Jake slung on his backpack and got onto his bike, checking for proper alignment of the front tire. Checked the brakes. Everything looked good.
“Will do. Why don’t you go back to my place and explain the situation.”
Franz nodded. “What will you do? Where will you go?”
“It’s better if you don’t know.” In fact, Jake didn’t know. Not yet. He clamped his left foot into the pedal and reached out his right hand to Franz. “Thank you for all your help. Not just today.”
Reluctantly, Franz took his hand and squeezed down with as much strength as he could muster. “You think we won’t see each other again? We’ll be drinking beer in no time. Laughing about this whole thing.”
The words came out but Jake could tell the man didn’t believe them himself. He was a broken man without a future.
“Sure.”
The handshake turned into a hug.
“Now get going,” Franz said. “Before we start crying like little girls.”
Jake laughed and peddled off. “I wasn’t worried about me,” he said over his shoulder. As he turned back to look at the road ahead, he thought perhaps that would be the last time he saw his old friend, an image of a dying man, beaten by a disease and not some bullet from a bad guy. Jake couldn’t help wondering if a part of Franz wished he had taken a bullet back at Jake’s apartment. At least that’s how a true warrior should go. Not by cellular deformation and organ failure. Nobody but the most vile — pedophiles, rapists and murderers — should die the slow death of cancer. Not honorable men.
The cybercafe was where Jake remembered. He paid cash to use a computer while he drank a cup of coffee. First he saved a copy of his security file, then he cut the mpeg video from one hour before the shooting, which showed Franz arriving, until all the cops showed up at his place. It was pretty dramatic footage. He considered uploading it to the net and letting others view it. Instead he sent copies to each man Franz had recommended. It wouldn’t take the Polizei long to run down the location from where he had sent the e-mails. He needed to hurry. When he was done, he got up and went out to his bike.
It was early afternoon now and Jake had no idea where to go from here. He’d brought only essential items with him, including the two guns and extra magazines. Besides his small laptop computer, he had his cell phone, which he had cleared of any GPS tracking, and the DVD that Franz had given him two weeks ago. He had run the hardcopies through the shredder and thrown the scraps out over a week ago. Other than that, he had toiletries, extra underwear, and a couple changes of clothes. He’d buy more on the road as he needed them.
Time to move. Time to get some untraceable cash. He only had a couple hundred Euros on him. Since they’d track his e-mail to St. Anton anyway, he decided to grab some cash from an ATM.
Then, without much thought at all, he got on his bike and started riding. North.
Franz Martini had driven back to Innsbruck and parked on the street a couple blocks from Jake’s apartment. His former Polizei colleagues had cordoned off the street with yellow tape and barricaded the street on both sides. He guessed the alley would have the same treatment, so he’d have to walk in from there.
He still had his badge and ID, which seemed to impress the young officers who manned the tape and allowed him in. Innsbruck didn’t get many shootings, and none of them were random in nature. Even Austria had few shootings. Not like American cities. In fact, Franz had investigated a shooting almost two years ago, where Jake Adams had been shot by two kidnappers. Jake had recovered the fourteen-year-old daughter of a businessman, shot one of the kidnappers and the other was still doing a life term in prison. For Jake’s effort he had gotten his first stay in the Innsbruck hospital with two bullet wounds. At least his wounds had been only minor compared to this last shooting. He thought about the shooting two months ago that had killed Anna at that mountain cabin. But Anna was not just any young woman. Franz had been a family friend since she was born. He had gotten her into the Polizei, which led to her work with Interpol. From there she had met Jake Adams. A chain of events that he couldn’t take back. Part of him knew that her death was his fault. The other part knew it had to be fate.
He stepped up to the main entrance of Jake’s apartment and flashed his badge again. This officer knew Franz, though. He’d worked for him, although many levels down, when Franz was the Kriminal Hauptkommisar for Tirol.
Just inside, they had marked each of the shell casings from Franz’s gun. He’d have to explain the situation soon. Upstairs the forensics team still dusted and bagged items. The dead man was covered with a clear plastic sheet.
Franz saw Hermann Jung across the living room, standing over a young woman who was trying to get into Jake’s computer system, with apparently no luck. He smiled at that. They’d never find anything on Jake’s computer, even if they could get into it.
When Hermann saw Franz he hesitated and then turned to shake hands, reticently.
“What are you doing in Innsbruck?” the new Tirol Kriminal Hauptkommisar asked. Hermann Jung was a short stocky man who displayed his muscles as much as his guns, the straps from the holster stretched across his massive chest looking as if they would explode at any minute and take out an eye.
“Medical leave,” Franz said, even though he was sure Hermann Jung knew this. “As you probably know, I still have a house in Tirol.”
Hermann nodded his thick chin. “I’m sorry to hear about…your illness. How are you doing?”
How did he answer that question today? He usually said fine or that he was still fighting the bastard. But now he wasn’t sure. He felt like crap nearly every second of the day. Even his cigarettes and drinks brought him little pleasure. “I’m dying Hermann. No other way to say it. I’ve got perhaps a month if I’m lucky. Maybe less if I’m even more lucky.”
Hermann’s jaw tightened and he changed the subject. “I understand you know the owner of this apartment.” He glanced at his little notebook. “An American named Jake Adams.”
He already knew the answer to that. Had probably read up on Jake, seeing their link over the years. “Yes, and this is not what you might think,” Franz said, spreading his hands out across the room.
“This Jake Adams was recently involved with a triple murder near Kitzbuhel. Trouble seems to follow the man around.” Now Hermann Jung pulled out a two-page read-out from his back pocket and started reading off all of the incidents that had occurred to Jake over the past few years. What Hermann didn’t know was the full extent of Jake’s career with the CIA. Or with his work as a private security consultant. Franz didn’t even know a fraction of Jake’s background.
“What’s your point?” Franz asked deprecatingly.
Hermann shook his head. “My point is, this man, Jake Adams, seems to step in dog crap with each footfall.”
“I told you, this is not as it seems. You should have found dozens of spent rounds out in that hallway.” Franz swung his left arm toward the door. “There are bullet holes all over the walls. What does this tell you?”
Laughing, Hermann said, “Someone doesn’t like your friend very much. An attempted hit?”
The young woman at the computer tried not to look back over her shoulder, but her head twisted to the side with that last revelation.
“Give the man a cigar,” Franz chided. “I was here. Those are my casings on the lower level. Have you identified the dead man yet? I’m sure you will find he has a criminal background.”
Hermann Jung considered that. “He had no identification.”
“And who do you know that walks around with no identification?” Franz paused and pulled the Polizei man toward the dead man and away from the others in the room. Then he said softly, “I’ve heard there is a one million Euro bounty on the head of Jake Adams. That’s going to pull all the scum of Europe into Innsbruck.”