Rise of the Order (14 page)

Kopari dug through a drawer and found a spoon. He placed that under his pinkie, the handle in his palm, and then started taping, leaving room for swelling. It wouldn't be the same for a few weeks, but on reflection, it might actually turn out straighter than it had been. A silver lining.

Picking up his cell phone, he reluctantly punched in a number and waited. A moment later a groggy voice said, “Ja?”

“Adams was just here, Hochmeister,” Kopari said, glancing at his hand.

“And?”

“And he broke my finger.” He didn't want to mention his nipple ring. Herr Conrad wouldn't like that.

“Did you tell him?”

“Yes, sir. Just like you said.”

“You didn't have to wait for him to break your finger.”

The Concierge shrugged his shoulders. “I needed to make it look good.”

Hermann Conrad laughed and said, “You always were good at taking penalties. You were too good for hockey. Should have played football. There would have been yellow cards all around.”

“I'll take that as a compliment.”

There was a moment of silence, but Kopari could hear a woman's voice in the background on the other end plying Herr Conrad back to bed.

“I'll see you soon in St. Johann in Tirol,” Conrad said. “Remember that. In Tirol. Not Pongau. They're some sixty kilometers apart.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Call when you get close and we'll give you directions.”

“Sir?”

“What?”

“Are you sure you want Adams to show up there?”

There was a grunt on the other end and Kopari imagined Herr Conrad shaking his head.

“You'll bring Emil and the others. . .so you can all have a chance at him.”

With that Conrad hung up. Kopari did the same and then found some old prescription pain medicine in a cupboard. Washed down a few capsules with a fresh beer. Looking at his makeshift splint, he guessed he'd need to find something in the morning a little more appropriate for work at the Hilton.

It was early morning in Magdeburg, Germany. Not that Dr. Wilhelm Altenstein could tell, though, deep inside his university laboratory in the cellar of the science building. He had worked all night with one graduate assistant, Heinz Poetzsch, a brilliant young man from Bernburg, who had actually led Altenstein in the right direction around midnight. Heinz had posed a question—the first step in any important discovery.

Altenstein rubbed his tired eyes. If he stopped thinking for a moment, which was entirely impossible, he would have felt the hunger and the sleep deprivation that made his hands shake as he picked up a cup of coffee. But the coffee and the recent discovery were the only things keeping him going.

“Herr Professor?” Heinz said, his hands deep into the pockets of his white lab coat. His dark brown hair stuck up in all directions, and his tiny round spectacles sat crooked on his thin nose.

“Ja, Heinz.” Altenstein sipped his coffee. He was afraid to look at himself in the mirror each time he went to the bathroom to get rid of coffee. Afraid to see what the night, the weeks before, had done to his body.

“We should go for breakfast,” the assistant said.

The grad student was right again. There was nothing more for them to do at this time. They had run computer schemes following the discovery; processed them through the link they had to the supercomputer in Berlin where the entire human genome was stored. They had also done the tests over and over again. The results were always the same. The nano probes attacked the gene for hair color every time. If they could do that. . .he shook his head and wanted to destroy his work.

“You go, Heinz,” Altenstein said. “I must think.”

“Sir, this will mean the Nobel Prize for you.”

“I don't think so.”

“It's true, Herr Doctor. With this discovery we will easily be able to find cures for some of the most invasive diseases on Earth.” He straightened his eye glasses, but his dark brows rose with his wrinkled forehead.

“Please. Go get something to eat, Heinz.” Altenstein waved his hands at his assistant until the young man left the lab.

His young assistant was too naive. As with all great discoveries, there was both rewards and concerns. In this case, Altenstein's concerns far outweighed any thought of rewards. What would his benefactor Hermann Conrad do with this discovery? Altenstein was kicking himself for the late-night call he had made. What? He looked at his watch. Six hours ago? Conrad had first been disturbed with his interruption, but once Altenstein had told him about his discovery, the man had been ecstatic—like a school boy after having sex with his first girl.

And now Altenstein was required to go to Austria to present his findings to a group of Conrad's associates. He was used to that. Had always had to nearly beg for his next funding source. But this was strange, he had to admit. Why Austria? Oh well. The man had money and that's what Altenstein needed to continue his work. Besides, he had not been to Austria in a long time. He could use a little wining and dining. Conrad had said a woman from his Magdeburg office would bring him tickets to Salzburg and then St. Johann in Tirol, along with a couple hundred Euros for spending. He smiled and took another sip of his coffee. Yeah, he could use a little vacation. He deserved it.

●

Morning light streamed into the bedroom window of Alexandra's third-floor apartment on Vienna's Kartner Ring, a view of the State Opera House across the street. To the north sat the luxury Bristol Hotel, and Hermann Conrad guessed Alexandra would watch the rich and famous from around the world come and go, wishing she was one of them.

The window was open a crack and street sounds seeped in along with the chill of early day.

Conrad had just gone to the bathroom and he sat naked now on the edge of the bed gazing upon the beautiful woman on the other side of the bed, the covers pulled up tight to her chin and the curve of her luscious body still evident through the down-filled comforter. He knew what was underneath.

He thought about the late-night call from Dr. Altenstein and he could barely hold his enthusiasm back. But he had to. He would let the good doctor explain it all. The erection didn't surprise Conrad, but he did wonder if it was from the discovery or from Alexandra. Well, damn it, the discovery could wait. Rolling onto his side, he slid under the covers with her.

She smiled and said, “So, Herr Conrad. What does Prussia have for Ukraine?” She reached between his legs and took hold of his erection. “Hmm. I think the sword needs a scabbard.” Rolling to her stomach and lifting her hips in the air, she said, “Mount up good knight.”

“So that's the game we play this morning?” He slapped her buttocks as he entered her slowly and then picked up speed.

Ten minutes later, the two of them embracing, there was a knock at the door.

“Shit!” Conrad said. “Who could that be? Your boyfriend?”

“You're my boyfriend,” she said, somewhat concerned but playful.

Slipping on a pair of warm-ups, Conrad went to the door and peered through the peep hole. Then he shook his head and opened the door six inches.

“What the hell are you doing,” Conrad said, his voice more than a little disturbed.

Miko Krupjak stood in the hallway, his hair still wet from a shower and slicked back with gel. “Sorry to disturb you, sir,” he said, his eyes trying to look around Conrad. He had seen the man's girlfriend before, and knew she was quite the beautiful woman.

“You could have called.”

Miko raised his cell phone and shrugged. “I tried many times. There was no answer.”

“But I got calls last night.”

Alexandra, wrapped in a robe, came up behind Conrad and handed him his cell phone. “Here it is, Hermann.”

He took the phone from her and saw that it was turned off. Conrad looked at her and then smiled. “You turned off my phone?”

She pouted her lips. “You kept getting calls last night. You needed your sleep.”

He patted her on the ass and sent her off. “Make some coffee.” Then he turned to Miko and said, “She gets a little maternal. Now what's so damn important?”

Miko leaned closer and whispered, “We found Albrecht.”

“Really?”

Nodding and smirk on his face, Miko said, “The dumb ass used his Visa at a restaurant in Steyr yesterday. Nobody goes to Steyr on vacation. He doesn't have relatives there or any Order business that we know about.”

“Outstanding. The news just gets better and better.”

“What's that, Herr Conrad?”

“Never mind Miko. Go there and find the man. But don't take him out. Bring him to St. Johann with you.”

Miko had a look of incertitude on his face.

“I'll explain when I get there,” Conrad said. “It will all become clear. I'll be leaving Thursday morning. See you in a few days.”

The man nodded his head and left.

Closing the door, Conrad looked to the kitchen and then could hear the coffee pot brewing. Standing at the entrance to the kitchen, Alexandra flashed open her robe exposing her perfect body, the nipples suddenly hard from the cooler air. Damn, he thought. His dick would be sore by the time he got to St. Johann in Tirol.

●

As Miko Krupjak strolled out onto Kartner Ring to his illegally parked Skoda, Toni Contardo, a block away in her Alfa Romeo, thought he was nearly skipping. And he had a smirk on his face.

The Skoda had three men in there and it pulled away from the front entrance of the Bristol Hotel now. Without the tip from the inside source, Toni knew they might not have found them.

The passenger door of the Alfa opened and Kurt Lamar got in. “Let's go,” Kurt said.

Toni was already moving, keeping back a ways though.

“Jiri Sikora in the front passenger seat,” Kurt said. “But we knew that. A guy sleeping in the back. Think that was the guy called Grago.”

Her eyes on the car ahead and trying to keep one car between them, Toni said, “How's the tracker coming in?”

Kurt was already on his computer and was thankful the Skoda was a new car with the European version of Onstar held deep inside a computer box under the driver's seat. He had punched in the car's Czech license plate, got the VIN, and then accessed the European database. Once he found the car it was a simple matter of popping the signal into the Agency satellite system. Now he pulled up a local map of Vienna and had the Skoda tracked to within a half a block at any given moment.

Looking at his computer screen, Kurt said, “Krupjak just turned right, southbound onto Weidner Hauptstrasse.”

“Right. Got it.”

Fifteen minutes later they were heading westbound on Autobahn A1 toward Linz.

“So Miko went to an apartment?” Toni asked.

Able to take his eyes off the computer screen now, with the Skoda visible almost a kilometer ahead of them, Kurt said, “Yeah, I'll look it up.” Kurt minimized the tracking screen and pulled up the Vienna database directory. Then he simply typed in the address and waited a second. Didn't take long, though, since he had the database on his hard drive. “A woman named Alexandra Bykofsky. Wow.”

“What?”

“She pays fifteen hundred Euros for that place.” He scrolled down a screen and said, “Correction. A man named Hermann Conrad pays for the place.”

“But he doesn't live there.”

“No. Conrad is from Magdeburg, Germany.”

“Well, looks like we're on our way to Linz, so that should give you some time to background those two.”

Kurt looked up to the sky, which was getting more cloudy as they headed west. “Maybe more time than we think. Looks like we might get more snow or freezing rain.”

Jake and Anna had gotten to the Holiday Inn on the western outskirts of Budapest just before midnight. They had checked in as a couple. What they had needed more than anything was sleep, and both had hit the European feather bed, divided into two sections, almost immediately.

The drapes and Rolladens pulled, the room was still dark at nine when Jake woke up. It would be dark at noon, Jake knew, with the shades in that place.

Anna was still sleeping, so Jake took a shower. When he came out wearing only his khaki pants, he looked at himself in the mirror above the desk. He slicked his hair back. Needed to get that cut soon. Then he twisted and looked at the knife wound on his left arm. The glue was still holding after the shower. He should have had about twelve stitches, he knew, but the liquid band aid would have to work.

“How you feeling?” Anna said, still in bed and on her side, the down comforter covering her body.

“A few bruises,” Jake said, rubbing gently a couple of spots where the men on Vaci Street had hit him. He looked at her through the mirror. “My head is the worst. I think I need some coffee.”

“Looks like that glue is working.”

“It's a wonder liquid.”

She nodded, her eyes on his hairy chest. “I need to shower.”

“Just a sec.” Jake found a T-shirt in the bag he had packed in Innsbruck and slipped it over his head. He guessed he would need a week's worth of clothes, but now realized it would take longer. He found another shirt and set it on the dresser. Then he turned to Anna and said, “I know you don't have extra clothes. You can wear some of mine. It'll be big but clean.”

“Thank you,” she said, a big smile.

“I'll head down to the lobby and grab us some coffee and pastries.” He left her there, walked down toward the stairs, and thought about her walking around their room naked. She was something. He had slept, but it had been hard—in more ways than one—sleeping next to her without making any contact.

He waited a respectable amount of time, one coffee and two donuts, and then went back to the room with more coffee and pastries on paper plates stacked on top of that. He knocked lightly and waited.

Anna answered the door wearing his Aximer Lizum T-shirt, from a major ski area outside of Innsbruck.