‘Forget it. I don’t need your money. Did your train ride pay off?’
Ben reached into his haversack and took out the empty Para-Ordnance. He thumbed the magazine release. The mag dropped out. He locked open the action of the pistol and laid it on his lap. ‘It certainly did.’
‘You found out something?’ Kinski asked.
‘I know everything.’ Ben quickly ran through what Christa had told him.
Kinski listened hard. His coarse features were puckered in concentration as he pushed the 4 × 4 through the aggressive Vienna traffic. ‘But why was Oliver so interested in getting inside the house?’
‘I’m coming to that,’ Ben said. ‘Christa’s place is a cyber-café. After I spoke to her I went online. I did more research. I cross-referenced everything. It all checks out. I found out a lot. Remember I asked you about Adler?’
Kinski nodded.
‘Adler is the key,’ Ben said. ‘It wasn’t a code. It was a name. Von Adler. Count von Adler.’
‘I’ve heard that name.’
‘What about the name Kroll?’
Kinski shook his head.
‘Same family,’ Ben said. ‘Here’s what I found out. Viktor Kroll was head of the Austrian secret police from 1788 to 1796. He was awarded land and title for services to the Empire by Josef II. He became Count von Adler and was given a palatial house and estate near Vienna.’
‘The same house?’
‘The same house. It’s been in the family ever since. The current Count von Adler is the great-great-great grandson. That’s as far as the historical record goes. But the house and title weren’t the only things that got handed down.’
‘I’m not getting it.’
‘This is the bit the history books don’t mention,’ Ben said, ‘because the letter that Richard Llewellyn discovered never made it into the historical record. Von Adler was The Eagle mentioned in the letter. We know from Arno that he was also Grand Master of the Order of Ra. A big part of those services to the Empire was the Order’s dirty work in helping to wipe out the Masons. He used his estate as his base.’
‘So?’
‘So they’re still there, Markus. Oliver found them.’
Kinski chewed it over for a moment. ‘Oliver knew?’
‘He was halfway to the truth,’ Ben said. ‘He knew about the historical connection with his Mozart research. Who knows what he thought he’d find in the house? Perhaps he thought he was opening up a hidden chapter of history. He had no idea what he was really walking into. He witnessed the execution by pure chance.’
‘This would explain why Meyer died the same night,’ Kinski said.
Ben nodded. ‘He was the hired pianist for the night, so his name was on the list. As soon as Oliver was out of there, they were already searching for the address of Meyer’s student digs. They got to him within minutes. But they’d have realized immediately that he wasn’t the same guy. With a gun to his head, he must have blabbed Oliver’s name pretty fast. They probably told him he was buying his life if he talked.’
Kinski scowled. ‘But the fuckers killed him anyway, just to keep him quiet. Then they went after Oliver.’
‘Faster than that,’ Ben said. ‘They’re not short of people. There would have been a team on its way for Oliver even while Meyer was still breathing.’
Kinski frowned. ‘Wait. How did they—’
‘Know where to find him? Police computer. They’ve got the right connections, remember? Oliver was a foreign visitor. He would have needed his passport to check into the boarding house. There couldn’t have been too many Oliver Llewellyns in the area. They picked him like an apple.’
Kinski grunted.
‘He just had time to burn the video-clip to CD and post it to the only person he could trust,’ Ben said. ‘Then they caught up with him. They took him out to the lake. Probably made him walk out onto the ice and then let loose with the nine-mil to crack it up around him. He never had a chance.’ He took a fat, shiny .45 Federal round from one of the cartridge boxes and used his thumb to press it into the magazine. It snicked into place.
‘So what now?’ Kinski asked.
Ben loaded the second round into the magazine, pushing down against the stiff spring. ‘I know where the house is,’ he said. ‘I’ll take care of it. It ends here.’
‘Where’s the house?’
‘Let me deal with it. You can read about it in the papers.’
‘You need my help.’
Ben loaded the third round. ‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s not how it works. I don’t use partners, Markus. You’ll get in the way.’
‘You really are crazy.’
‘I’ve been crazier.’ He pressed the fourth round in on top of the first three.
The traffic was heavy. Kinski flipped on the indicator at a busy intersection, cutting across into the Burgring. His eyes darted from road to mirror and back, concentrating on the traffic. ‘I believe you,’ he said.
Ben didn’t reply. He took a fifth cartridge from the box and loaded it into the magazine.
Neither of them saw the dark blue truck until it was almost on them. It was a security vehicle, massive, heavily armoured, unmarked. As Kinski’s Mercedes cut across the street the truck surged through a red light and came on hard. Horns blared. Kinski saw it half a second after Ben. He hit the brakes an instant too late.
The truck caught the Mercedes broadside at fifty miles an hour and cut it in half.
Chapter Forty-Two
Slovenia
From where Clara had fallen in the snow, she could see the two black helicopters sitting side by side in the field on the other side of the convent buildings. There were more men getting out of them and striding quickly among the buildings. They wore some kind of white overalls and carried small black things. She gaped.
The small objects were guns. Like the one that the man standing over her was pointing at her head.
He grabbed her by the hair and hauled her to her feet. She let out a cry of fear and pain. He clamped his hand over her mouth.
A big black shape came streaking around the corner. Max’s eyes were alert and his body stiffened as he saw the man clutching Clara. He growled, advanced and charged at him. He grabbed the man’s arm and dragged him off the little girl, pulling him to the ground and shaking him like a rag doll. Clara was screaming. Two more men appeared through an archway. They aimed their guns at Max and fired. The dog howled and thrashed on the bloody snow.
Leigh saw it all from a distance as she ran through the snow towards the convent. The running figures vaulted the wall into the grounds and circled the buildings, kicking open doors and cocking their weapons. Over the noise of the helicopters she could hear a new sound. The nuns had stopped singing, and now it was their cries of terror and panic that were coming from the chapel’s arched windows. A sound that was cut short by the chattering of suppressed gunfire.
One of the men bundled Clara roughly under his arm and carried her kicking and thrashing and screaming towards the waiting choppers. Leigh’s heart was hammering furiously. As she watched, one of the nuns burst out of the chapel, her face contorted in horror. She made it halfway across the courtyard before she was cut down by a blast from a gun. She collapsed on her face, the black-and-white habit stained with red. They got her by the ankles and dragged her body towards the chapel, leaving a thick trail of blood on the snow. Through the open chapel door Leigh could see the men throwing dead nuns in a bloody, twisted heap at the foot of the altar.
She would have done anything to help Clara, but there was nothing she could do except run the other way. She sprinted back to the cottage. Nobody had seen her. She crashed through the door and ran inside. She was shaking violently.
The shotgun on the rack. She looked up at it for an instant, then grabbed it down. Her hands trembled as she rummaged in the drawer for some cartridges. She thrust a fistful of them into her jacket pocket, opened up the gun’s action the way Ben had shown her, and slipped a round in each barrel.
She burst out of the cottage.
Run like hell, Leigh.
She dashed through the passageway leading to the farm. She let out a cry as a man stepped out pointing a gun at her head.
His face was hard, his eyes serious as he stared down the twin bores of the shotgun. ‘Drop the weapon,’ he warned, levelling his own.
Leigh didn’t have time to think. She wrapped her fingers around the two triggers and let off both barrels. Right in his face. The gun kicked violently back, making her stagger.
The impact of the gun at extreme close range was devastating. The man’s features disintegrated. Blood flew up the wall. She could taste the thick saltiness of it on her lips. She spat and ran on again, jumping over him and away from the convent. As she stumbled through the snow she feverishly reloaded the shotgun the way Ben had shown her.
Another man saw her and gave chase. She reached the low perimeter wall and vaulted over it, making for the cover of the trees.
He had orders not to kill her unless necessary. He fired a warning spray at the snow around her feet as she ran. Passing the snowman she’d built with Ben the day before, she turned and let off a barrel. The boom echoed across the valley.
He felt the sharp bite of stray pellets in his thigh, slapped it and saw blood on his fingers. Angry now, he raised his weapon, this time to bring her down. Orders be damned. He’d seen what the bitch had done to Hans.
She was zigzagging across his line of fire, feinting left and right to put him off. He squeezed the trigger. The chatter from the weapon churned up the snow and gouged the bark off a tree to her left. Then his magazine was empty. He slung the gun behind his back and drew the combat knife from the sheath on his belt.
Twigs and branches raked at her clothes and whipped her face as she darted through the dense forest. The long shotgun caught on a branch and was torn from her grip. She started to run back for it, but he was gaining on her. She gasped and staggered on. But where could she run to? The steep drop down to the river was just up ahead. She’d run herself into a trap.
The man saw the fallen shotgun and picked it up. There was a hammer cocked. One barrel gone, one to go. He smiled to himself. She was just twenty yards away, and the brightly coloured quilted jacket was an easy target against the forest.
He took aim and fired.
The shotgun kicked back against his shoulder with a rolling boom. The double barrel jerked upwards with the recoil and through the smoke he saw her go down.
She staggered and went down on one knee. For a moment she clutched at a sapling, trying to stay upright. Then she pitched headlong into the thicket and tumbled head over heels down the slope, crashing down with a crackle of twigs.
The man walked coolly up to the edge of the thickly wooded drop. It was a long way down. He could hear the rush of the river below. He looked down at his feet. Where she’d fallen, the snow was stained red.
He craned his neck, peering down. He saw her, far below. She was lying tangled in the snowy reeds near the water, one arm outflung, her black hair spread across her face. There was blood on her lips and her exposed throat, and all down the front of her torn jacket. Her eyes were open and staring up at the sky.
He watched her for ten seconds, fifteen, twenty. She wasn’t moving. No breath. Not a flicker in the eyes. He unzipped a pocket and took out a small Samsung digital camera. He switched it on and zoomed in on the body until it filled the frame. He took three shots of it and then put the camera back in his pocket.
Something glinted gold in the corner of his eye. He reached out and snatched the little gold locket from where it had snagged on a naked twig. He held it out on his palm. It was spattered with bright blood.
The convent was burning now, and the screams had been silenced. The first chopper was already rising up into the sky, rotors beating through the black smoke.
He turned and started walking back.
Chapter Forty-Three
Vienna
Wreckage spun across the busy intersection as the massive truck ploughed through the Mercedes and tore it apart. Cars skidded and crashed into one another. The front and rear halves of Kinski’s vehicle spun in opposite directions. The rear half flipped and rolled and came to a rest upside down, while the front half rolled into the kerb with sparks showering from its dragging underside.
The road was scattered with broken glass, slick with engine coolant. Horns blared. There were screams and yells from the crowds of people that lined the boulevard. Cars were strewn everywhere at crazy angles. The intersection had suddenly transformed from an everyday street-scene into a wild, chaotic sea of vehicles and terrified people all scattering in panic. An icy rain began to fall. In seconds it became a hailstorm.
Ben shook pieces of smashed safety glass out of his hair. The Mercedes was a mess of twisted, buckled metal, crumpled plastic, shattered windows. Behind the front seats was a gaping hole where the rest of the car should have been. His ears were ringing from the impact and he was disorientated. One of his ammunition boxes had burst open and there were pistol cartridges rolling around everywhere inside the car. He could smell burning. The door next to him was hanging off its hinges.
To his left, Kinski was groaning, semi-conscious, blood on his face. Ben could hear screaming and mayhem from outside in the street. Hail cannoned off the roof of the Mercedes.
He twisted groggily round in his seat. The armoured security truck had skidded to a halt fifteen yards from the wrecked car. Now the back doors burst open.
Five men spilled out. They were wearing black flak-jackets and carrying Heckler & Koch assault rifles. Military weapons, fully automatic, high-capacity magazines filled with high-velocity ammunition that could tear through steel and brick. Their faces were hidden behind black hockey masks. They strode purposefully through the hailstorm, rifle stocks high against their shoulders, barrels trained on the Mercedes. There was the deafening bark of high-powered fire. Bullets punched through the Mercedes door and ripped into the dash inches from Ben. Sparks flew from deep inside the electrics.
Through a haze, Ben looked down at his hand. It was still clutching the partly loaded pistol magazine. Things seemed to be happening in slow motion. He could see the shooters getting closer, but his senses weren’t reacting.
Focus. He slammed the mag into the pistol grip of the .45 and hit the slide release. By the time the first round had chambered he’d already found his first target. The man staggered back a step, stayed on his feet, shouldered his weapon, kept coming. Bulletproof armour.
The black Audi Quattro swerved through the chaos, bumping cars out of its path. Three men climbed out, ducking down low, drawing pistols. Kinski’s officers. They crouched behind the open doors of their car and fired on the masked rifle shooters. The pistol shots were poppy little things compared to the massive bang of military rifles. Fully automatic fire strafed the Audi. Supersonic rifle bullets chewed effortlessly through steel. One of Kinski’s men sprawled backwards, chest torn open, gun clattering across the road. People ran screaming. There was mass panic on the pavements. Sirens in the distance.
Ben’s vision was too hazy to see the sights on his gun. He relied on instinct. This time he hit high of the armour. One of the rifle shooters went down, clutching at his throat, slipping on the icy road. A rifle bullet tore through the window-frame of the Mercedes and Ben felt the stunning shockwave ruffle his hair. He fired blind, two more rounds. Supporting fire came from the Audi. The four remaining riflemen fell back. The sirens were getting louder, cutting through the mayhem and the screaming.
Kinski had come round. He was writhing in pain and clutching his leg. Ben kicked open the Mercedes door and rolled out onto the road, grabbing his bag as he went. He saw the riflemen falling back. They hadn’t expected this much resistance and Kinski’s guys had been a surprise.
Beyond the ocean of abandoned cars were the flashing lights of the police. The four rifle shooters started to run. One of Kinski’s officers leaned across the perforated bonnet of the Audi and let o
ff a burst of three rounds of 9mm. A shooter staggered and collapsed on his face on the wet road, his rifle spinning out of his grip.
The other three made it to the pavement and dashed away down a narrow sidestreet. Kinski’s guy raised his badge as armed police burst out of the wailing fleet of cars and sprinted between vehicles to the scene, guns ready.
Ben looked back at Kinski. The cop’s face was white and twisted in agony. ‘Leg’s bust,’ he grunted. ‘You go. Get after them.’
Ben knew he couldn’t be discovered with Kinski. Too many questions and complications that wouldn’t be good for either of them. He gave the big German a quick nod that said till next time. Then he ran low between the abandoned cars, moving quickly away from the smashed Mercedes.
The cops didn’t see him. He reached the pavement, staggering a little, still stunned. He slipped into the alleyway where he’d seen the three escaping shooters disappear seconds ago.
Chapter Forty-Four
Ben sprinted away down the sidestreet, leaving the sirens and the devastation behind him. The hail had softened to sleet. He leapt over an icy puddle, came down on the edge of it and almost fell. His head was still bursting from the impact of the truck and his breath rasped in his ears.
He stumbled around a corner and saw a cobbled alleyway to his left, narrow and winding, carving deep into the ancient backstreets of the city. He could see three black running shapes fifty yards ahead, their racing footsteps echoing up the walls of the buildings on either side.
The men were running to a waiting brown Volvo saloon. Brake lights blazed through the sleet. The engine revved and Ben gave chase. The escaping riflemen piled in, doors slammed and the Volvo took off, skidding away out of sight.
Ben stood in the middle of the wet road, his heart pounding, the gun hanging limply at his side as he listened to the noise of the car engine fade. But then it changed. There was a screech of tyres. The engine note began to rise.
The car had U-turned. It was coming back.