Rise of the Order (5 page)

A minute later and the Audi A6 crossed on the road in front of them. Just a driver, Jake thought. “Hang onto this,” Jake said, handing his gun to Albrecht and pulling out onto the road.

“I can't handle a gun,” Albrecht said, looking as if Jake had handed him a pile of dog crap.

“Just hold the damn thing. I'll take it from you if I need it.”

Getting up to speed, Jake could see the car ahead, keeping a steady pace. The closest town was ten kilometers down the road.

Suddenly, the Audi's brake lights came on and the car started to slow, giving Jake just a second to decide what to do—pass him or pull up behind the guy. He didn't like either choice. A car doesn't stop for no reason out in the middle of nowhere. Jake decided to slow down.

The rain was a slow drizzle now as Jake pulled up behind the Audi parked on the shoulder of the road. Jake kept the engine running, just in case he needed to pull out in a hurry, but he took the gun from Albrecht.

“Wait here,” Jake said. Just as he got out and stood behind the door for protection, his gun at his side, the door to the Audi also opened and a man got out, his hands high in the air.

His finger slowly increasing pressure on the trigger, Jake suddenly stopped. Something about the man confused him. He was nearly six feet, dark hair, and his frame was as chiseled as it had been when the two of them had first met.

“Jake,” the man said. “You're a hard man to find.” The man stopped twenty feet away, his dark eyes shifting to Albrecht in the front seat of Jake's car.

“Kurt Lamar,” Jake said. “What in the hell is the U.S. Navy doing in Austria?” Jake had worked on a case with then Ensign Lamar of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service years ago in Italy, where they had stopped a theft of high-tech computer chips by former German and Hungarian agents.

“Lookin' for you.”

“Kurt, come on. Who the fuck ya talkin' to here?”

“Can I lower my arms?”

Jake came around his door, slid his gun back into its holster under his jacket, and moved closer to his old partner. They shook hands and then hugged.

A slight glimmer of light tried to poke through the clouds and the rain stopped.

“GPS tracker?” Jake asked.

Kurt shrugged. “I learned from the master.”

Jake laughed. “That was back before we had GPS. Only had those clunky transmitters. So, you still with NCIS?”

“On loan. Pinned on lieutenant commander last month.”

“No shit. It's been that long? You with the Agency, then?”

“Yeah.”

“Vienna office?”

“I should be asking you the questions,” Kurt said, his tone more serious.

“Like what?”

Kurt's eyes glanced toward Albrecht.

“You looking for him?” Jake asked.

“Half of Austria is looking for him.”

“Why's that?”

“Listen. . .can we cut the bullshit?”

Jake shrugged. “That's always my preference.”

“Gustav Albrecht, as I'm sure you know, was at the Donau Bar in Vienna last night around midnight. Two of his men were killed there, along with a bartender.” Kurt stopped and studied Jake for a reaction.

“Continue.”

“You were also there,” Kurt said. “Left behind some spent brass from a nine mil. No fingerprints. But I'll bet the brass matches those still in your CZ-75.”

Jake let out a sigh of breath. He had been caught off guard at the bar, not thinking for a moment that he would even need his gun. Should have picked up his brass.

When Jake didn't say anything, Kurt continued, “I found your car a couple of blocks away. You took Albrecht's Mercedes to Schonbrunn Palace and sat for almost a half hour. I'm guessing you were caught off guard at the bar and wanted to pump Albrecht for info. Stop me when I get something wrong.”

“What? You got satellite photos of me scratching my balls? Hell of a use of government money.”

“Glad you still got that sense of humor, Jake. You want me to finish this story?”

“So you guess I gotta be involved with the shooting. You plant a GPS tracker on my poor little Golf. But answer me this. . .why in the hell is the Agency involved in a simple shooting?”

“Nothing is simple, Jake.”

“No shit! Why are you involved?”

“I can't tell you that.” Kurt waited for a response from Jake. When Jake didn't say anything, Kurt said, “Albrecht hire you for protection?”

“Makes sense considering what happened.”

“You must have just been hired,” Kurt said.

Finally an opening, Jake thought, smiling. “You've been watching Albrecht. Why?”

Kurt shook his head and said, “Can't tell you.”

“You just did. At least that you were watching him. I'll find out why. You might as well tell me now. Save me a little time.”

“God, you're a relentless bastard.”

“True. But just call me Jake. God is so pretentious.”

Kurt laughed. “Okay. You want me to finish this story? Bring you up to date. Up to this moment.”

“What the fuck.”

“So, you drive Albrecht to the east train station,” Kurt said, “or at least close to it, and hop a train to Bratislava.”

He was guessing now, Jake thought. No way he could know about the two of them going to Bratislava. He had paid for the tickets with cash. “Finally, you made a mistake.”

“Actually, Jake, we got video of you in the train station. We also know about the priest killed in Bratislava.”

Shit. “Well, you've been busy, Kurt. But why?”

Kurt shrugged and shoved his hands into his coat pockets.

“You can't be interested in the murder of a parish priest. How in the hell is that Agency business?”

“Jake. Someone sent a digital photo, along with a thirty-second movie clip, of you kicking the shit out of two Bratislava cops. You can still kick some ass for a guy your age. The images are from a night-vision lens, so you are not identified completely to the untrained eye, but I had no problem identifying you. Neither did Toni.”

Jake's eyes shifted right at Kurt. “Toni is in Austria?”

“She's the Vienna station chief.”

Bratislava, Slovak Republic

Toni Contardo had tracked down the former Brother of the Teutonic Order at his cousin's house on the hills in the western part of the city, with a view of the old town. The Agency had suspected Jiri Sikora knew something about the murder of the two priests. Sikora had been picked up by Slovak police three times in the past few months for what they called “suspicious behavior.” Which Toni knew, based on her experience with the Slovak authorities, could be anything from spitting on the sidewalk to raping a four-year-old.

She had sat in her Alfa Romeo two blocks from Sikora's suspected location, a second floor apartment in a row house in a Soviet-era building that more resembled a nuclear power plant than residences. When the guy finally showed up, parking his VW Polo only a block in front of her car, she slouched down in her seat.

It was Sikora. The man glanced her way for a second and then shuffled into the apartment complex.

Toni sat up, ran her fingers through her dark curly hair, and then got out. With slow, measured steps, she casually made her way to the building, stopping once to check out a storefront window display, looking at her reflection, and to see if anyone had followed her. She wore black slacks that accentuated her figure more than she wanted and made her look taller than her five-nine. But the black leather jacket was bulky, allowing her to keep her Glock under her left breast. Looking further back in the reflection, she scanned the street behind her and saw nothing out of the ordinary.

Satisfied, she walked off and entered the building. She skipped steps on her way to the second floor and entered a long corridor with doors offset. At least the Russians had enough sense to not put the doors directly across from each other, she thought.

How to handle this guy? The direct approach. She'd use womanhood to her advantage. There was no peep hole. Great. She knocked on the apartment door and waited, hearing footsteps come toward the door and then stop. Would he be too arrogant to ask who it was? Yes.

The door unlocked and opened quickly. Toni pretended to be startled by his swift movement. Then she smiled broadly.

Sikora's eyes inspected her body from top to bottom. He had to be wondering what was under her leather jacket, and his concern had nothing to do with a gun or other weapon. There was no way to hide her more-than-substantial breasts. Her curse and her weapon.

“How may I help such a beautiful woman?” Sikora asked in Slovak.

Toni only knew a little Slovak, but understood what he meant. She took a step toward him, still smiling, and then thrust her right hand up into his throat, bringing the man to his knees immediately. Then she brought her left knee up under his chin, flinging the man onto his back. He was still conscious but struggling to catch his breath.

She closed the door and locked it. Rushed through the small, two-bedroom apartment looking for other people, found nobody else there, and headed back toward Sikora. He was trying to get to his feet now, his stance insecure.

Trying a roundhouse swing at Toni's head, she simply dodged the fist, swung the man around, and punched him in the kidney. He hit the ground on his knees out of breath again. She kicked the man in the back with her boot, knocking him onto the low-pile carpet, his face smashing against the rough surface. Planting her knee on the man's back, she reached underneath the guy's buttocks and grabbed his balls, bringing a sound she had heard before. A grunt? No. More like a sudden release of air. Shock. That was it. Shock that someone like her would grab him there in less than a seductive manner.

Having read the man's profile, she knew he spoke German. That's what she would use. “Now,” Toni said. “You can tell me the truth without all kinds of sexual tension on your part. As you can tell, there's nothing sexual about the hold I have on you.” She squeezed down on his balls harder and his body tensed, his muscles on his back becoming quite rigid.

“What do you want?” he said softly in German, gulping after the last word.

“Straight answers,” she said. “Give me that and I'll let you live, balls intact.”

His head tried to nod.

“I'll take that as a yes. Now, you were a Brother of the Teutonic Order?”

He nodded.

She wondered if he took a vow of celibacy. “What do you know of the Order priest's death here in Bratislava?”

“Nothing,” he said.

“What about the parish priest's murder this morning?”

“Nothing.”

She squeezed down on his balls, bringing a response of pain. Her cell phone rang. Shit. She had forgotten to turn it off before leaving the car. She pulled the phone from her jacket pocket and saw the number of the caller. All right.

“This better be good,” she said in English, knowing it was Kurt Lamar on the other end.

“You busy?” Kurt asked.

“You might say that,” she said, glancing down at the man. “I've got Sikora by the balls.”

“Literally? Again?”

“First time for him,” she said. “What you need?”

There was a pause on the other end. “I'm with Jake,” he said.

“Put him on.”

A few seconds passed.

Sikora shifted under her. “What about me?”

“Shut the fuck up!”

“Hey, is that any way to talk to an old friend?” Jake said.

“Not you,” she said, her voice changing to a calm drawl. “What the hell are you up to now?”

“Your boy here was following me,” Jake said. “Had to jack him up.”

“You know what the hell I mean. That whole Vienna thing.”

Jake paused and then said, “Are you busy there?”

“I'm in Bratislava,” she said. “You know this place. You were here this morning trying to embarrass some poor local cops.”

“Training is a terrible expense,” Jake said. “They could have used a little more of it I'm afraid.”

“The Teutonic Order,” Toni said, watching Sikora's eyes shift back toward her. “I have a Brother of the Teutonic Order here who, I'm sure, knows something about the death of two priests in Bratislava. I think he wants to tell me all about it.”

Jake laughed. “I'll bet. Can we get together tonight? Talk over this crazy case.”

“Sure. Have Kurt show you to my place tonight at eight.”

“Great. Carry on.” He was about to click off, but then said, “Leave him a little dignity.”

“That's up to him,” she said, and then flicked her phone shut and shoving it back into her jacket.

She jabbed her knee deeper into Sikora's back. “Coffee break over, dumbass.”

●

Jake Adams handed the phone back to Kurt Lamar. They were now sitting in Kurt's Audi, since the rain had picked up again. Jake looked back at his car behind them. Albrecht looked like he was getting concerned. Luckily the traffic on this road was light; only a few cars zipped past them as they talked on the side of the road.

“You got a date tonight?” Kurt asked Jake.

“I don't think so. She wants you to show me where she lives. Eight tonight.”

“Sounds like a date to me,” Kurt said smiling.

Jake shook his head. “We haven't been together for quite some time. She went off on Agency business, and I just figured it would end like that. Haven't seen each other in more than a year.”

“She's just as hot as you remember her,” Kurt said.

His eyes on his old friend, Jake said, “You and her get together?”

Kurt raised his hands toward Jake. “No. No. She's a hell of a hottie, but you two have history. Besides, she's my boss.”

“She worked for me at one time,” Jake said, “and we hooked up.”

“Still. Can we change the subject? What you plan on doing with the Grand Master?”