Barracuda

by Richard Turner

  “I don’t see a problem with that,” said Donaldson.

  Alexander’s request set off warning lights for Mitchell, but he decided to keep his concerns to himself for now. He intended to call General O’Reilly right after the meeting to get a feeling how things were going out in Seattle, and to run his game plan past him. If he could ditch the bodyguard, he was going to as soon as possible.

  Alexander dug out a piece of paper from his jacket and handed it to Mitchell. “The address of the bank, the account and the passcode information you will require to access the safe-deposit box.”

  Mitchell thanked him and took the note.

  With little else to discuss, the meeting quickly wrapped up. Alexander hugged his sister and told her to be safe. Donaldson escorted him out of the building. Mrs. Milos’s bodyguard got out of the front of the helicopter and joined Donaldson on the landing pad. A few minutes later, Alexander’s chopper slowly crept into the air. Within seconds, he was gone.

  Sam smiled and placed a hand on Elena’s arm. “Are you all right, Mrs. Milos?”

  “I suppose I must be,” the woman replied. “Can you at least tell me where we are going?”

  “Ma’am, you needn’t worry about a thing. Gordon and I will take good care of you. We’re going to his uncle’s farm in Alberta. You’ll be safe there.”

  “I hope so…I truly hope so.”

  9

  Albany International Airport

  Albany, New York

  Mitchell held Jen tight in his arms, oblivious to the crowd of people that moved past them, each one headed to board a plane. He bent his head down and looked lovingly into her deep-brown eyes. His heart ached at the thought of leaving her. Although they had been apart plenty of times since they first met, his feelings never changed. In fact, he knew they were growing deeper. Mitchell had to admit to himself that he was falling deeply in love with her. Although Jen had never pressed the issue, he knew a talk about their future together wasn’t too far off.

  “You had best get going, if you’re going to catch your flight,” said Jen as she released Mitchell from her arms.

  Reluctantly, he stepped back and glanced over at Jackson, who stood discreetly a few feet away, waiting. “I’ll be with you in a minute, Nate,” said Mitchell.

  Jen took Mitchell by the hand. “Text me when you get there so I know that you’ve landed safely.”

  “I can do that.”

  “Promise me that you’ll be careful. I don’t like knowing that one man has already gone missing, looking for whatever is in that safe-deposit box. I don’t want anything to happen to you. After all we’ve been through, when this assignment is over, we could use a break.”

  Mitchell pulled Jen tightly into his arms. “I’ll be careful…I promise. Do one thing for me while I’m gone, will you, Jen? Seeing as how O’Reilly vetoed my request to keep that bodyguard away from the safe house, ask Fahimah to check him out, okay? I don’t like people we don’t know being so involved in our operations. It may be nothing, but I’d sleep better knowing that he’s on our side and we can trust him.”

  “Ryan—sorry, man, but we’ve got to go,” said Jackson.

  With one last all-too-brief kiss on Jen’s lips, Mitchell picked up his carry-on bag and followed Jackson.

  Jen waved one last time at Mitchell and stood there, watching, as the man she loved boarded his flight. She glanced down at her watch and saw that she had best get going if she wanted to avoid rush-hour traffic.

  As Jen turned to leave, she failed to notice a man watching her from a small kiosk. There was nothing remarkable about him; he looked like one of a hundred other passengers waiting to check in. He noted the time and the number of the flight that Mitchell had taken. He didn’t follow her out of the terminal. Instead, he got on his phone and made a brief call before heading to his car. He glanced around to make sure he wasn’t being tailed. Satisfied that he wasn’t under surveillance, the man pulled out into traffic and was soon lost among the sea of daily commuters heading south on I-87.

  10

  Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barajas International Airport

  Madrid, Spain

  Mitchell stepped off the escalator and headed straight for the baggage carousel to pick up his luggage. He had never flown into Madrid before. With highly polished floors and an artistically designed roof that reminded him of waves washing over him, Mitchell found himself admiring the very modern-looking architecture of the terminal.

  Jackson walked over and joined him. “Did Donaldson say if anyone was meeting us?”

  Mitchell shook his head. “There shouldn’t be anyone. No one is supposed to know we’re here.” He looked over at a large clock on the wall and saw that it was just after four in the afternoon. The bank they needed to go to had been closed for two hours already. Before leaving the States, Mitchell had asked Alexander to arrange for a private meeting for them to access the safe-deposit box in two days’ time. The manager had readily agreed and told them to come when the bank opened at nine o’clock morning, two days hence.

  With their bags in hand, Mitchell and Jackson walked out into the arrivals terminal. A sea of people waited behind metal barricades to greet loved ones. They made their way through the crowd, out of the bustling terminal and hailed a cab. It took just over thirty minutes for them to reach their hotel in the western part of the capital. Mitchell had picked it because it was a low-key establishment and sat within walking distance of the bank.

  The next morning, both men rose early. They had breakfast in their room while they checked their emails. Aside from a quick note from Jen saying that she and Fahimah were busy looking into the case, there was nothing else on Mitchell’s phone. As per usual, there was nothing from Jackson’s wife or son. He always considered no news to be good news and he wasn’t ever going to break with tradition.

  After breakfast, they dressed. As the Swiss bank had a prestigious history that reached back to the 1850s, they both put on their best suits. The challenge was to look the part of a pair of lawyers, acting on behalf of a client. Mitchell’s light-gray, double-breasted suit was brand new, a gift from Jen that fit him like a glove. Jackson’s, on the other hand, was an older dark-blue suit that didn’t fit as well as it once had.

  “What?” said Jackson when he noticed Mitchell checking out his attire.

  “Time for a new suit, wouldn’t you say?”

  Jackson ran his hands over his snug-fitting jacket. “Nah, this one fits me just fine.”

  “A bit too fine,” retorted Mitchell under his breath.

  Outside, the sky was overcast with the threat of rain. The streets teemed with people heading to work. Mitchell and Jackson exited their hotel, and joined a steady stream of people heading east on the Calle de Segovia. They crossed over the Manzanares River that cut through the western part of Madrid, and made their way towards the bank. After a couple of minutes of walking, they turned down a side street and strode along until Mitchell spotted a couple of well-dressed women standing around outside of a red-brick, four-story building. He checked his watch and saw that it was ten minutes to nine.

  “We’re early,” Mitchell said to Jackson.

  “Very, if our original itinerary was to be believed,” Nate said, with the quirk of an eyebrow.

  “Funny, smart guy. I meant it isn’t quite nine yet. Come on; let’s grab a cup of coffee and wait for the bank to open.” The two-day wait was a ruse. Mitchell had no intention of waiting to be ambushed, when there was more than likely a leak in the bank that had cost General Alexander’s friend his life.

  “Sounds good to me,” replied Jackson. “The stuff we got back at the hotel wasn’t all that good. I wonder if they sell donuts here, too.”

  Mitchell shook his head. “First of all, we just ate, and second of all, I think you’ll find in Europe they prefer croissants over donuts.”

  Jackson shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever; it’s just a snack.”

  “You and your stomach.”

  Ten minutes later, they l
eft a small, nearby café and took a discreet look up and down the street. Aside from a few pedestrians still making their way to work, the street was completely empty. Together they walked over to the glass front doors of the bank. An armed guard saw them coming, opened the doors and welcomed them inside.

  Farther down the narrow street, a man in his fifties with a weathered face and thick, salt-and-pepper hair sat behind the wheel of an Audi SUV. He lowered his cell phone and checked to see if the photo he’d taken of the two men entering the bank was clear enough. A couple of seconds later, he forwarded the picture. The response was near instantaneous. The man swore under his breath. According to his information, the two men weren’t supposed to be calling at the bank for another couple of days. He was about to get out of his car and follow Mitchell and Jackson, when he noticed a pair of cars pull up and park across from the bank. He sat back and watched as the men in the vehicles looked over at the bank. The hair on the back of his neck rose. He decided to wait and see what the interlopers were up to. The man reached over, opened the glove compartment, and brought out a small device that looked like a GPS unit. He placed the state-of-the-art listening device on the dash, aimed it at the two cars, and turned it on. After securing an earpiece, the man sat back and eavesdropped on the men’s conversations. Right away, his pulse quickened. Things were about to turn decidedly dangerous.

  Inside the bank, Mitchell and Jackson walked straight over to the reception desk and presented their business cards to a beautiful young woman with long, black hair, wearing a snug, cream-colored dress, sitting behind the desk. The cards were fake, made by Fahimah before they left to go along with their cover. The receptionist smiled, took their cards and picked up her phone to make a call. Within seconds, a slender man in a white suit with thinning black hair and a neatly trimmed beard walked towards Mitchell and Jackson.

  The man took the cards from his receptionist, glanced at them, and then smiled welcomingly. In fluent English, he said, “Good morning, gentlemen, please let me introduce myself; my name is Albert Navas. I am the bank manager. Your office phoned ahead; however, we weren’t expecting you for a couple of days.”

  Mitchell said, “Yes, and I do apologize for the inconvenience. Something has come up rather suddenly, which necessitated a change of plans on our behalf. We hoped you would have some time to meet with us today, instead.”

  Navas took it all in stride. “But of course. In our professions, our lives are not our own. Before we begin, may I offer either of you two gentlemen a refreshment? We have coffee, tea, mineral water.”

  “No, thank you,” replied Mitchell. “We just had a cup of coffee. I apologize for our abruptness, but we have a flight to catch back home to the States later today. Do you think we could see the safe-deposit box right away?”

  “Most certainly, gentlemen,” said Navas, indicating to a hallway off to the right. Mitchell and Jackson looked at one another and followed their host. Navas led them down a long, brightly lit corridor before stopping at an elevator. He entered a four-digit code on a small panel. A second later, the doors to the elevator slid open. Inside was another guard. Unlike the man at the front of the bank who was armed with a holstered pistol, this man held an MP5 submachine gun in his hands.

  “One can never be too careful,” observed Navas as he ushered his guests into the elevator. The trip was short, stopping two floors above the main floor. Navas ushered them down another polished-marble-tiled hallway until they came to a closed steel door. As before, Navas entered his personal code. The door opened. Waiting inside a sterile-looking room was another armed guard who was sitting at a desk, watching a computer monitor, which showed him the images from several dozen cameras spread throughout the bank.

  “Buenos dias, Raoul,” said Navas to the guard. The man respectfully stood and nodded his head in greeting.

  Navas led Mitchell and Jackson through an airport-style metal detector. The guard watched a screen on his desk, looking for any concealed weapons. Navas walked over to a laptop computer on another table and brought up the account number that Alexander had provided to Mitchell. “Please enter your passcode,” Navas said to Mitchell.

  Mitchell took a seat and looked over at Navas, his fingers hovering over the keys. “What if I mistype?”

  Navas chuckled. “You have two tries. After that, the bank alarm will sound and the police will come to arrest you.”

  “No pressure,” Jackson muttered over Mitchell’s shoulder.

  Mitchell entered the code. A second later, a barred door at the other end of the room opened.

  Navas led Mitchell and Jackson down a short hallway that had two rooms at the far end. He unlocked the door on the left. “Gentlemen, please take a seat while I fetch the safe-deposit box from the bank’s vault.”

  Mitchell and Jackson sat down at a long wooden table and looked around the room. “There’re no cameras in here,” observed Jackson.

  “The Swiss take their clients’ privacy very seriously,” replied Mitchell.

  “Well, I can’t fault their security measures. It would take a small army to get down here.”

  Navas knocked on the open door before stepping inside the room. In his hands was a long, metal safe-deposit box. He laid it on the table in front of Mitchell. “I’ll leave you alone now. Please take your time. If you need me, just open the door. I’ll be waiting outside.”

  “Thank you,” said Mitchell with a smile.

  Navas turned about and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him. With a quick glance down the hallway to make sure the guard was not watching him, Navas reached into his jacket and pulled out his cell phone. He quickly typed a text and then put his phone away. His heart began to race. Paid a small fortune to keep an eye on the account, Navas had never met the people whom he had just contacted. All he knew was a phone number that changed on a weekly basis. He took a deep breath to calm his nerves and prayed that whatever was about to happen did not come back on him.

  “The moment of truth,” said Mitchell as he flipped open the lid of the box. He was surprised to see that there were only two items inside. One was an old Nazi-era Iron Cross; the other was a long, worn, black-leather book.

  “After what Alexander said, I thought there’d be more than this,” said Jackson, sounding disappointed.

  “So did I,” replied Mitchell.

  Jackson reached inside, picked up the book and flipped through the pages. “I can’t read a word of it. Most of it is in German; however, there are several pages written in what looks like some sort of numerical code.” Jackson turned the book so Mitchell could see the numbered pages at the back of the volume.

  “Can I have the book?”

  Jackson handed over the diary, reached inside the box, picked up the Iron Cross and examined it. “Say, this is a Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross. These are quite rare.”

  “Pardon?” said Mitchell, his attention focused on trying to decipher what was written in the book.

  “I read a book last year which said that these were hard to get. I don’t know what the equivalent would have been in our military during the war. A Silver Star, maybe? All I know is that these weren’t just given to anybody. If this belongs to the person who wrote that diary, he was a brave son of a bitch.” Jackson turned in his seat, held up the cross to the light and examined the back. “There’s something inscribed back here. If I’m reading this right, this once belonged to Kapitanleutnant Otto Schur, an officer in the German Navy.”

  Mitchell stopped what he was doing to look at the inscription. “That makes sense. I think General Alexander’s grandfather’s handwriting is atrocious, but so far, I’ve found several references to U-boats,” said Mitchell, pointing at a passage.

  “Ryan, there’s no point in us sitting here any longer, wondering what this is all about,” said Jackson. “We’ve done what we were supposed to. Let’s head back to the hotel. We can scan the book and send it back to Fahimah. After that, I say we give Mike a call and see what he wants us to do next.�
��

  Mitchell nodded his head in agreement. He slipped the diary into a jacket pocket, along with the Iron Cross.

  Both men stood and exited the room.

  Navas was sitting in the hallway, casually going through the messages on his phone. “That didn’t take very long,” he said.

  “We have what we came for,” replied Mitchell. He watched as Navas glanced past Nate’s shoulder, looking into the small room at the opened safe-deposit box sitting on the table.

  “Will your client be closing his account with us now that you have taken possession of whatever was in there?”

  Mitchell had no idea. He shook his head and said, “No, the account will stay open for now.”

  Navas smiled. “That’s good news. The annual fees on these safe-deposit boxes are a phenomenal source of revenue for the bank.”

  “I’ll bet they are,” said Jackson.

  Mitchell decided to pry further. “Mister Jackson and I are new to the firm. Is it possible to tell us when this account was opened?”

  “Of course I can tell you,” replied Navas. “It was opened back in 1948, and, according to my records you are the first people to ever access that account.”

  Jackson chuckled. “I should have gotten into banking. I bet you make a small fortune in fees.”

  “Indeed. Some of our accounts are considerably older even than yours.” With that, Navas led them through the security hallways and up onto the main floor of the bank. With a smile on his face, he asked, “Is there anything else our Madrid branch can do you for either of you two gentlemen?”

  “No, thank you. You have been more than helpful,” answered Mitchell. He shook Navas’ hand. With Jackson right behind him, he stepped outside. A light drizzle had begun to fall from the sky.