Rise of the Order (6 page)

That was the rub. If Kurt and the Agency could find him, would those trying to kill the man be far behind? Jake doubted the bad guys had satellite GPS tracking, but they did seem to be one step ahead of him.

“We need to stash him for a while,” Jake said. “I've had some time to talk with Albrecht, and he seems to think his Order is under attack.”

“You don't think he's involved with any of the murders?”

Jake looked back at Albrecht in his car and then to Kurt. “You know more than you're telling me.”

Kurt shifted in his seat but said nothing.

“I'll take that as a yes,” Jake said. “The Agency wouldn't be involved with simple murders if it didn't fit into a bigger picture. What am I up against?”

More hesitation. Finally, Kurt said, “We think there are cells all over Europe. Killing folks. We've seen a pattern of sorts.”

“A terrorist group?”

Kurt shook his head. “Not exactly. They're targeting foreigners or those inclined to support the newly arrived. Turkish kabob shops, Moroccan restaurants, tea houses and smoke joints. Mostly small drive-bys. Sending a message. Then two weeks ago they assassinated a Hungarian politician. A man who wanted to allow more foreigners into his country.”

“And you think these are all connected?” Jake said.

“Yes. They call themselves Der Neue Orden.”

“The New Order.”

“Yeah.”

“So Albrecht might be right,” Jake said. “His Teutonic Order might be under attack in some way.” Knowing he needed a modicum of direction, based on sound intelligence, maybe Jake finally had something to go on. He had seen for himself that the Order, or at least the grand master of the Order, was under attack.

They agreed that Jake should stow Albrecht alone. Then only one person would know his location.

●

After passing the two cars alongside the road, the woman had slowed her Audi on the other side of a rise and waited. She had no idea what these two were up to, having followed the Audi with the American she had identified the night before outside the Donau Bar.

She drove back over the hill slowly just in time to see the Audi turn around toward Vienna and the other car, the VW Gulf, heading in her direction. She had to make a quick choice. The Audi or the Gulf? Stick with the Audi, she thought. She already knew about the man in the Gulf. She accelerated after the Audi ahead of her.

Bratislava, Slovak Republic

Miko Krupjak drove his black Skoda Fabia RS along a cobbled side street in an undesirable enclave along the Danube River. Early darkness cast long shadows behind the nearly abandoned buildings as Miko turned up an alley and pulled over alongside a dumpster. He had dropped his Brother Grago at the Vienna hauptbahnhof that morning, and Miko guessed his train had long ago reached Prague, where he would set up the next strike against The New Order's enemies. But now he needed to talk with his Brother from Bratislava. They had spoken on the phone briefly an hour ago, and Miko was not happy with what he had heard—setting up this meeting immediately.

There.

A man walked toward the car down the alley and stopped some thirty meters away to light a cigarette.

Miko flicked on his parking lights for a second.

The man lifted his chin, took in a deep drag on his cigarette, and came to the passenger door, opened it and started to get in.

“Put that cigarette out,” Miko said.

The man looked at his cigarette, which was barely touched, and then flung it into the dumpster before sitting down.

Glaring at his Brother in the Order, Miko shook his head. “What happened to your face, Jiri?”

Jiri Sikora let out a deep breath. His right eye was bruised, swollen, and black and blue. “That's what I tried to tell you on the phone,” he said. “Someone came to the apartment this afternoon. Asked a lot of questions about the priests.”

“A cop?” Miko asked.

“Yeah, Miko. Must have been.”

Staring at the graffiti on the old brick walls, Miko said, “Look at that disrespect, Jiri. People who do things like that should be shot.”

“We have,” Jiri laughed. “Maybe we should kill a few anarchists.”

Miko shook his head. Even though Miko and Jiri had played hockey together in their youth as equals, both of them knew their place in The New Order—Miko one step higher. “We don't kill anarchists, Jiri. They're harmless and disorganized.”

“Right. Organized chaos. How would that work?”

Miko laughed, but his disposition changed with the explosion and fireball rising up from the dumpster. “Damn it, Jiri.”

Putting the car in gear, Miko spun the tires, pulling away from the burning dumpster.

“I'm sorry, Miko. Someone must have thrown something flammable in there.”

“Like a cigarette?” Miko came to the end of the alley and pulled out onto a street that would bring them out of the city along the train tracks. Then he slowed to the speed limit.

“Now,” Miko said, “continue with your little story. A man comes to your apartment and beats the shit out of you. For what?”

Sikora shifted nervously in his chair. “It was a woman.”

Miko laughed out loud. “You let a woman kick the shit out of you?” He shook his head. “Wait until our old hockey friends hear about this.”

“She was beautiful,” Sikora said, his eyes becoming brighter with the thought of her. “Who would have thought she was that strong, that quick? She grabbed my balls and wouldn't let go. I'm still trying to recover.” He shifted in the car seat.

Miko couldn't stop laughing. Finally he caught his breath and said, “Okay, let's say this woman was like that television bitch, what's her name? Xena?”

“Yeah, she was like that. Only she didn't look like a woman in a man's body. She was more like a super model. A brunette Heidi Klum. Big tits like that.”

“That's worse,” Miko said. “You sure she didn't give you a make-over?”

Jiri Sikora sat dejected.

“Hey, I'm kidding, Jiri. Jesus, have a sense of humor. So, this bitch who tried to take away your manhood. She was a cop?”

“I don't know. If she was, she was like no other cop I've ever seen. She knew too much. She had skills. Like maybe the military would teach. She knew exactly which spots on my body to strike. First my throat. A knee to my face. Once I hit the floor, I got up part way and she took me down with a strike to the kidneys. She was good.”

Miko tried to visualize the strike against his Brother and he felt an erection starting to form. A woman like that. What he could do to a bitch like that.

“Where we going?” Sikora asked.

They had reached the outskirts of town and Miko was now entering the westbound autobahn toward Brno in the Czech Republic.

“What did you tell this woman?” Miko said.

“I told her nothing.”

Slipping a white radish from a plastic bag, Miko popped it into his mouth, crunched down, and said, “She believed you?”

Sikora hesitated a moment. Perhaps too long. “She must have,” he said. “Where are we going?”

Sure, change the subject, Miko thought, as he savored the tangy radish with his tongue. “We have to meet Grago in Prague,” he said. “If we hurry, we can make it there by midnight.”

Never strike the same city two nights in a row. That was their charter and mandate.

●

Having dropped Albrecht off at a gasthaus on the outskirts of Steyr, Jake had told him to stay there for a couple of days until he could sort out who wanted him dead, and why, and then Jake met Kurt back in Vienna.

The temperatures had dropped again and the rain was now coming down as a light snowfall. At least it wasn't freezing rain.

Jake had met Kurt at a parking ramp off of Mariahilfer Strasse, a shop-lined lane that led to the Hofburg Palace region and the center of Vienna, with a McDonalds every couple of blocks and a Starbucks on a prominent corner. Yeah, Europe had definitely changed, Jake thought. Like Chicago with low, old buildings.

Jake parked his Golf in a ramp while Kurt waited in his Audi on the street. He changed shirts quickly and switched from the windbreaker to his normal leather jacket. Before leaving his car there, Jake felt along the front bumper of his car. Nothing. He went to the back of his car and checked that bumper. In a crotch between the bumper and the gas tank he found what he was looking for—the small GPS tracker attached to a magnetic box about the size of a cigarette pack. In a hurry now, Jake found a Mercedes a few cars down and attached the tracker in a similar spot on that car. Then he rushed out of the ramp to Kurt's car.

“Everything all right?” Kurt asked as Jake got into the passenger side.

“Yeah, why?” Jake buckled up.

“Never mind. Let's get going. You have Albrecht's keys, right?”

Jake patted his pants pocket. “Yep.”

Kurt drove off toward the center of the city. The snow was not sticking to the road yet, but it did give the city a look of Christmas—the effect accentuated by small Christmas markets every few blocks, with kiosks of trinkets, rows of trees waiting to be selected and decorated, and booths serving hot gluwein.

Gustav Albrecht had told Jake about a storage facility The Teutonic Order maintained across the Donau Canal about six blocks from the Donau Bar, where Albrecht's two men had died the night before. It seemed like a few days to Jake, though. With the light traffic, they got to the storage building, a brick structure that resembled a warehouse, just as darkness settled on the city.

Kurt parked the Audi a block away and shut down the engine and lights. And they waited, Kurt watching the mirrors and Jake watching the building in front of them.

“What do you think?” Kurt asked.

“Rough neighborhood. Not sure why Albrecht stores anything here.”

“I agree.”

“In his defense, Albrecht said the Order has owned the place since nineteen-ten,” Jake said. “Place could have lost some charm over time.”

“Should we give it a while? Or go right in?”

Jake slid out his 9mm and made sure there was a round chambered, then put it back into its holster. Reaching to his right ankle, he retrieved a subcompact HK automatic pistol in 9mm, snapping a round into the chamber.

“That's new,” Kurt said.

“I've needed a back up more than I'd like to admit. You still blasting the shit outta stuff with your Navy Colt forty-five nineteen-eleven?”

Kurt pulled out a Glock 21 from inside his jacket and smiled.

“That the forty-cal version?” Jake asked him.

“Damn right. A little more knock-down than your nine-mil, but nothing like my old forty-five.”

“It's not the size, Kurt. It's how you use it.” Jake smiled. “Thought you knew that by now.”

“Fuckin' dink. Let's book, pal.” He reached into the glove box and retrieved a small flashlight. “Only have the one.”

Jake pulled a mini-mag light from his pocket. “I'm good.”

They got out and made their way to the building. The snow had made the cobbled sidewalk wet, and they left tracks from their car to the front of the building. Only a dim light shone from above a thick wooden door. There was a blue sign next to the door with the number 25 on it. While Kurt swiveled his head to keep watch, Jake quickly opened the door and the two of them hurried out of the snow into a narrow passageway. A blinking blue light on a security panel accentuated a coordinated beeping.

“You didn't tell me the place had a security system,” Kurt said, nervous now.

“Need to know basis,” Jake said, his fingers clicking in the code. The blinking light and beeping stopped. Jake turned to Kurt. “You understand that.”

They went through a door at the end of the corridor into a large warehouse lit by red ceiling lights. Their shoes squeaked on the cold cement floor.

Kurt shone his light at pallets stacked high. “What the hell is this stuff?”

Turning his light on, Jake saw stacks of boxes with “Baby Food” stenciled in German on each one. “What the hell you think the Order does these days. . .crusade to Prussia or the Middle East? Killing anyone who won't convert to Christianity?”

“No. But I expected some kind of cool swords or something.”

“This way,” Jake said, pointing his light toward a metal door with no markings. There was an inner wall of brick, a room within a room, that looked like a vault. Jake used a second key to open that door, and then with some difficulty swung that door open. “God, it weighs a ton.”

Checking for a light switch, Jake found one, but the lights were not bright. They seemed to run off of batteries. There was a desk on one side and the other side was completely covered with file cabinets floor to ceiling, some eight feet high. The ceiling was also cement. Jake expected it to be damp in there, but it wasn't. Must have had humidity control, he guessed. Jake went behind the desk and found what Albrecht had told him to get—a leather zippered pouch that resembled a day planner. He opened the zipper, looked inside briefly to make sure it was what he wanted, and, satisfied, zipped it shut.

“That's what we came for?”

Jake came around the desk. “That's it. Albrecht received it in the mail from the Order priest from Bratislava. A day later the man was found dead.”

Suddenly, the building alarm sounded. A sharp wailing alternating buzz that would wake anyone within a kilometer radius.

“Shit.” Jake pulled his gun, shoved the leather day planner into his leather jacket at his belly, and zipped it inside.

“We gotta get the hell outta here,” Kurt whispered loudly.

Just as they stepped out of the inner cement block office, overhead lights came on, revealing armed men in black jumpsuits taking up positions alongside pallets, their automatic Steyrs aimed directly at Jake and Kurt.

The two of them froze, red dots dancing across their chests.

“Crap,” Kurt said.