explanation for the red-eye shine he’d found online. It was the one he chose to accept.

  Leaving the room, Jack walked downstairs and asked the proprietor, a ruddy-faced bald man named Fritz, if he could purchase a bottle of wine for his room. Two minutes later, he set the bottle next to his laptop on the small table by his window, removed the cork with the corkscrew Fritz had provided, and poured the white wine into a water glass. Settling his body onto one of the two chairs, Jack lifted the glass toward the empty chair opposite his.

  “I’m sorry, Rita.”

  Jack imagined her glass clinking against his, her lovely brown eyes full of forgiveness. Taking a slow sip of the Spätlese, he let the late-season wine linger on his tongue before swallowing. As the first fat drops of rain began pattering against his window, Jack took another sip. Sitting there staring at the empty chair, lost in his memories, Jack finished the glass and then the bottle.

  He awoke in darkness, having lain down on the bed without removing his clothes, boots, or the holstered H&K P30S. The faintly luminescent dial on his wrist watch read 11:17 p.m. Jack’s head hurt, not badly enough to make him need an ibuprofen, but enough to make him remember why he didn’t drink very often. What he needed was the night.

  Leaving his bags in the wall schrank, Jack walked out of his room, down the stairs, and outside. The rain had stopped, but it had left his motorcycle seat wet. Wiping away most of the water, Jack pulled on his helmet, straddled the bike, pressed the start button, and headed toward the A9 and Nuremberg.

  Less than an hour later, Jack parked the motorcycle outside the Holiday Inn at the edge of Nuremberg’s red-light district and began strolling slowly south along Engelhardsgasse. While prostitution was legal in Germany, it still carried a stigma that led many of the prostitutes to keep secret night lives to protect their respectable daytime lives. In this part of town, some of the prostitutes rented apartments in which they entertained their clients while others worked the bars, splitting their earnings with the bar owners. Others worked at big clubs like the Sauna Bar 3000.

  Jack found it neither appealing nor revolting. People were the same as they always had been. Whether the prostitutes worked to support a family or to support a habit, the legal ones were working ladies and men who had a right to ply their trade. That wasn’t what pulled him to this part of town. The illegal activity that always surrounded prostitution did that.

  Tonight, the smell of danger hung thick in the damp air, pulling Jack along Engelhardsgasse between
the Bordell kleines Laufhause and the appropriately named Stars and Stairs. His footsteps carried him around the corner to his left and onto Frauentormauer. The narrow, dimly-lit cobblestone street squeezed between the old city walls on his right and the wall-to-wall apartments crowding in on his left, leaving him feeling like he’d just stepped two hundred years into the past. Jack had walked streets like this many times before. Some were his memories, some just fragments from his dreams.

  A sound to his front brought him to a halt. In the deep shadows beneath the old wall, two figures struggled, one sitting astride the other, raining blows on the whimpering figure beneath him. The man on top panted a single German phrase, filled with the same hatred that powered his hammering fists.

  “Time to die, faggot.”

  Jack’s kick caught the man in the back, sending him tumbling off of his victim and into the stone wall. When he came back to his feet, he had a knife in his left hand. Despite the depth of the shadows, Jack could see him clearly. Shaved head, pierced nose, ears and eyebrows, tattooed swastika on the left side of his neck. The only surprise was that this skinhead prick was here without a pack of friends.

  The words hissed through his broken teeth. “Bad move, asshole.”

  Lunging at Jack, the skinhead thrust the blade in low, aiming for the gut as he attempted to wrap a long right arm around Jack’s neck. Jack shifted right, his openhanded blow catching the man’s knife hand just above the wrist, sending the blade spinning away across the cobblestones. Surprised, the other paused, and then threw himself at Jack’s legs in a wrestler’s takedown.

  Jack countered, forcing the attacker’s head down as he drove the back of the man’s head and neck into the cobblestones. Rolling the stunned skinhead onto his stomach, Jack completed the chokehold that would shortly rid the world of one more piece of trash.

  “Please don’t kill him.”

  Jack looked at the blond teenage boy who had risen shakily to his knees, blood dripping from his broken nose and mouth onto the street.

  “Please don’t kill my brother.”

  “This shithead’s your brother?” Jack maintained the chokehold but stopped tightening his grip. “Why the hell was he trying to kill you then?”

  The boy licked his lips. “I’m gay. I’m a prostitute. I’m an embarrassment.”

  The skinhead tried to spit, then stopped as he felt Jack’s grip tighten.

  “He may be your brother, but if I let him go, he’s just going to come after you again. I know the type, kid. Believe me. He’s not worth saving.”

  “And you are?”

  The words punched Jack in the gut. As he fought the urge to break the skinhead’s neck, his eyes locked with those of the bleeding boy.

  “What’s your name?” Jack asked.

  “Georg Engel. My brother is Nils.”

  Jack turned his attention back to the skinhead, moving his lips close to the man’s left ear. In a voice that only he could hear, Jack whispered, “Listen carefully, Nils Engel. Your gay little brother just saved your life. You better take care of him. If I hear of something bad happening to him, I’ll come for you. And next time I won’t be so pleasant.”

  Then Jack choked him out. As he let the limp body drop to the cobblestones, Jack saw the fear in Georg’s eyes.

  “He’s not dead. One piece of advice, kid. Be gone when he wakes up.”

  Jack stooped to pick up the knife and tossed it over the city wall. Without another word, he turned and walked back the way he had come. As he looked up at the open second-floor window in which a scantily-clad young woman sat, her red-gartered leg dangling enticingly, he suddenly felt sick to his stomach.

  Because he hadn’t yet found Rita’s killer, he’d gotten drunk, and then given in to his inner demon. As much as he wanted to tell himself that he’d made this midnight run to Nuremberg’s red-light district looking for an opportunity to save somebody, for an opportunity to make just one thing right, the truth was he’d come here hunting, thirsting for a kill. Exactly the type of rage reaction that Rita’s killer had sought to trigger in him.

  As the motorcycle carried him back toward Bayreuth, the rain started falling again, soaking and chilling him to his core. Ducking low to minimize the surface area exposed to the windswept spray, Jack shook his head.

  It was the perfect start to a new day.

  CHAPTER 46

  This was the second time Rachel had been to Oberammergau, but she’d fallen in love with the Bavarian alpine village the first time she’d seen it. Famous for its frescoes depicting fairy tale and religious scenes, the seven-thousand-person community nestled in a lovely valley in the Bavarian Alps was as beautiful as any place Rachel had ever seen. Of course, Rolf hadn’t been impressed. In fact this was exactly the kind of place that bored him out of his mind. Rolf had to be constantly busy, a part of his nature he could no more fight than a heroin addict could just walk away from the drug. Any place that invited you to smell the clean air and just enjoy the beautiful scenery made Rolf feel like he was drowning. It was what made this the perfect hiding place.

  She’d purchased the used Volkswagen Jetta in Munich for seven thousand euros cash. Having parked the car outside a nice pension, Rachel, wearing dark Ray-Ban sunglasses and a knit cap that covered her hair, rented a second-floor room, paying for two weeks in advance. It was a simple space with a double bed, a small dining table, a double schrank for clothes and shoes, and a water closet with shower. The white pine furniture matched the wood flooring. A single radiator occupied the wall beneath her window. With the shutters open, the view of the Ettal cliffs was spectacular.

  Going to the water closet, Rachel applied the hair dye that would transform her from a blond into a brunette. It took thirty minutes to apply the dye and another twenty for it to set. When she finally got to step into the shower to rinse and apply the conditioner that would lock in the color, she lingered, letting the hot water unknot the muscles in her neck.

  Done, Rachel toweled dry and slipped into a fluffy white bathrobe and slippers, then spent ten minutes brushing out her dark-brown hair. As she felt the tension in her neck and shoulders release, a wave of drowsiness tried to sweep her into bed. But she had one important task to take care of before she could seek the release that sleep in the fresh mountain air offered.

  Setting up her laptop, she logged in. It was funny. The pension didn’t have phones in its rooms, but it offered free WiFi access. WiFi availability was one of the reasons she’d picked this particular bed and breakfast.

  When the computer desktop appeared, Rachel launched the email encryption program Jack had sent her and began typing.

  Jack. I know that I have already released you from the job I hired you for, but something has happened that means this isn’t over, not for you nor for me. I fear that I have placed you in jeopardy. I have certainly gotten myself into a bad spot. I need to see you. If you are willing, further payment will be forthcoming although, in my present situation, I am unable to offer you an advance. Let me know if you are agreeable and I will tell you where to meet me.

  Rachel reread the message, started to rephrase it, and then reconsidered. Jack would do it if he wanted to, not because of her perfect phrasing. She pushed the SEND button and after several seconds a message appeared in the dialogue box.

  Message Successfully Delivered.

  Now all she had to do was wait.

  Yawning, Rachel shut down her laptop, walked to the sink, filled a glass with cold water, and took a long slow drink. Setting the glass on her nightstand, Rachel let the bathrobe fall to the floor, slid her naked body beneath the soft, thick duvet, and felt herself drift into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  CHAPTER 47

  Janet stared at the computer screen. It was Friday morning and she’d stayed up all night working every lead she could think of to get a handle on where Vladimir Roskov had disappeared to, and she still had nothing. And the clock was ticking. In another fourteen hours, her chance to prove to Jack that she could be a valuable and
trusted asset would be lost.

  But she’d just gotten a break. This morning’s Berlin newspaper, Berliner Morgenpost, bore the headline:

  Wife of Industrialist Rolf Koenig Missing

  According to the story, the Koenig household staff had reported Rachel Koenig missing on Thursday morning. Berlin police were refusing to comment on an ongoing investigation into the matter. Rolf Koenig, currently in Kazakhstan preparing for the launch of the final piece of his company’s lunar robotic mining mission, was also unavailable for comment.

  She pressed a speed dial button on her encrypted cell phone. A familiar voice answered on the third ring.

  “Elias.”

  “Levi, this is Janet. I need a favor.”

  She heard the analyst pause before answering.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I need you to run two Big John queries for me. The first is for any news within the last two days that correlates to Jack Gregory.”

  “Okay. And the second?”

  “Rachel Koenig has disappeared. There’s a police search underway. I want to find her first.”

  “I’m not allowed to pass you Big John information about Koenig.”

  “Rolf Koenig is off limits, not his wife. When I spoke to Admiral Riles two days ago, I noted how carefully he phrased his response. I’m quoting, not paraphrasing. He told me, ‘Just because I’ve been told not to probe into Roskov’s or Rolf Koenig’s activities doesn’t mean you can’t continue your Gregory mission. You’re just going to have to invent more creative ways to dig up the answers you need. Talk to Levi and keep us informed of your progress.’ ”

  The silence on the other end lasted a full six seconds. “You’re telling me this information request is only for your Gregory mission?”