Hunter's Rain (35 page)

Less than four hours later, having once more been able to travel at high speed, they were approaching the Renchtal autobahn service station.

“Time to call the colonel,” Müller said. “We’ll stop here for fuel, have a quick snack, then I’ll make the call.” He peered up at the sky. “Looks like rain. And soon.”

After he had filled the tank, and they’d had their snacks, they returned to the car. The rain still held off.

Müller took out the fat envelope Lavaliere had given to him. “We’re far enough now,” he said.

“Did you get the feeling he wanted you to be far enough away,” Carey Bloomfield said, “so that you could not get back there quickly?”

“It did cross my mind.” He opened the envelope, and pulled out three documents, plus a handwritten covering letter. He glanced at the documents, eyes widening. “They can’t do this! I can’t…”

He passed them over to her.

“Jesus!” she exclaimed a cursory look. “These…these are the deeds to their house…in French, German, and English!”

“So there’s no mistake, and all properly notarised. Both of them have signed it. And they did so years ago. They’ve been waiting all this time for me. They must have family to whom they could give the house. They can’t do this! I can’t accept.”

“Read the letter,” Carey Bloomfield advised. “It might explain.”

Müller opened the single sheet, and began to read. It was in English. “
’I know this will shock you, but we made up our minds years ago. We always hoped you would one day come to us. So this is in event of our deaths - natural, or unnatural – we bequeath the house and all in it, to you.

“’
This is not as mad as it seems. We have no immediate heirs, and some items in it, are of greater value to you than anyone else. Beneath the box, you will find documents. Years of investigation and research, which will be, we hope, of great help to you. You will find everything beneath the kitchen flagstones, should we be gone next time you come to Grenoble.

“’
Do not feel embarrassed by this. We feel we have always known you, from the moment we saw your picture as a boy, at that terrible time. I am sure you have now realised that Odile looks upon you as the son we never had. I think she adopted you in her heart that day. That is how closely we have lived with you. Find those people, and punish them for what they have done, and what they are doing.

Jean-Marc, and Odile’
:”

“
Do?
Jens Müller, if you reject them – because that is definitely what it will be – they will feel humiliated. They will feel very foolish. Do want to really do that to them?”

Jackson was intrigued to hear the card phone ring. He let it ring three times.

“Jackson.”

“Colonel.”

“I know that voice. I’ve been expecting your call.”

“I got your message.”

“I’m impressed. But then, you’re an impressive man,
Hauptkommissar
. You know your job.”

“So do you, Colonel. I’d hate to see that career go down the pan, as you would way. You should know that we are doing all we can.”

“I knew you would.”

“We should talk.”

“We’re talking.”

“I mean face to face.”

“it will take you a while.”

“I am not in Berlin. In fact, I am quite close, depending on where you actually are at this moment. But I know the general area. If I say family…”

“You have done your homework.”

“I also have some news you will not like, Colonel.”

“I’m waiting.”

“One word. Hagen.”

There was a long silence. “What about him?”

“Some of your superiors have put him on your trail.”

There was another silence. “You know what Hagen is?”

“Yes,” Müller said. “A friend told me. Not pleasant.”

“We agree there, Mr. Müller. Hagen is a piece of shit.”

“I also know he will enjoy his mission.”

“Our problem, Mr. Müller, is how to get you here, without others listening in. I know Hagen will be monitoring. So will the people who took my wife..”

“Because you want them to.”

“Yes.”

“I think I may have a solution. My phone is secure. They can’t hear, or trace it. They will, of course, still hear you. I will ask questions. You will say yes, or no. That way, you can direct me in. Example. Are you near water?”

“Yes.”

“A lake? A river? Or a stream?”

“Yes to the first.”

“I will give you some names.”

After three tries, Müller got a yes on the fourth. After that, it was easy.

At the monitoring unit, the operator who had locked onto Jackson’s call to his wife’s mobile, saw the pulse of another phone in the same caller area.

“What do you think this is?” he asked a colleague.

“Someone else’s phone in the same area? There are other people out there, you know.”

“Let’s see if we can get sound.” He began tapping at his keyboard.

“We don’t eavesdrop on the citizens,” the other cautioned. “Unless we’re told to.”

“If it is a citizen, I’ll stop.”

“Of course you will.”

“Look. Just let me do this.”

The operator worked at the pulse, trying for audio. After a while, he succeeded, and Jackson’s voice came though very clearly.

“Yes,” they heard.

“
See?”
the operator crowed. “So much for the ‘citizen’.”

“Notice anything?” the other asked slyly.

“What? What’s to notice?”

“Listen.”

“No,” they heard. Then, “Yes. No. Yes. No. No…”

It went on like that, then ended abruptly.

They stared at each other “What the hell was that about?” the operator asked rhetorically.

“Oh I’m out there. I really know.”

“Comedian.”

Müller found where Jackson had parked his car, and left the Porsche next to it. Then he and Carey Bloomfield set off to meet with Jackson. They took all the Berettas with them, including the one under the rear seat, leaving Lavaliere’s envelope in its place.

As they walked on, the first spots of rain began to fall.

“Look as if we’re going to get wet,” Müller said.

“Last time I checked,” she said, “I didn’t melt in rain.”

Hagen and his team of four – kitten out with headphones, mikes, and an assortment of weapons - were already in the forest, and homing in on an area that his briefing had given as a strong possibilty. Earlier monitoring of Jackson’s first call had also confirmed it.

Hagen had psyched-up his team. “Remember, that this man is a highly trained soldier. Whatever you think you know, he knows better. Whatever the tricks you believe you have learned in combat, he knows them all. However good you think you are with weapons, he beats your hands down. Take no chances. Our orders are to bring him in. If he resists…”

Hagen, a tall thin man with a hard face and sunken cheeks, had deliberately let his words hang. His eyes were like those of a marine predator; cold, and merciless, and harbouring years of grievance.

Today, he had decided, was payback time.

Pröll and Elland were also in the forest, and were being directed by the monitoring unit. The rain had perceptibly increased in intensity.

“Shit!” Pröll swore. “I’m going to get my suit wet!”

Elland laughed silently.

Mary-Ann was also in the forest, and though like Pröll and Elland she was being directed by the monitoring unit, she was working independently.

She had been flown to Stuttgart on an apparent business trip, and had hired a car at the airport under one of her many, solidly documented aliases. She had worn a dark wig, a soft hat pulled down over her head, sunglasses, and business suit.

The hair was again bright blonde under the hat. The sunglasses were gone, as was the business suit. She now wore jeans, and a denim jacket. A silenced automatic was in a shoulder holster. On her feet, were combat boots. A big knife was strapped to her leg, beneath the jeans.

The rain began to spatter her hat. She ignored it.

Pappenheim was wondering about the continuing silence from Kaltendorf.

“Not like him at all,” he said to himself. “He’s up to something.”

Having earlier and satisfyingly hauled Reimer over the coals for the debacle with Mary-Ann the previous evening, he was now looking for a distraction.

It came in the guise of a phone call.

He had finished a cigarette and was in the process of lighting another, when the phone rang. He completed lighting the cigarette, before picking it up.

“Fully lit, are we?” the voice said in greeting.

“How well you know me.”

There was a faint chuckle. “And how many of the sticks for the day so far?”

“You didn’t call to enquire about my addiction, and it’s none of your business.”

“Pappi, Pappi. Give it up. I did.”

“One thing worse to a smoker, than a non-smoker; and that’s a smoker who has become a non-smoker.”

“We are on form this unfine hour.”

“If you’re talking about the deluge out there, brighten my day.”

“Phone calls were tracked. Vengeful husband to kidnappers’ hideout. Would you like the location?”

Pappenheim came alive. “
Would
I!”

The contact passed on precise details of the house where Elisabeth Jackson was being held. It was over 200 kilometres from where she had been taken.

“I think an assault team would be in order,” the caller suggested.

“You think correctly;” Pappenheim said. “Thanks!”

“Nice to do business with you.”

The conversation was over.

Pappenheim made some rapid phone calls to people he knew, using himself and Müller as the responsible authorities. Within fifteen minutes, the local force closest to where the kidnappers’ house was located and which was capable of doing so, had despatched an assault team.

It would take them half an hour to get there. They went in without sirens.

Pappenheim decided to call Müller.

“And where are you?” he asked when Müller had answered.

“Home ground.”

“Quicker than I expected. But good you’re back. I have good news.”

“And I have news to put hairs on your hairs.”

“Now
that,
is interesting. The kind that should wait?”

“Most, most definitely.”

“It sounds a doozy, as an Ami cop of my acquaintance likes saying from time to time. I’ll curb my impatience till your return.”

“I did. We’re on our way to meet with the man in question. I have spoken with him, and he’s given us instructions. This will make his day.”

“Then everyone will be happy.”

“Let us not tempt fate.”

“Let’s not,” Pappenheim agreed. “Besides, there’s always the GW. He’s
never
happy.”

“Great news,” Müller said to Carey Bloomfield under the tree where they had taken shelter, when Pappenheim’s call had come. “They’ve found the house where Mrs. Jackson is being held. An assault team is on the way.”

Her eyes lit up. “Fantastic. This is great. God. I’m so glad for him. He can go home before this whole thing wrecks his career forever. Maybe we can get him away before any of those assholes turn up; and I include Hagen.”

“Then let’s keep getting soaked.”

The rain was now a downpour. Blinking against it, they continued on their way.

In the monitoring unit, the operator was twitchy.

“Something’s happening out there,” he said. “I know it. I can feel it.“

The others looked at him, not quite pityingly, but with some exasperation.

Stubbornly, he kept his eyes on his monitor. Then a pulse appeared.

“
Yes!”
he said with glee. “He’s making another call.”

But only the pulse had appeared. There was no second pulse to connect to.

The operator contacted Pröll, Elland, and Mary-Ann, and gave them new directions.

Mary-Ann was loping her way through the forest, avoiding roads, farms and isolated buildings, and flitting between the trees with ghostly unreality. She was a wraith; an ethereal being. In the sheeting, pounding rain, she seemed to belong there.

There was something in her eyes. They were alive with fire, and her lips red as if she had fed on blood.

She was on the hunt.

But it was Jackson who had first blood.

Pröll had split with Elland, planning to come at Jackson in a pincer movement. They had been homed onto his phone signal. Pröll could not know he was being zeroed onto a phone that was tied to a tree. The first thing he knew about Jackson’s presence, was a hard arm about his neck, and a hand bending his gun arm back far enough to break it if he struggled.

“Move the wrong way, asshole,” he heard in his ear, “and you lose your arm just before you lose your windpipe. You won’t be able to scream with the pain of it.”

Pröll remained very still; just before he lost consciousness.