Waking Wolfe

by S L Shelton

  “You aren’t the captain?” she asked.

  “I’m flying the plane,” he replied and then smiled.

  It only took her a second to realize it wasn’t the plane’s captain he was referring to.

  As soon as she was aboard, John turned back to me and pulled a passport and the phone I had sent to Paris out of his pocket. “I think you lost these,” he said. “I arranged for a Prague entry stamp. I remembered that you didn’t get a chance to.”

  “Thanks,” I said, smiling.

  “And one more thing. Somebody—I don’t know who—went to some trouble to make sure this didn’t happen,” he said, lowering his voice. “But teammates watch out for each other. I’ve been around long enough to know how to get around the proper channels.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  John turned toward the SUV and waved. The door opened and a familiar face emerged.

  “Kathrin!” I shouted despite myself.

  She ran over and squatted next to me, giving me a hug.

  “I was so worried about you, but they wouldn’t let me see you,” she burst out as she continued to crush me, sending fresh streaks of pain through my shoulder. “I was so afraid I wouldn’t see you again.”

  I sucked in my breath from the discomfort, and she backed away quickly to arm’s length.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m just so glad to see you. I didn’t think I was going to be able to, and I had no way of contacting you, and that was driving me crazy thinking about not having anyone I could talk to about all this.”

  “Uh. Gretel hasn’t been debriefed to the same depth that you have, so you’ll have to refrain from...” John started to say, but he realized neither one of us was paying attention to him. “I’ll be right over here if you need me,” he said wandering back over to the SUV.

  “I like that,” Kathrin said.

  “What? Gretel?” I asked, laughing.

  “Ja. Monkey Wrench und Gretel. International antiterrorist superheroes,” she said, smiling. “Sounds like a TV show!”

  She looked over her shoulder toward the plane and saw Barb trying very hard to ignore us. “I know you have to go, but I’m so glad I got to say good-bye properly,” she said, her eyes starting to glisten. “It wouldn’t have been right if I’d just lost track of you.”

  “I know. I was pretty pissed about it, too,” I said. “But they’ve had me pretty well immobilized the past few days.”

  “Bah. A little gunshot or two couldn’t keep you down. You’ll be fighting bad guys in no time,” she said laughing.

  “I hope not. My life of international intrigue is over,” I replied sincerely.

  “We’ll see,” she said through suspicious, slitted eyes. “Besides, we need to join up again. Even John said we are a great team.”

  “I don’t even know your last name,” I said.

  A whistle sounded behind us. We looked and saw John making the universal ‘wrap it up’ signal.

  Kathrin reached into my canvas messenger bag, the one I had traded her in Amsterdam the day we met. She extracted my phone—the prepaid phone I’d had through most of the adventure—and proceeded to tap her information into it.

  Before she handed it back, she held it up to get a picture of the two of us—she kissed me on the cheek just as she snapped the picture.

  “It’s Fuchs,” she said into my ear. “It means fox.”

  She shot me a mischievous grin as she emailed the photo to herself using my email account.

  As she tucked my phone back into the bag, she leaned close and whispered in my ear. “I lied on the train.”

  Then she kissed my cheek again, turned, and walked back to John’s SUV without looking back until she got there. As she got into the vehicle she blew me a kiss.

  “Wait! Lied to me about what?”

  She just smiled and waved.

  “Auf Wiedersehen, Scott Wolfe! Be well!” she shouted.

  I liked the way the W in Wolfe became a V when she said it.

  “Auf Wiedersehen!” I yelled back as a fresh surge of blood rushed to my ears and cheeks. I would truly miss her.

  John came over to help me out of my wheelchair. “I’ll be in D.C. in a few days,” he said as we walked up the stairs. “I’ll stop by and check on you.”

  “Okay. Maybe we can grab a beer and talk about the old times,” I joked.

  “Be sure to call the Agency shrink I gave you,” he said with a warning tone. “I’m going to follow up on that as well.”

  “I will,” I assured him. But I didn’t feel like I needed it.

  “Have a good trip, and tell Bonny and Storc thanks for their service,” he said mildly. “I’ll have them debriefed as well.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “Don’t worry. They aren’t in trouble,” he said. “But both of them might get a recruiting call from NoSuch. Your COMSEC was top notch.”

  “What gave them away?” I asked after realizing ‘No Such Agency’ was what many government personnel call the NSA.

  “Barb called Bonny and between the two of them, they spilled all the beans to each other. Government phones…” he said with a shrug as if apologizing for the fact that base phones are monitored. “Bonny may be a genius with encryption algorithms, but she can’t keep a secret for shit.”

  I shook my head, grinning at the disclosure.

  “Thanks for everything, John. I appreciate it,” I said, nodding toward the SUV. He understood.

  “My pleasure. And it’s been my honor working with you,” he said sincerely. “You’ve reminded me why I do this.”

  We shook hands, and he patted me gently on my back before he turned and left. I watched as he drove away and waved just before they turned out of sight.

  On the plane, they had a special seat set up for me so that I could recline with my feet up.

  I still hadn’t had much in the way of solid food, but hunger was getting the best of me as we hadn’t had any breakfast. So when I was asked if I’d like something to eat, I said yes.

  I sat next to the window, watching the countryside go by as we wheeled down the runway and then lifted into the air.

  Barb was chatting away, but I was absorbed by the landscape. I only caught bits and pieces of her monologue.

  “…and we can make sure someone is there, at least in the beginning, so you can get to your appointments, physical therapy, and such,” she said. “I’m sure Bonny will want to help.”

  I nodded absently as she went on. A moment later she was saying something about school.

  “…as soon as classes start,” she said. “Don’t you think?”

  I nodded again, not knowing what I had just agreed to.

  She talked more about physical therapy, school, work, Bonny, Storc, and rock climbing during the trip back to the States. Notably missing from the conversation was her abduction, Serbians, guns—and Kathrin.

  I just stared out the window and nodded.

  **

  After a few hours, she tired of talking and drifted off to sleep in her first-class seat. While she was napping, I pulled my phone out and tried to get a signal to check email. No such luck.

  Then I flipped to my photos.

  The photo of me and Kathrin on the tarmac was first. I stared at it for a few seconds before flicking my thumb across the screen to see the next one. It was a photo of Kathrin with her arm around the Serb she had knocked unconscious in the admin building at Ralsko Airbase. She was making a war face. The next photo was of me wrapping wire around Daniil on the train in Mimon.

  Before that was a picture of me filling the scooter at the gas station in Mimon, taken through the window of the café. There was the one of us on the scooter at Ralsko castle and some of the scenery, but there were two of me climbing on the ruins of the castle as well. Then several of us while riding on the scooter...all of them were of her looking at the camera, pulling faces and me oblivious to her photography as I drove.

  The last one was of the two of us o
n the night train to Prague. I was clearly asleep, and she was hanging upside-down from her bunk, hair dangling, kissing me on the cheek. I saw Barb stir out of the corner of my eye and quickly closed the photo window before shutting the phone off and returning it to my bag.

  She leaned over and grabbed me around the arm, resting her head on my shoulder.

  “Any mail?” she asked.

  “No signal,” I said. “I’ll have to check again when we land.”

  She took the bag from my lap and set it on the floor beside us. “Later. You have to heal before you can get back to doing much of anything.”

  “I know. I’ll behave. I promise,” I said, swallowing a bit of agitation over already being told what to do.

  “You’re sure? You’ll behave?” she asked, tipping her head down as if she were looking over the top of reading glasses.

  “Yes ma’am,” I said, smiling.

  But deep down, I wondered if I could keep that promise.

  **

  Monday, May 31st, 2010, Fifteen days after rescue—Zurich, Switzerland

  HEINRICH BRAUN sat in a chair opposite Frau Racine Loeff. The nervousness he elicited from her was mildly arousing. But his purpose for being there would be to her benefit if she would simply fall in line. He had been sent to make the case for that.

  She had been building an interesting client base over the last few years and had drawn the attention of Heinrich’s employer. Having done so, her services were sought to create a number of accounts. Her particular method of account management allowed companies and individuals to have the origins of their funds hidden—an ideal model for criminals, arms dealers, countries labeled undesirable, and corporations who funded political movements with a desire to stay anonymous.

  It had come to Heinrich’s attention that some of their transactions through Frau Loeff had been traced to one of the deposit banks in Zurich. Heinrich was there with her to ascertain the level of penetration into the veil that she had created.

  “As I have assured you many times, the transaction numbers have no correlation to the origin accounts,” she replied confidently. “Anyone having those transactions would have information only on those who received the payments through the corporate entities which paid them.”

  Heinrich could hear a tremble in her voice. It excited him. “And when the trail of those entities leads back to the source...?” Heinrich probed.

  In reply, she turned her computer screen around to face him. She showed him the complex route the flow of money took. All funds terminated at a company named ARG Banti, Inc. after bouncing through several dozen other “corporations”—none of them real.

  “What is this ‘Banti?’” Heinrich asked.

  “You are sitting in the offices of ARG Banti right now,” she replied.

  “And where do the funds that supply Banti arrive from?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

  “They are collected through a series of cash withdrawals as payments from multiple accounts that are not associated with this office,” she replied with a sly smile on her face. “Banti is merely the accounting firm which manages all these corporations’ finances.”

  “I don’t see those accounts here,” Heinrich stated plainly.

  “Nor would anyone else,” she said firmly, almost insulted at the idea. “Those accounts are only accessed by me from other similarly veiled shell companies that make dividend payments on behalf of some three dozen corporations.”

  “How do you access those?” he asked her.

  She produced a handheld device for his inspection. “All the accounts are managed through web interfaces. I have the account numbers and passwords memorized. I am the only person who, one, is able to access them and, two, is able to withdraw from them. The path to all funds begins, ends, and then begins again with me. Simply put, there is no trail.”

  “Very well,” Heinrich said. “We require you to end your relationships with all your other clients and cater exclusively to us. Your fee will be doubled, and in addition, you will be eligible to collect all interest produced by the accounts that you manage. That sum should be upwards of several million Euros per quarter.”

  The discomfort was clear on her face. The sums he was talking about were huge in comparison to what she was currently making, but some of her clients were quite dangerous to cross.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “That will be quite impossible. I have far too many clients who rely on my services. Many of them would be loath to let me abandon them.”

  Heinrich smiled. His employer had already anticipated this dilemma and made arrangements to “help” Frau Loeff sever her connections.

  “We have taken the liberty of freeing you from some of your responsibilities already,” he said, handing her that morning’s Washington Post. On the front page was a story about an explosion in Spain, which had killed a known drug kingpin along with majority of his family and staff.

  The Frau raised her eyebrows in shock. She certainly recognized the name as one of her more dangerous clients.

  “You will find that several more of your clients have met with similarly tragic ends,” he said as he rose from his seat, smoothing his jacket lapel with his fingers. “We are very concerned about your safety and your continued benefit to the organization. We couldn’t have any ‘loose strings’ mucking up our plans.”

  “Mr. Braun,” she replied nervously. “I will have to reflect on this before I could act on such an undertaking.”

  “I understand completely,” he replied. He looked at the outer door of her office and then back to her. “I will give you ample time to consider your options. I would think the time it takes for me to travel to that door should be sufficient.” Then he leaned forward to shake her hand.

  “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you,” he said with finality in his voice, and then he strode slowly, leisurely to the outer door.

  Braun saw the color leave the woman’s face. There was no choice at all. It was clear; these people would have her or no one would.

  “Of course we will continue our business. I can notify you as soon as the remainder of my accounts have been settled,” she said, trying to retain some dignity in her voice. The effort failed.

  “Excellent,” Heinrich replied coldly. “Auf Wiedersehen, Frau Loeff. Thank you for your time.”

  As he walked down the corridor to the elevator, he dialed his employer. “Yes,” the other party answered.

  “It is Heinrich,” he said.

  He was placed on hold without any further conversation. A few moments later, William Spryte answered. “What is the verdict, Heinrich?” Spryte asked.

  “The source of the funds is quite well protected. Our little nosy bird can fish through all the transaction IDs he wishes to. None of them will lead back to you or to Combine,” Heinrich replied.

  “Excellent news.” Spryte said. “And did she accept our terms?”

  “She did,” Heinrich replied. “But I would recommend a stop-gap measure in the event that Frau Loeff were ever to draw attention to herself from outside. If she were to be compromised, it would theoretically be possible to ascertain the source of her funds—as untraceable as they are otherwise.”

  “Very well. We will give her Mr. Harbinger’s contact information as a contingency,” he replied. “He will be her ‘security’ contact.”

  “Yes sir,” Heinrich said.

  “Now that we know our transactions are quite safe, let us work on uncovering and dissuading our snoop.” Spryte said.

  “Understood. I will be back in the States tomorrow evening and will begin on that task immediately,” Heinrich replied, excitement building in his chest.

  “Perhaps something that looks random to the rest of the world. But clear enough that he understands it is about him.”

  “Yes sir,” Heinrich replied. “Excellent idea, sir.”

  “Have a good journey back, my friend,” Spryte said, and then he ended the call without waiting for a response.

  Heinrich
was pleased. He had not done so much field work since he had served in the Stasi. This was bound to be an exciting year for him. He could feel his erection stir at the thought of it.

  On the elevator ride to the lobby, he decided that he would reward himself tonight. Someone of a tender age, perhaps.

  End of Waking Wolfe,

  Book 1 in the 7 part Scott Wolfe series.

  Glossary

  Some common terms, military and otherwise, used in the Scott Wolfe Series.

  9mm: Usually refers to a weapon that fires 9 millimeter bullets.

  Asset: Someone you can use for help, whether they know it or not.

  Bulkhead: A wall

  Chatter: Overheard radio communications.

  CIA Station Chief: The top-ranking CIA officer at a CIA branch office.

  Click: Two meanings.

  (1) A measurement of distance meaning kilometer.

  (2) One click on the com radio is a less common and non-official "No." Used rarely.

  Click, Click (or two clicks): An actual clicking open of a microphone, twice in rapid succession. It's the same as saying "yes," "understood," or "acknowledged."

  COM: Communications.

  Consulate: An Embassy substation, often located in major cities other than a national capital.

  di di mau: A Vietnamese phrase used by soldiers during the Vietnam War, meaning to move quickly.

  FOA: Forward Observation Area.

  Formation: An orderly grouping of people or vehicles.

  FUBAR: Phonetic military alphabet for “Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.” A description of something that is broken or a command to destroy.

  Gitmo: Slang. Nickname referring to the US Military Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

  Glock: A brand of semi-automatic handgun - usually refers to any of the 9mm versions but can refer to all Glock brand firearms.

  Gunship: A helicopter or other aircraft that is armed with heavy machine guns, rockets, or both.

  Interrogation: Law Enforcement: To ask questions of a witness or suspect. CIA/Military: To apply duress to a witness or suspect until information is extracted.