Then she saw a picture behind a broad window that froze her to the sidewalk.
It was on the wall of a bar, on the middle of three televisions. Framed by mirrors with scripted writing and liquor bottles in neat formation. Left and right were a pair of soccer games, but the central screen was tuned to a news channel, presumably Austrian because the captions on the footer were in German. She saw her passport photo in full-bloom color, her name right below. Shannon Ruth Lund. She knew why it was there, of course, confirmed by the follow-on shots: blue lights rolling in front of the decimated Bundespolizei station, a body beneath a blanket rolling past on a gurney. Being a cop herself, she recognized the entire production. Her picture front and center, widest possible dissemination. The backdrop of a tragedy.
The police wanted very much to talk to her.
Lund watched for any other pictures, any headlines she could decipher. She saw nothing to further her understanding of things, and more disappointingly, nothing to suggest that the brute who’d launched the attack was either deceased or in custody.
Lund realized she was gawking at the screen from the sidewalk. Was the barman staring at her? Possibly. But maybe only as an invitation. Maybe he needed another female to help balance his cast of regulars. She set out quickly, like any woman would who was underdressed for a chilly night in Vienna. She took a turn at the first side street.
Two blocks farther on, she took another.
Lund knew what she had to do — stay out of sight until morning. Either that, or think of a way to find Trey before Patel’s presentation. Of course that would be the better option.
But how?
52
Budget. Cash. Hostel.
These were the words DeBolt concentrated on as he searched for a place to spend the night. The results came quickly.
Certain quarters of Vienna were inarguably historic, steeped in the culture of Europe’s great periods. Others leaned toward finance, districts where money was kept behind great walls, and prosperity itself seemed etched in the air. The neighborhood of Schottenfeld was neither of those. It was boxy and constrained, crammed with angular buildings of no particular era. The residents also seemed an uneasy mix. He saw groups of restless teenagers, impatient to move on, and the old and indifferent who weren’t going anywhere. DeBolt counted more backpacks than briefcases, and he saw bike racks at every building. Yet for all Schottenfeld’s ambiguity, it did hold one particularly endearing trait: it was a place where budget hostels gladly took cash in advance.
The night was winding down, dinners at an end and the streets falling empty. DeBolt picked up his pace, knowing where Schottenfeld was headed. In a few more hours only three factions would remain on the sidewalks: the drunk, the criminally inclined, and the police. He wanted nothing to do with any of them, nor their unavoidable interactions.
More than anything, DeBolt needed rest. His body was drained by travel, his mind dulled by hours of experimenting with maps and phone cameras and computers. He was so tired, in fact, that when a message popped into his head, absent any input from him, he initially attached little importance to it. He ignored it as one would an unknown caller on a phone. Then, as if through a fog, he remembered receiving the plot on Joan Chandler’s phone ten hours after his request. He studied the message, and its very uniqueness brought him back to his senses.
REPLY IF POSSIBLE.
He blinked, unable to make sense of it. DeBolt nearly responded with, Who the hell is this? but then paused on the sidewalk. Confused, he sat down on a knee wall fronting the brooding façade of a minor museum. He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to think clearly. He finally sent: Source of last communication.
A quick response.
00 1 907 873 3483
SHANNON LUND
SMS TEXT MESSAGE SOURCED VIENNA, AUSTRIA
DeBolt’s foot slipped and he nearly tumbled off the wall. “You’re here?” he whispered to himself. He immediately formulated a reply: You’re here in Vienna?
YES. HAVE TO SEE YOU REGARDING META/PATEL.
DeBolt was overwhelmed. Happy. Fearful. Confused. There could be only one reply: Meet me at 84 Kandlgasse.
CAN’T COME TO YOU. LOOK AT NEWS.
He didn’t take the time to find out what she meant: Where then?
RIESENRAD.
PLEASE HURRY.
DeBolt: I’m on my way.
He immediately conjured a map, then pushed and scaled it to fit his needs. The Riesenrad, he discovered, was a giant Ferris wheel at the Prater amusement park. Lund was two miles north of where he stood. DeBolt had wits enough to avoid running, a residual of his previous thought—drunks, criminals, and the police. He set out at a measured pace, and with his navigation set and his weary legs responding, he did what she’d suggested and searched the local news. It took a few tries, but he hit the mark with: Vienna, headlines, American, woman.
Three options were presented, and he selected an online news article, the late edition of something called The Local. DeBolt scanned an article recounting a disaster this evening at a local Bundespolizei precinct. The headline summarized that five people had been killed. He found Lund’s name in the third paragraph:
Bundespolizei have undertaken a nationwide hunt for the suspect in the killings, an unidentified male, large build and clean-shaven head, and also an American woman, Shannon Ruth Lund, who escaped from police custody during the attack.
A light drizzle began to fall, the tops of buildings going hazy in the uplit swirls. The sweet smell of rain cleansed stagnant urban air. DeBolt quickened his pace, knowing what it all meant. There could be no mistake, no illusions. Delta had come to Vienna, as single-minded as ever. In Boston he’d assaulted a safe house and killed an entire team of Special Forces operators. A district police station in a peaceful quarter of Vienna? That would be child’s play. Five more bodies in the wake of his destruction.
But there was one strand of hope.
Shannon had escaped. The Bundespolizei were scouring the country for her, but DeBolt knew where she was, less than two miles away. Unfortunately, he also knew who else might be searching for her. The distant Riesenrad had just come into view when he skidded to a stop on the sidewalk in the gathering rain.
His hair was matted and his breath came in slow gasps. What was it? Something terribly wrong. Then he understood. He knew what it might be.
How can I be sure?
DeBolt considered a way to prove or disprove his frightful new idea. Options came and went until he settled on one. It required little composition: Quick stop for smokes. What was your brand?
The reply was immediate.
MARLBORO.
DeBolt breathed a sigh of relief and set out again, full-on rain pelting his face in a cold rush of wind.
53
Like most storied parks, the Prater was not without its ghosts. Over a century ago, in 1913, the lives of a remarkably disparate group of young men intersected in Vienna. There were four, and they came from all points of the compass, each bursting with the vigor and idealism for which youth is known. None could have imagined then, in the halcyon days of that verdant summer, how their respective revolutions would transform the world: Stalin, Trotsky, Tito, Hitler. All roamed the Vienna park called the Prater in that year of ill-omened serenity.