Killer Focus (19 page)

El Paso, Texas

T
aylor followed Dennison's rental at a discreet distance in the SUV she'd rented. Since driving out of the airport parking lot, he had been laid-back and methodical and completely absorbed with his own purpose.

He had made three stops in town. One at a mall to buy a bottle of water and a sandwich, another at a gun store, the third at a gardening supply store, where he had bought a spade.

Taylor watched as he loaded the spade into the trunk of the car. It crossed her mind that Dennison might be going to bury something—or somebody. Although the most likely alternative was that he was going to dig something up.

After ten minutes of cruising at a slow crawl through tree-lined suburban streets, he pulled over beside a small park. Driving past, her attention glued to the rearview mirror, Taylor took the first turn, parked the car, got out and walked, using the thick screen of trees and shrubs as cover.

She didn't have any qualms about leaving the vehicle, because she was certain that whatever Dennison was up to in El Paso, he had reached his final destination. When she had driven down the street, she had recognized the area from both the text and photographic images on Bureau files. They were very close to the address of the FBI bust the previous year.

Dennison was strolling through the park, the spade in one hand. He stared back at where he'd left his vehicle then began walking in a straight line away from it. Taylor shadowed him through the trees. When he reached the end of the grassed area, he turned around and retraced his steps, studying the ground and the trees. Eventually, he stopped beneath a large shade tree and began to dig.

Wishing she'd had the time and opportunity to buy a gun, Taylor worked her way closer. It was early evening. The air was growing perceptibly cooler as the sun set and the large trees shrouded the park in gloom. Dennison stopped driving the spade into the ground and began working to one side of the hole he'd dug.

He tossed the spade aside, bent down and pulled a wrapped object out of the ground. He glanced around, then opened what looked like a waterproof package and pulled out an envelope. Tearing the envelope open, he studied the contents.

Not documents, as she had first thought. A book. Dennison had a book.

His head jerked up. He stared almost directly at Taylor, although she was certain that, with the sun down and the light fading, there was no way he could see her through the thick screen of leaves.

She slipped through the trees, keeping pace with Dennison as he made his way back to his vehicle. She was certain Dennison had the book that Tito Mendoza once had in his possession. Lopez would have brought the book to El Paso to use as leverage, which meant it
was
important. Important enough to gamble with his own life, and to kill for. Important enough for Dennison to risk the trip to retrieve it.

According to Mendoza, the book contained the identities of German ex-nationals. If it did expose the cabal, it was possible it would also expose the identity of the mole who had set her up to take the fall.

She couldn't take the book off Dennison. She didn't have a weapon, and he was armed. She would have to follow him until she was in a position to either take his weapon from him, or obtain a gun.

As she neared the end of the belt of trees, a flickering movement ahead stopped her in her tracks. She recognized the blond man who had come off her flight in San Francisco.

Dennison had almost reached his car. She had to make a choice.

Stepping out of the cover of the trees, she walked directly toward Dennison. It was stupid, beyond dangerous. If she had been working as an agent, she would have been fired on the spot. The blond man was an unknown factor. And Dennison had no reason to spare an FBI agent, but she was banking on the softness Dennison had shown in taking flowers to his wife's grave. If she didn't try, she would lose everything.

A handgun appeared in Dennison's hand. It was nothing fancy, a common thirty-eight: inexpensive, reliable and deadly. It would kill her just as efficiently as a sniper's bullet.

She didn't make the mistake of moving. “If Lopez finds out you've got the book, he'll kill you.”

As leverage, it was more conversation than threat. Dennison had cut his ties with Lopez. “I can help you. I have contacts—”

Dennison was moving steadily back toward his car. His focus shifted and his gun discharged. Simultaneously, she was knocked to the ground.

Her nostrils flared on the sharp scent of fresh sweat. She caught a glimpse of denim, dark hair, a muscular bicep. Digging the toes of her sneakers into the iron-hard ground, she lunged forward. An arm snaked around her throat, stopping her cold and his full weight came down on her, shoving all the breath from her lungs.

The blond guy was on the ground a few yards away, clutching his arm. Dennison was already in his vehicle. Sucking in air, she twisted, shoved at her assailant and froze.

For a full second her brain refused to work. Then the sound of Dennison's car engine screaming as he peeled away from the curb broke the stasis. She stared into Fischer's eyes, just inches from her own.
“He's getting away.”

“That's not your problem.”

Dennison's taillights winked out as he swerved around a corner. For a split second what Fischer had said made no sense. Dennison and the book he'd dug up were very personally, very crucially,
her
problem. They were the keys to her staying alive—to getting her life, and Dana's, back—and after twenty-four hours of trailing Dennison she had lost them both.

She stared at the road. Dennison's concern now would be getting out of El Paso. There was a chance she could pick him up again at the airport. It was a long shot, but anything was better than nothing.

She attempted to twist and dislodge Fischer. The arm around her throat tightened, cutting off her oxygen supply. Long seconds passed and her head began to spin. A split second later he eased off on the pressure and air whooshed into her lungs. Dimly she registered that the hard shape pressing into her shoulder blade was a handgun. “You're saying Dennison's your problem?”

“That's right.”

His voice was flat, his eyes cold, and any ambiguity about who and what Fischer was dissolved. A flicker of movement jerked her head around. It was almost full dark, but there was enough light to identify the dark-haired man who had stepped out of the trees and who had a handgun trained on the injured man on the ground. This time he hadn't bothered with the spectacles. If she'd looked past the glasses, which had probably been fake, she would have noticed he was fitter and more muscular than the average academic.
“Let me up.”

Fischer eased back on his hold, allowing her to breathe more freely, but didn't release her. “First I need your assurance that you're not going to run. It took me a while to track you out of Cold Peak.”

“Just out of interest, how
did
you find me? This time I didn't have the computer.”

“I put a tracking device on your SUV. When you changed to a rental in Springfield, that threw us. By the time we got the plate you were long gone. We had to wait until you called your father to pick up on your location.”

She went still inside. She had used a new phone, which meant they had tracked the call from her father's phone. “You know where Dana and Jack are.”

“I paid them a visit in Westport right about the time Dennison left his motel in Eureka.”

The matter-of-fact statement detailing the comprehensive manner in which Fischer had outmaneuvered not only her but Dana and Jack was chilling, and it achieved what it was designed to do—inform her that Fischer was in control. Now her only way forward was through him—
if
he would allow her in. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I'm not planning on running. In case you hadn't noticed, we're going in the same direction.” Toward Dennison and the book.

He eased off on his hold fractionally. Then, as if he'd made a decision, he released her and flowed to his feet. “Don't worry about Dennison. I've had a man following him for the past four days, ever since he flew out of Bogotá. Wells won't lose him.”

She stared at Fischer as she pushed to her feet. He looked the same as when she'd last seen him standing outside the bank in Cold Peak and earlier on that same day, when she'd stepped out of his bed. But the shoulder rig, almost invisible against a black T-shirt, pulled him into perspective. “So, what do I call you? Steve, or Agent Fischer?”

His expression was unreadable. If she'd hit a nerve, she decided, she would never know it.

A third man had materialized from the cover of the trees and was methodically searching and disarming the injured man. Within seconds he had been moved back into the cover of the trees. It was fully dark, but with streetlights now lightening the gloom and the periodic sweep of headlights from cars, the danger that they were visible from the road was high.

Fischer produced an ID wallet and began to question the injured man, who identified himself as Maximillian Schroeder. His nationality was Swiss, not German as she'd thought.

Stepping back from Schroeder, Fischer shrugged out of his shoulder rig, placed the gun in the holster to one side and peeled out of his T-shirt. One of his men handed him a pair of latex gloves. Pulling them on, Fischer crouched down and cinched the T-shirt around Schroeder's arm, stanching the flow of blood. When he was finished, he rose to his feet, removed the gloves, then handed Schroeder his phone, which had been confiscated along with a handgun and an ankle knife. “I need to talk to your boss.”

Schroeder's expression, though pale, was curiously devoid of emotion. He had answered some of Fischer's questions, but he hadn't provided anything more than name, nationality and the details of his travel plans. “I don't know what you mean.”

“Xavier,” Fischer said succinctly. “Xavier le Clerc.”

 

Wincing with pain, Schroeder agreed to make the call. When he hung up his face was gray. “He's not answering. I've left a message.”

Fischer's regard was watchful. “What's your schedule?”

“There isn't one. I wait. Le Clerc calls.”

When Fischer took the phone and noted down the number, Schroeder shook his head. “Don't try it. Le Clerc doesn't answer calls unless he recognizes the number. If you use my phone to leave a message, he won't reply, he'll just change the number.”

“How do you communicate if the number's compromised?”

“I wait until he contacts me.”

Fischer eyed Schroeder with a coldness that sent a trickle of unease down Taylor's spine. “That means you have a backup plan. Or a meeting place.”

Schroeder's face was expressionless.

Fischer checked his watch. “We have Dennison, and the book. If le Clerc wants in, he has until eight tomorrow morning to contact me. After that, all bets are off.”

For a split second, emotion registered in Schroeder's eyes. “A meeting can be arranged.”

“That's what I thought.”

 

Fischer slipped a cell phone from his pocket and made a call, requesting a medical contact in the area. The two agents, Tate and Shaw, helped Schroeder into the back of a dark sedan parked directly behind Taylor's SUV.

Taylor dug out her keys from her jeans pocket, unlocked the car and climbed into the driver's seat. Fischer slid into the passenger seat. Without a shirt, and in the small confines of the car, he seemed to fill the space. As she fastened her seat belt, the back of her hand brushed against his bare arm, sending a small shock of awareness through her. She noticed Fischer had removed the gun from the shoulder rig and had placed both the webbing and the handgun at the floor by his feet. “How do you know le Clerc will contact Schroeder?”

“Because he's already in the country.”

The slight Southern intonation didn't take away from the flat surety of Fischer's voice. Now she could see how Fischer had moved so seamlessly from the military into intelligence work—and into an assignment that, with his personal involvement, he should have been barred from. He had run rings around WITSEC and her because he was operating on another level entirely. Like le Clerc, he was attuned to an international stage and a shadowy underworld that most people doubted even existed.

“What happens if le Clerc doesn't show?”

“He will. He wants Reichmann's ledger.”

A shiver went down her spine.
So the book had a name.

She merged into traffic, following Tate and Shaw. Now that they were enclosed in the SUV, the quiet was unnerving. “Reichmann being one of the SS officers who hijacked the
Nordika.
”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “That's right. Baron Heinrich von Reichmann, to be exact. Head of one of the Third Reich's elitist breeding programs, a colonel in the SS, and the architect of the cabal.”

The extent of Fischer's knowledge about the book and the cabal reinforced what she now knew about him. He was methodical, informed and focused. It made sense that he would know a great deal about the organization that had in all likelihood ordered his father's execution. “Why did you break into my apartment and install the spyware on my computer? You're already working with Bayard—you must have known I mailed copies to my work address.”