Rise of the Order (25 page)

Nature was on Jake's side. Clouds swirling overhead temporarily blocked the moon. Move now.

Jake jumped to his feet and in a low run, hurtled himself into a group of low pines, the only cover close. Now he had the advantage with the NVGs.

There. Movement across a small open area. Man with a rifle. Jake shot three times and waited.

The first bullet from the rifle smashed a tree branch next to Jake's head. The second and third whizzed over his head after he ducked down.

“Hey, Jake,” came a voice from across the small opening. “We missed you at the Donau Bar. You're a crafty one, I'll give you that.”

Jake keyed his mic and then yelled, “Miko Krupjak. So your boss left you and the other Brothers to stay behind and clean up his mess.”

Miko laughed out loud, his voice echoing through the forest. “You are a funny man, Adams. We all serve at someone's pleasure. Even you.”

It was hard to pinpoint the location of the man from his voice. Jake could shoot all night and not hit a damn thing. Play the game.

“I work for myself,” Jake assured him. Then he rose slowly and moved ten meters to his right, behind a large pine.

“You work for that fake,” Miko said. “The old grand master.”

Jake looked up at the clouds. They might hold for a few more minutes. No more. He turned his head toward his last position and said, “Looks like your New grand master is the fake. Leaving you like this.”

Bullets struck his old position but Jake was ready, firing his gun five times at the muzzle flashes.

Silence.

He was sure he had heard the thud of bullet on flesh, a distinct sound like no other.

Jake waited for ten minutes, listening carefully to the sounds of gunfire from the castle behind him. Looking up, the clouds had opened and closed a couple of times. Now, a big bank of swirling clouds darkened the night again. Stepping lightly through the snow, Jake crept along, trees his cover, toward the spot he had fired at moments ago. Ahead he saw a body laying flat on its back, a rifle still in the man's right hand.

As he got closer, Jake took off the NVGs and pulled out his small flashlight. Miko lay in front of him, two blood spots on his chest and one on his forehead. For a microsecond, Jake wondered where his other two shots had hit. Running the flashlight through the snow, Jake saw where a man, Conrad, had run off toward the north.

Jake sat down in the snow and took a breath. He would have to go after Conrad, but the guy would be easy to follow, his tracks no problem to follow.

Then something occurred to Jake. The forest was quiet. No shooting. Not even a helicopter any more.

“What's going on?” Jake said into the mic.

Nothing.

“Hey,” Jake said. “Anyone out there?”

“Are you all right?” It was Anna.

“Yeah, but Conrad is still on the loose. I got Miko, though. Did the men give up?”

“I'm still on the mountain,” she said. “No word from Toni or Kurt.”

That wasn't a good sign.

Anna continued, “The polizei are taking the men into custody right now. Should we go down there?”

“No. Stay out of it.”

“The voice from the helicopter,” she said. “It was Franz Martini.”

He had been in the castle at the time, so he didn't hear that. “That changes everything. You should bring them down then.”

“Super.”

A fresh clip in his gun, Jake moved off after Conrad, following the man's footprints in the snow. The tracks turned east toward the town of St. Johann. Moving along, stepping in Conrad's footsteps, Jake tried to figure out how much of a lead the man had on him. Fifteen minutes? Maybe more. He soon came to the first city street and immediately lost the tracks on the hard-packed snow. Even with a good guess, Jake would not find the man here. He was sure of that.

Jake holstered his gun and started back toward the castle—this time walking the road until he reached the first polizei cordon.

“What's going on up there?” Jake asked one of the uniformed officers, a man with a bruised right eye.

“We think it was a major drug bust,” the polizei man said.

“Hope they got ‘em,” Jake said. “Drugs are killing Europe.”

The polizei man agreed with a nod.

“Could I talk with Franz Martini,” Jake asked the man.

He looked shocked that Jake would know Martini and even more so that he knew Martini was on the scene. But he handed Jake a hand-held radio.

“How are things at the castle, Franz?” Jake asked, turning his back to the polizei.

“Jake? I thought you might still be inside. Where are you?”

“Out on the road with your men,” he said. “I followed Conrad into town and lost him. You might want to cover the airport and set up some road blocks.”

Jake heard Martini barking orders in the background to his men. Then he said to Jake, “Anna is fine. She has Albrecht, Altenstein and Alexandra with her. You know this other woman works for German Intel?”

“Yeah, we've met. Thank her for me. She covered my ass in there.” Jake explained what had happened with Conrad and Miko escaping through the tunnel and how Miko would need a body bag.

“We'll take care of him,” Martini said. He hesitated. “Jake. One of the people out front, one of the two Agency officers. . .took a bullet.”

Jake's mind reeled. “Which one?”

“The man. The one who was with you at the warehouse.”

“Will he be all right?”

“No. I'm sorry, Jake.”

He thanked Martini and then handed the set back to the uniformed polizei. Jake sat on the side of the road and thought about his good friend, Kurt Lamar. It was a loss that would be hard to comprehend.

●

A little later Jake was allowed back up to Conrad's castle. Toni was talking with Franz Martini, but Jake went instead to the body covered with a blanket. He stooped down and slowly uncovered the blanket from Kurt's head. A bullet had ripped through most of his neck and another had entered his face halfway down his nose. Imagining the back of his head was probably gone, Jake threw the blanket back and rose, his feet unsteady and his head swirling.

An arm came around his side, and Jake turned to Toni at his side.

“I'm sorry, Jake,” she said. “We were fine until they pulled out the automatic rifles. It all happened so fast.”

He could see she had been crying and he put his arm around her. “I'm sorry too. I should have left Conrad and come down to help you from inside.”

She shook her head. “Then you'd be dead also.”

He lowered his chin to his chest. He felt dead now himself.

“This was his job,” she said. “He knew what he was getting into.”

Jake wanted to ask her why she refused to work with him directly. Why she had been so reluctant to help him. Why she had been so damn stubborn. Maybe he was looking for someone to blame, but then he realized that Toni was not that person. He couldn't blame her any more than he could blame himself. That's the only way he could continue to do what he did for a living. And maybe even that should change, he thought. Europe had changed and he didn't like the direction in which it was heading.

He left Toni there and drifted over to the back of an ambulance, where Anna stood with Albrecht and Altenstein. Albrecht was sitting on the back end with an oxygen mask over his face. All of the skis and rifles lay on the ground next to the rig.

Pulling Anna aside, Jake said, “He all right?”

“Yeah. Just a little too much excitement.”

Jake took her in his arms and held her tight, thankful he had left her on the mountain with her rifles and not gotten her involved in the major shooting.

“You saved my ass tonight,” Jake said to her, whispering in her ear.

“The man in the room? That was Kopari, right? The concierge from Budapest.”

He nodded. “He would have killed me. I owe you a big one.”

She kissed him long on his lips and then pulled back slightly and said, “You can give me that later.”

Even with all that had happened, Jake found a slight smile within him. Some parts of Europe had not changed, and he was grateful for that.

“Let's go get your car,” he said to her.

Jake slung the two rifles over his shoulders and grabbed a pair of skis and poles. Anna took her skis and they started to walk away, but a strained voice stopped them from behind. “Jake. Please, a moment.” It was Gustav Albrecht.

“I'll catch up,” Jake said to Anna, and she started walking toward the front gate.

Jake turned to Albrecht. “What.”

“Thank you. You saved me. You saved the Order. How can I ever repay you?”

“Well, I expect one hell of a bonus in my bank account.”

“Done.”

Jake turned and wandered after Anna. He was stopped again. This time by a woman's voice.

Alexandra caught up with him and walked at his side. “Thank you for your help,” she said. “Conrad and his men would have killed me if he knew I had betrayed him.”

“How long had you been onto Conrad?” Jake asked her.

“We heard about his funding for the nanotechnology work through a contact at Magdeburg University. I was sent to the university first months ago and turned Altenstein's graduate assistant to let us know of any strange directions to their research.”

“That's how Altenstein recognized you?”

“Yes. I played the grad student's girlfriend a few times and he must have seen us together on campus. But eventually we needed to latch onto Conrad, so we set up a chance meeting in Vienna a few months back. He was more than eager to take advantage of the situation.”

Jake stopped and turned to Alexandra. “I see your appeal.”

She shook his hand. “It was nice working with you, Jake. If you ever need anything in Germany, please give me a call.”

He shook her hand and said, “I will. Trust me. And I am sorry about your Uncle Gunter.”

“Thank you.”

She walked away and Jake tried his best to understand how she could have given that fabulous body to Conrad under any circumstances—not to mention doing it for her work.

He caught up with Anna and they got a ride from one of the uniformed polizei back to her car.

They had spent the past six days hanging out at Anna's chalet outside of Zell am See. She had gotten leave until after the first of the year, by direct order of the Federal President of Austria. They had done some downhill skiing at Kaprun and more cross country skiing near the chalet. Jake had not wanted to do much of anything; just hang out and relax and enjoy each other's company. And they had done that.

Now, evening set in and they sat before a roaring fire on the sofa, Jake with his arm around her, and Anna with her head on his shoulder.

“What now?” Jake asked her.

She turned her eyes up to him. “What do you mean?”

“Do I just go back to Innsbruck and you go back to Vienna? Pretend we're not good together?”

“I was hoping you could move your business to Vienna.”

He could do that. After all, he worked out of his apartment overlooking the Inn River. Worked mostly with a hand shake and a money transfer to his bank in Luxemburg. That he could do anywhere.

“Could you handle seeing me that much?”

She kissed him and they lingered like that for a long time. Finally, she said, “What do you think?”

“I hate big cities, though.”

“As you know, I live outside near the forest.”

“Is that an offer?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Super,” he said, just like she would.

She laughed. “Now. About Christmas.”

Over the past couple of days she had tried to convince him to come to her parent's house for Christmas, but he wasn't sure he was ready for that yet.

“I told you I have to leave tomorrow for Kurt's funeral in Wisconsin. I have to be there.”

She nodded her understanding.

“But what about New Years Eve?” he said. “I could be back in time for that. Meet your parents then.”

“Great.” A broad smile.

They kissed again and then she lay her head back on Jake's shoulder. They fell asleep like that.

●

The funeral for Kurt Lamar was with full military honor guards. Jake and Toni were both there, along with retired Admiral James Murphy, the man who had recruited Kurt into the spy game years before. It was a fine tribute to a man who had served his country with great distinction.

Jake had flown directly from Wisconsin to Chicago, and then on to Frankfurt, Germany. Then he had taken a local flight to Berlin and rented a car.

Now, just a few days before the new year, evening settling across Sachsen-Anhalt, Jake parked the rental car on a farmer's road along a field, twenty kilometers southwest of Magdeburg. A strip of forest cut the field in two, and on each side, high on the hill above, giant white blades twirled around in the breeze in a vast wind farm. Their turbines produced enough power to light the nearby city of Bernburg.

He started out toward the house on the hill, an old farm house that looked in need of a new stucco and paint job.

Cold seeped into Jake's exposed skin on his neck and his face. He wore black from the jump boots to his leather gloves.

Stepping closer to the house, Jake wondered how he should play this. He had gotten one of his CZ-75s and two clips, which he kept in safe deposit boxes in both Berlin and Munich. This one dated back to his days working in Germany for the old CIA.

He pulled the pistol out from his leather coat now and slid a round into the chamber. The house was a hundred meters away. Sitting alongside the back under a car port was the man's Mercedes. The car had confirmed the man's location to Jake, but it had not been his only way to find him. A little research had done that. He owned the wind farm, and had bought the old farmhouse a few years back.

There was one light visible through the slats of the Rolladens as Jake came up to the edge of the house. Only one way in Jake's mind to do this. The direct approach.