“You don’t do it and I shoot you. A conundrum.”
Running possible scenarios through his mind, Jake stalled for time. “Just like you killed the others?”
“You have no clue, Mister Adams.”
So he knew his real name and not just his code name, Remus. “That’s what my fifth grade teacher used to tell me. Yet, he ended up dying a poor public servant. That won’t be me.”
“The gun.”
This guy was starting to piss him off. Yet, Jake knew he was only a messenger at best and a shooter at worst. He needed to work his way farther up the food chain.
“All right,” Jake agreed. He reached into his leather jacket and started to pull the gun out.
“Very slowly,” the Russian demanded.
Cocked and ready to fire, Jake did just the opposite. He started to move his hand slowly, but then shifted his body swiftly to his right, aimed and fired in one motion and then rolled to the concrete.
Jake’s first rounds smashed through the door window, shocking the man, and at least one bullet hitting him and dropping him to the ground.
Now, both men on the ground, the Russian returned fire at Jake. But Jake rolled more and fired a couple times, trying his best not to kill the guy.
Vectored favorably now, Jake took aim and fired twice, striking the Russian in the left leg. The man grasped hold of the wound, his gun dropping to the concrete.
Jake didn’t hesitate. He jumped to his feet and ran at the guy, his gun leading the way and ready to fire. But Jake didn’t want to and didn’t have to fire again. He simply picked up the man’s gun and flung it into the river. Then Jake checked the man for more weapons, finding a knife strapped to his right leg, which he pulled out and thought about throwing. Instead, he held it tightly in his left hand, his right hand holding the gun aimed at the man.
“Now,” Jake started. “You’re going to tell me about my one million Euros.”
The man was in obvious pain, with one hand holding the wound on his left thigh and the other on a hole in his gut. There was no way he would survive, Jake knew. He’d hit the man’s femoral artery. Just like Anna had been shot.
“Screw your mother,” the Russian said in his native tongue.
“My mother’s dead,” Jake lied, surprising the man. “You have about ten minutes before you bleed out from that leg wound. Tell me what I want to know and I’ll put a bullet between your eyes. Take away the pain.”
The Russian grit his teeth from the pain. “There is no money.”
“No shit. But you’re going to tell me who set this whole scheme up. And why.”
“Why? If I’m already dead.”
He had a point. Jake threw the knife into the river and then checked the man over and found his passport. He looked at the name and address and then rubbed the passport in the man’s blood, waved it dry, before folding it and shoving it in his back pocket.
“You have anyone you want me to give your last words to?” Jake asked him sincerely.
Without thinking, the Russian said a woman’s name. His sister. “Tell her I love her.”
“I will,” Jake promised. “Just before I kill her. Or maybe after.”
“Screw your mother.”
“Have we not determined that impossibility? Five minutes, my friend. You tell me what I need to know and I tell your sister all kinds of nice things about you.”
The Russian tightened his jaw.
“A name and location.”
Finally, the Russian forced out, “Viktor Pushkin.”
Something clicked in Jake’s mind. He knew a Russian named Pushkin. “Any relation to Colonel Yuri Pushkin?”
The man’s breathing became labored. “What do you think?”
Crap. Jake knew Yuri had a couple brothers and at least one sister. “Who does Viktor work for?”
“Take a guess?”
“No. I want to hear it from you.”
But the man’s eyes started to close. Jake kicked him in the good leg. “Wake up.”
“What do you want?”
“Who does he work for and how do I find him?”
The Russian mumbled and Jake got closer to hear him.
“Say again,” Jake demanded.
The Russian said what Jake thought he would. The SVR. He also muttered a location, but Jake wasn’t sure if that was correct. Then the Russian drifted off, his muscles relaxing completely, and the only sound that of blood moving about the man’s torso.
Anton Zukov pulled his eyes away from the night vision scope and set the butt of the sniper rifle onto the ground. Positioned on the higher ground two hundred meters away, he could have easily taken out Jake Adams at any time. But he had his orders and he was nothing if not reliably obedient. Still, he had to muster every bit of strength in his body to not squeeze off a round and blow that American’s head off his shoulders.
As he packed up his rifle and hauled it to the trunk of his Audi, he thought about their young man Nikolai. He should have never been allowed to meet with Adams. The American was far too experienced for Nikolai. Yet, he could never bring that up with Viktor. Nikolai’s tactics were not completely flawed, but his reactions were slow. He should have anticipated the American would not throw away his last weapon. In fact, Jake Adams probably still had a third gun somewhere on his body. Maybe at his ankle.
He got into his car and thought for a moment, his hand shifting his watch cap into a more favorable position on his head. Maybe Viktor would give him the job now. He’d tried calling his boss to get the shoot order after Nikolai had been shot, but for some reason Viktor wasn’t picking up. He started his car and reluctantly took off.
31
Toni and Franz waited back along the edge of the small park off of Leipziger Strasse at the edge of Berlin’s Mitte and Kreuzberg areas. She thought it a strange location for a meet to drop off one million Euros, and even worse for a place to kill a man instead of paying out the money for a hit. But that’s where the instructions had led them. In fact, after the meeting with the Polizei homicide detective earlier in the day, she should’ve known the location was wrong. Most of the other killings had been in remote industrial areas on the east side of the river. Except for the Turk and the Polish man recently. Maybe they’d changed their pattern.
Now it was an hour after the midnight meet time. She’d been sent on a wild goose chase. Damn it. Jake had done this to her, she was sure. Even though she wasn’t certain how he could have changed the location. Her mind reeled back to the server in Frankfurt. Somehow Jake had gotten into that system and sent the location. He was capable, there was no doubt about that. But why would he do it? As her eyes gazed out into the darkness, she realized why. He wanted to keep anyone else from dying or getting involved. Jake knew others would take advantage of the situation, just as he was planning to do, and could either get in his way or get killed.
“What happened?” Franz asked Toni, his tone subdued and his throat horse from coughing and smoking.
“Jake happened.” She explained her theory to Franz. How she figured Jake had changed the meeting location.
He shook his head. “Sounds like something Jake would do. So, where is he really at this moment?”
That was Toni’s problem. If she had to guess, Jake was in trouble. More trouble than even he knew. “I don’t know. Could you call your Polizei friend and see what he knows?”
Franz didn’t answer. He simply flipped open his cell phone, punched a speed dial and waited. He talked for a moment in German and shook his head as he closed the phone. “Let’s go. There’s been a shooting east of the river.” He relayed the initial directions and Toni sped off.
“Did they say who was shot?” she asked, her mind immediately focusing on Jake.
Franz lit another cigarette and said through the side of his mouth, “He had no identification.”