The Crypt (11 page)

“So you admit to helping Armond get into Hungary?”

“Of course. How else could he get here undetected? We’re the best at what we do. Only a few problems ever arise.”

“Like what? Give me an example of a problem.”

“A few months back in Toronto, Canada, a Hungarian woman and her brothers tried to kill a bunch of people because of some of the documents that my group had prepared for her family. These documents said something that riled her. She went on a rampage. Her name was Monika. She’s dead now and so are other innocent people because of her. But the guy she was after, a Drake Bellamy, is still alive. What she didn’t know was that all our documents are fakes. They’re designed to move people from country to country without a problem. Once in Canada those travelers were supposed to burn their documents. They didn’t and now there’s some kind of stupid investigation. That’s the kind of bullshit we don’t need.”

“Tell me about Armond. Where is he now? And who heads this group?”

Sarah could hear sirens pulling up outside. They were seriously close now. She was out of time.

“I personally helped him and received a large sum of money for that help. What does it matter now? You’re going to burn for this. You can’t walk around Budapest shooting people at will.”

“Is that what you think I’m doing? You have no idea what I’m doing. I just finished you and your career. It’s over.” It was time to leave. “Who heads this group?”

“You think I’m going to tell you that?”

“You are such a stupid man.” 

Sarah raised her weapon and emptied the bullets into the wall behind the toilet in a triangle formation. The gun was so loud she couldn’t hear István’s screams as he ducked thinking she was trying to shoot him.

She reached past his head and punched a piece of drywall away. Behind it was a camera, exactly as Vivian had told her it would be. A motion detection camera set up by the pervert who rented this apartment and opened the door to them minutes earlier. It was set up to videotape his teenage daughter’s girlfriends when they came over to use the bathroom or change in it before going for a swim in the building’s pool.

Now the perverted pig lay half in and half out of his kitchen entrance with a bullet in each foot. This way he wouldn’t leave the apartment when Sarah interrogated István on camera. The police get two idiots with one camera.

“Your confession is here.” Sarah held the camera up for István to see. “I will give you this camera if you tell me who runs everything.”

István was panting nearing hyperventilation. He was shaking his head back and forth.

“Tell me!” Sarah screamed.

“A guy named Tony Soprano.”

“Come on, like the television show? No way.”

“He uses that name. We all know him by that name. No one knows the boss’s real name.”

Only seconds left. “Where can I find him?”

“Montone, Italy. That’s all I know.”

He slumped on the seat and slipped off, hitting the floor beside the bathtub. The loss of blood and gunfire had been enough for him.

István’s confession about being part of a group inside the government, that helped known criminals enter and exit the country if the price was right, would finish him and his little profitable group. A group that started with the right intentions but ended up helping criminals traffic human beings like they were cattle.

Sarah wasn’t just walking around Budapest shooting random people. She was shooting criminals and gathering the evidence needed to have them placed in jail for a long time. She was also learning that this organization was an international one, headed by some tough guy in Italy. A different kind of human trafficking. One that didn’t involve prostitution.

She turned and ran for the hallway.

“Wait! You said you’d give me the camera,” István said, pointing at her, his eyes wider than she’d ever seen. He lay on the floor looking like he was going into shock.

“You just confessed on camera your role in aiding Armond Stuart entry to this country. It’s everything I need for that pig lying out in the hallway bleeding from both feet.”

“But you said you don’t bluff.”

István was shaking all over but trying to compose himself as best as he could and failing miserably.

“I don’t bluff. But sometimes I lie. This little device will go to the proper authorities of course. And since I’m out of bullets this’ll have to do.”

She stepped forward and dropped the butt of the weapon onto the top of his thigh where the bullet had entered moments before.

He screamed and wailed, writhing on the floor.

“I said no questions. That’s for testing me. Our chat is over now. Goodbye.”

Sarah turned and ran from the bathroom. The tenant/pervert of apartment 303 still lay on the floor, the phone near his ear.

“That’s right. Good boy. Talk to the police. I’m so happy you called them.”

She held up the camera. His expression changed and his eyes widened. He knew he was caught.

She watched as he hit a button on the phone and set it down.

Too late,
she thought.
The police are already here.

Before stepping from the apartment she checked the hallway. No one in sight yet.

She edged out and down to István’s apartment 306. She eased in and closed the door, locking it behind her.

In under a minute she had the camera hooked up to his DVD player. She turned the television on, rewound the recorder and then pressed play.

Young girls showed up on the screen in various states of undress.

Sarah turned up the volume and looked away.

She walked back out to the apartment door and opened it wide. Someone ran by but they didn’t look in.

Leaving the door open, she turned and walked back into the apartment, heading for the small balcony.

Someone shouted from the hallway.

“In here.”

She opened the balcony door and stepped out, closing it behind her.

Third floor. Couldn’t be more than thirty feet down.

She jumped onto the other side of the balcony and slowly slid down a side bar until she was dangling above the balcony of the second floor.

She calculated the distance and waited for the right moment. After her body swung enough to the inside she let both hands go and dropped a foot to the top of the railing on the second floor. Balancing perfectly for a brief second she hopped off and into the balcony area.

Then she jumped over its edge and did the same procedure to get to the first floor balcony. The only difference was instead of jumping onto the first floor balcony she jumped the other way and landed on a bed of grass.

Luckily István’s apartment faced the rear of the building. All the police showing up were at the front.

Sarah released her hair out of the bun and shook it back and forth to loosen it.

When she turned to start walking two guns came up to meet her. One was placed against her forehead and the other was leveled at her chest area. She stopped instantly and stared down at the one over her heart.

“We need to talk,” the gun holder said.

Chapter 10

She froze in the dark and tried to see the face of her would-be shooter. His voice was familiar but his face was hidden enough in the gloom that she couldn’t make it out.

“If I pull back my weapons can I trust that you won’t attack me?”

“That depends on who you are.”

“Imre Mátyás. I was the officer who met you in the Best Western and detained you regarding the incident with the stolen gun.”

Sarah nodded. “I won’t attack.”

Both guns retreated from her person.

“We need to move. We’re not safe here.”

They started walking away from the apartment building. Sirens could still be heard pulling up to the front.

“Sorry about the guns, but I thought if I just showed up you might shoot me or something.”

“What would make you say that?”

“I’ve read your file or at least what the Americans would release to me. And I heard what happened upstairs.”

Sarah slowed a little. “How did you hear that?”

Imre slowed too and looked back at her. “Come on. We can’t stop. We’re probably being watched right now.” He turned and kept up the pace. Sarah followed as he began speaking again. “István has been under investigation for some time. He knew it and we knew that he was aware of us. I’m one of the officers that work with him so I listen into the recordings. I was in a van across the street. I heard you when you first entered his apartment.”

“Why were
you
in the van listening in? That’s quite a coincidence. And since you were there and you’re a police officer, why did outside police come when called? Is there a reason you guys didn’t storm the apartment?”

Imre ran a hand through his hair. He kept looking left and right and a few times behind him.

“I was in the van because of an anonymous tip. We were told you’d be there with the evidence we needed to lock you up. The police were called by a tenant. We waited in case you actually got a confession out of István. That’s why we didn’t storm the apartment. Our instructions were to get both of you.”

“Then what are you doing now? Letting me go? If so, why?”

“Yes and no. Look, I know that the police want you but other than stealing the gun we have nothing on you. And from what I just heard you do in that apartment I’m happy you had the gun.”

“Did you listen to all of it?”

“We heard you enter his apartment. You told him
no questions
, hit him after he asked one and then you both got quiet. We waited. We couldn’t tell what you were doing. We still had nothing on you or István. Then, we heard movement again and now there’s some kind of recording playing back in István’s apartment. Once the confession part started all our officers were dispatched upstairs to apprehend all parties involved. We were also supposed to nab you so I went around to the back of the building to watch for you.”

This was getting confusing. “Okay. You got me. So what are we doing running away?”

“Because I need information. I thought we could talk. Do a little exchange.”

“What kind of exchange?”

They were at least a block away now. Imre turned right on a long street and headed for a small park coming up on the left. Sarah followed. He kept a watchful eye on their backsides.

“And why do you look so paranoid?”

“Because they’re everywhere.”

“Who’s everywhere?”

“The American government guys.”

“You’re not making much sense,” Sarah said even though she suspected who he was talking about.

“Follow me,” Imre said as he crossed the empty street.

Sarah followed him as they entered the darkened park and found a bench to sit on. A small line of bushes covered their back and the front looked on toward the park. Unless someone saw them enter, there was no way anyone would know where they were.

“All I know,” Imre started in a whisper, “is that these American guys showed up about three weeks ago. They come with a lot of clout. I have a friend at the FBI. I asked him who they were and he didn’t know. Never heard of them. After he looked into it, he found out that they’re run inside the United States Department of Defense under the National Security Agency in an unknown branch that handles something of an interpretation of messages from the Other Side. After he had asked a few questions he was warned to watch himself. These weren’t people that you piss off, apparently.”

Sarah looked around now that her eyes had adjusted better. “Are you being serious with me? I mean, how powerful are they?”

“A dozen men came to Hungary in their group. They operate like a military unit. They come with full diplomatic immunity. Our government isn’t allowed to touch them and that comes from the higher ups. Actually, we’re supposed to cooperate fully in the event that they need our assistance. They have only one task and that is you.”

She felt as if she’d been punched in the gut. How could she be of interest to the NSA? What could she have done to spur their interest? She understood if they were a paranormal group, but not the NSA.

“I’m not following.”

In the dark she could tell he turned to face her.

“Come on, Sarah. I told you, I read the file they gave me. Even in that small file I know that you have some ESP thing going on. It tells you when people are in trouble or going to die and you save them. The government wants people like you. Are you even aware of your potential?”

“They’d get really tired of me quick,” Sarah said knowing that Vivian wouldn’t send her a message if someone was watching as evidenced from the day she got to Hungary until Parkman checked them into a new hotel where she wasn’t being monitored. “How do I know you’re not one of them?”

“You don’t. But if I was wouldn’t they just grab you right now?”

Sarah considered that and then asked another question. “Where’s Parkman? Do your people have him?”

She could tell that Imre had looked away again. His head was roving, watching the grounds for movement.