While trying to get to the other side of Dehler before Reiser reached her would be riskier than staying on Reiser’s tail, Nate knew it would give them a better chance to assess the situation and, if possible, grab the woman.
Ahead, another traffic light started to change from green to yellow.
“Hold on,” he warned.
He juked the sedan into a clear area near the right curb and zoomed past the other cars, including Reiser’s BMW, into the intersection just as the light turned red.
There was no way Reiser could have missed seeing their car, but they would have already been past him by then, making it impossible for him to see who was inside. In his mind, they would be just a reckless car in a hurry.
“This had better work,” Nate said.
“I did not say you should position us here,” Jar shot back.
“I was talking to myself.”
“Oh. Then I agree.”
Nate glanced into his rearview mirror every few seconds to check the light. Thankfully, it remained red until the leafless trees that lined the road blocked it from his sight.
“Here it comes,” Jar said as they approached Ständlerstrasse.
Nate swung into the left turn lane, and made it onto Ständlerstrasse without having to break the law.
They passed under one of the railroad bridges Nate had chased Dehler across the previous evening, and then sped up the hill to the intersection with Aschauer Strasse.
“Where’s the BMW?” he asked.
“Just entered Aschauer at the other end,” Jar said. “One minute away.”
Instead of turning left onto the street, Nate used a dip in the curb, meant for the light rail, to pull the car onto the skirt cut into the curb the trains used. He angled the vehicle so he could quickly get across the wide intersection.
He scanned the road where Dehler said she would be waiting. There were a few cars parked on either side, and several more in a small parking lot on the northwest corner. The opposite corner was occupied by a five-story office building. No pedestrians on the sidewalks as far as he could see.
“Any guesses?” he asked.
“If I were her, I’d be somewhere in that parking area,” Daeng said, his gaze on the corner lot. “Plenty of places to hide.” Along with the cars parked there, snow had been pushed to the sides in piles that created a two-meter-high wall around the edge.
“I was thinking the same,” Nate said.
“Reiser is halfway down the block,” Jar reported.
Nate studied what he could see of the parking lot, but didn’t spot anyone.
“He’s slowing,” Jar said.
For the third time, a ring sounded from her computer.
“Yes?” Dehler said.
Reiser, “I’m here.”
Click.
“He’s coming,” Nate told his friends.
As soon as Nate spotted the BMW, he shifted into drive but kept his foot on the brake. Reiser was still a good seventy meters away, slowly heading in their direction. Nate focused on the sides of the road, looking for movement.
Five seconds passed, then ten, the BMW halving the distance to the stoplight.
“There, there, there,” Jar suddenly said. “Right side, from behind the building.”
Nate started to lift his foot so they could race across and grab Dehler before Reiser got to her, but then he pressed it back down on the brake. There were two women, not one, walking very close together over to the sidewalk and onto the road. The nearer one was older, a bit overweight, and clearly frightened. The one behind was Dehler.
No matter how strong his desire to avenge Liz’s death, risking the life of an innocent in pursuit of that goal would forever soil her memory. This wasn’t an at-all-costs mission. It needed to be a precision strike.
He glared out the window as the women circled around the back of the BMW. As they came up the other side, the passenger door opened. The women stopped when they reached it, and Dehler looked around. As her gaze turned in the rental’s direction, Nate, Daeng, and Jar all scrunched down.
“Any problems?” Dehler said, her voice distant over the computer’s speaker since it was coming from outside the BMW. Nate didn’t bother translating this time.
“No,” Reiser replied.
Nate lifted his head just enough to peek out the window. Cars rushed through the intersection, allowing him only glimpses of the BMW.
“You, get in back,” Dehler said.
Morgan climbed out of the car, flipped the seat back forward, and crawled into the rear area.
“In!” Dehler barked at the older woman.
“But…but you said you’d let me go,” the older woman pleaded.
“If you’re lucky, I still will.”
Dehler shoved the woman into the backseat with Reiser’s man.
Nate groaned.
If the hostage had been a complication before, she was a roadblock now. Which, undoubtedly, was exactly why Dehler was keeping her around.
As soon as Liz’s killer climbed into the front passenger seat and closed the door, Reiser got the BMW moving. Nate ducked down again so they wouldn’t see him when they reached the intersection.
A few moments passed before Reiser said, “Where to?”
“Left,” Dehler replied.
Nate didn’t need the audio feed to hear the distinctive whine of Reiser’s BMW as it turned onto Ständlerstrasse and passed right by the rental car. He gave it ten seconds and then sat up. The BMW was already out of sight.
Swinging the sedan back onto the road, he said, “Their position?”
“A block down, straight ahead,” Jar replied. “Wait. They just stopped. A traffic light, I think.”
A few seconds later, Nate spotted the light, turning from red to green. The BMW in the right lane, three cars and half a block ahead.
“Turn right,” Dehler said.
“It would be easier if you told me where—”
“Turn right!”
“Okay, okay,” Reiser said.
“They’re going right,” Nate summarized.
“That will take them onto the A8,” Jar said.
The same moment she identified the new route, Nate spotted the sign telling drivers of the upcoming entrance to the autobahn. Perhaps they would go only to the next exit. At most, no farther than the A99 that ringed the city, he thought.
He merged onto the A8 half a minute behind the BMW.
Chapter Thirteen
DEHLER TURNED IN her seat and scanned the cars behind them.
After years of espionage work, she’d developed a well-tuned sense of self-preservation. It’s what caused her to notice the escort from Barcelona the night before, and what was now causing her to feel like her getaway wasn’t as clean as she’d hoped.
After seeing nothing in the traffic following them that stuck out, she turned back around.
A tense, silent minute passed before Reiser asked, “It would really help if you’d tell me where I’m dropping you off.”
“Just drive. When we’re getting close, I’ll let you know.”
“Katrine, I got you out of there. That’s all I promised. I can’t waste my day chauffeuring you around.” He said nothing for a moment, then, “I’m taking the next exit and dropping you off. You and your friend can find some other way to get where you want to go.”
Anger boiled in Dehler’s chest, but instead of lashing out, she pushed the hidden button on the central console that Reiser himself had gleefully demonstrated for her not long after he had the car customized. A section of the console slid to the side, and up popped a Heckler & Koch P30 compact pistol, grip first. She had it pointed at Reiser before he even realized what was going on.
Dehler’s hostage didn’t miss it, though. She screamed the moment the gun appeared.
Reiser pushed himself against the driver’s-side door, as if the distance would make a difference. “What the hell? Put that—”
“If I go down, you go down,” Dehler snarled. “Do you have an
y idea who those people who came to visit you were?”
“Yeah. I told you. They were with Jonathan Quinn,” he said nervously. “Look, I’ll keep driving, all right? No problem. Just put that thing down.”
“Those people were the ones who helped the girl escape.”
“The girl?” Reiser looked confused at first, but then her meaning seemed to click. “Oh, God. Dima Halabi? Are you sure?”
She glared at him.
“Scheisse,” he whispered.
One of the Halabi brothers who worked for Hammad Kassab had contacted him first, and it was Reiser who had introduced the man to Dehler. Whether he liked it or not, Reiser was as much entwined in this as she was.
“If they were helping the girl, why would they be after you?”
“Why the hell do you think? I interfered with their mission. And whoever they were working for wants things cleaned up.”
“But…that must mean you killed the target, right?” He glanced at her, hopeful.
That was the big question, wasn’t it? The moment Dehler had pulled her trigger, she’d been tasered so she hadn’t seen the results of her shot.
“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Reiser said, a smile growing on his lips. “You did kill her. This is great news.” He glanced at her again, his grin faltering at the sight of the gun still pointed in his direction. “Can you put that away, please?”
She didn’t move.
“Come on. What am I going to do?”
After a few more beats, she lowered the pistol but did not put it away.
With some of his previous excitement returning to his voice, Reiser said, “Don’t you see? We can tell Mr. Kassab that the mission was completed. That’ll at least get him off our backs.”
After Jakarta, Dehler had been forced to tell the client she couldn’t confirm target termination. That had not made the man happy, and Kassab had demanded she come see him to discuss it in person. She knew full well if Dima wasn’t dead, once Dehler set foot in Pakistan, she would never leave the country alive again. So instead of honoring his request, she’d dropped out of sight. It turned out she’d been worrying about the wrong side.
“Do you really expect Kassab to take us at our word?” she asked. “He’ll demand tangible proof. I don’t have any. Do you?”
“We could try to convince them.”
“You try to convince them.”
Reiser was lost in thought for a moment. Then he said, “So we’re still screwed.”
“For now.”
“Scheisse.”
THE TWO GERMANS’ voices came through Jar’s speakers with only minimal interference, Nate once again translating in real time.
After Reiser realized things weren’t as good as he hoped, he’d asked Dehler again where they were going. This time, she replied, “Vogel’s.”
“Did she mean Vogels, as in many?” Jar asked. “Or Vogel’s as in someplace that belongs to someone with that name?”
“The latter,” Nate said.
He could hear Jar input the information in her laptop. After a few minutes, she said, “No towns by that name within at least three hundred kilometers of us. There are, however, many businesses in Germany where Vogel is part of the name.”
“What about in the direction we’re headed?” Daeng asked.
“Seventeen that have any kind of web presence. A couple of auto shops, a bakery, a few restaurants, and a hotel.”
“Is the BMW still in the fast lane?” Nate asked.
A click. “Yes.”
Part of Nate’s apprentice training had been to memorize the major roadway systems of Europe, something that had come in handy more times than he could count. The A8, he recalled, was a major east-west route that went from the German border with Luxembourg in the west through Stuttgart and Munich to the Austrian border near Salzburg in the east. Between their current position and the Austrian border, the A8 intersected with only one other autobahn and dozens of minor roads. Until the blip on Jar’s computer turned onto one of them, things should remain fairly quiet.
“You keep working on Vogel’s,” he said to Jar, then glanced at Daeng. “Do me a favor. Get Quinn on the phone.”
He had no idea where Quinn and Orlando were now. He only knew that Liz’s funeral—a funeral he should have attended—was over. He assumed they were either still with Quinn’s mother in Minnesota, or had returned to San Francisco. In both cases, it would be the middle of the night there.
Daeng switched his phone to speaker mode in the middle of the first ring. Two more occurred before the call was answered.
“Daeng?” Orlando’s voice.
“It’s all of us,” Nate said. “Sorry if we woke you.”
“You didn’t,” she said, then clicked her phone to speaker, too.
From their end, Nate could hear the sound of a moving vehicle. “Where are you?”
“North Carolina.”
“What are you doing there?”
“We saw Dima.”
A rush of conflicting emotions raced through Nate’s mind. Dima’s safety had been his responsibility, one he’d made Liz share. “Why?”
“We thought it would help to learn why she needed protection in the first place,” Orlando said.
“She told you who was after her?”
“She did.”
“Who is it?”
“Someone who isn’t going to be happy that she’s still alive,” Quinn said. “I’m sure he’s also not pleased with the assassin. Which means there’s a good chance he’ll also be looking for her. For that matter, Helen might have feelers out. In other words, you have competition. The sooner you find her, the—”
“We did find her,” Nate said.
A pause. “Where?”
“Munich. Her name’s Katrine Dehler. She’s a fixer.”
“You’re sure?” Orlando asked.
“Saw her myself. It’s her.”
“And you know where she is right now?” Quinn asked.
“Um, yeah. We do.”
“Okay, good, good. Keep an eye on her, but don’t do anything until we get there. We’ll catch the next—”
“She knows we’re looking for her,” Nate said. He didn’t want to tell Quinn that, but it wasn’t something he could keep secret forever.
A beat of silence, then, “Explain.”
Nate told him about the mishap the night before and described what they’d done today in an attempt to rectify the situation.
“She’s spooked,” Nate said. “We’re already a good twenty kilometers outside Munich, heading east.”
“Please tell me she doesn’t know you’re following her now,” Quinn said, barely containing his displeasure.
“She doesn’t,” Nate said.
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“Dammit, Nate.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Nate sensed Quinn was about to hang up, so he added, “One other thing.”
“What?”
“You might be hearing from Helen.”
“Helen? Why?”
“You were right. She is looking for Dehler. I incapacitated a couple of her watchers who were in the way.”
“You didn’t kill them, did you?”
“No. Of course not. Just put them to sleep. I’m sure they’re fine now.”
A tense pause. “Try to avoid Helen’s people from now on, but most importantly, don’t lose Dehler. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”
The line went dead.
NEVER FALLING MORE than a kilometer behind, Nate followed the BMW across southern Germany, all the way to the Austrian border.
There, the traffic slowed to a crawl, and for the first time since Munich, Nate could actually see the other car. The only person visible was a silhouette in the backseat—the hostage or Reiser’s man.
A few years earlier, Nate had crossed into Austria from Germany farther to the west without even slowing. But the dramatic uptick in Middle Eastern refugees resulted in checkpoints p
opping up along borders throughout Europe, bringing about the end of fast crossings.
Ahead, Dehler and Reiser were waved through after what seemed like no more than a glance from one of the officers, and their BMW soon raced out of sight. When Nate’s turn at the checkpoint came, the officer held up his hand for him to stop.
The cop signaled for him to roll down his window and then peered inside, his gaze narrowing at the sight of Daeng and Jar. “Passports,” he said in German.
His suspicious demeanor lasted only until he saw all three of them were carrying North American passports—Nate’s and Daeng’s from the US, and Jar’s from Canada. None, of course, were in their real names.
With a wave of the man’s hand, they were on their way again.
“Take the A1,” Jar said. “They are heading into Salzburg.”
Or through it, Nate thought, knowing the A1 went all the way to Vienna. But Jar was proven correct when the BMW took the first exit on the other side of the Salzach River.
Nate did the same, and, as they headed south through the city, closed the gap until they could once again see Reiser’s vehicle.
“I have found eleven businesses using the name Vogel here in Salzburg,” Jar said, “and there are at least twice that many Vogel families listed that—”
“Eliminate anyone who’s not on the east side of the river,” Nate said.
“If you had let me finish, you would know I have already done that. Four businesses ahead. And seven families.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“You should be.”
They continued south until they were almost at Kapuzinerberg Hill, and then followed the BMW west, back toward the river. Along the way, Jar eliminated Vogels that were no longer valid, until only two were left.
“He’s turning,” Daeng said, craning his neck to see over the cars between them and the BMW.
“He cannot. There is no road there,” Jar said, her gaze on her computer.
“It looks like a garage or…”
“It’s a pass-through,” Nate said, catching sight of the arched entrance in the middle of a block-long building. The passageway was just wide enough for a single car to fit through, and inside would likely be either a way to the next street or a parking area. Possibly both.
The Aggrieved Page 12
