"You know who it was," Erebus answered.
"Morgenthal."
"Bingo."
"How did he track me down?"
"Did you tell anybody you're going to Pittsburgh to have dinner?"
"In fact I did, my ex-wife. But that was yesterday. The explosion in the coffee house was today."
"He tracked you down yesterday, followed you, and prepared for today's events."
"My phone?"
"Don't think so."
"My ex's phone?"
"Most likely."
"Clever guy."
"Indeed he is."
"Thanks for letting me know."
"You're welcome."
"What's your business in telling me?" I asked.
"I have none. I told you, I like watching events as they unfold. And this one was very interesting."
"How can I catch him?"
"You have to figure it out yourself. You have a plan I suppose? Just follow it."
"Anything else?"
"That's it, have a good day," he finished and dropped the call.
Weird conversation. Who was this guy?
I called Mike. "Mike, it's me again. Can you trace the number that just called me?" I ordered.
"Sure, who was it?" Martin asked.
"Erebus Loki. Remember, that strange guy I visited recently. He used a different number this time. Have you found his previous number in the government databases, have you found anything on him?"
"Nothing. That number doesn't exist. The address you gave me – there’s nobody called Erebus Loki living there. The property is owned by a private company called Destiny Enterprises, registered in Jersey in the Channel Islands. We don't know who's behind that. We’re trying to find out something more, but we don't have any contacts there. Are you sure about the address?"
"I'm sure. Did Dermot Clenaghan find anything?"
"No, his guys were working on it, no results. We also searched the web and government records for Erebus Loki and I couldn't believe it – nothing was found. Not a single document. But we’ll keep trying."
"Strange. This guy either doesn't exist, or is a top secret government agent, or is somehow linked to the government. But there would have been some trace of him."
"There’s none for now. He could be a foreign national too."
"Thanks, keep searching."
"Sure, I will."
"By the way, Morgenthal’s tapped Gudrun's phone. He knew I was having dinner with Jane here in Pittsburgh. That's how he managed to plant the explosive."
"How do you know?" Martin asked.
"Erebus Loki told me."
"How the fuck would he know?" he was very surprised.
"No idea."
"Strange."
"Strange it is."
"I'll sweep Gudrun's house and phone lines. And our office and phones as well, just in case."
"Do so."
"Gudrun won't be happy."
"She'll be just slightly mad. But what can we do?"
We finished the call.
The police at the site of the bombing were trying to interview me but I showed them my papers I’d got from Dermot Clenaghan, our lead at Research and Execution. I called him and he said he'd take care of it. Less than ten minutes later the lead investigator on the site approached me and said we were free to go.
I drove Jane home. She was shaken up. I prepared some coffee and food. She was doing well, but today's events had taken their toll on her. She was mentally exhausted. I watched her bosom going up and down rapidly, an unmistakable sign of post-event anxiety.
I called Martin.
"Martin, can you ask Dermot to provide 24-hour protection for Jane? This motherfucker may try to strike again. I don't want any more attempts," I was furious myself.
"Sure, shouldn't be a problem," Martin said.
"And I need a flight back to Philly," I added.
"Let me check." Martin was silent for a while. "Dermot says they have an empty return leg arriving in about an hour in Pittsburgh. They can wait for you."
"Great, thanks."
I stayed with Jane for the next two hours. She was getting better. I told her I had arranged protection for her for the next few days until I found the suspect. We chatted a little and I seemed to have cheered her up. A plain clothes agent turned up two hours later. I said goodbye and left for the airport. My plane was waiting for me. It was small Raytheon Premier 1. I poured myself a glass of bourbon and spent the flight thinking about how I should proceed. I didn't have any conclusive leads so far. That was worrying me.
Back in Philadelphia my phone rang. I looked at the caller ID. It was Martin.
"Hi Martin, what's the story?" I greeted him.
“Good news, we tracked the girl who planted the bomb. CCTV plus got us on her trail. Dermot’s guys run the pictures through the databases and got a match. She was a hooker and was in police records,” he said.
“What she interviewed? Who commissioned the bombing?”
“Dermot’s operatives went to her apartment. She was found dead. That’s the bad news.”
“How convenient.”
“Her place was search, nothing found, no apparent links to Morgenthal or any other principal.”
“No surprise there.”
That turned out to be a dead end.
"I have something you'll be glad to hear," he said.
"I'm all ears."
"I've found some information that could be useful for us to obtain something valuable for Ivanov. Then you could exchange that for information about Morgenthal."
"At last. Tell me."
"Leo Vermin, a petty criminal working in Ivanov's circles seems to have sold some of Ivanov's drugs on the market, which is one of the things he does for Ivanov. The thing is, this time he’s disappeared. With Ivanov's money. I heard fifty thousand of it. He owes Ivanov fifty grand. In fact, he owes him his life. Ivanov, like everybody, hates disloyalty," Martin summarized his findings.
"Do you happen to know where he is?"
"I do. He’s still in Philadelphia. To be honest, he’s either stupid or suicidal. Fifty thousand won't get him far. He'll spend it within a few months, max a year. And he just brought a certain death sentence upon himself."
"Some people are so greedy, they become stupid. How did you track him down?" I asked.
"A few phone calls to our contacts in the mob were enough. Russians didn’t know, Ivanov wouldn’t be asking otherwise. But it’s a small world. Plus two grand for this information. This just to find out about this guy in the first place. Next, to track his location, I got Dermot's help. It turned out Leo Vermin is still using his car, and, would you believe it, his old cell phone number!" Martin explained.
"He thinks he can just not take calls from Ivanov, I suppose," I laughed.
"Possibly," Martin laughed too. "Ivanov doesn't have access to the technology we do, but using your old car while still in Philadelphia, not smart. Not that it's a small village, but somebody will surely spot his car and tell Ivanov. Anyway, we have live tracking on his cell phone and Dermot can get us approximate location of his car from CCTV. Either way, we have him."
"Good, where is he now?"
"Still in Philadelphia, moving around town, doing some errands."
"I'll pay him a visit tomorrow. I'll call you in the morning to get his location. Let me know if something happens in the meantime. Hopefully we won't lose his trail."
"Sure," Martin said, finishing the call.
I drove back home. I filled the bath with hot water and relaxed. It had been a very tiring day. The next day I was going to capture Leo Vermin and hopefully exchange him for info about Morgenthal. There was a problem though. This Leo Vermin was small fry. Ivanov may not want to lose a much more valuable resource in exchange for a minnow. Morgenthal was worth a dozen times more than Vermin. Morgenthal was a pro, he got things done and was clever. Vermin, from what Dermot said, was plain stupid. But it was worth trying anyway.
I finished my bath,
ate a light dinner, opened a bottle of A. H. Hirsch Finest Reserve bourbon, filled half a glass and sat in an armchair. I tried to assess the whole Morgenthal affair, but coming to no conclusion I went to my bedroom, jumped into bed and fell asleep instantly.
Even though I fell asleep quickly, I had a terrible dream. I’d already had this dream a few times.
I was standing on a pier, and a young girl or a young woman was at the end of the pier with her back towards the water.
Somehow, I knew she would jump backwards into the water, or would collapse into it by accident or deliberately.
But I felt I couldn't do anything.
I reached out my hand, but I couldn't move.
I was using all my strength to move forward to catch her, but was rooted to the spot.
The girl was slowly losing balance and collapsing into the water.
She held out her hand imploring me with her eyes to help her. And she smiled at the same time.
But I couldn't do anything about it.
Her hand was just inches from my stretched out hand and I was straining every muscle to grab her palm. She was falling slowly into the fathomless body of water.
But I couldn't help her, I was just standing there paralyzed, glued to the spot.
She fell into the water, and I could see her frantically struggling to stay afloat. She was scared, and yet relieved at the same time.
But I couldn't move. I didn't understand it either.
I saw her face going under the water, I could still see her disappointed and questioning eyes, but with a hint of satisfaction in them.
But I was powerless, stuck on that particular spot on the pier, just helplessly watching her drowning.
Her head was submerged. I could see her hair floating close to the surface and air bubbles going up and disappearing once they reached the boundary between the water and the air.
I was in despair that I was unable to help, unable to do anything about it, but some unexplained force was holding me in place.
Suddenly everything became calm, the surface of the water was perfectly still, and an unbearable silence had crept in. She was gone.
28.
DESPITE THE NIGHTMARE, I woke up refreshed after the events of the day before as I’d slept for a long time and the day was already advanced. I scrambled some eggs and ate them with wholemeal bread and a light coffee. I took shower and got dressed.
I dialed Martin's phone number.
"Martin, how's our target?"
"Leo Vermin?" Martin asked. "He's still in Philadelphia. Let me check his location."
"Take your time, I'll wait."
After 30 seconds, Martin resumed: "I have his location, he seems to be in a shopping mall."
"He probably doesn't have anything else to do right now. But it's too early for us anyway. I'll give you a call in two or three hours."
"Okay."
"In the meantime, ask Maya to get ready. I'll need her for this operation. Tell her to put on some makeup and change her hair. She'll know what to do, she's done that before. She needs to look different than usual."
"I'll tell her."
"Different, but equally sexy. Got it?"
"Got it."
"Good."
I disconnected.
Since I had some time on my hands, I did grocery shopping. I also bought some coffee and muffins for the team. Martin was quite a glutton, he loved muffins. No matter how many I would buy, within a few hours there would be none left. All the girls in the office looked after their figures and didn't indulge in sweets. However, most of them didn't have a problem with squirreling away a muffin or two when nobody was watching. Obviously, unless Martin hadn't eaten them all. And I knew when they did, as there were usually a few crumbs scattered on their desks afterward. You can call me a psycho, but attention to detail could save one's life in this business. I sometimes joked with them that if they continued to be secret feeders, they would get stressed out and fat as a result, so that their asses would be the first thing people noticed when meeting them. The girls would usually just roll their eyes and tell me that if I continued saying things like that, I surely wouldn't get laid with any woman anytime soon. I normally answered that I could afford to pay to get laid and the ladies I went to accepted my vices and weaknesses without question. To which they rolled their eyes even more and considered the conversation finished. Which I accepted, and I would finish the conversation by pointing out I would have to get wider office chairs for them some day. This scenario wasn't exactly the same all the time, but not far off. I liked the girls in the office, and didn't want to offend them, but the truth was, too many muffins would make your ass as big as a wardrobe. You could ask, why did I buy all these muffins for them in the first place? Martin would be very disappointed if I didn't, and I needed him at the peak of his mental faculties, working on our assignments and not thinking about why I hadn't bought any muffins. Otherwise, Martin didn't have any faults.
I logged to my laptop, checked my email and verified the balances on my bank accounts. I browsed the news. Not that I was very interested, but occasionally there would be some news or gossip that could be a lead for our business. For example, a 70-year-old tycoon dying in less than clear circumstances. His second wife, aged 40, was grieving. I always asked myself if there were any children from a first marriage, and if they would like to shed some light on the involvement of their stepmother in the death of their father. And if there was some foul play involved, what would they like to do about it, and most importantly how I could help them. Not that we sought out these assignments desperately, but if my guys had nothing else to do at a certain point in time, why not?
Around six I checked with Martin where our target, Leo Vermin, was. He was in a pub, second in row today, Martin told me. Busy day. I took Maya Turner and we set off by car.
The plan was to drug him with a so-called date rape drug. Your first thought must be it was for drugging women. According to statistics, in most applications that was the case. But you shouldn't be surprised to hear that it worked both ways. You normally needed a slightly larger dose for a male, but that was really the only difference.
There were a number a number of options, two to be precise. Option one was benzodiazepines, most notably flunitrazepam. Option two was gamma-hydroxybutyrate. The average date rapist wouldn't be able to pronounce the full name, so the scientists made it easier for them and shortened it to GHB. Of the two, GHB was cheaper and more easily available. GHB had an advantage that it was detectable in the urine for only six to twelve hours, whereas flunitrazepam could be detected (using the most up-to-date technology) for up to 28 days. That was why GHB was normally preferable. Not that Ivanov would allow Leo Vermin to live for 28 days, I doubted that. But for the sake of professionalism, we used GHB.
Our task was simple. Maya would sit beside Leo Vermin at the bar, order the same beer he was drinking, drink a little from her glass to have the same amount left as he had, add GHB to her drink and swap the drinks. Simple. I loved simplicity. One of the side effects of GHB was urinary incontinence. Combined with a few beers, GHB would make you pee even more. The victim would go to the men's restroom, where he would be intercepted by me.
If there were any obstacles, Maya could use her charms to lure him out of the bar, but that wouldn't normally be necessary.
We changed our appearance slightly. I was wearing glasses and contact lenses to change the color of my eyes. My natural color was light blue-gray. Some said it is grayish-blue, some bluish-gray. It apparently depended on the light. I struggled myself to pin it down sometimes. I tended to call it gray. As a disguise, I was wearing dark-brown contact lenses. I put on a fake mustache and higher heel shoes to make me an inch taller. I got some hair dye and put a few streaks of silver on the sides of the head over the ears and temples. Crazy you might say, people try to look younger, not older. But it was highly effective for disguising your looks.
Maya Turner was an exceptional person. First of all, it was not often that
you saw such a beautiful woman. She was really amazing. Five-foot eight, which could make some men feel rather insecure. Not tall enough to make me feel insecure. Not that there was anything going on between us. There wasn't. Unfortunately. I suppose she didn't find me attractive. Or she considered me too old. Obviously, I wasn't old, I wasn't too old for her either. Maya was slender without any excess fat. Her body was toned, as she worked out hard, running, sprinting uphill, working out at a gym. She also did Pilates to work out her torso and maintain flexibility. She did some kick boxing regularly and was trained in close-quarter combat. I wouldn’t recommend pestering her to agree to a date, anybody who tried would be sorry in no time.
Maya had a very pale complexion. She looked nearly like a doll. She had long, shoulder-length blond hair. Her deep-set, penetrating light-green eyes suited her well. The prominent cheekbones flanking both sides of her face added charm and sharpened her expression, but not too much to make it unpleasant to the eye. Her perfectly formed lips could relax into a friendly smile or contract as an expression of her displeasure, and occasionally anger. Some asked if she’d had a nose job, but she hadn't. In fact, she was all natural. But certain parts of her body did look as if they’d been enhanced surgically. Lucky girl. She had very sexy ears. I didn't often say that, but her ears were really sexy. To be honest, I myself struggled to imagine how under normal circumstances you could call ears sexy as it didn't sound right at all. But I couldn't help it when I saw hear ears – they were simply stunningly sexy. Her breasts were nicely formed and seemed to want to be touched. Note, it would be suicide to anybody who tried to do it. Size wise, I would estimate her breasts to be 34B or 34C, not too small, not too big. She dressed stylishly, but not over the top. She often wore tight fitting tops that emphasized her bust and it was a sight you couldn't forget. Her rear quarters were even better. A perfect harmony between feminine curves and a sporty physique. I was sure it would be the ultimate pleasure for her partner, even though she was not dating anybody at that moment, to touch her hips and buttocks in bed, I could clearly visualize it myself. Unfortunately, just visualize. Her flat tummy was the result of long hours spent in the gym. But her physique was functional, as she exercised a lot outdoors, running, swimming, and, weather permitting, cycling. She mentioned she occasionally went skiing and I knew for sure she did kick boxing regularly as well. She did some heavy lifting too for stamina, but not so much as to make her look like a man. It surely helped her remain lean and fit. I wasn't a couch potato myself, I was very active in fact, but she was a machine by comparison and looked stunning. Impeccable skin completed the picture.
The Hunt (Mike Greystone, Book 1) Page 14
