The Dolomite Solution (17 page)

“She said to go down by the ice and she'd find me.”

“And you want me to back you up?”

“I want you in place an hour early,” Bergen told him. “She sounded pretty intense.”

That's Toni, he thought. “I'll be there.” He got up to leave.

“Thanks, Jake. I appreciate your help. And don't forget to talk with my assistant about your advance.”

“I won't,” he said over his shoulder as he left.

After getting a check from the assistant in the outer office, Jake went to his car and thought about what to do until he needed to be at the Olympic Ice Stadium. It was clear that Toni would be almost impossible to find before the meeting. She could have been anywhere. He could leave her another message and hope she got back with him, but that was unlikely. He did have one idea that might work.

●

After Jake left Otto Bergen's office, Marcus Quinn entered from the side door and took the seat that Jake had just sat in. He could still feel the warmth from Jake's body, and that thought tingled through him, bringing bumps to his arms. He had been that close to Adams. He wanted the man so badly, he would do anything to get him.

“Did you hear everything on the intercom?” Bergen asked.

The man was preoccupied thinking of Adams. Finally he said, “I heard it. You said exactly what I told you.”

“Are you sure you know what you're doing?”

“Positive. Adams will help us and then I'll take care of the prying bastard. He's done screwing up my life.”

“Who do you think this Caruso woman is?” Bergen asked, visibly concerned.

Quinn thought for a long minute. “Don't know. But when I find her, I'll fuck her up good for messing with my plans.”

Brachi and Gabbiano had slept for much of the flight from Boston to Rome, which had remarkably arrived a half hour ahead of schedule due to a tail wind. From Rome they had immediately caught a commuter flight to Milan, and were now making their way from deboarding to the baggage carousel.

Waiting for them at the baggage area was Pasquale Sappiamo, a distant cousin of Varducci and therefore also related to Gabbiano, but he wasn't sure how.

The three of them greeted with kisses, and then picked through the bags for their own, before heading out of the terminal to a car parked illegally in a drop off zone. There was already a ticket on the windshield, which Sappiamo quickly scooped up, ripped in pieces, and threw to the ground.

Sappiamo had changed cars from the BMW he and his partner had run the Austrian off the road with, and the one the woman had shot the tires on, to the rental Renault Safrane.

Brachi was in the front seat with the man whose left eye seemed to wander off uncontrollably, and Gabbiano was in the back seat watching the outskirts of Milan pass by. Brachi wasn't sure what to think of this man with the wandering eye and slicked back hair in the leather coat. He had heard from Varducci that he was very good at what he did, which was nearly anything illegal. With all good criminals Sappiamo also had a specialty. It was said he could kill a man with one blow to the nose, and had proven it many times. Brachi noticed the man was solid, but he guessed he outweighed him still by twenty pounds. He also knew that how a man carried himself was as important as size. As far as he knew, the biggest man in the world could still not stop a bullet with his massive chest, or keep his flesh from burning with the fuel compound he produced.

Only after they were on the road heading north on Autostrada 4, did the Italian start explaining what had happened.

“We had the scientist, Brachi,” Sappiamo explained. “We were heading to the car when this woman appeared from nowhere.” His head swiveled back and forth. “She got the drop on us. Shot our tires and took Scala herself.”

“Who was she?” Brachi asked him.

He shrugged. “I don't know. She was Italian. Beautiful dark flowing hair. I didn't know if I wanted to shoot her or fuck her.”

Gabbiano laughed from the back seat until he saw the wandering eye in the rearview mirror.

“What you thinking back there, cousin?” Sappiamo yelled. “You think I fucked up?”

“No, no. I just had a vision of a gun barrel sliding in and out of some bitch's cunt.”

They all laughed.

“We're related?” Sappiamo said to Brachi, slapping him across his arm. “It's scary.”

Brachi looked back at his partner, who was gazing out at the countryside again. Then he asked Sappiamo, “Did you get everything I asked for?”

“It's in the trunk.”

“Good.” He noticed they were really flying along the autostrada. They had to be going well over a hundred miles an hour. “How long will it take to get to Austria?”

Sappiamo smiled. “Not long at this speed.” He checked the clock on the dash. It was just past noon. “We should get to Innsbruck for dinner.”

“What about your partner”

“What about him?”

“Is he good?”

Sappiamo considered that. “Si, he's good. Some think he tends to shoot before thinking, but that's because he's young. He gets a little excited, and boom, he blows up. Explodes. That happens with younger guys with sex also. Don't you think?”

Brachi was beginning to like this guy. “I think so.” He looked over his shoulder again at the young Gabbiano, who was trying to ignore the two of them. “What's your man up to now?”

“He's found us a place to stay and he's been watching the headquarters of Tirol Genetics. The other scientist who had an unfortunate driving accident yesterday, kept all of his records with him. My partner is checking his apartment in Innsbruck, but I don't think he'll find anything there. With Aldo gone, Scala is our key now. He has all the data with him. We went to Scala's apartment before going to the university. He also left nothing at his place.” He thought about how they should have gone to the university first. Then the woman would have missed them.

“Are you sure the woman took him to Innsbruck?” Brachi asked.

“I'm sure.” He put both hands on the wheel as he passed a slow truck and then swerved back into the right lane. “Scala can't do anything without Tirol Genetics. He and the Austrian are under contract with them.”

“Then won't we need Tirol as well?” Brachi asked him.

“That's not my problem. Varducci simply told us to get the information. He knows it's worth a lot of money. I'm guessing he'll sell it to the highest bidder.”

That made sense, Brachi thought. “Does your partner have enough restraint to wait until we arrive?”

Sappiamo's left eye shifted out of control. “I told him to wait. He'll call us on the cell phone in one hour, so we'll find out then.”

The car shot north toward the foothills of the Alps.

●

The red Opel Omega with German plates started slowing for the outskirts of Innsbruck. The three inside had driven all night, stopping only to change drivers. In the front passenger seat was Nikolaus Hahn, the operations officer for the Mainz-based Richten Pharmaceuticals. He had been picked up by the other two at his home at four in the morning like his boss had said would happen. He didn't know much about them, other than their first names. The driver was Wolfgang, a large man in his late thirties with a nose big enough for a head twice as large as his. He was totally bald with a scalp plastered with scars. The woman in the back seat was petite, and would have probably been pretty if her hair had not hung down into her eyes. Wolfgang had introduced her as Ulrica. She was dark, and Hahn suspected she was at least half Turk. She spent most of her time sharpening a knife that she practiced pulling from a wrist sheath.

“Take that exit,” Hahn ordered. “We should grab something to eat before visiting Bergen.”

Wolfgang did as he was told, slowing the car for the exit ramp.

●

Following less than a kilometer back in a dark blue Ford, was Major Stan Jordan, with Air Force OSI, tired from the all-night drive from Germany. He had been alone. So every time the Germans had stopped he had as well, but with no relief at the wheel. After dropping off Sergeant Lyons at her apartment, he had first driven north to Mainz to check on his contact. The only thing he had gotten from Lyons was the number Jake Adams had called her from, which had turned out to be a bank lobby in Innsbruck. He did trust his judgment on her assessment of Adams, though. If she said he was a good guy, he had to believe her. Now he needed to talk with Adams to see how he was involved. While he was at Mainz, he had spotted the Opel sitting out in front of Nikolaus Hahn's house. He had simply placed the little light under the rear bumper and waited. When the three of them had gotten into the car, Jordan had to simply press a button on the dash if he needed to see the car's position ahead. He could sit back on the autobahn a kilometer or so, especially in the darkness, and whenever he wanted, he would light up the car like a yellow beacon, reassured he would not lose them.

He saw the car exit ahead, so he started to slow down and signal. Now he'd have to move in closer, even though he was quite sure where they were heading.

Glancing back through the glass as he purchased a ticket, Jake watched the dark-haired man in the black leather jacket behind him in line, pretending not to consider him and failing unquestionably.

Jake had noticed the man in his little Peugeot 205 pull out behind him after leaving the Tirol Genetics parking lot. He was getting pretty pissed off at shadows, even though he knew this man couldn't be a cop. So he had slowly driven to Innsbruck's Alpenzoo, being careful not to notice the man tailing him. In the process he had formed an idea of how he wanted to handle this.

Brochure of the Alpine Zoo in hand, Jake strolled off toward the remote outdoor exhibits. He passed the tall fences that housed deer, which grazed along the grassy hill. On past the wild boar, he stopped abruptly by the large European Stag, gazing at the huge rack that resembled the American Elk. Through the corner of his eye, he could see the man in the leather coat had stopped to look at the boar exhibit.

The sun sat behind swirling clouds, making the park appear like early evening and not noon. Jake looked around for other people, but only a few had come outside, going instead to the bird of prey display indoors.

He slowly walked up to the man, who was trying not to notice him. When he was right behind the man, he punched the man in his left side.

The man lurched forward against the mesh fence, gasping for air.

Jake whipped his left hand back in pain. He had hit something metal. A gun?

Recovering, Jake moved toward him, but the man back kicked, catching him in his thigh and pushing him back to his right.

By now the man had caught his breath and squared himself in a karate stance.

Jake did the same, still thinking about the man's gun.

The roundhouse kick came up quickly, but Jake blocked and countered with a side thrust kick to his kneecap. The man gasped and fell back against the fence, where the boar squealed loudly.

Bouncing away from the fence, the man struck with his hands in a flurry, Jake catching some with blocks and counters. Others struck his face, glancing blows mostly.

Jake caught the man advancing with an upper thrust, swiveled around with a crescent kick, and hit the guy square in the side of the head. He dropped to his knees and shook his head.

Standing back a ways, Jake said, “You want to tell me why you're following me?”

The man spit blood from his mouth. “Fuck you!”

Jake looked around. Nobody had seen the fight. “Who sent you?”

“Your mother was a great fuck,” he said in Italian.

“That's interesting,” Jake said. “My mother's been dead for years.”

The man glanced up toward Jake. He started to reach inside his jacket.

Jake kicked up under the man catching him in the ribs and sending him onto his back. Then he quickly pounced on the man's chest, his neck in his left hand. With his free hand he checked the man over for I.D. Nothing.

“I think I asked you a question, asshole,” Jake said in Italian. “Who sent you?”

The man struggled, clenching his jaw. He wasn't about to say a thing.

Let's see, this worked before. Jake reached into the man's jacket, grabbed his left nipple and twisted away at it. The man grimaced but didn't scream. “So you don't want to talk? I can understand that.” Jake reached in further and retrieved the guy's gun, a 9mm Beretta automatic. “Nice piece. Do you believe in safety?”

Jake cocked the hammer and shoved the barrel under the man's nose. “If you're a safe kind of guy, you wouldn't have a round in the chamber. Only crooks keep one there, cause they don't give a shit if the damn thing goes off prematurely. They're fucking invincible. So what do you say, Pedro? You got a bullet in there?”

The man's eyes were wide, but he refused to talk.

Interesting. Jake slowly released the hammer, dropped the clip from the handle, and then slid back the action, flipping a hollow point into his hand. Then he flung the gun over the fence into the boar slop and got off the man. He backed away.

“Don't try tailing me again,” Jake warned. “I might not be as nice next time.”

The man sat up in the grass, trying to rub life back into his throat.

Jake strolled back toward the front gate removing the hollow points and then throwing the man's clip over the high fence with the deer. By the time he rounded the gate, he could just make out the guy climbing in with the wild pigs.

High above Tulfes, a small village on the outskirts of Innsbruck, sat a little gasthof with six rooms. With ski season at that elevation all but over for the year, only two rooms were occupied. An older couple who came there every year to the same first floor room were in one, and Toni Contardo and the scientist Giovanni Scala had just taken a second floor place with a nice view of the village below. Toni had chosen the place at random. It had a few advantages. It was hard to reach up the winding road, and if she needed to leave in a hurry, she could escape over a ridge that led to five or six other roads. Considering its isolated location, she didn't think that would be necessary.