Rise of the Order (16 page)

Turning, Conrad saw the man's head leaned to one shoulder. Conrad looked around the room, trying to remember if he had touched anything else. No. He had been careful. Not even the door handle. With the Requiem picking up in the background, Conrad slipped out the apartment door, making sure to open and close the door with his handkerchief.

He left the building and passed two men on the sidewalk on his way to his rental BMW.

●

Martini and Donicht stood at the door of the Interpol liaison's apartment uncertain what to do. They had both knocked repeatedly, with no answer. But Martini could hear Mozart's Requiem coming to a dramatic ending, so the man must be there.

“What do you think, sir?” Donicht asked his boss.

Martini had already tried the door handle a couple of times, but he did it again now. “Screw it!” With one thrust of his shoulder, the door lock snapped and gave way.

Donicht had his gun out and quickly moved past his boss into the living room.

Not even bothering to pull his gun, Martini wandered about the room. He saw the man on the sofa and knew he wasn't going anywhere.

The two of them ended up in front of the man, whose head lay on his shoulder, his eyes open and glazed over.

Leaning forward toward the body, Martini thought for a moment he heard a gurgling in the body. Probably settling blood, he thought. Out of instinct, he checked for a pulse. Nothing. But the body was still warm.

“Call the forensics team in,” Martini said to Donicht.

“You think it was murder?”

“That's what we want to find out.”

Donicht moved toward the front door and called it in with his cell phone while Martini continued around the room, a notebook out and noting certain items. Something wasn't right. He could smell booze. What was it? He kneeled onto the sofa next to the man and smelled the man's mouth. Schnapps? Then he got up and went to the wet bar. No glasses. He drink from the bottle? Hell no. Not with Mozart playing.

It was starting to get dark in Steyr, and Miko Krupjak and his two Brothers, Jiri and Grago, still had not found the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, Gustav Albrecht. They had visited six gasthauses within a short distance of the Vogl Restaurant, where Albrecht had used his visa. Miko had guessed the man would not stay in one of the larger hotels, since they would require a visa. He would be spending cash on a gasthaus. But why had he used a credit card at the restaurant? Habit, perhaps.

Miko pulled up to a small structure, a two-story gasthaus on the Enns River, two kilometers from where that river met the Steyr River in the city. He shut down the Skoda and glanced to his right at Jiri. “Well? Is this our lucky place?”

“I hope so,” Jiri said, unbuckling his belt and heading out the door. “Only one good thing comes from Steyr. . .guns.”

Grago, in the back seat, was barely awake. He yawned and said, “I got a good feeling about this place. This is where I'd stay.”

Miko agreed and the three of them went to the front desk. A man in his mid forties, overweight with floppy jowls, came from a back room to the desk.

When Miko asked about Albrecht, the man shrugged and said he had never heard of the guy. Miko pulled out a photo and showed it to the clerk. His eyes darted toward Grago and Jiri before settling on Miko.

“I've never seen the man,” the gasthaus clerk said.

It took Grago just two seconds to round the corner of the counter, grab the man by the back of his neck, and smash his face into the wooden desk. He followed that with a punch to the man's kidney, dropping him to his knees. The clerk struggled to breath.

“Check his records,” Miko said to Jiri. All gasthauses in Austria kept a book with the name of guests and their cars. Just in case they tried to skip without paying. Most also kept a photo copy of passports or European international drivers' licenses.

Jiri knew exactly what to look for, having spent so much time on the road. There were only six guests in the place. Two couples and two singles. None were Albrecht.

The clerk had recovered some and rose to his feet. “What do you want?” he said. “I don't have much money.”

Grago pretended to punch the man and the clerk flinched, bringing a laugh from the Czech.

Miko said, “Help my man find your photocopies and you'll be fine. If you don't, then you could take a swim in the Enns.” He mocked a shiver. “I suspect that would be cold today.”

Grago dragged the clerk to the back room and the man found a file in his desk, handing it to Jiri.

Flipping through the file, Jiri stopped when he saw the driver's license for Gustav Albrecht. “What's this?”

The clerk didn't answer.

Grago shook his head and then punched the man in the face, his nose bursting with blood instantly and knocking the man back into his desk chair, and that smashing into the back wall.

When they got to Albrecht's room on the second floor, Miko told the other two to let him do the talking. The man would have too many questions, Miko knew that much.

They had the pass key from the desk clerk, so Miko quietly turned the key and then the three of them burst into the room.

Gustav Albrecht was laying on his bed watching a German game show on the tiny TV. To say he was surprised would have been a complete understatement. But Miko didn't expect the man to recognize any of them.

“I know you,” Albrecht said with a soft voice and his head cocked to one side trying his best to remember how.

Miko didn't have time for questions. He'd come prepared. He shoved one of Albrecht's socks in the man's mouth and then ran tape around his head a couple of times. Satisfied, Miko had his two men haul the Grand Master out of his room—Grago punching the guy in the stomach for trying to pull away.

●

Sitting down the road five hundred meters, with a nice view of the front door of the gasthaus on the Enns River, Toni Contardo tried to adjust her eyes to the complete darkness. They had followed the three men in the Skoda to nearly every gasthaus in Steyr.

“You sure Jake didn't tell you where he dumped Albrecht?” Toni asked Kurt.

In the passenger seat, Kurt peered through a pair of night vision goggles. “Positive. He thought it would be better if only he knew.”

Made sense, Toni thought. “These guys are definitely looking for him, though.”

“What do we do?” Kurt said, glancing at Toni for a second and then back through his NVGs. “It's not like we can haul their ass in. They'd just say they were looking for their long-lost uncle. Wait a minute. Here we go. Three in and four out. Two dragging one of them. Gotta be Albrecht.”

“Shit.” Toni started the car. “They're gonna take him out and shoot him. Drop him off in the woods.”

“Or throw him in the river. But why bother? Why not just pop him there and run?”

That got Toni thinking. They had tried killing the guy at the Donau Bar. Now they haul him off. What's changed? Maybe she should have let Jake in on the case. After all, he was the one hired by the Order.

“Could you try calling Jake again?” Toni asked. Then she pulled out onto the road, keeping a good distance back from the Skoda.

Kurt tried again, but got the same result as the last five times he had tried, once they were sure the men in the Skoda were heading for Steyr—no answer and no message service. He got onto his computer and pulled up a few phone numbers. They could send someone from the embassy to look for Jake. But where would they begin to look? While on his computer, he pulled up the information he had downloaded on Hermann Conrad, the person who paid for the apartment by the Bristol Hotel in Vienna. Damn it. He had missed it the first time around.

Toni turned right in the direction of the autobahn, the Skoda taking its time up in front of them.

“Crap,” Kurt said.

“What?” Toni looked concerned.

“This Conrad dude. He was a Brother in the Teutonic Order. Not ordained, though.”

“How long ago?”

“Up until the German reunification,” Kurt said, scrolling down a page. “Then he started a bunch of companies, trying his best to capitalize on capitalism. His current company is called Marienburg Biotechnik, with its headquarters in Magdeburg, Germany.”

“Bioengineering?”

“Looks like it.”

That made no sense, Toni thought. What was a businessman doing hanging around a bunch of thugs like Miko, Jiri and Grago?

Jake had taken his time driving back from Budapest with Anna, stopping at a restaurant in a small town in Hungary off the autobahn. Then when they got back to Vienna, Jake had stopped off at a couple of places, picking up some over-the-counter 9mm rounds, some new batteries for his flashlight, and he had bought a cross country ski coat and pants—all black. He had everything else he needed. He owned winter gear, but it was years old and he had left it at his apartment in Innsbruck. Not something he could get his hands on at this time.

Now, the gear in plastic bags, Jake waited outside Anna's apartment door as she jangled through her keys looking for the one to the door. As she turned the key and went for the lever, Jake suddenly felt something was wrong. In one fluid motion, he dropped the bags, shoved her aside with his left arm, and pulled his gun with his right hand. He went in low, his gun pointing the way through the darkness.

“Don't shoot,” came a harsh, deep voice from the darkness.

“Give me one reason why, asshole?” Jake yelled. He had found cover behind the end of the sofa, but it wouldn't stop a bullet.

A small lamp clicked on, revealing Vienna Kriminal Hauptkommisar Franz Martini. Jake rose up and lowered his gun, his eyes working the room. He guessed Jack Donicht would be around somewhere.

“What you doing breaking into Anna's apartment?” Jake noticed the man's eyes were red, the bags under his eyes dark like someone had punched him.

Anna poked her head around the door and said, “Jake, you aren't going to shoot my cat are you? Oh. . .”

“Fraulein Schult,” Martini said. “I'm sorry for the intrusion.”

Anna shut the door and noticed the Hauptkommisar had not broken in. “My landlord must have let you in. I'll have a talk with him about that.”

Martini reached inside his jacket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “Don't be too hard on him. I do have a warrant.”

She turned on Martini. “For what reason?” Taking the paper from him, she started reading the warrant.

“The Interpol polizei liaison was murdered this evening,” Martini said.

Jake asked, “What does that have to do with Anna?”

“Anna. . .Fraulein Schult made many calls to the man's cell phone.”

Jake looked at her, but she was still reading the warrant. “So? I call the Chinese restaurant once a week for delivery. Doesn't mean I killed Chairman Mao.”

“I heard you liked Chinese, Jake.” Martini had a smirk on his face. “But now I see you also like the native cuisine as well.”

“Fuck you!”

“Now, I didn't think you played for that team,” Martini said.

Anna handed the warrant to Jake, who threw it back at Martini. “Stefan was murdered? How?” She slumped down onto the sofa.

“We don't know for sure. We had discovered a transfer of information to various outside sources and were on our way there to. . .discuss it with him. When Donicht and I got there, he was dead. Freshly so.”

“What kind of information transfer?” Jake asked Martini. Something sure as hell wasn't adding up here. The polizei man was far too cryptic.

“I can't say at this time,” Martini said. He folded the warrant and put it back inside his pocket.

“But why look into Anna? Of course she would be calling the man. He was her link from other law enforcement agencies. Am I right?”

“Technically.”

Anna was quiet, her eyes glazed forward looking at nothing at all.

Martini continued, “But there was also data transferred under Fraulein Schult's access code.”

“You're crazy,” Anna yelled.

“Maybe. I've already checked over your apartment, including your computer.”

“And?” she said, her jaw tight.

He didn't say a word, which meant he had found nothing. Jake said, “Listen, let's cut to the chase here. This liaison worked for the state polizei, right?” He didn't wait for an answer. “So you had a mole working in your organization and you want to blame it on Interpol. That's great.”

Rising to his feet and straightening out his pants, Martini said, “We don't want to blame anyone. We just want the truth.” The polizei man went to the living room window and pulled the Rolladens, his gaze onto the street below.

Maybe, Jake thought, but this guy wasn't being totally honest with him. And with their history, that was bothersome. Jake went to the cop's side and said, “Franz. We've known each other for years. You really think I could be mixed up in some nefarious shit.”

Martini turned to Jake and said, “I've known Anna longer.” He left it at that and went out the door.

When he was gone, Jake asked Anna, “What in the hell was that all about?”

She wouldn't look at him.

He took a seat on the sofa next to her. “How do you know Martini?”

Finally, she raised her eyes to his. “He's a cop. I'm a cop. In a city like Vienna you get to know all the players.”

That was true, but it still didn't explain Martini's reaction. “You don't trust me,” he said to her.

“Yes, I do.”

Then it came to him in a rush. “He's from Tirol. You're from Tirol. You know him from there.”

She didn't answer.

“So once he took over here, you naturally started sharing information. Tell me I'm wrong.”

Still no words came from her mouth, but she bit her lower lip.

Jake continued. “The call you made from the hotel in Budapest was to Martini, not the office. You suspected a mole.”