He took off his bike shoes and socks and let his bare feet spread out onto the cool hardwood floor.
Part of him expected his wait to be short. After all, someone had blown his perfectly fine VW all to hell just two days before he’d gotten out of the hospital. The trail was fresh and Jake was now ready for anything. His strength was almost back to one hundred percent.
Glancing across the room, he noticed his two favorite fly rods hanging on the wall, wondering when he’d get a chance to attack some more trout. It had been far too long. But even that, the one true passion left in his life, would have to wait. Maybe when this was all over he’d go back to Montana, ride horse in the back country and find some of his old fishing spots on the Madison River. Or the Gallatin.
When the motion alarm went off on his computer speakers, Jake focused his attention at the LCD monitor, enlarging the camera shot. With it being morning, he didn’t expect it to be any shooter in his right mind. They’d come at night. And Jake was right. He recognized the bald man at his front door, a nearly finished cigarette hanging from the side of his mouth.
Jake watched as Franz buzzed his door.
“I see you’re still with the living,” Jake said into the mic.
Franz raised his head and tried on a smile. “Barely. You gonna buzz me in?”
“Only if you leave that cigarette on the sidewalk.”
Franz shook his head, took in one final breath from the smoke before throwing it to the sidewalk, and then pulverized it into the cobblestone.
Moments later, Franz made it to the second floor, Jake watching his old friend labor with each step. It was hard to see this formerly vibrant man reduced to such a level. Jake let him in and had him take a seat on the leather sofa.
“Can I get you something, Franz?” Jake asked, still standing.
“No. Take a seat. That’s a nasty scar.”
Jake took a seat in his leather chair and rubbed his left knee. He was wearing only his bike shorts and a T-shirt. “Scars,” Jake corrected, twisting his knee for his old friend to see. “They completely rebuilt the knee from both sides. A total knee replacement. Synthetic and better than new.”
“I heard you had an infection that nearly killed you.”
“That’s what they tell me. But I was out of it. Great drugs. I should have left the hospital after about three weeks, but the infection and the other bullet wounds didn’t help much. Because of the shoulder wound, I couldn’t use crutches or a cane for a while.”
Franz glanced at the computer screen. “Nice security system.”
“What’s up, Franz?”
“Right to the point. You don’t change.”
“I can tell something’s bothering you. What you find out?”
The old cop lowered his eyes and said, “We still don’t know who hired the shooters, or who hired the guy to bomb your car.”
“The bomber was a Kurdish Turk.”
“That’s right. But, as you know, they’re spread all over Europe now. Doesn’t mean anything.”
“Might mean something. I once took sides against them with the Turkish government.”
“That’s true. But why now?”
He had a good point. It didn’t make sense. “You’ve got something for me, though.”
Franz pulled out a handkerchief and coughed into it a number of times, his face turning red.
“You need some water?”
“You got any schnapps?”
Jake hesitated and then said, “I have no alcohol at all.” He had used the long hospital stay to not only rehab his physical body, but also to dry out from too much alcohol over the past year or so. Anna had finally forced the issue with Jake, especially after his last case in Bulgaria.
“Sorry, I forgot,” Franz said.
“Anna?”
“Yeah, she was concerned.”
Jake rose to his feet and ran his fingers through his long hair.
“Sit, Jake.”
He did so and then said, “I wasn’t drinking when Anna was killed.” Jake hesitated. “Well, we were going to share a bottle of wine. It didn’t affect my reaction, though.”
“I know. Interpol did a blood alcohol on you and Anna. She had nothing and you barely spiked.”
“Bulgaria was difficult for me,” Jake said, his mind drifting back to the case he had last worked there. He’d been hired by one of the new uber-rich to recover over a hundred million Euros that had been embezzled from his company by a group of uber-deadly thieves with ties to worldwide terrorism. Anna had been assigned the case by Interpol. Jake had been forced to lie to his own girlfriend many times as he went about his investigation. The case had ended well for Jake, having taken in a ten-percent recovery fee, but Anna had almost been fired for not keeping her boyfriend out of the way. It had strained their relationship somewhat. Jake’s drinking hadn’t helped much. Their trip to the cabin patched things nicely. Until the shooting. Jake’s first thought about who had struck them there was someone from that group he had taken down in Bulgaria. But the Agency had looked into that option and found nothing.
Franz folded his hands onto his lap. The old Polizei man looked older by the second.
“What’s up?” Jake prodded.
Coughing again, when Franz finished he said, “There’s a contract out on you.”
“No shit!”
“It’s not what you think, Jake. It’s now become non-specific.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning…whoever whacks your ass gets one million Euro.”
Jake whistled softly. “Christ, I might kill myself for that. You getting ideas, my friend?”
“Of course not.” Franz smiled now, his face becoming a field of wrinkles. “Maybe if I wasn’t dying I might consider.”
Thinking hard now, Jake guessed his plan to simply stay put and wait for someone to come and kill him was no longer a sound decision.
“This will bring any crazy bastard with a gun or knife out of the woods to take a poke at me,” Jake said pensively. Considering it more, things became much more clear to him. He laughed and said, “The bastards. They’re trying to dilute the gene pool. They figure if they send every Tom, Dick and Harry after me I’ll never see the real hit man coming. I’ll be too busy sifting through all the wannabes.”
Franz nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. Why I’m here, Jake.” He opened his coat, revealing a handgun strapped under each arm.
“No. No way. I need you behind the scenes feeding me information. I need an inside guy, Franz.”
The old cop rose as nimbly as possible yet shaky nonetheless. “What you’re saying is you don’t want some old kränklich watching your back. That’s what you mean. Just say it.”
Jake let out a deep breath. It was a no win situation. “All right. You’re right. I can’t trust you. Jesus Christ, look at you. Age has nothing to do with it. You should be in the damn hospital, not out chasing bad guys. You can barely stand.”
With no grace or speed Franz drew both of his guns and pointed them to either side of him. “It’s not how fast you pull the gun, Jake, it’s the truth of your aim. And I can still shoot, damn you.”
“Put the guns away. At the range I’m sure you can still hit the target. But what if we have to run? Cancer has eaten you alive. And the cigarettes have clogged your lungs with black sludge. You can’t keep up. There’s no way. I’m not trying to be cruel, Franz. Just a realist.”