Stolen Heritage: Gripping Crime Thriller (Private Detective Heinrich Muller Crime Thriller Book 3)

by Robert Brown

  He grabbed for the spot where he remembered the knife to be, only to find that it had shifted when the van screeched to a stop. Elbows and knees and bodies pushed him this way and that. One of the guys screamed something in Greek right in his ear.

  Not in the mood for a language lesson, Heinrich began flailing out with jabs and crosses, landing nearly every one. His fist jarred against a skull once, and an elbow another time, but mostly he hit soft, inviting flesh that gave way under the force of his blows.

  Heinrich grinned. In another three or four seconds, he’d have these idiots pummeled into submission.

  At least that’s what he thought until the back of the van opened and he found himself staring down the barrel of an AK-47.

  “Well, hello there,” Heinrich said, putting up his hands. “How about you don’t kill me and I’ll tell you all I know, all right?”

  Beyond the gunman he saw the other man with the AK standing in the road. Lambros, about two hundred yards beyond, limped away as fast as he could, one arm hanging slack at his side. The gunman raised his AK to fire.

  The wail of a police siren and the flashing of blue and red lights that illuminated the intersection not far beyond Lambros made him pause.

  A cop car roared around the corner. Instead of firing at the millionaire, the thug fired at the car.

  Heinrich wasn’t sure if any of the bullets hit, but they sure had the desired effect. The car swerved to the right, smashed into a trash can, and came to a shuddering halt. The gunman let out another burst. The bullets thudded off the hood and shattered one of the headlights. Lambros ducked out of sight between two buildings.

  “Let’s go!” the man covering Heinrich shouted over his shoulder.

  Heinrich tensed, ready to leap on him the moment his gaze slipped away, but the man was too smart. He took a step backward, then quickly returned his attention to Heinrich.

  Military training, Heinrich realized. Just like the guy who killed Professor Christodolou.

  The man gestured at Heinrich to back up. He obeyed, moving to the very back of the van, his shoe slipping a bit as he stepped in the pool of blood on the floor. His arm was really beginning to hurt, the first shock of the cut having worn off. The three guys in the back with whom he had been fighting studied him. One lay on the ground, still clutching his side. The man who had accidentally stabbed him put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. He had already picked up his knife again. The third had the beginnings of a black eye and glowered at Heinrich as he gripped the tire iron.

  The man with the AK suddenly turned and let off three rounds of semiautomatic fire at the cop car. In the dim streetlight, the distance was too far for Heinrich to see if the cops had made a move or were just hunkering down. No return fire came.

  The gunman flicked a switch inside the door and a light came on in the van’s interior.

  Heinrich grinned at the guys he’d been beating up.

  “Funny the things you forget when you’re trying to make a panicky getaway.”

  None of them responded.

  The man with the AK jumped in, slammed the doors shut, and pounded on the wall. The van moved forward again.

  No one said anything. The van drove on in silence. Heinrich stared at the AK pointed at his face. The eyes of the man behind it were as dead as a shark’s. After a minute the man murmured something that sounded like “Search him.” The new Mr. Tire Iron raised his weapon with one hand and began patting down Heinrich with the other. Heinrich grinned at him.

  “Careful,” he said in Polish just to fuck with him. “That tire iron is bad luck. The last guy who held it got stuck like a pig.” Heinrich nodded toward the bleeding bastard on the other side of the van. The loser searching him got a spooked look.

  It was then that Heinrich realized the radio receiver and earbuds had fallen away somewhere. He didn’t see them inside the van, so they must have fallen off as he hung on to the door. It didn’t matter. You could trace only a transmitter, not a receiver.

  Mr. Tire Iron rifled through his pockets, pulled out Heinrich’s wallet, and rummaged through it. Heinrich took it as a compliment that the man moved to the far end of the van before taken his eyes off his prisoner.

  Still no one spoke. Heinrich got the impression they were listening for more police sirens. Where the hell was the pursuit? Sure, this town had a lot of winding roads, but a cop car had just been shot up. Didn’t the Athens police have a helicopter or anything? And where the hell was pretty boy and his two flunkies?

  Heinrich kept a close eye on his captors. He could tell that the three he had fought were amateurs—not amateurs in crime but amateurs in fighting. The guy with the AK was in another league entirely. He had the hard features and steady eye of a military man, and he looked cold-blooded as shit. Just like Unibrow back at the collectors fair.

  The van came to an abrupt stop. Three thumps on the side signaled for the man holding Heinrich’s wallet to open the door. The driver stood behind the van on a poorly lit street. Heinrich saw warehouses and empty sidewalks. He heard no sirens, no helicopters, only the low background noise of a city at night. The driver held his AK in one hand and a jerry can in the other. Everyone scrambled out. The guy with the knife wound required assistance. He was still bleeding a fair amount, but Heinrich didn’t think his injury was life-threatening. Pity.

  Heinrich started getting out too.

  “Stop!” shouted the driver. He slung his AK. While his friend covered Heinrich with his own gun, the driver unscrewed the cap to the jerry can.

  “Oh, now wait a minute,” Heinrich said.

  The three nonmilitary guys turned pale and looked away.

  A calm, cultured voice called from somewhere unseen, giving what Heinrich took to be an order. The voice sounded like it was accustomed to giving orders. The guy with the jerry can paused. His friend covering Heinrich with the AK gestured for him to get out. Heinrich wasted no time.

  As soon as he did, the driver began dousing the back of the van with gasoline.

  Heinrich could now see two cars, a Mercedes and a Lexus, parked in front of them. An older man with slicked-back salt-and-pepper hair and a pricey-looking suit stood by the Mercedes. He looked like a more menacing version of Lambros. A gun muzzle jabbed into the small of Heinrich’s back and he was pushed into the back seat of the Mercedes.

  Mr. Business Suit drew a small automatic pistol from his inside pocket and sat beside him, pressing the muzzle against Heinrich’s gut. The driver, who also wore a suit, turned and opened his jacket to reveal a pistol in a shoulder holster. After this silent warning, the driver turned back to put his hands on the wheel. The guy with the AK got in the front passenger’s seat and covered Heinrich from there, the muzzle of the assault rifle sticking just below his nose. The other heavy threw a flare into the gasoline-soaked van, which went up with a whoosh, the sudden light making everyone blink.

  The others piled in the Lexus and both cars took off. At the next intersection they took different routes.

  The guy with the AK in front tossed Heinrich’s wallet to Mr. Business Suit. The man studied the contents for a moment, pausing when he saw Heinrich’s membership card for the Association of Private Investigators. Then he pulled out the hundred Euros inside the wallet and stuffed it into his own pocket. Heinrich frowned. Back in the gritty old New York of the Eighties, Heinrich had been mugged a few times. He didn’t expect it in this situation, though.

  Mr. Business Suit gave him an abashed smile. “You must be surprised that someone of my obvious wealth would stoop to stealing such a small amount,” he said in correct but accented English.

  “A hundred bucks isn’t small for a lot of people,” Heinrich replied.

  Mr. Business Suit inclined his head. “That is quite true. When I was younger, I myself was one of those people. Old habits die hard. See this poor area we are driving through?” He indicated the ramshackle houses and cracked pavement of the neighborhood. Some of the windows were covered with plastic sheeting instead of glass. A
haggard streetwalker stood on the corner. A drunk lay not far off, passed out by a heap of trash. “This would have been paradise for me growing up. I came from a little village. We still had a communal pump and electricity only half the day. Actually, my family didn’t get even that. We couldn’t make the payments, you see. I wore secondhand clothing and had to quit school at fourteen to help my father on that worthless farm of his.”

  “My heart bleeds for you,” Heinrich said dryly.

  “Oh, I’m not saying this to make you feel sorry for me. It’s just so that you realize that I know the value of money. You see, when I was working on that farm, we uncovered a little ceramic pot. Inside were a hundred drachma, silver coins minted by our ancient ancestors when this nation was the greatest in the world. The metal itself was worth more than our family earned in a year, and of course the coins would fetch far more than that. By law we were supposed to report the find. I suppose we would have gotten some reward, perhaps two weeks’ wages and a picture in the local newspaper. But my father had children to feed and a leaky roof to fix, so he tried to sell it on the black market. Sadly, he was caught and served some time in prison. He came out a broken man, and all he had wanted to do was help his family. I never forgot that lesson. He could never give me much, but he gave me that.”

  “If you’re looking for someone to give a shit about your sob story, you’ve got the wrong guy.”

  Mr. Business Suit shrugged. “I suppose I cannot expect sympathy from someone in your situation. I just wanted to explain my motivations before I kill you.”

  Despite having no illusions about his predicament, the words made Heinrich stiffen.

  Mr. Business Suit smiled. “You didn’t really think we would let you go, did you? We will take you to an isolated location, torture you to find out why an American private detective is helping the Athens police, and then kill you and bury you in an unmarked grave.”

  Heinrich tried to put on a brave front. “You shouldn’t have told me you were going to kill me, dickhead. Now I have no reason to spill.”

  “Spill? What does that mean? To tell us what we want to know? Oh, my assistant in the front seat is quite good at getting information out of stubborn people. You will tell us all we want to know just to make the pain stop.”

  There wasn’t really anything to say to that, so Heinrich said nothing. The Mercedes continued through the shantytown, which got poorer and sparser. Cinderblock houses gave way to empty lots, which gave way to open fields. There were still buildings here and there, and clusters of tents. In one field Heinrich saw a group of gypsies laughing and drinking around a bonfire. Gradually, the signs of life grew fewer and farther between. Heinrich saw almost no lights ahead and knew they were heading into open countryside.

  Dark, empty countryside.

  That’s where they’d kill him.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Mercedes pulled off the road and onto a dirt track, trundling along slowly for a few minutes before coming to a stop.

  “Get out,” Mr. Business Suit ordered, gesturing with his pistol.

  Heinrich obeyed. He was about to bolt but decided against it. Mr. Business Suit, who was obviously the ringleader, was just stepping out, his pistol trained on Heinrich. The guy with the AK stepped out too. The car was parked in an open field. Heinrich got a brief glimpse of an olive grove about fifty yards away before the driver switched off the headlights. After he did, the land went nearly dark, lit only by the distant glow of Athens on the horizon and the starlight from a moonless sky.

  As the two men covered him, standing out of reach in case he made a desperate final bid for freedom, the driver emerged. He held up something. Starlight gleamed off metal. It took a moment for Heinrich to see that it was a pair of handcuffs.

  “End of the line,” Heinrich whispered, his mouth so dry he could barely hear his own voice.

  A wave of depression engulfed him. Here he was in his forties, healthy and with a good career ahead of him, and it was all going to disappear. And what would he leave behind? A circle of friends who were good pals but who didn’t really need him. They all had their own lives, real lives with wives and kids, not the perpetual bachelorhood he’d lived.

  He’d fucked up from the beginning. He’d been a little hoodlum thanks to his crap parents. When Grandpa Otto had pulled him out of juvvie and taken him under his wing, things had looked better for a time. Then that whole thing about Grandpa Otto’s war record came out. Heinrich had lost a lot of friends over that, not to mention his Jewish girlfriend, and had to drop out of college just to get away from the haters. His parents and his grandfather had given his life a one-two punch and he’d never fully gotten off the mat.

  He thought things had been getting better. His career was on the up and he’d started helping Jan get on his feet. Now that he stood in a lonely field looking down the barrel of an AK-47 as some thug approached him with a pair of handcuffs, he realized what he had been doing. He had wanted to be what Grandpa Otto should have been.

  Instead he had become what Grandpa Otto turned out to be—a big disappointment.

  The guy with the handcuffs came up to Heinrich, keeping to one side so the man with the AK could have a clear shot. Mr. Business Suit stood not far off, his own pistol leveled. The man with the handcuffs grabbed one of Heinrich’s wrists and started pulling it behind his back.

  Time to die.

  Heinrich twisted his wrist so that he could get a good grip on his captor’s own arm. At the same time, he dropped to the ground, kicking out at the man’s ankles.

  It worked. The guy fell on him. One of Heinrich’s arms was free enough to give him the chance to get in a couple of quick kidney punches while keeping the man on top to serve as a shield. The man writhed and gasped, but the surprise and spike of pain kept him from fighting back.

  Heinrich struggled to get the pistol from inside his opponent’s jacket, but his own awkward position and the man’s feeble resistance slowed him for a crucial second.

  By then the thug with the assault rifle loomed over him. Heinrich stared at the dark muzzle of the weapon, the little black circle seeming to expand so that it encompassed the whole world.

  A shot. Heinrich flinched. He did not die.

  Instead the man who had been about to kill him spun, dropped to one knee, and let off a series of shots aimed at the edge of the olive grove.

  Heinrich pushed the driver off him and gave the man a gut punch to keep him down. He was about to leap on the man who was firing, but the AK was suddenly facing him again.

  Didn’t forget about me, eh? Heinrich thought as he batted the barrel to one side. A bullet thumped into the earth just an inch from his ankle.

  Heinrich tried to grab the gun, but his opponent was too quick. He swung the butt into Heinrich’s face.

  The world spun. For a moment Heinrich had trouble seeing and his ears filled with an overwhelming ringing sound. He tried to crawl away, but he felt something burn his leg and knew he’d never make it in time.

  But nothing happened. His vision cleared and he saw the man who had been about to kill him lying on the ground at his feet.

  Heinrich blinked. The top half of the man’s skull had been blown away, the contents oozing onto the earth, glistening sickeningly in the starlight. The man he had pulled on top of him and pummeled had staggered to his feet and was running for the Mercedes, crouching low and using his revolver to fire at the olive grove. The crack of two pistols replied. The engine of the Mercedes roared and the vehicle did a tight one-eighty, the tires spitting up earth. Mr. Business Suit had obviously decided to do his own driving for a change.

  At least he was courteous enough to pick up his chauffeur. The passenger’s side door opened and the guy leaped inside. Heinrich grabbed the AK lying at his feet, flicked off the safety, and aimed.

  It turned out to be set on semiauto. The first three-round burst missed, thanks to Heinrich’s spinning head and his unfamiliarity with the weapon. He was a good shot with a pistol, but rarely had ti
me to practice with anything else. As the Mercedes pulled back onto the dirt road and picked up speed, Heinrich took more careful aim and fired another burst. This one splintered a taillight and spent sparks flying from the rear of the vehicle. It did not slow down.

  Heinrich let out a slow breath, focused, and pulled the trigger again.

  Click.

  “Motherfucker didn’t have time to reload,” Heinrich grumbled.

  He didn’t bother looking for a second magazine. The Mercedes roared down the dirt road, fishtailing a little but keeping to the track. In another moment it turned a corner, drove behind a low hill, and disappeared.

  “All clear over there?” called a man’s voice from the olive grove. It sounded like Adonis Whatshisname.

  “One dead Greek and one beat-up American,” Heinrich called back.

  Two figures detached themselves from the shadows of the grove and moved toward him. After a moment he could recognize Adonis and Thalia. Both carried pistols.

  “Hey, you gave her a gun and not me?”

  “Special circumstances,” Adonis said with a grin. He walked up and looked at the body, then pulled a phone from his pocket.

  “There were special circumstances back at the storage shed but you didn’t give me one then,” Heinrich said.

  Adonis turned his back, put a finger in his ear, and started talking to someone on the other end of the line.

  “You’re welcome,” Thalia said.

  Heinrich turned to her. “Um, thanks.”

  No one said anything for a moment. Thalia shuddered and dropped the gun.

  “I didn’t know you knew how to shoot,” Heinrich said.

  “I don’t,” she replied, hugging herself and taking care not to look at the dead body. “Adonis told me to shoot away from all of you so I didn’t hit you by accident. He just wanted to make it look like more people were on the scene.”

  Heinrich nodded. “It worked. You got them spooked.” Then he remembered the hot, sudden pain he had felt in his leg. So much pain covered his body right then, he couldn’t feel it at the moment. The knife gash on his arm burned, and his jaw throbbed from where the butt of the assault rifle had hit it. Then there were a dozen other scrapes and bruises. He looked down. A shallow furrow ran across the front of his right thigh.