Greene's Calling: Seventeen Book Three (A Supernatural Action Adventure Thriller Series 3) (21 page)

Chapter Sixteen

T
hey left Arnstadt and headed south toward the hazy, snow-capped Thüringer mountain range. The road soon climbed through the foothills of the peaks, taking them past narrow river valleys and undulating plateaus dotted with villages. Rocky outcrops and bluffs topped with ancient stone castles broke the vista of dense spruce and pine forests covering the slopes and vales.

One mile after passing a sleepy hamlet of slate-tiled dwellings, they turned onto a private track between the trees. Sunlight broke through the soaring canopy and painted the forest in strips of light and shade.

A rusted metal gate appeared in their path after a thousand feet. Schulze got out of the vehicle and opened it. They drove through the opening and soon reached a snow-dusted field of heather and wood sorrel. Shadowy woodland appeared on the other side. The track meandered between the trees and tapered to a rutted, overgrown trail. Conrad braced himself against the dashboard and the roof as the four-by-four bumped along the uneven ground.

A mile later, the land dipped into a large bowl ringed by towering conifers. A meadow stood at the bottom of the shallow depression. Sunlight danced on the stream running along its western boundary, where a wooden barn, bleached a pale gray by the weather, stood some hundred feet from a shallow creek. Ice patches gleamed on the surface of the water.

Squatting in the middle of the clearing was a chalet-style cabin. Smoke curled from one of its chimneys. A black Freelander stood parked on the graveled area at the side of the building.

‘Looks like we found Obenhaus,’ murmured Schulze.

The German agent guided the four-by-four down the path leading to the meadow and parked next to the Freelander. They had just stepped out of the vehicle when shouts suddenly erupted from inside the building.

Conrad stiffened as he registered the panic in the male voice. His stomach lurched when the sharp reports of three gunshots issued from the interior of the lodge in rapid succession.

He yanked his gun out and leapt up the steps to the porch, his heart hammering against his ribs. His fingers had just closed on the handle of the screen covering the front door when a high-pitched rumble rose from his left.

A dark-clad figure on a green dirt bike shot out from around the corner of the building. The man looked over his shoulder at the sound of Bauer’s vehicle slowing on the gravel. His eyes shrunk through the open visor of his helmet. He gunned the bike’s engine.

‘Stop him!’ Conrad shouted to the others as he sprinted along the porch.

He vaulted over the railing at the end, landed hard on the ground, and raced after the fleeing biker. Schulze and Anatole gave chase behind him. Bauer accelerated and followed in the four-by-four.

The man rose on the foot pegs of the dirt bike seconds before he hit the slope of the bowl. Soil and grass spun up behind the tires as he ascended toward the trees.

Conrad raised his gun and fired. The first two bullets went wild and struck the ground. The third pinged off the bike’s tail panel. The immortal cursed and jammed the gun in his waistband as he neared the incline. He started to scale the embankment, his breaths coming in hard, fast pants. Anatole and Schulze followed in his steps.

An engine roared to their left. Bauer’s four-by-four overtook them a second later. The two immortals and the German agent reached the summit of the rise just as further gunfire echoed to the skies.

The four-by-four had slewed to a stop in front of a wall of dense undergrowth. Three of the vehicle’s doors were open. Fifteen feet in front of the bumper, Bauer, Laura, and Stevens slowly lowered their weapons as they watched the dirt bike disappear in the gloom of the crowded forest.

‘Goddammit!’ Conrad gasped as he reached their side. His hands dropped to his knees as he caught his breath. Frustration gnawed at his insides. The enemy had bested them once more.

A flush of anger darkened Laura’s cheeks. ‘Let’s go back!’ she ordered. ‘Obenhaus is probably still in the chalet.’ She turned on her heels.

Bauer took the vehicle while the rest of them headed swiftly toward the meadow on foot.

‘Looks like the bastards were one step ahead of us again,’ Anatole said darkly as they scrambled down the incline.

Conrad scowled. ‘Ye—’

Incandescent light bloomed up ahead. The thumps of two powerful explosions ripped through the clearing and drowned out his voice. The force of the blasts washed over the slope and lifted them off their feet.

As he soared helplessly through the air, heat scorching his skin and throat, Conrad saw Bauer’s four-by-four judder backward on its suspension. The vehicle skidded and started to flip.

The immortal slammed into the ground a heartbeat later. His head struck something hard. Stars exploded in front of his eyes. The impact knocked the breath out of his lungs. A dull buzz filled his ears, dampening all sound. Clouds of black smoke billowed past his vision. Ash and debris started to rain down around him.

Conrad gritted his teeth and turned on his side. Fear lanced through his heart at the sight that met his eyes.

‘Laura!’ he cried out, his voice a muffled echo inside his skull.

She lay on her back some twenty feet away. Her eyes were closed and blood stained her skin from a gash on her temple.

Conrad crawled to his knees and shook his head dazedly. His ears popped as he staggered to his feet. Sound returned in a painful clamor. The crackle and roar of raging flames finally registered. He looked over his shoulder.

The lodge and barn were engulfed in fierce blazes, as were the wrecks of the Freelander and Schulze’s vehicle.

His eyes shifted to the unconscious woman a short distance from where he stood. He stumbled across the ground and sank to his knees by her side just as she blinked and opened her eyes.

‘Are you okay?’ Conrad asked shakily. He ran his hands lightly over her body.

Laura groaned and nodded slowly. She pushed herself up on her elbows.

Relief flooded Conrad. He took her arm and helped her gently into a sitting position.

She looked up, the hazel gaze sweeping over him. ‘And you?’

‘I’m fine,’ Conrad murmured.

Anatole, Schulze, and Stevens were slowly rising to their feet. Except for some cuts and grazes, they seemed unharmed.

Schulze suddenly froze. ‘Bauer!’ he shouted weakly.

Conrad followed the German agent’s horrified gaze to the four-by-four lying on its roof at the bottom of the incline. He pulled Laura up and they joined the men stumbling down the slope. Tempered glass from the vehicle’s smashed windows crunched under their feet as they reached it. They found Bauer unconscious inside.

Blood drained from Schulze’s face. ‘Shit,’ he whispered hoarsely, reverting to German.

Conrad stared. A jagged pole of timber had pierced the windscreen of the vehicle and impaled Bauer’s left shoulder, pinning him to his seat. He lay suspended at an awkward angle, his long legs jammed underneath the wheel. A scarlet stain had soaked through his shirt and jacket, and a dark rivulet was slowly trickling along the length of wood. There was a wound on his temple where his head had struck something.

Schulze fumbled for his phone and punched in a number. A beeping tone sounded from the receiver. He gaped at the screen. ‘Damn it! There’s no signal!’

Laura lobbed her cell at him. ‘It’s a satellite phone! You should be able to get through!’

The agent nodded shakily and dialed again.

Trepidation filled Conrad as he knelt by the vehicle. He reached through the broken window and probed Bauer’s neck gently. A small sigh of relief left his lips when he felt a strong, thrumming pulse. The police officer moaned. His eyes fluttered open.

‘Bauer? Bauer, listen to me! Keep still! You’re bleeding heavily,’ Conrad ordered. The beat beneath his fingers was turning thready.

The man blinked at him, his gaze unfocused. He saw the wooden pole in the windscreen and followed its path to his shoulder. Alarm distorted his features. He started to flail. A crimson pool bloomed from his wound.

Conrad cursed and pinned him down. ‘Help me keep him still!’ he shouted at Laura. She ran round to the other side of the car. He glanced over his shoulder at Anatole and Stevens. ‘You two, get that thing out of his shoulder!’

‘We shouldn’t move him!’ said Stevens.

‘If we don’t do something
now
, he’ll die!’ Conrad shouted. ‘That’s arterial blood!’

Stevens bit his lip. Laura scrambled wordlessly through the passenger window and murmured reassuring words to the thrashing man as she immobilized him against the seat.

Shadows played across the cracked windscreen. Anatole and Stevens positioned themselves in front of the vehicle and gripped the end of the jagged shaft piercing Bauer’s shoulder.

‘This is going to hurt,’ Laura warned Bauer. ‘Just hold on to me!’

Her voice finally broke through the German officer’s panic. His eyes cleared and he focused on her. Bauer gritted his teeth and grunted, his face ashen. Schulze ended the call to the local emergency services; the agent joined Anatole and Stevens.

Conrad placed his left hand next to the wound on Bauer’s shoulder. His brow creased when he detected the underlying fractured clavicle and ruptured major vessels beneath the man’s skin.

‘What?’ said Laura.

Conrad closed his eyes briefly. ‘There’s a lot of damage,’ he murmured. He took a deep breath, concentrated, and released his healing power. ‘On the count of three!’ he shouted to the men outside. ‘One, two,
three
!’

They pulled on the pole. Bauer screamed as the jagged shaft slowly came out of the seat and his flesh. Conrad ground his teeth together and controlled the flow of blood escaping the man’s torn artery and vein. The policeman went limp and collapsed in the immortals’ arms a moment later.

‘Let’s get him out!’ barked Conrad.

They maneuvered Bauer out of the vehicle and lowered him to the ground, Conrad keeping his hand on the unconscious man’s shoulder the entire time. Once the officer lay supine, the immortal swiftly extracted the fragments of wood embedded inside the flesh beneath his fingers. He fixed Bauer’s broken clavicle and lacerated blood vessels, and moved to the damaged muscles.

‘What are you doing?’ said Schulze.

Conrad ignored the agent and inspected the wound on the policeman’s temple. He healed the linear skull fracture in the left temporal bone and the underlying small, subdural hematoma, before stemming the bleeding from the vessels in the man’s scalp. Once again, he did not completely repair the skin and subcutaneous tissues.

Seconds later, he sat back on the ground and released the breath he had been holding. His hands shook from the rush of adrenaline surging through his veins.

‘Is he okay?’ said Schulze.

Conrad looked up into the security agent’s anxious face.

‘He’ll be fine,’ said the immortal. He caught sight of Stevens’s troubled expression.

‘Are you all right?’ Laura asked quietly, her gaze shifting from Conrad’s trembling fingers to his face.

Conrad nodded and gave her a weak smile. Her eyes flashed. His heart stuttered in his chest when he glimpsed an emotion he never thought he would see again in her gaze. Before he could wonder whether he had been imagining it, Bauer stirred on the ground between them.

The policeman opened his eyes and blinked slowly. ‘What just happened?’ He tried to sit up.

‘Hey, don’t move! You’re injured!’ Schulze exclaimed. He pushed the man to the ground.

Bauer looked at his left shoulder. He fingered his bloodied clothes and wound with a wince. ‘It’s just a bit sore,’ he muttered, his tone reflecting mild puzzlement. ‘I feel fine.’

Schulze gaped as the police officer started to climb shakily to his feet.

Conrad rose and gave him a hand. ‘Be careful. You lost a lot of blood.’

Bauer watched him for a beat and inclined his head. His eyes moved to the conflagrations consuming the buildings in the clearing.

‘Well, I think we can officially tell the suspicious assholes in the Ministry of Interior that the US is not being behind this,’ the policeman said bitterly.

Conrad’s heart sank as he stared at the fires. He thought of his words to Maximilian Obenhaus. He was not going to be able to keep his promise to the company president.

It was four thirty in the afternoon when the flames were finally doused by firefighters from the forest authorities and the local brigades. By the time the scene investigator completed a preliminary inspection of the buildings and declared them safe for entry, the sun was sinking in a reddening sky.

Bauer allowed paramedics to dress his wounds but refused to go to the hospital. He followed Conrad and the others when they slipped on protective crime scene gear and entered the lodge.

The explosion had originated from a study at the rear of the building. The force of the blast had removed parts of the external walls and a section of the roof. A deer head mounted above a stone fireplace dominated the space, miraculously unscathed but for a layer of soot. The animal’s dead eyes seemed to follow Conrad as he walked to the mangled, charred body partially visible under a pile of rubble next to the hearth. Blackened floorboards creaked beneath the immortal’s feet as he squatted to inspect the corpse.

‘We’ll have to wait for analysis of the dental records to confirm whether this is our man,’ said Schulze.

‘It’s Luther Obenhaus,’ Conrad stated flatly.

A grunt escaped Bauer. ‘How can you tell?’

‘Because of the ring on his finger,’ said Laura before Conrad could reply.

Schulze and Bauer stared at the smoke-stained band on the body’s left hand.

‘He was wearing it in the intelligence photograph we had of him and in the pictures in Maximilian Obenhaus’s office.’ Laura met Conrad’s gaze. ‘You’re not the only one who notices things,’ she muttered.

Conrad rose and observed the damaged display cabinets and bookcases around the room. The glass had cracked and shattered in the doors of most of the units. A grimy clock above the mantelpiece had stopped with its hands on ten past two.

It was Anatole who found the remains of a computer and a cell phone under some debris on the far side of the room. Conrad joined him and stared at the distorted plastic frames, his hands fisting at his sides. He tried the power button on the phone. The fractured screen remained black.

‘We might be able to recover data from the card and the hard drive,’ said Schulze. Conrad remained silent. It would be a miracle if they retrieved anything useful from the devices.

They left the cabin and headed for the barn. Though night had fallen, they were bathed in the artificial brightness of dozens of spotlights dotting the perimeter of the clearing. The hum of generators echoed against the trees.

The old farm building had once been used to store hay and house livestock. Although it had been damaged by the fire, it was structurally sounder than the lodge, with its walls and roof still intact.

‘That’s because most of the explosive force took place downstairs,’ explained the investigator.

‘Downstairs?’ Conrad repeated with a puzzled frown.

‘Yes,’ said the investigator, jerking his head toward a stall at the end of the building. ‘In the bunker.’

‘A bunker?’ said Laura, skeptical.