“Told you Germany,” Kurt said.
Shit. He had guessed Germany last night and she had said they’d stay in Austria. If they had wanted to go to Miko Krupjak’s Czech Republic, they would have gone north to Linz after picking up Albrecht. A couple of kilometers later, though, Autobahn A1 ran into Autobahns A8 and A10—the first going toward Munich, Germany, and the second heading south into the heart of Austria. When the Skoda took the A8 toward Germany, Toni said, “Looks like you win.”
“Whatever.” Kurt was looking at the GPS tracking on the laptop.
The roads were almost empty at this time of the morning. Toni still wasn’t sure where in the hell these guys were taking Albrecht. Why not just kill him like they tried to do in Vienna?
Just before the German border the Skoda exited toward Bad Reichenhall, Germany, a town on the road to the German resort town of Berchtesgaden, where Hitler had his Eagle’s Nest retreat.
“I have no clue what these Bozos are up to, Kurt. Why don’t you try calling Jake again? He might want to know Albrecht has been kidnapped.” They had not tried calling since the prior evening.
“I’ll give him a try in a minute,” Kurt said. “We’ll have to switch to a different satellite soon. I don’t want to miss that.”
They went right through Bad Reichenhall and on toward the Austrian border again. Toni remembered that Germany poked down here like an appendix. Now what?
In Vienna, Anna Schult had gotten up early, still dark, thrown on her running clothes, and was now on her third kilometer, keeping a steady pace on an uphill grade in the hills west of the city. She was running a narrow path used by bicycles, runners and those on roller blades in the summer. A path that followed a tiny creek. On heavy snow days, which were rare in the city, she and others would use the trail with cross country skis.
She couldn’t get her mind off of Jake Adams and the great sex they had had the night before. Twice. She smiled thinking about that — the second time being even better than the first. Was it just sex? Or was it love making? Whatever it was, she sure wasn’t complaining.
Rounding a corner, she slowed with a steep rise that would cross a road at the top. A skinny waterfall dropped down under the road, and she could hear it now pushing more water than normal from the recent rain and snow. Her steps were almost walking now, the hill so steep.
If she pushed herself hard, she always gave herself a break at the top to catch her breath before crossing the road and going another kilometer uphill before turning around. As she reached the top, she felt a little pain in her side. Maybe the bedroom activity had taken something out of her. She took deep breaths, crossed her legs, and stretched her hands down to the ground.
“This is how you stay in shape,” came a man’s voice from the bridge.
She startled and then realized who it was. Slowly, she walked to the bridge. “You’ll have to stop scaring me like this, Franz. First my apartment and now my run. What if I had been carrying my Glock?”
Franz Martini pulled out a cigarette and lit it, bringing the head to a bright red.
“I thought you gave up smoking?”
The polizei man shrugged and said, “We all have to die of something. Hate to leave a perfectly good body behind.”
“Well?”
“Well, what?” Martini said.
“How’d you know I’d be here this morning?”
“Good police work.”
His speech was far more clipped than normal, she thought. Something wasn’t right. “What’s going on?”
“This Jake Adams,” he said. “I’m not sure he’s right for you.”
“Are you my father now?”
“If your father knew about Jake Adams, he would say the same thing.”
Okay, now he had gotten her attention. “What’s so bad about the man?”
“When he works a case the body count always seems to rise,” Martini said. “Hell, in Tirol we had to readjust our death count statistics just after he got there. We now refer to that as the Adams Anomaly.”
She laughed. “I’m sure, Franz.”
He didn’t smile. “You said yourself that he got you shot at in Budapest. And he himself was stabbed.”
“True. But they started it.”
“Listen to yourself,” Martini said. “You’re already covering for him. Did you sleep with him?”
“Franz,” she said sternly. “That’s none of your business.”
Martini finished his cigarette and lit another from the first. Then, smoke rising up to his eyes and making him squint, he said, “He has to have many demons. I did some research on him. Last year in China and the Russian Far East he left a trail of bodies from the Gobi to the Pacific.”
She put her hands on her hips. “You must be exaggerating.”
“I wish I was, Anna. The Agency also lost an undisclosed number of officers on that mission.”
“But he doesn’t work for the Agency,” she assured him. “How could he?”
“They called him back into service. I’m telling you, you must proceed with caution. He’s a dangerous man. He almost shot me last night.”
“You broke into my apartment,” she said. “And somehow he knew you were there. I don’t know how. He seems to have a sense about these things.”
Martini took a deep drag on his cigarette. “Be careful. That’s all I’m saying. If he gets you into something, anything, that seems a bit suspicious, get out. Call in the Staatpolizei. The army. Make the call, Anna.”
She knew there was nothing Martini could say to change her course. She had been ordered by the Federal President to work with Jake Adams and Franz knew that.
“Call me.”
“I can’t, Franz. You know that. I could get fired for telling you what I have so far. From now on, I have to do this alone.” She was determined now, like she had been in her past training for the Olympics and later in the army.
Martini looked disappointed. “Please be careful. I got you into this, and I don’t know what I would do if—”
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Something else is wrong, though. You’re acting strange.”
Lowering his eyes to the ground, he slowly swept his head from side to side.
“I know you, Franz. What is it?”
Reluctantly, he said, “I have cancer.”
A shocked look crossed her face, and she immediately embraced him. “Your lungs?”
He laughed. “You’d think so, but no. My prostate. I’ll be all right.”
She pulled back from him, her hands grasping his arms. “You’ll have surgery? They found it soon enough?” She was hopeful.
“We believe so. I’ll wait until I catch those responsible for the Donau Bar murders.”
“Don’t wait, Franz. Jack Donicht can handle your case until you get back.”
“We’ll see.” He dropped his cigarette to the pavement, twisted his foot onto it, and then turned and left toward his car parked along the side of the road a hundred meters away.
She watched him get in and drive away in the opposite direction. Anna wiped tears from the sides of her eyes. Too much was happening too fast. She wasn’t sure if she should be angry or glad that he cared about her enough to tell her about his disease. Cared about her enough to worry about her relationship with Jake, while he was going through so much in his own life.
Turning around, she ran back toward her home, her pace slow yet determined. Just like her.
Jake Adams woke and read a note on the nightstand saying Anna had gone for a run. He looked under the covers and realized he was still naked. When his cell phone rang, he fumbled around his pile of clothes before finding it.
“Yeah,” he said into his cell.
“Jake. Kurt Lamar here.”