Rise of the Order (8 page)

Miko breathed in and let out a deep sigh into the phone. “Someone stopped by the apartment in Bratislava and questioned Jiri.”

“Who? What did he ask?”

“Her. Says it was a beautiful woman. Either Italian or Rumanian, but spoke German and English. She was asking about the two priests. Quite brutal, though. A super model with attitude, is what Jiri calls her. Also with skills.”

This was more disturbing. “Working with the man?”

“It's possible.” Miko's voice was breaking up. “Sir, I better go. Need to charge this phone.”

“Call me tomorrow,” Conrad demanded.

“Yes, sir.”

The line went dead.

Conrad clicked off and placed the phone back in its stand on his desk. He took another sip of cognac. So there was one man and one woman. Even if they worked together, what could they do? They were too close to their goal to stop now.

●

Kurt pulled the Audi to the curb in a residential area of Vienna's north side, two blocks from the University and across from a park. It was five minutes to eight in the evening.

“That building,” Kurt said to Jake. “Second floor. Apartment twenty-four.”

Jake glanced up at the building, a light yellow stucco with tall windows that overlooked the park.

“You gonna leave me the info you picked up at Albrecht's warehouse?” Kurt asked him. “I'll make copies and get it back to you in the morning.”

Going for the door handle, a slight laugh in his voice, Jake said, “Nice try, Kurt. Appreciate the effort, but this is private information from the Teutonic Order.”

“How do you know? You haven't even looked at it.”

Jake got out and popped his head back inside. “If there's anything in here I think you should know,” he said, patting his stomach, “I'll be sure to let you know.”

“Right. Remember whose side I'm on.”

“That's my point,” Jake said and then slammed the door.

Taking the stairs slowly, Jake heard the Audi pull away from the curb and up the street. He found a security buzzer for the apartment on the second floor and held it down.

“Yeah?” came a harsh woman's voice.

“Let me in,” Jake said brusquely.

The door buzzed and he pushed his way in. Finding the stairs, he went up one flight to her door. He wasn't sure what to expect. The two of them had first worked together in the old CIA, he just after leaving Air Force Intelligence, and she having just graduated from college and completing her initial training at the Farm. They had hit it off right away, and, against regulations, had started a relationship that had nothing to do with the Agency. Then he had left the CIA for the private sector and their paths crossed again while Toni was stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Rome with the new Agency. Again their relationship was hot and brief. Eventually, when Jake first moved to Innsbruck, they had crossed paths again. This time, Toni had left the Agency to work with him. But that had lasted just six months, when Toni was asked to return to the Agency, working undercover for nearly a year in the Middle East. Now, he wasn't sure of their relationship, or if they would even have one.

Suddenly, the door opened and Toni Contardo stood with her right hand on the door, her stance wide, her other hand holding a bottle of beer. She was still just as beautiful as the last time he had seen her, her long dark hair flowing over her shoulders in spiral curls. The high cheek bones. Her body still in perfect shape, filling out black slacks.

“You coming in?” she asked, not a hint of a smile. She didn't make a move for a hug or even a hand shake.

Jake made his way past her, taking in the odor of her shampoo as he did. Strawberry.

Glancing about the room, Jake noticed a number of items she had picked up in her travels and brought with her to each apartment. He also saw the watercolor on the wall that he had bought her in Nice years ago.

“You want a beer?” she asked him.

“Is the Pope a former Nazi?”

She forced back a smile as she went into the kitchen, returning a moment later with a German Bitburger for him. Handing it to Jake, she took a seat in a leather chair.

Jake took a seat on the matching leather sofa across a coffee table from her.

“You could take your coat off,” she said, and then took a long draw of beer.

Jake started to unzip his jacket, but then remembered Albrecht's package inside. “You don't look too happy to see me.” He took a drink of beer.

“Should I be happy?”

What it the hell was wrong with her. “You left me,” he said, his voice more harsh than he intended.

She finished her beer and slammed the bottle on the table. “I was called back to the Agency. You know that.”

“You didn't have to go. I thought we were doing great together.”

Her jaw tightened and she looked like she might cry. Something Jake had only seen her do a few times, and those tears usually followed extreme pain, not emotion. Jumping from her chair, she went to the kitchen and returned with another beer. She paced back and forth, her arms against her chest, and finally sat down.

“I heard you were shacking up with a Chinese chick,” she said. Accused actually.

That's what this was about? “I wouldn't call it shacking up. More like helping her out.”

“Right. Helping her out of her clothes.”

Jake smiled. “You're jealous.”

“I'm not jealous,” she demanded.

“What you call it then?”

Taking a drink again, she swished her head from side to side and said, “I came back to Innsbruck to tell you I had gotten the station chief position in Vienna.”

“When?”

“A couple months ago.”

“You didn't come to the apartment.”

“I did. I saw you with her. She was all over you.”

Jake thought back a few months ago, and realized she might be right. He and Chang Su had been lovers and lived together for more than six months. Until she got back on her feet and was allowed to move to America.

“Like I said. . .you left me. I met Chang Su while working in China and the Russian Far East. A part of your damn Agency, by the way.”

She lowered her head somewhat. “I heard about what happened to you in Russia.”

“We lost a couple of good officers on that job.”

Putting her feet under her legs, Toni leaned back against the soft leather.

“Are you going to help me with what's going on here?” Jake asked her, his eyes on hers, and her knowing she could not lie to him. Never could, despite her considerable training in deception.

She sipped her beer and then said, “I can't help you.”

“Can't or won't?”

“Is there a difference?”

“There is to me. Let's me know where I stand with you and the Agency.”

Toni shook her head. “You have no idea the pressure I'm under at this moment.”

“When did you become such a bureaucrat?” He spit the last word at her like a cobra spewing venom.

She started to rise, the anger steaming within her, but settled back into her chair. “Nice try.” Choosing her words carefully, Toni said, “We're at war. I hope you know that.”

Yes, he did. But this war seemed to never end, and he was sick of people using it as an excuse to do or say things that had nothing to do with the actual act.

“I should still be in the Middle East,” she continued. “But there are many fronts, and the powers that be thought I could better serve here. Who am I to complain? Let me see, hot nasty deserts, or fabulous cultural events in one of the world's finest capital cities?”

Who the hell was this? Jake had no clue. She was so much more callous and indignant than he had ever seen her before. Something wasn't right. She had changed as much as Europe.

“So, you're saying you can't help me?” Jake said, rising to his feet. He left his half-finished beer on the coffee table and started for the door.

“Where you going?” she asked.

He stopped and turned. She had no smile or frown or any expression he understood in her. Nothing. There was no feeling now. Maybe their time had passed. Time had always been on their side, but now. . .he wasn't sure if there was a now or a future.

“Why don't you show me the papers you picked up tonight at Albrecht's warehouse?” she said, her voice echoing across the room in a droning monotone.

Jake thought about the papers inside his jacket and realized that between the time Kurt had dropped him off on the street until he got to her apartment, Kurt had called and told her about the warehouse. Now he knew they would be more adversarial than helpful. It had come to this, he thought.

“Go fuck yourself,” Jake said and stormed out of her apartment.

He stood there outside her door for a moment. Long enough to hear Toni sobbing on the other side. She had done this. Not him. That's what he told himself as he stepped lightly down to the street.

Standing on the sidewalk, trying his best to get his bearings, snow fell onto his head and the back of his neck. Raising his face toward the dark sky, the snowflakes tickled as they settled onto his two-day beard. He would have to walk a few blocks and pick up the U-Bahn back to his car in the parking ramp. And then what? He'd have to find a place to stay. He knew of a place a couple blocks from his car. He could stay there and figure out how to proceed in the morning. A good night's sleep. That's what he needed.

In his reverie, Jake didn't see the car pull up to the curb beside him until it was too late. It was an older Audi A4 Quattro. Black as the night. The passenger window whirled down and Jake reached for his gun, but stopped when he saw the driver.

“Get in,” the driver said in English.

Jake hesitated and then got in.

The driver was stunning. That's what Jake thought as the two of them drove slowly through the streets of North Vienna in her Audi. She had short blonde hair that hung straight down from the back of a black beret. Her gray wool coat covered most of her body, with black jeans stretching down to practical hiking shoes that worked the pedals as she shifted through the gears. Her most interesting feature, though, was her face. She was a classic beauty without make-up, her small ski-jump nose overshadowed by bright blue eyes that he could see even in the subdued light.

She said nothing for a few blocks, and then Jake could see a bulge at her right hip—a place where most law enforcement types kept their guns. Maybe Martini had sent in the babe to get him to talk. Sounds like something Franz would do. Maybe Jake, too.

“Martini sent you,” Jake said in German. It wasn't a question. An accusation.

She shook her head, her eyes still on the snowy road.

“I guess we could go on like this for a while,” Jake continued. “Hope you have a lot of gas.”

The woman turned left onto a road that would take them to Ottaring, a section in Vienna's west side. The roads seemed even more snow-covered here.

Finally she said in accented English, “I saw you lecture at a conference in Garmisch a couple of years back.”

Jake thought back. He had been asked to talk on counter-terrorism to a group of military intelligence and police force personnel from Germany and Austria. Well that narrowed her ethnicity down to those two countries—which he had guessed anyway based on her accent just now.

“The one on the shift to information-based economies?” Jake asked, a slight smile on his face.

She didn't miss a beat. “Your ideas for interdiction of terrorist groups in their infancy was quite impressive.”

Jake said, “Only a theory.”

“A good one.”

So he had a fan. “If Martini didn't send you, then I'd have to guess local staatpolizei.” Austrian State Police had jurisdiction of broader crimes throughout the country. Jake had worked with them in the past.

“You're getting much closer, Mr. Adams,” she said, glancing sideways at him for a bit too long, considering the road conditions.

“So, you know me. Why don't you get to the point and tell me who you are and what you want?”

Shifting into third gear, the woman reached inside her jacket, pulled out a black leather I.D. case, and handed it to Jake.

Flipping it open, Jake was somewhat confused. Anna Schult. Interpol. Austria Central Bureau.

Looking at the photo and then her, Jake said, “This photo doesn't do you justice, Anna. May I call you Anna?”

“I was sick that day,” she said. “And only if I can call you Jake.”

“Please.” Jake handed her I.D. back to her. “Interpol? What do you want with me?”

She smiled now and Jake saw she had a nice smile. Straight teeth. “The affair with Herr Doctor Gustav Albrecht at the Donau Bar,” she said. “The three men murdered there.”

“I thought Martini and Donicht were on that case.”

“They are,” she said, turning left onto a road that would eventually lead them back into the city. “And Martini is a fine investigator. He doesn't know Vienna that well, having just taken over his post here, but he will learn fast.”

“Then why is Interpol interested in a simple shooting?”

“Nothing is simple, Jake. You should know that. As you said at the lecture, if things don't look right, they probably are not.”

Now he was embarrassed. “Nice of you to remember.”

“You were right.”

“Interpol only looks into organized crime that crosses borders, right?”

She slowed and stopped at a red light. “That's right. But, as you know, there were those two murders in Bratislava.” Reaching into an outer pocket, she handed Jake a piece of paper folded into quarters.

Jake reluctantly opened the paper and saw an artist's rendering of him and Albrecht, although not the best of depictions. And Jake had been right, the two Bratislava cops had described both of them as between 180 to 200 centimeters, or between six feet and six-five.

The light changed and Anna went through the gears and got into third.