Fuelling the Fire

by Roland Ladley

  That split second was gone. Now it would be too late. He was facing her, a short leap from making his own contact. She steeled herself, about to launch preemptively by throwing herself at him.

  Thud! The man’s facial expression changed from rage to confusion. And then the light went out inside him and he collapsed to the ground.

  Sam was shaking. Lost in a sequence of events she no longer understood. Man ready to launch. Man down. She was coiled like a spring. Wound up, but not released.

  She focused just beyond the assailant. And then it all became clear. Standing over him was Wolfgang, the barrel of the rifle in his hands, its butt now resting on the ground. He looked contained, but his breathing was erratic.

  “Who are you?” he said, his face a picture of complete disbelief.

  Sam slowly raised herself to full height, her shoulders rising and falling in harmony with her own rapid breath. Just then she had run out of words. She knew nothing would come for a short while. Until the adrenalin had run its course.

  He could have stood and asked the question a thousand times, but he sensed that it wouldn’t elicit a response. Instead, he walked forward, and, dropping the rifle to the ground, took her in his arms. It was a protective action, almost fatherly.

  “Do you know him?” It was a bit of a snuffle from Sam.

  Still holding her, he turned to look at the man.

  “No.”

  Sam gently pushed herself away. It was her turn to look at the ground. She didn’t recognise him either, but there was a strange, distant familiarity about the man that she couldn’t place. It was a weird sensation—she’d always been so good with faces. She blinked and looked him over. The man’s chest was rising and falling slowly. He was still alive. She couldn’t have cared less.

  She was already feeling better. More in control.

  “We need to get whatever ID this man has and take photographs. I have my phone on me. And then . . .” Sam stopped to think, the mist in her mind clearing.

  “Yes, Sam?”

  “Get Tomas to report this to the police, and we should get out of here.”

  “Sam, I don’t know if you remember, but I’ve been shot.” He had his hand back on his wound, stopping the blood flow. He indicated where the wound was by nodding in its direction.

  Sam looked at Wolfgang’s face and then dropped her gaze to his arm. She moved forward and took his hand away. It was a deep graze, having ripped through a bit of muscle. It was nasty, but nothing that a few stitches and a couple of weeks wouldn’t sort. His jumper and shirt were badly torn. She ripped them further, exposing the wound. He flinched. She ignored his minor protestations and took out a clean hanky from her pocket, gently closing it over the wound. Holding it in place with one hand, she deftly took off her silk scarf and wrapped it round the wound, tying it tight enough to stem the bleeding. Wolfgang closed his eyes as she tightened the knot. She stepped back and admired her work.

  “You’re right. Sorry. Let’s do everything I said, but we’ll clean and wrap the wound up again before we go.” She paused. Wolfgang was looking at her with mild amusement. She looked at the man who had just clubbed their assailant with a rifle and who had potentially saved her life. She had to get him to understand what doors he had opened.

  “This man just tried to kill us, or certainly you. Where there’s one, there’s another. I can tell you now that nowhere is safe. Nowhere. We need to keep moving.”

  “I should go to the hospital, and we should go to the police!” It wasn’t an emphatic statement, but the tone was strong.

  “No, Wolfgang. Just now you don’t know who to trust. Except me. And some people that I know. I’ll tell you everything when we’re on the move.” She picked up the rifle by its barrel with a thumb and a finger, being careful not to cover it in fingerprints. She didn’t know the make, but it was a hunting rifle with a scope. Probably 7.62 mm with a small magazine. Possibly six rounds max. I wonder if he has more rounds in his pockets?

  “Can you shoot?” Sam was twisting the weapon, giving it the once over.

  Wolfgang had that bewildered look on his face again.

  “I’m a German count. We own more land than Switzerland. Of course I can shoot.”

  “Good. We need a second weapon. Maybe a couple. Do you have any in the schloss?”

  Wolfgang didn’t reply.

  Not for a second or two. It seemed to Sam that exactly at that point the gravity of the situation hit him. He stammered a response, but was unable to form any words. He was unintelligible.

  Then he steadied himself and took a deep breath. A pause . . .

  “We have a small armoury full of hunting rifles. You can take out whatever you want, Sergeant Green.”

  “Good. Let’s get out of here.”

  Chapter 14

  Schloss Neuenburg, German/Czech Border

  It didn’t take Wolfgang long to convince Sam that they should carry the unconscious man back to the schloss. She was all for making a dash for it. Putting distance between them and the scene. He persuaded her that leaving the man in the woods might give him the chance to escape when he woke up.

  “Better in police hands?” Wolfgang suggested.

  Sam nodded, and Wolfgang, with Sam’s help, picked the man up and put him on his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. He was determined not to flinch.

  They walked quickly down the path and out onto the lawn. The distance between the lawn’s edge and the schloss felt further than he remembered. He didn’t like to show it, but his arm hurt like hell. A throbbing, gnawing pain. They walked across the precious lawn, beautifully kept by Ludwig the gardener. No matter the weather, it always framed the schloss in its rightful place. Majestic but becalmed. Grand yet homely. His bolt-hole away from the stresses and strains of the world. Where he could be himself. Until that idyll had been smashed apart by the man he was carrying. The bastard. He purposefully bounced him so his shoulder blade dug into the man’s crotch. It was an unusually spiteful act for him.

  What has gotten into me? Where’s the peacemaker now?

  Tomas was out of the kitchen door before they were halfway across the lawn.

  “Was ist heir los?” Tomas cried out.

  In German, Wolfgang explained that the man, whom he had just unceremoniously dropped to the floor, had tried to kill them. He pointed to the wound.

  Tomas immediately launched into “nurse” mode, starting to undo the knot in Sam’s scarf. Wolfgang was enjoying the attention when Tomas was quickly interrupted.

  “Hang on.” Sam stepped forward. “Tell Tomas I’ll dress your wound. His time would probably be better spent trussing the man up.” Sam was on a mission.

  “Don’t worry, Sam. Tomas speaks very good English. Got that, Tomas?”

  “Yes, sir.” The voice came from a distance. Tomas was already on his way somewhere, probably to the cellar, to get some rope.

  “Let’s go in and clean you up,” Sam said calmly. She smiled and led him inside.

  Her words had that wonderful mixture of order and compassion. He still didn’t really know what she did—or who she actually was. But, she would have made a fabulous nurse.

  It took Sam ten minutes to boil some water and, on Wolfgang’s instructions, find the first-aid box. In that time he’d popped upstairs and dug out a new shirt and jacket. He carried both down and put the originals in the kitchen bin. He was bare chested and felt a little exposed.

  Sam didn’t bat an eyelid. She sat him down and, with a mixture of hot water and antiseptic, started to clean the wound with cotton wool.

  Scheiße. That hurt! He bit his lip. “So who are you?” Sam had promised him a revelation. She stopped dabbing for a moment and then started to concentrate again.

  “I work for my government. I’m an intelligence analyst, looking at photo and video clips. I am very much at the bottom of the ladder, but my boss has connections with people at the more higher levels.”

  “So you’re a sort of spy? You certainly behave like one.” He l
et that hang, waiting for a response. There wasn’t one, just more dabbing. “The man in my apartment and now the guy over there.” Wolfgang pointed—thankfully their assailant was still out cold, tied tightly with thick rope. “Come on, Sam, you’re more than just an analyst.”

  Sam dabbed harder than was necessary, and Wolfgang flinched.

  “Ow! That’s sore.”

  “Don’t be a baby.”

  He looked at her hands working on his arm. One hand was holding the wound together, a second working on Steri-strips to seal it. Her tongue poked out the corner of her mouth as she concentrated. A cute look.

  “I had ten years of service in the army. As a woman, you have to punch above your weight, and I learned a thing or two. Bring that and the government analyst together and you have today’s Sam Green.”

  Wolfgang nodded. He still wasn’t sure.

  “Thanks for saving my life, by the way.”

  Sam stopped and frowned at him.

  “When did I do that? You were the one who knocked the idiot out cold with a rifle.”

  “When you pushed me to one side. If you hadn’t, this hole might have been in a more interesting place. One where hot water and a bandage might not have been enough to stem the flow of blood.”

  Sam was working again, gently but purposefully. She had started bandaging, carefully rolling the crepe around his arm.

  “How do you know he was shooting at you?” Her concentration didn’t slip.

  What could he say to that?

  Ping. It was Sam’s phone.

  “Shit. It’ll be this morning’s images.” The words came out through a tight jaw. She secured the bandage with a safety pin, which, for about a minute, she had kept between her teeth.

  “Look, Wolfgang. I have to go over some work. It’s nothing to do with what’s been happening here. Promise. It’s something else that I really can’t talk about. So I’m going to sit and look at the stuff. In the meantime, I reckon we need to be out of here in an hour.”

  As she sat at the huge pine table, Tomas put a cup of coffee in front of her and placed some fresh bread in the centre of the table. He followed that with a wicker basket lined with a blue gingham cloth. Nestled among its folds were six boiled eggs.

  “Thanks, Tomas,” Sam said.

  “And what should I do while you work?”

  Sam had already opened her tablet and was working. She looked up.

  “We need another car. The hire car must have been clocked last night, leaving the airport. How else could they have found us? They may have intercepted our email exchange earlier in the day. Do you have another car?” Wolfgang was just about to say something when Sam stopped him. “It needs to be bland—discreet—easily lost in a crowd.”

  Wolfgang smiled.

  “So my father’s bright red 1984 Ferrari Testarossa might be a bit too conspicuous?”

  Sam didn’t look up from her work, but raised her eyebrows.

  “Probably. Although I am impressed.” He saw that she was flipping through images, staring intently.

  “How many cars belonged to your father?” Sam was still looking down.

  Wolfgang sat down opposite her and helped himself to bread. He took a sip of coffee.

  “Here? There are ten in an air-conditioned garage across from the schloss.”

  That got her attention. Sam looked up.

  “Ten!”

  “And there are eighteen more spread among our other houses. Cars were his big thing.”

  Sam was working again, swiping and zooming. She hunched a little to get closer to the screen.

  “Surprise me, then.” She reached for a boiled egg and, in some way that Wolfgang couldn’t fathom, managed to take the top off the egg without looking up. She had some talent, this girl.

  “Nothing,” Sam said to herself under the breath. “Oh well, there’ll be plenty more over the next couple of days.” She was still talking to herself. Wolfgang saw her type something and firmly poke at the screen. She was probably sending an e-mail. She closed the tablet’s cover with a slap.

  Sam reached for some more bread and checked her watch. He had been watching her every move. Delicate, whilst purposeful. Feminine, yet decisive.

  Sam looked across at Wolfgang. He was still staring at her.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” He couldn’t stop himself from smiling, even though his throbbing arm begged for a different emotion. “You were going to tell me more?”

  “No, not yet. When we’re on the move.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “We have nothing on this guy,” Sam pointed in the direction of the expertly trussed body, “Other than his phone, which is locked. Can you do something with that?”

  Wolfgang finished off his breakfast and took a final sip of coffee.

  “I could use the machines here. I have all the connectors . . .”

  “No.” Sam was emphatic. She softened her voice. “We need to get going. My tablet can work remotely, and I can access some pretty high-level stuff. But I think we should do all of that somewhere out of the way.”

  “By out of the way, you mean somewhere central, public. You can’t get much more out of the way than this.” Wolfgang used both arms to signify where they were. God, that hurts.

  “Correct. And I’d like to go to Leipzig and have a look at Herr Bischoff’s address. I did tell you that I got that yesterday, right? We should go and get a feel of the place.”

  Wolfgang was on his feet.

  “Let’s go to Leipzig’s central library. We can use their machines.”

  “How long would it take us to get there?” Sam was obviously doing the maths.

  “In my choice of car . . . about a couple of hours.” He was disappointed that his comment didn’t draw an immediate response from Sam. Like—go on, Wolfgang, tell us about the car!

  “Good. We can talk theories on the way. What’s Tomas going to do?”

  Wolfgang looked across to where Tomas was standing. He appeared to be making sandwiches.

  “Tomas!”

  “Sir?” He had a roll of German sausage in one hand and a very sharp knife in the other. He was so glad Tomas was on his side.

  “Send Gertrude home and ask her not to come in until I tell you. Please phone the police as we discussed. Tell them this man shot at me and I have a gash in my arm.” He was thinking on his feet. “Explain to them that I’ve gone to hospital and that I’ll be back later to make a statement.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And then lock up and go home.”

  Tomas stopped chopping for a second. The knife hovered above the sausage.

  “No, sir.” It was a quiet, but absolute, response.

  “What?”

  “I will stay here and look after the schloss. I don’t think it has ever been left unattended in its history, and I have no intention of doing that now. Sorry, sir.”

  Wolfgang nodded. Well done, Tomas.

  “Who’s Gertrude?” Sam asked.

  “She’s the maid. She keeps very much to herself when guests are in the house. She’s almost certainly in the schloss now, cleaning something to within an inch of its life.”

  “Oh, OK.” Sam turned to Tomas. “We’ll leave the gun behind, Tomas.”

  “Why?” It was an immediate response from Wolfgang. Didn’t they want the weapon with them?

  “Have you touched the trigger or the trigger guard?”

  Wolfgang very quickly ran over recent events in his mind.

  “No.”

  “Good. Then the police should match the prints from the man to the gun.”

  Wolfgang looked across at their assailant, who was still out for the count. Was he wearing gloves?

  “I checked,” Sam said. “He’s not wearing any gloves.”

  Bully for you. Is there no detail that gets past this woman?

  Sam was checking her watch again. “We do need weapons, though. Can we go to the armoury?”

  “Sure.” He was confident that his
father’s set of rifles would impress Sam as much as his choice of car.

  SIS Headquarters, Vauxhall, London

  Jane had worked more Saturday mornings in the past three years than she could remember. Today was different though. It was her first since she’d taken on David’s responsibilities, and, unlike previous Saturdays, she didn’t see herself getting away by lunchtime.

  Her main focus was the COBR report on the Russian Army involvement in Eastern Ukraine. The chief needed to sign it off midweek. She also wanted to spend a bit of time looking over her digital mind-maps that she’d produced for Operations Glasshouse and Umbrella. She wanted to share them with her team before she left the office. It was possible that one or two of them might look at them over the weekend.

  Sam had already e-mailed her. They had satellite images of two of the seven locations Sam had targeted. The Americans had done a good job. The images were in sharp focus—she reckoned you could get ten-centimetre resolution with what they had. The e-mail said that there was nothing in the images that had caught her attention, although she would look over them again later.

  Cheekily, Jane had checked Sam’s location, pinged from her phone.

  Bayerischer Wald in Germany. Very romantic. Well done.

  Jane had a soft spot for Sam. It wasn’t just the Ebola thing, although that had created a pretty strong bond. It was the way that Sam didn’t appear to have a rheostat. It was either everything—or nothing. She had thrown herself wholeheartedly into her job, and although Sam probably wasn’t keeping score, Jane knew that the intelligence she gathered was as much as that of the other four analysts put together. She was a human dynamo. And, and this was key, Jane trusted her completely. That’s why she didn’t bat an eyelid when she noted that her best analyst was waltzing through central Europe on her weekend off.

  Jane’s phone rang. It was a ++01 number on her secure line. The CIA.

  “Jane Baker.”

  “It’s Linden, Jane. How’s it going?” Jane stiffened herself slightly. It was the DD. She unconsciously checked her hair.

  “Good, thanks, sir. How can I help?”

  “First, how’s David? Any progress?”