Fatal Network

by Trevor Scott

"There's something I have to tell you," Jake started. "I know Gunter Schecht from when I used to work in Germany."

  Walt just sat in his chair with a puzzled stare.

  "You knew I was in the Air Force for three years here before moving on to a private company? In fact, we met just after I got out of the Air Force. Well, I didn't take a job with a private company, I started working for the CIA. It's no big secret now that I resigned. It's just that I feel so bad having to keep a secret from you and Edeltrud for so long. It was for your own good, and of course, the integrity of the assignments I was working. I couldn't compromise my position. I hope you understand."

  Walt scratched his unshaved face. "So, is that how you know so much about electronics and computers?"

  "Actually, that's the reason the CIA hired me. That and the fact that I knew Germany," Jake said. "You don't seem surprised?"

  "Truthfully, Jake. Edeltrud and I wondered about all the trips you took. We couldn't figure out why your company would need you to travel so often. But we didn't suspect the CIA."

  "Walt, I need another favor. I need to make a phone call."

  "No problem. You can use the phone on my desk," Walt said pointing with his thumb over his shoulder.

  Pulling the briefcase from the side of the chair and placing it on his lap, Jake punched in the combination to the dual locks. The case flipped open with the push of one thumb and pull from the other.

  "What in the hell is that, Jake? Isn't my phone good enough?" he said smiling.

  "Of course. But I need to make a secure call," Jake said.

  "Are you sure you left the CIA?"

  "Yes."

  After a few minutes, the phone was hitched up and ready to go secure. Jake checked his watch. It was about two minutes past the hour mark when he was to call Toni. She'd love this, he thought.

  Jake watched the LCD screen as he punched in the number to Toni's office in the American Embassy in Rome.

  "Ciao," Toni answered.

  "Ciao," Jake returned. "Don't say it. I'm two minutes late."

  "It's always better to come late than early," Toni said softly.

  Jake smiled. "Can't beat that argument."

  "I see that you're calling from Germany," Toni said. "What are you doing there?"

  "I'm here on business," Jake said, glancing at Walt.

  Walt got up and headed toward the door. Jake gave him a thumbs up and a smile.

  "You left the Agency. Who are you working for now?"

  Jake thought for a moment, wondering how much to tell her at first. It wasn't a matter of trust, but more of a professional courtesy.

  "Can you tell me anything about a technology transfer from an A-7 squadron aboard the aircraft carrier Roosevelt?" Jake asked.

  From the silence on the other end of the line, Jake already had his answer.

  "Jake, how in the hell do you find out about things like this?"

  "If you remember Monaco, Toni, I've always been lucky." Jake paused for a moment. "I need your help."

  "Jake, you know you can count on me," she said seriously. "What do you need?"

  "Well, I'm working privately for Teredata International Semiconductors, the same company that has had some of its stuff come up missing from that avionics upgrade to the A-7 that I assume you're working on. TIS has some pretty important stuff missing up here on some of its contracts as well. I've been here a while now, but my boss wants me to go to Italy to see if I can plug that leak."

  "You're always welcome here, Jake," she said. "When are you coming?"

  "I'll be there by morning," Jake said. "I'm not sure what time. It depends on if I run into any trouble along the way."

  Toni laughed out loud. "Trouble does have a tendency of following you around, Jake."

  "I've got to go, Toni," he said. "I can't wait to see you...it's been far too long."

  "Yes, it has," she said softly.

  They both hung up gently at the same time.

  Jake put the secure phone back in its case and quickly hitched up Walt's phone as normal. He turned and looked into a small mirror above the coat hangers of a wooden umbrella rack. He looked so old. He took a deep breath and released the air slowly.

  A harsh voice echoed through the marble corridor of the Wiesbaden Bahnhof terminal announcing the arrival of a train from Cologne. Jake looked at his watch; exactly noon. Damn thing's on time, he thought. German efficiency.

  Through a glass enclosure, Jake watched a portly man sorting Deutschemarks and punching buttons. Then a white ticket with holes popped up through a metal counter, was whisked by a chubby hand and flipped to the hole under the glass.

  "Danke," the man said as he looked at the woman in line behind Jake.

  Jake looked at the ticket to ensure it was for a round trip to Bremerhaven, and then stuffed it into the inside pocket of his leather coat. While inside his coat, he slid his finger across the butt of his 9mm CZ-75 as if checking his wallet to ensure it hadn't been pick pocketed.

  He turned and walked down the long passageway with a high glass ceiling. His footsteps echoed in time with countless others. He stopped for a second to look at a schedule of departures and arrivals encased in a metal frame with glass front. He knew what the schedule said, but the glass was a near perfect mirror to check behind him. Gunter's two men were still there, stopped when he had, less than twenty paces behind him. Gunter was still nowhere in sight. Jake had caught them looking over Walt Kaiser's house and led them here.

  Jake waited for the last call for the train to Bremerhaven, and then slowly boarded up the metal stairs. Once inside, he slipped through from car to car looking for a seat in the crowded compartments. He couldn't see his two pursuers, but he knew they were there.

  When he reached the second to the last car from the engine, he quickly dropped out of the train and onto the dock before descending the stairs that led to an underground passageway beneath the tracks. He heard the train slowly pulling away above him.

  Once outside, he jumped into the first cab and directed the driver to Mainz Centrum. After he got there, he found the first downtown bank machine and withdrew money from his Luxembourg account. Then he caught another cab and went to a car rental outlet just outside the Frankfurt International Airport. Jake paid cash for a Fiat using false identification. In the parking lot, he swapped some of his gear from the Audi he had been driving for the last couple of days, and then slowly drove out onto the Autobahn and started driving south. He would have to set a fast pace to make Rome by morning.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 25

  BONN, GERMANY

  The charcoal gray Mercedes pulled up slowly next to the curb, stopped, and the headlights went out. In a few minutes, a dark blue Fiat van pulled up behind the Mercedes and parked. Two men got out of the van, hesitated, and then proceeded to the driver's window of the Mercedes. The driver's power window came down slowly.

  Parked down the road and obscured by bushes, Herbert Kline lifted a small parabolic microphone from the passenger seat of his car and aimed it through his open window toward the men at the side of the Mercedes. He adjusted the volume on his headset to bring in the conversation at over two hundred meters.

  "We ran into a problem," said the Fiat driver.

  "Obviously," Gunter said. "If things had gone as planned you wouldn't be here now. You'd be trailing Jake like I told you. How did he lose you?"

  The men looked at each other. The thin man was content with letting the large driver explain their failure. "He bought a round trip train ticket for Bremerhaven at the Wiesbaden bahnhof and then...."

  "Wait, let me guess," Gunter interrupted. "By the time you looked for him and realized that he wasn't on the train, you two were half way to Denmark."

  Herb couldn't help himself. He started laughing so hard the microphone wouldn't stay put long enough to bring in the conversation. When he realized he could be missing something important, he held his breath long enough to settle down.

  "Where could he be?" Gunter asked.
<
br />   The men shrugged their shoulders.

  "Shit! Do I have to do all the Goddamn thinking around here? Where was he when you last saw him?"

  "The train," said the thin man finally.

  "No, you idiot. Before that. He was at his Polizei friend's house. So, it makes sense that he might know where Adams went. Find out. But don't kill the Polizei. We don't need that kind of attention. Bring him to me at our favorite spot."

  "When?" asked the fat man.

  "As soon as possible. The boss needs that information now to make the plan work."

  The men turned swiftly, got back into the van, and sped away. The Mercedes lights came on and the large sedan crept away from the curb and down the road.

  Herb put his gear away and started driving to the nearest phone to warn Walt Kaiser. Gunter had finally made a mistake that could be exploited, Herb thought. He had every intention of taking advantage of his mistake.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 26

  TRIESTE, ITALY

  The city lights shone across the dark Adriatic harbor glistening off the slick water. The cloudless sky brightened the fishing pier with shadows and silhouettes of men heading to the closest bar for warming spirits. The starry night brought a bitter chill with it, and frost was forming on anything not warm enough to fend it off.

  Kurt Lamar crouched shivering in the shadows behind a pile of wet fishing nets. He had left Rome with only a thin short jacket, not realizing he would be out this late or this far from Toni's warm apartment. He crossed his arms, tucked his fists deep behind his biceps, and hunched his shoulders forward in a vain attempt to warm his neck.

  Kurt could only wonder what Jason Dalton was doing on such a squalid pier on a Saturday night. The clothes Dalton wore as he left his Rome apartment should have alerted Kurt that something was up. The casual pants and shirt with no tie were a stark contrast to his normal expensive three piece suit. But with only one stop for gas along the way, Dalton had been easy to follow...almost too easy.

  The fishing boat Dalton boarded had arrived at the precise time that Dalton had reached the end of the pier after parking his car in a small lot next to an old wooden warehouse. Kurt had allowed him to board before leaving his car for a closer look.

  Kurt cupped his hand over his watch, and then pressed the light button to check the time. Eight p.m. No wonder his stomach was growling, he thought.

  After Dalton had been aboard the boat for a half hour, Kurt could see movement on the stern of the boat. There were at least three men, maybe more. Then two men shook hands, one went back into the boat, and the two remaining stepped off the boat and onto the pier and started walking toward Kurt.

  With a quick scan, Kurt weighed his options. Stay put and remain in the shadows and hope they didn't see him as they pass, or slowly get up now and walk back to the car nonchalantly. He looked at his clothes and realized he too would look out of place on this pier. And by now it was too late. The men had gotten too close for him to move.

  He crouched down to his belly, but could still see them getting closer and closer. He didn't think they would see him as long as he remained still. One was Dalton, but who was the other one, he wondered.

  When they were almost even with Kurt, they stopped dead in their tracks.

  "Son of a bitch," said the other man.

  Dalton slapped the man across his left shoulder and laughed. "It's only a fuckin' rat."

  They started walking again.

  Kurt heard a rustling to his left. He looked down toward his leg. A huge rat sat sniffing his left knee. Kurt froze and tensed his muscles tightly.

  The men passed and continued on to Dalton's car. Dalton started his car and slowly pulled out of the parking lot.

  Kurt slung his left leg quickly, catching the rat square across the middle and sending it flying over the pile of wet nets. Then he jumped up and quickly made his way to Toni's Alfa Romeo. He didn't understand his anxiety. Animals in the woods were no problem, but city creatures seemed to be something altogether different.

  When he got to the car, he thought about Dalton and his friend. Something wasn't right. They were speaking perfect English, so the other guy must have been American. He could have just been an American businessman. But how did he get there? Not with Dalton, he thought. It had been too dark to see the man's face.

  He started the car, drove to the nearest Autostrada ramp, and began the long drive back to Rome. He wasn't looking forward to driving most of the night.

  ROME, ITALY

  Jake pulled up behind Toni's Alfa Romeo and shut down the tired Fiat engine. The sun was still more than an hour over the horizon, but the glow from the yellow street lights gave him a hint of what was outside.

  He yawned and stretched his arms above his head as far as the low roof would let him. Then he tilted the rear view mirror to see how he looked. His eyes were tired and red, and his hair could use a comb. Some fine way to impress Toni after such a long time, he thought.

  Walking up to Toni's door, he turned and looked behind him for a second. Toni's car was unnaturally dirty. That only happened on intense cases or long drives.

  He went through the first and second doors, and then began climbing the stairs to the second floor. The names on the mail boxes hadn't changed. An older woman owned the building and lived on the first floor alone. She was extremely quiet and spent most of her time on nice days maintaining the garden in the middle courtyard. An older gentleman lived on the third floor. Toni was sure that the older couple were having an affair. She would find one or the other sneaking back to their respective apartment in the early morning as she was on her way to work.

  At the top of the stairs on the second floor, with the dark sturdy banister, Jake stood outside of Toni's door in the somber light. He began to knock, then pulled his hand away. It was early, and throughout his drive from Germany he couldn't help thinking about the man who had answered Toni's phone. Maybe he was her new boyfriend, he thought. He could be in there now. That could complicate things.

  The door swung open quickly. Toni stood in the dim light looking into Jake's eyes. "Well? Are you going to come in, or would you rather stand out in the hall until morning?" Toni asked softly with a smile.

  Jake couldn't think of anything to say. He stepped in, put his hand on the nape of her neck, and kissed her on both cheeks. He wanted to kiss her full on the lips, but the time wasn't right. Time would tell if she ever wanted to do that again. He quickly thought of all the times and places they had kissed. The Riviera, the Alps, and mostly in this apartment. He only hoped that her desire would match what he was feeling right now.

  She closed the door quietly. When she turned, Jake had removed his black leather jacket and taken a seat on the sofa. He looked curiously at the pillow and blankets, but didn't say a thing. He looked at her again. The small lamp on the end table behind Toni provided back lighting that revealed her tight, shapely figure through her loose night gown. He looked away, even though he had seen her many times with far less on.

  "I'll explain the blankets in a minute, Jake," she offered quietly. "I see you still carry your CZ-75."

  Jake reached under his left arm and tapped his 9mm automatic in its leather holster. "I'd probably walk crooked without it."

  "How was your drive?"

  She was nearly whispering, he noticed. Maybe the other guy was in the bedroom sleeping. "It was long and uneventful," he said. "I'd prefer to see the Alps in the daytime. Night doesn't do them justice."

  Toni nodded agreement. "How about some espresso?" she asked as she walked toward the small kitchen area.

  "You know the answer to that, Toni." Her graceful walk hadn't changed. Why did he ever leave her behind?

  He heard her mumble something, but the sound of steam being compressed through a scoop of coffee obscured the words.

  She came back with two small white cups three quarters full of thick, dark coffee. Jake picked up his cup with his thumb and forefinger, and set it on the table in front of him for a se
cond to cool. The aroma drifted up, and Jake inhaled deeply to savor the memories that were released within his mind of all the times that he and Toni had enjoyed espresso together.

  "Grazie," Jake said.

  "Prego," she said as she sat down next to him on the sofa and crossed her long legs.

  Jake scanned the room to see what had changed. No masculine items. That was encouraging.

  "You got a new chair for your desk," Jake said.

  She looked at him for a second. "Yes. I found it at a flea market last September off Via della Lungari. It screamed for me to barter for it. I got a good deal on it."

  Jake picked up his espresso and sucked it down with one smooth stroke. The enrichment it brought was nearly instantaneous. He smiled broadly.

  "So, Jake, what have you been up to for the last year and a half?" she asked.

  "You know I hate to write letters," he said. "And I know the last phone call before I left Germany for the states was less than enlightening for you. What can I say? Things happened quickly. I resigned and moved to the Portland area. I took some time off. Went hiking in the Cascades. I stayed with a few college friends for a while, but didn't want to overstay my welcome. And you know how I can't stay in one place very long."

  "How'd you come to work for Teredata?"

  "About a year ago I was at a party in Portland, and met this corporate investigator. He was a real jerk, and couldn't find his own house without a map and pictures. Anyway, he got pretty drunk and started spouting off about how he was so busy he was turning clients away. I was looking for a job, so I told him I'd take one of his rejects. He gave me his card, and I went down to his office the next day. He had a nice place in Beaverton. He knew how to set up an office and wine and dine, but that's about all. I worked just one job for him and decided I'd rather work for myself. And here I am."

  "I envy you. You always seem to know what you want. It's how you get there that's confusing at times. Of course working for Cecil is nothing like that little Hitler you worked for."

  "How is Cecil?" Jake asked.