The Hunting Command (Grey Areas Triptych Book 1)

by Macalister Stevens

  The beer was backed up with another icebreaker, a pub quiz—De Witte had been introduced to the pastime while part of a NATO deployment years before—and he had watched the group compete, swap stories and size each other up. The team would work well together De Witte had decided.

  He had been proven correct. The extraction had been a master class in precision and timing, though De Witte couldn’t take credit for the meticulous planning. That belonged to Dierk Wald, one of the other sub-contractors, and the Austrian had earned every cent of his fee.

  De Witte hadn’t allowed himself to speculate about their paymasters. He didn’t care if it was Russian Mafia, Iran’s Council of Guardians, Texas oil barons, or someone with a secret lair beneath an inactive volcano. Men with money had their machinations. Always had, always would. But they rarely had the balls to carry out their plans themselves, which was why the men with money needed men like De Witte. Always had, always would. And for men like De Witte who and why didn’t matter. The man from the motorcade had a name, had earned a title, had been assigned a Secret Service codename. But when De Witte had delivered the-man-from-the-motorcade to Wald’s team, De Witte had just been dealing with a package. God bless compartmentalisation.

  As per the precise planning, after handing over the package, De Witte had ditched his weapon and comms gear along with his dark tie and suit jacket—though he’d kept the sunglasses—and he’d made his way to the Palm House Café at the Burggarten. There, he’d sat at an outside table, choosing a chair on the outskirts of the shade provided by the café’s huge cream canopy. While the police had blocked off exits from the city, he’d ordered a cold beer.

  And then another.

  De Witte took a swig of his drink: a reasonable local brew. He let the beer linger in his mouth for a moment, swallowed, sat back and turned his face into the hot sun. The sirens, dopplering to and from the Schottenring, had stopped an hour ago, and Vienna was returning to the regular and the routine. Not even the abduction of a high profile politician could shut down a twenty-first century capital city for long. Work, shopping, lunches—all had to be attended to.

  The Burggarten was close to its usual tranquil norm; the occasional burst of roary-thwumping as police helicopters swept overhead was the only clue that the world’s number one news story had taken place a little over a kilometre away. Within the English-style palace garden, birdsong gently competed with the lilting descriptions of a tour guide as her group passed the fountain statue of Hercules, which had frozen the hero and a lion in eternal combat. A mother shushed the grumblings of two young boys she had pulled away from the statue of a brooding, long-coated Franz-Joseph I that the pair had been attempting to clamber up. A group of backpackers, gathered around the Mozart monument, laughed and giggled while waiting their turn to selfie with Wolfgang. Couples strolled hand-in-hand, mothers and grandmothers promenaded behind buggies and strollers, a few individuals stretched out on the grass to soak up the sun, while clusters of various combinations of sexes and ages staked out claims to the shade of trees with rugs and picnic hampers.

  De Witte was to remain at the Palm House Café a little longer, have lunch, maybe another beer, then stroll down to Stephansplatz and meet up with his wife and children to listen to their oohing and ahing over their tour of the Lipizzaners’ stables. In the coming days, they would take in some sights: Schönbrunn Palace and Belvedere Palace for his wife; Schönbrunn Zoo and the Riesenrad wheel for the kids; and the Third Man tour for De Witte. And then they would return to his wife’s family’s small farm outside Gouda where De Witte would continue his readjustment to what his wife called real civilian life. Technically, De Witte had been a civilian since leaving the Dutch Army, but the private security work he had taken on since then had meant being away from home just as much as when he had been part of an official military. Being a real civilian wouldn’t take, he and his wife would split up, and shortly after that she would receive a substantial insurance payout after De Witte’s unexpected demise in a boating accident. Meanwhile De Witte would have a new name, a new life and a very fat bank account far away; a third of his fee had already been deposited. The rest of his team had similarly themed scripts to play out.

  De Witte gulped down more beer. He smiled. He had completed his last job, and the only casualty would be his marriage. He could live with that.

  The back of Rikki De Witte’s head sprayed over the empty table behind him. The Palm House patrons erupted into screams and shouts as De Witte’s corpse slid down its chair, leaving a smear of gore as it slumped to the ground beneath its table.

  Degen quickly took two steps back from the window and dismantled the TTR-700, carefully slotting each component into a case resembling a bag for a large laptop. Three minutes later he was walking away from the commanding curve of the Neue Burg section of the Hofburg Palace onto Heldenplatz.

  As on most days, Heldenplatz—Heroes’ Square—was filled with tourists. Some queued for horse-drawn carriage rides, but most just mooched and moseyed, soaking up the grandeur and the history. Degen knew some would have been drawn there by the day the square’s name had been sullied; he glanced back to the balcony where Adolf Hitler made his Anschluss speech in front of tens of thousands of shamefully sympathetic Austrians who had cheered the occupation and annexation of their country. Did Degen feel any more entitled to stand on Heroes’ Square? No, he did not.

  Degen scanned the crowd … and picked out a skinny young man with a long dark-blond ponytail held in place by a thick pink elastic band; he was pacing in a tight circle, with a mobile phone pressed to his ear.

  ‘Excuse me,’ called Degen.

  The young man stopped and looked over.

  ‘You left this.’ Degen held up the laptop case.

  The young man slapped his head. It was a little too theatrical, but the kid could be trusted, which was worth a tad too much ham. The young man then took the case with a nice blend of counterfeit gratitude and embarrassment.

  Degen smiled. That’s more like it, he thought.

  Both turned to their respective lefts: the young man in the direction of the Spanish Riding School and Michaelerplatz; and Degen towards Maria-Theresien-Platz. There, Degen made three phone calls as he strolled through the ornate garden flanked by the grand and (almost) identical Art History and Natural History museum buildings.

  When he exited Maria-Theresien-Platz, he joined the rear of a pack of pedestrians waiting for permission to cross the four lanes of traffic between them and the MuseumsQuartier: in Vienna, only tourists and recent immigrants jaywalked. Rules, Degen thought, no point having them if we don’t follow them.

  What frauds.

  Degen pictured a Venn diagram of shared rules floating above the pedestrians’ heads and profiled the group for flaws: They all disapproved of jaywalking, except for the nervy woman on the end who thought it was okay if no one was looking. A belief in monogamy united them all, except for that French-looking, chain-smoking, arty type who clung to some free-love dogma to excuse his screwing around; and the young woman in stilettos next to him who thought kissing wasn’t cheating. None of them would put their feet up on a train seat, except the man with the walking stick, after all he had a bad leg, and he (almost) always put a newspaper down first. They all gathered up their dog’s crap in a plastic bag, except the couple in matching baseball caps who were practical people who didn’t bother if it was raining. And not one of them would think of using a mobile phone while driving, unless it was an emergency, the definition of which was as nebulous and changeable as the rest of their moral and ethical belief systems. They were just like him. He was just like them. They just chose to blur different lines.

  The lights changed. As one, the hypocrites crossed over.

  5. WAITING

  Sigmund Florian Leopold Pfeifenberger was an artist. But he thought Sigmund Pfeifenberger sounded like a civil servant, so he had chosen Florian as his Künstlername: his artist’s name. However, Florian wasn’t a successful artist. Or a particularly goo
d one. Luckily he’d found a well paid part-time job; for the last few months Florian had been a freelancer for Lächelnkellner, a company hired by restaurant managers or by various magazine and online food critics to assess and rate the performance of restaurant staff.

  Florian’s job wasn’t a stretch. He would go to an assigned restaurant where he would be unreasonably rude to one of the staff. Florian would note the reactions of the staff and email a report using the phone he had been given for the purpose. Florian would then stay at the target restaurant until he received an email with further instructions. More often than not those instructions were to go to the Herrentoilette, slip into the change of clothes he’d been instructed to carry with him and leave without paying the bill. Apparently another Lächelnkellner employee would observe the staff’s reactions to Florian’s skipping out.

  Remuneration, including expenses, was very generous, and, as he usually received only a few assignments per month, the job allowed Florian plenty of time for his art. The only stipulations were that he kept his light brown hair short and while on an assignment he wore the grey and black clothing he had been provided with.

  ‘Part of research into the staff’s observational skills,’ the woman who had recruited Florian had said. ‘Our other operatives are dressed in different colours.’

  On one hand, the wardrobe—dark-grey long sleeve t-shirts and black loose-fitting trousers—was far too army-surplus for Florian’s tastes. But on the other hand, the drab outfit did help him get into character as a grumpy customer. Plus Florian revelled in being called an operative; and he’d been tickled to be told the trousers he thought were cargo pants were in fact tactical pants. ‘Like the FBI wear,’ his recruiter had confided.

  Florian wished he could tell his friends about his undercover mealtimes, but discretion was an important part of Lächelnkellner‘s service to its clients, and Florian valued his regular hush-hush bonus more than the opportunity to tease some fleeting envy from his arty cabal.

  That day’s stint had been longer than usual. Seated at one of the Halle Restaurant’s outdoor tables, Florian sipped his post-lunch coffee and wondered if the delay in receiving his next set of instructions was because another operative had been held up in whatever commotion had been responsible for the tedious wailing sirens that had impinged on the MuseumsQuartier’s peaceful atmosphere around mid-morning.

  For Florian, the MuseumsQuartier was a fortress of culture. Outside the walls of the former court stables, the bustle of modern living roared by, but inside the MQ, the linked courtyards and the museums and the exhibition spaces collaborated with smart café-bars to provide a calm sanctuary. Elsewhere in the city, nightclubs and sports bars served those devoted to fashion or dancing or the worship of soccer stars and skiers. But the people drawn to the MQ revered good company and intelligent conversation, and this was their temple. Florian’s temple.

  He glanced over at the handful of chatting student-types sprawled on the benches on the opposite side of the MuseumsQuartier’s main courtyard. Since Florian’s light breakfast, those benches had supported a variety of arses: young mothers barely controlling their brats; tourists clicking away at the Baroque and/or Modern architecture; suited (but not neck-tied) businessmen engaging in al fresco meetings; office workers enjoying a sandwich in the sunsh—

  Florian’s work phone chimed.

  He checked his email: time to skip out via the toilets.

  Kai Degen pocketed his phone and waited.

  Florian—now baseball-capped and wearing a yellow polo-shirt—darted out of the Halle Restaurant’s side entrance and quickly climbed the steps between the pale stone of the Kunsthalle art centre and the dark grey basalt of the MUMOK (Museum of Modern Art), taking him up towards Breite Gasse and out of the MuseumsQuartier.

  Degen weaved his way to the table Florian had occupied. He sat and waited until a waitress brought out an order for another table. Degen caught the girl’s attention—she did a mini double-take.

  Florian wasn’t exactly a doppelganger (Florian was two centimetres shorter than Degen, his eyes were blue not green, and a subtle difference in the shape of his cheekbones made him a little better looking than Degen), but there was enough of a resemblance to fool a casual observer. A little under a year ago, Degen had spotted Florian on the U-Bahn, picked his pocket for ID and spent a few days following him around. Degen had then built a website for a fictitious company he christened Lächelnkellner, mocked up a few business cards and paid a visit to the Gürtel area of the city to enlist the help of a doxy he trusted who was up for a different kind of acting gig.

  Over the last few months, Degen had given Florian a number of restaurant assignments in different parts of the city. When Florian followed his instructions to skip out without paying, Degen (dressed in grey and black) had taken his place. This was only the second time he had been given a double-take.

  As the waitress approached, quickly smoothing away her frown, Degen checked her name tag. Claudia. Perfect, the one Florian had reported being rude to.

  ‘Hi ... Claudia?’

  The waitress nodded. The corners of her eyes tightened.

  ‘I’m sorry about earlier. I’ve been a bit cantankerous today, um, I had some bad news, and ... well that doesn’t excuse snapping at you.’

  ‘That’s okay—’

  ‘No, it’s not. I was a dick. And I’m sorry.’

  Claudia looked down, hiding the beginnings of an embarrassed smile.

  ‘Tell you what,’ Degen said, ‘if you promise not to spit in it, I’ll have a beer, and when I ask for the bill, I guarantee a tip to make up for my crappy behaviour.’

  A real smile, a nod, and Claudia took off towards the bar. For a moment, Degen watched his alibi jiggle past the other tables and customers, then he sat back and wondered how the Vice President was holding up.

  The first room he’d been taken to was undoubtedly a cellar: the hard floor, the slight echo bouncing off hard, bare walls, and the smell—it reeked of dark damp. His hood had been snatched off at one point for ten, maybe fifteen seconds, but he hadn’t seen much. Nothing but the intensely bright light his captors shone into his face. He had been vaguely aware of a fuzzy silhouette holding something in front of his chest, and he thought he’d heard the click of a camera (or perhaps the shutter effect of a cell phone) before the hood had been pushed over his eyes again. A few minutes later, the hood had been lifted enough to expose his mouth. A thumb had pressed on his chin. ‘Open up. We need to take a few swabs. Your DNA will validate our communications.’

  He had complied and waited for the next indignity. Almost immediately his shoes had been pulled from his feet, the cable ties around his wrists were snipped, and he’d been marched out of the cellar and up some stairs. The muzzle of a handgun pushed under the hood and against his neck guaranteed his silent cooperation.

  He was guided to stone steps—hard, cool and a little slippery under his socked feet—and steered up a spiral-type stairway that had short landings every 180 degrees. On the sixth landing he’d been pushed against a wall while someone worked a noisy lock on what he guessed was a heavy door. Moments later he’d been shoved through the doorway. His elbow had whacked against the doorframe, but the pressure of the weapon at his neck had motivated him to stifle his yelp. A few more paces on another concrete floor, then he’d been hauled up another set of stairs: wooden this time—they had creaked with every step. Another lock had clunked, and he’d been bundled into another room. And now he was breathing musty, warm air. He was in a loft, had to be.

  The lock clunked again. A different grip guided him across the room (a timber floor), and every few paces his head received a surprisingly gentle push downwards. Negotiating supporting beams, he presumed.

  He was pulled to a halt and spun round. Hands gripped his shoulders. ‘There is a raised platform behind you, step backwards, take your time, the platform is soft.’

  He lifted a foot and cautiously stepped backwards. The platform was spongy and he wobbled,
but the hands on his shoulders steadied him.

  ‘Good. Another two paces backwards ... and one more ... and sit.’

  The hands helped him ease down onto a padded chair. He sank into it. The unexpected comfort momentarily relaxed his tense muscles. But then his wrists and ankles were strapped into restraints: they felt like leather.

  ‘The straps are attached to chains. There is enough slack to allow you adequate movement to stretch away any cramp or stiffness. The chair is bolted to the floor and surrounded by a cushioned platform. Stamping your feet will make no sound. In addition, this floor and the floor below are unoccupied. Don’t waste your time trying to make a noise.’

  Something else was pushed onto his head and over his ears. Headphones. They were large and clamped tightly over the top of the hood, pulling the fabric tight against his face. Someone adjusted the headphones strap, then tugged the hood material away from his mouth, making it more comfortable, or at least easier to breathe.

  The left headphone was lifted a little. ‘Toilet break in an hour. Hope you like the playlist.’ The headphone was replaced.

  Then music—a soft-rock/country feel to it: seventies Fleetwood Mac—the volume high, but not uncomfortably so. He listened. And remembered that he’d been given a vintage vinyl copy of the album, signed by three of the band: a gift from a wealthy supporter in California. He supposed that a list of music he liked—a list most likely compiled by an intern, who would have matched music to target demographics—must have included Fleetwood Mac. He wondered where the vinyl was. Storage probably. He had certainly acquired a lot of campaign-trail clutter. Stevie Nicks’s husky vulnerability faded out.