Emily Starks was the director of Axis. She’d worked her way up through the years as a field agent. Sean and Emily had worked several assignments together. When Emily became the director, Sean walked away. He always maintained the two occurrences were coincidental. She knew him well enough to know he wasn’t lying. He’d had enough of the spy game. She saw it in his eyes the day he resigned.
“Sure, I’ll give her a call and see what she knows. If the CIA has them on a list, Emily probably does, too.”
The phone on Tommy’s desk started ringing.
He reached over and picked it up. “Hello.” After a second he said, “Hold on, Tara, I’ll put you on speaker.”
Tommy hit the speakerphone button and set the receiver back in its housing. “I’ve got Sean here with me, Tara.”
Tara Watson and her research partner, Alex Simms, were among the best in the business when it came to digging up hard-to-find facts and evidence. They almost never left the lab, except to get coffee — something that had saved their lives in one instance.
“Oh, hi, Sean. Glad to see you made it back from Venice safely.”
Tommy glanced over at his friend. “She knew?”
One of Sean’s shoulders raised for a second. He pouted his lips. “I had some questions along the way.”
Tara interrupted. “So, Tommy, we’ve been working on this thing with the Nine Worthies, like you asked.”
“How’s it coming?” Tommy said.
“Slow. We started by digging into each character in the Cologne carving. There’s a good bit of information on most of them, except Hector and Arthur, which is what we expected. That’s not why I’m calling, though.”
“Oh?”
“Get online, and do a search for Charlemagne.”
Tommy waited for a few seconds to see where she was going with the conversation.
“Are you doing it?” she asked.
“Oh, sorry. Yeah. I thought you were going to say something else.” He spun his monitor back around and set to work typing.
“I am.” She paused and listened as Tommy pecked away at the keyboard. “See anything unusual in the headlines?”
The screen flickered and produced the search results. Two of the top links were articles about a murder in Aachen, Germany.
“A couple of news outlets are reporting a murder in Germany. There’s an article about Charlemagne…”
“Stop,” she said, sounding a tad more commanding than intended. “Click on one of the articles about the murder.”
“Okay…” He clicked the blue link and a second later was taken to the news site. After scanning the article, Tommy said, “That’s terrible. Why would someone kill that poor guy?”
“Yes, it’s tragic. I know. But take a look lower down in the article. The killer switched off all the cameras in the building. He even went so far as to delete any footage that could possibly have him in it.”
“Let me guess,” Tommy said, “now he’s disappeared, and the police don’t know who they’re looking for.”
“Yes and no. He was able to take out the cameras in the research building. However, he didn’t know there was one across the street that happened to catch a full view of him. The image is lower down in the article. It’s a little fuzzy, but the cops know he’s Asian. They’re looking for him now. He’s the prime suspect.”
Tommy’s interest piqued. “Asian?”
“Probably Korean descent.”
Tara might as well have run a truck through the office. The room fell into a somber silence.
“You don’t think?” Sean said.
“That there’s a connection between the guys who tried to steal that medallion and the death of a scientist in Aachen? I know. If it’s a coincidence, it’s a creepy one.”
“This article says the scientist was doing research on Charlemagne’s DNA,” Tommy said. “It doesn’t say anything about the results of his work.”
“Alex did some digging around. The reason the article doesn’t mention results is because almost everything related to the study was stolen from the lab. The killer took all the specimens and data.”
“So we don’t know what he might have found.”
“Actually,” Sean interrupted, “Tara said almost everything was taken. Tell me this guy slipped up.”
“Always so astute, Sean. Correct. Investigators swept the entire place. They found something underneath the dead man’s workstation. He’d taped a slide underneath his desk — they assume for safekeeping.”
“He must have known someone might try to kill him,” Tommy said.
“It certainly appears that way. Or maybe he was paranoid. In any case, the authorities confiscated the specimen and are holding it as evidence.”
Sean thought for a moment before speaking again. “I don’t suppose they bothered checking to see what was so special about that particular slide.”
“I’m not sure at this point. They may have, but if they did, it’s being kept extremely quiet.”
“Okay, Tara. Thank you, and tell Alex I said thanks, too.”
“No problem, and will do. I’ll let you know if I find anything else.”
Tommy hung up the phone and looked across the desk at his friend. It was a look Sean had seen many times during the course of their friendship.
Sean spoke before Tommy could. “I know what you’re thinking, and it’s not a good idea.”
“What? I was just going to see what you had planned the next few days.”
“Look, Schultzie. Just because a scientist was killed researching Charlemagne’s DNA and Charlemagne happens to be on this sculpture doesn’t mean there is any sort of connection to your medallion.”
“It doesn’t mean there’s not. Plus, if the killer was North Korean, that makes the connection way stronger. It can’t be a coincidence.”
“Maybe. But then you have to ask yourself, why? Why kill that guy and take his research? And what does he or his research have to do with that medallion? One was dealing with Godfrey of Bouillon and the other Charlemagne. It feels a little like you’re reaching on this one.”
“Come on, buddy,” Tommy said. “What else do you have going on right now? Huh? We go to Germany, have a look around, and if there’s no connection, then we spend a few days taking in the sights and then leave. What’s the big deal?”
Sean sighed. “I’ll talk to Adriana.”
Chapter 6
“Sure, sounds like fun,” Adriana said in a cool voice.
Sean raised a dubious eyebrow at the comment. “Um… first off, I thought we were going to try to take a little time off from danger and adventure. You know, do some normal people stuff. And second, it wasn’t an invitation.”
Adriana put a hand on each hip and slowly shook her head. “You’ve been singing that song since we met. We both know you and I aren’t cut out for normal life. Remember your kayak shop in Florida?”
“Yeah.” Sean sighed. “How can I forget?”
“You thought moving to the beach and running that place would be relaxing. The whole time you were there, all you could do was pace around waiting for something to happen.”
“I know.” His head drooped. “But this time, I’m serious. I don’t like the idea of you getting shot again.”
“Oh, so this is about me?”
He stepped toward her and wrapped an arm around her waist. “Yeah. A big part of it is.” He pulled her close and felt her breath against his skin.
She looked up into his cool blue eyes. “When you put it that way, you almost sound like a nice guy.”
His grip on her lower back tightened at the joke. He snorted a quick laugh. “I can be nice.”
“I think you need to go with Tommy. It’s been a few months since you did anything with him.”