The Dolomite Solution (4 page)

The door opened and a man walked in. Jake kept a wary eye on him. The man was in his late forties. Thin, dark hair. A moustache that extended down under a strong chin. He was wearing a long coat unbuttoned in the front. Under that was a gray wool suit with a blood red tie. Under that, Jake guessed, was a sinewy physique. His face had a grave expression. A normal feature, Jake was certain, since he had no lines at the sides of his dark eyes or on his forehead. Perhaps he had found little to laugh at so far in life.

Considering what Jake could remember about the alley behind the restaurant, he decided to keep his mouth shut. Besides, much of what he could remember seemed like a bad dream anyway.

Finally, the man came up to the bed and said, “I see you're back with us, Mr. Adams.” His English was perfect, though with a British accent.

Jake tried to feel his wallet against his right butt cheek, but it wasn't there. “I'd shake your hand, and all that shit, but as you can see...” Jake tried to nod his head toward the leather straps.

The man gave him a serious glare. “You killed a man a few hours ago, and now you make jokes?” He clenched his jaw like he had something caught in his molars.

“I didn't kill anyone,” Jake said, trying hard not to raise his voice and lose control, but failing miserably.

“Tests will prove you did.” The man paused for a moment, looking at a little flip notebook he had pulled from his inside coat pocket. “You are a security consultant, Mr. Adams.”

They stared at each other uncomfortably.

“Is that a question?” Jake asked.

“It's a fact. I ran your passport and other credentials through American authorities and Interpol.” He tried a slight smile, as if any more would shatter his face. When Jake didn't say anything, the man continued. “You were with Air Force intelligence in Germany for three years, and after that with the old Agency working various locations in Europe. Mostly computer expertise, I understand. Although you have handled some interesting cases since going private. The computer technology case in Bonn a few years back, and most recently the incident in Kurdistan. Very impressive. It makes me wonder if your company isn't another elaborate front for the Central Intelligence Agency. I guess the new CIA is no better than the old CIA.”

Jake wondered where this was heading. Everything the man said was true, yet he wasn't sure who would have told him all that. He was nearly certain that most of his records had been destroyed in the fires at CIA headquarters in Langley years ago, and the new Agency had mothballed the files that had survived upon congressional orders when the CIA, FBI, DEA, ATF, and nearly every other acronym in Washington had become the new CIA with the new overlord. The new CIA was supposed to streamline operations and reduce redundancy. Jake hoped they were not that loose-lipped with information on former Agency officers. At this point he wished he was with the old Agency with full diplomatic immunity. Even if he had killed someone, which he was sure he had not, he could simply walk out and jump a plane to wherever.

Jake tried to shift to a more comfortable position. “If you'd like an autograph or something you'll have to loosen these things,” he said.

“You were not authorized to carry a weapon in Austria, Mr. Adams,” the man continued sternly.

“Sorry, but my job can get kind of intense.”

The man didn't budge.

“Let's see some sort of identification,” Jake said, returning the man's emphatic stare.

The man thought for a second, and then finally slid his hand inside his jacket and retrieved a leather case, which he flipped toward Jake's face. There was no badge. Only a photo I.D. that read, “Franz Martini, Kriminal Hauptkommisar, Tirol.”

That made him a captain and a criminal commissioner for the state of Tirolia. “Interesting. From Southern Tirol, I guess. Italian ancestry?”

The man returned his I.D. to his pocket. “I heard you were smart, Mr. Adams. In that case, you can tell me why you shot the man in the alley.”

This guy was starting to get on his nerves. “I was set up. If you know anything about me, then you know I just got to Innsbruck a few days ago. I'm not even working a case. I'm on vacation. Seeing how many brain cells I can destroy with your fine Austrian beer.”

The man didn't move.

“Lighten up,” Jake said. “Jesus Christ. I didn't kill the guy. I wasn't even aiming at him.” He thought for a moment, wondering how much he should tell this guy, not wanting to bring up the blonde he had been with. “I got a call around three this morning. A guy said to meet him in the alley behind the Kublatz Restaurant at four. Jesus, do you have any aspirin? My head is killing me.”

The guy just stared at him.

“Guess not. Anyway, I get to the alley and some Bozo starts shooting at me. I duck behind a dumpster. Did you talk to the guy who clubbed me over the head? The big fat bastard with no brains and enough metal pipe to plumb the Goddamn Taj Mahal.”

No answer.

“So I got off a couple rounds. Hell, I almost shot the damn things into space. There's no way I hit the guy.”

Jake thought about the man laying behind the dumpster, with the snow swiftly covering his body. He had recognized him from somewhere. And he had checked his pulse. Not only was there no pulse, the man's hand was cold and stiff. He had been dead for some time.

“You know I didn't shoot the guy,” Jake said, finally understanding the man's tactics. “You just want me to think I did so I'll spill my guts.” Asshole. Sounds like something he'd do.

“Why would you go to a dark alley in the middle of the night?” the Tirol captain asked. “The man on the phone. What did he want from you?”

Those were questions Jake had been asking himself. He wasn't generally inclined to leave a nice warm bed with a naked woman for nearly any reason. Yet the man on the phone had brought up another woman, someone who had meant more to him than any other woman in his life. Jake found himself without words, not wanting the Tirol cop to know his true reason for going to the alley.

“I need to know why you were in the alley.”

That was reasonable. If only he knew. “The man said he had a job for me. I told him I wasn't interested. He said it had to do with someone from my past. I was intrigued.”

Herr Martini gazed down at his notepad again and said, “You know the dead man?”

“I don't know. He might have looked familiar, but I only saw him for a second before someone bashed my head in.” His head started to swirl, as if his brain were sloshing back and forth in heavy seas within his skull.

The man loosened the leather straps on his wrists and the large one across his waist, that Jake didn't even know was there.

“I had a doctor check you over. He doesn't think you fractured your skull. It's only a concussion. A mild one at that. Apparently someone knew how to hit you without leaving much surface damage to your scalp. Or perhaps your long hair softened some of the blow.”

Mild concussion? That's not how Jake would describe how his head felt. But he knew already from his days in high school football that it was probably a concussion. As a linebacker he had hit one too many running backs using his head as a battering ram. He had even ended up in the hospital once. Yet, he had never been knocked out so completely. It was as if he had been drugged after the blow. Either that or he really had too much to drink.

“How long have I been here?” Jake mumbled, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.

“A few hours. The doctor gave you a sedative. He thought you should rest. Can you walk, Mr. Adams?”

“Why?” Jake tried to put pressure on his feet and his head swept sideways until he finally controlled it by squeezing his ears between his palms. He stood, wobbled momentarily, and then found his equilibrium.

“I'd like you to take a look at the man who was killed. He's down the corridor in the morgue.”

“Sure.” That would give him a chance for a better look at the man's wounds also.

Outside the room, two men in green polizei uniforms were posted on either side of the door. They were carrying Styer automatic rifles, with Glock 19s on their sides. That was a lot of firepower for an unarmed man in a hospital bed, Jake thought.

The corridor was dark with battered gray tile. Something wasn't right about the place. It didn't look like any hospital Jake have ever been in.

Down the hall they went through a swinging door marked ‘Leichenschauhaus,' the two armed guards right on their heels, resuming positions outside these doors.

The Tirol police captain stopped next to a metal table, where bright overhead lights shone down on a body covered with a white plastic sheet. He pulled the sheet back, exposing the man's head and chest.

“Do you know him now?” the captain asked.

Jake moved in closer. Even with the throbbing head and swirling eyes, Jake recognized the man. They had served together in the Air Force. Had even made captain together while stationed in Germany. “Yeah. I know him.”

“Well?”

“It's Allen Murdock.”

The captain scribbled the name into a small notebook. “How do you know him?”

“We worked intel together in Germany years ago. Murdock was a computer expert. I heard he married a Fraulein, got out of the Air Force, and stayed in Germany. I haven't seen him in years.” Jake looked at the man more closely. He had bruises on his neck. There was a single bullet hole in his chest.

“Is there anything else?”

“Like what?” Jake tried to read the Austrian cop, but was having a hard time under the circumstances.

“I don't know. Why would this man from your past show up dead in an Innsbruck alley with you standing over him with a recently fired handgun?”

“So you knew all along that Murdock was already dead,” Jake said, rather irritated. “You're just fucking with me.”

The man hesitated, selecting his words. “By the time we got to the alley, the snow had covered the both of you. You were laying over the top of a dead man, a gun just centimeters from your hand, and your skull smashed in. There had been other tracks, but my men...” He trailed off.

“You're men screwed the scene.”

The captain shrugged. “We don't get many murders in Innsbruck. Once in a while a domestic. Maybe a bad drug deal. It's rare though.”

Which is one reason Jake had decided to move there for a while. He was sick of crime and murder. He thought he'd take the money from the reward he received from his last case, maybe do a little computer consulting. Not this.

“What about the guy who knocked me out? The fat guy from upstairs?”

“There was nobody else in the alley.”

Figures. Nobody but the bozo who bashed his head in. “Those bruises on Murdock's neck. Someone snapped it like a twig.”

“We know that.” The Tirol cop handed Jake his card and a plastic bag with Jake's wallet. “Go home, Mr. Adams.”

“What about my passport?”

Finally smiling, the captain said, “You live here now. You won't need that for a while.”

That was true, but Jake didn't like someone with that kind of control over him. What the Tirolean Criminal Commissioner, Herr Martini, didn't know, was that he had two other passports under different names hidden around town. That was one consolation, even though he wasn't going anywhere before he found out who was screwing with him.

Suddenly, outside the door there was a burst of gunfire, followed by two thumps as bodies hit the tile. Instinctively, Jake reached for his gun. It wasn't there.

Herr Martini pulled his Glock 19 from inside his coat, started for the door, and stopped. He grabbed Jake by the arm and nodded his head for him to follow.

They rounded the exam table and hurried toward a dark corner of the room. They went through a door into another room which was dark, except for a dim red light ahead. There were coffins lined up in two rows.

Jake had been right. This wasn't a hospital.

When they reached the end of the room, Jake yanked on Martini's jacket, pulling him to stop next to an exit door with the red light above it. “Give me my gun.”

The Polizei man's face seemed uncertain. Finally he reached inside his coat and retrieved Jake's CZ-75 9mm, handing it to him. “Officially you don't have this.”

“Right.”

Just then the door burst open across the room and a dark figure dove to the floor. Immediately, flashes broke the darkness followed by sharp, hollow blasts and the sound of fine wooden caskets chipping away. Jake returned fire with five quick shots and then sunk behind a coffin, his head reverberating from the sound.

An alarm squawked as the exit door flew open. “Let's go, Adams,” the Austrian polizei captain yelled. He was already outside holding the door for Jake.

Jake crawled out just as a second round of automatic gunfire broke the air.

Jake Adams dropped Herr Martini off at the polizei headquarters at Number 8 Kaiserjagerstrasse, a block from the Hofgarten. They had barely gotten away from the shooter, found a phone a block away, and called in the problem to his people. Then they had worked their way back to the funeral home and found Martini's two men severely wounded. Both were currently in surgery and not expected to recover.

Martini had some paperwork to fill out, he had said, and Jake had his own problems, with his head still killing him. He had tried walking off his pain along the river, but the pounding in his head had been too much. He thought about his normal exercise routine back in Oregon. The run around the lake. The push-ups and crunches. Anything that didn't require expensive, bulky apparatus that usually ended up as strange clothes hangers. Traveling so much, he needed to keep things simple.

He went back to his car and drove to a bank five blocks away. He had deposited some money there the first day he arrived in Innsbruck, and had noticed at the time an isolated area with three phones.