Ring of Lies (19 page)

A shudder of fear ran through Alex like a low-frequency wave. Waiters carrying heavy trays emerged from the kitchen one after another. A bottle was uncorked, and raucous cheering filled the crowded restaurant. The noise was brutal.

Jane's cellphone was on the table.

A fish sat on her plate, its pale flesh partially eaten.

She must be in the restroom.

The abominable phone in his hand vibrated.

“Alex?” said a deep voice.

“Who is this?”

“I told you it wouldn't be hard for me to find you,” Parsifal gloated.

“Can you help?”

“It is risky. I would be jeopardizing my pension. Do you have a pension, or are you one of those Israelis who is expecting an exit that will make him a millionaire overnight?”

“Who's the Israelite?”

“I have no idea.”

Alex took the phone away from his ear and glared at it. “So what did you call for?”

“Reuven asked me to. I am a Jew, but my roots are here in Berlin. My family was one of the few that were not deported during the war.”

“I'm looking for the Israelite.”

“Have you ever heard of a movement called Christian Identity?” Parsifal asked.

The conversation was beginning to sound like yesterday's news.

“Yes. Who's the Israelite?”

“I told you, I do not know. But if he is not an Israeli, he could be an Aryan who believes in the purity of the race.”

“Are you going to help me?”

Parsifal pulled on his cigarette and exhaled noisily.

“Look for the Mud Man.”

Parsifal hung up.

Alex called him back. The asshole had turned off his phone.

He left two hundred euros on the table, grabbed Jane's phone, and checked the floor. There was nothing there. She was probably throwing up again. He'd wait for her outside the restroom. Time slipped by frustratingly. Why didn't she come out?

Butthead had mentioned “mud people” when he told him about Christian Identity. Alex glanced at his watch. He'd been standing there for eight minutes.

He went into the ladies' restroom. Two stalls, one locked. The sound of flushing came from it. He heard muffled coughing from behind the door. Poor thing—he was right, she was puking again.

The lock turned, and the door opened. Two round eyes gaped at him, and a deafening scream rocked the small space.

“Sorry . . . I'm looking for my wife. She felt sick . . . I thought she was in here.”

Another scream.

Alex retreated. As he exited the ladies' room, he bumped into a waiter and an older gentleman in a blue suit with a trim white beard. Both men had amused expressions on their faces. The waiter burst out laughing and patted his shoulder as if he were drunk.

Jane wasn't there.

He knew she hadn't left the restaurant. He would have seen
her when he was talking on the phone right outside the door. He went into the kitchen, ignoring the disapproving looks from the chef, line cooks, and dishwashers. The kitchen was hot. The air was steamy and humid and filled with cooking noises. Something moist was thrown into a pot of sizzling oil.

Alex scanned the workstations. Cooks were concentrating on their tasks: stainless-steel counters; pots and pans.

He found the back door and pushed against it. It was locked.

He felt a vague pressure in his chest. The man in the blue suit came up behind him. He must be the manager.

“Is there another exit?” he asked.

“Is something wrong, sir?” the man asked politely, an amiable look in his eyes.

“I can't find my wife. Where's the emergency exit?”

Nodding, the man steered him to a black door between the restrooms and the kitchen. “We keep it locked,” he said, leaning on the handle to demonstrate. He fell forward as the door opened, revealing a paved enclosure behind the restaurant that was occupied solely by garbage bins in need of a good scrubbing and tall gas canisters.

Alex had a sinking feeling. The enclosure led out to the alley.

The flagstones were too filthy to tell whether there were any drops of blood.

He'd wasted precious time standing around waiting.

White Beard mumbled something, but Alex was already checking out the alley. He went into every yard and stairwell, searching for signs of a struggle or blood smears, his pulse pounding painfully in his temples. His desperation grew with each empty yard.

No more than an hour had passed since he'd asked her to stay.
He kicked wildly at a trash can, knocking it over. The contents spilled out over the street. The stench filled the air.

He returned to the restaurant and surveyed each table and every high-spirited diner. Not one of them so much as glanced in his direction. He went back outside, his temples throbbing with the knowledge that it was a lost cause. Justus's BlackBerry beeped in his pocket. He mouthed a silent prayer, but the pain in his chest was already unbearable. Looking at the screen, he howled until his throat burned and tears of fury welled up in his eyes.

His prayer had been in vain.

London's heart had stopped.

Alex went back to the alley. She couldn't have disappeared into thin air. Shit. He had to figure out what had changed.

The guitar players were gone. What else?

He'd seen them move aside to make room for a truck backing in. Where was the truck?

He found the restaurant manager near the door. “There was a truck in the alley before. Who does it belong to?”

“We only take deliveries before noon,” the manager answered with a worried look. “Why?”

Alex returned to the alley and scrutinized each of the buildings from the ground up. No security cameras.

“Can I be of help, sir?” the manager asked behind him. Alex ran down the alley to the other end, where it was blocked by a low post. He pulled on it, and the post came out in his hands.

The picture was becoming clearer. The motherfuckers were using trucks.

He needed backup, urgently. He couldn't do it on his own. He considered calling Barcelona in El Papiol. She was a tough, well-trained operative. But it would take her too long to get here.

He called HQ in Glilot and instructed them to contact the Madrid station. “Give me your precise location,” the female voice at the Operations Center said. He gave her the address.

“Just a second.”

After a short pause, she was back. “A mile and a quarter to
your southwest, at the old port, there's a point jutting into the sea. On the beach at the far end is a bare tract of land about two hundred feet square. A medevac chopper from El Prat will pick you up there in twenty minutes. It's red and white. The pilot's name is Pepe. He's one of ours. He's not allowed to land there, so he can't be on the ground for more than two minutes.”

Alex steeled himself and took off at a run. His chest was tight, and his head throbbed. The lights spun around him. A cold sweat ran down his back, and his face was icy. He glanced at his watch: no time. Finally he reached the port, where the colored lights of the city rippled on the black water. The air was warm and thick with oily fumes.

A light drizzle began falling. He couldn't afford to be late.

He found the empty tract of beach. Nothing there. He called Parsifal, but his phone was still off. His tiny window of opportunity had been sealed shut.

The wind was carrying the faint beat of a rotor. The noise got louder. Lights suddenly appeared in the sky, coming closer. The pilot turned on a bright spotlight that lit up the beach below, and he began maneuvering the aircraft into the middle of the square landing site. The rotor shrieked in the salty air.

Pepe's chin was flanked by long black sideburns. A diamond winked in his earlobe. Within seconds the helicopter was off the ground again, the rain spattering the windshield as it rose.

“We're looking for a light-colored refrigerated delivery truck that left Barcelona and is probably heading for central Europe. What's the quickest route?”

“How much of a lead do they have on us?”

Alex looked at his watch. “About forty minutes.”

“The fastest route is the Autopista del Mediterráneo. They
could get on it anywhere. Considering their head start, I say we go straight to Girona and fly low toward the oncoming traffic. That way, we won't miss them on a side street.”

Pepe handed Alex night-vision goggles. “We'll be in Girona in twenty-six minutes.”

They made the flight in silence, Alex trying to remember every detail of the truck in the alley. He'd noticed it immediately because its light color had made it stand out in the dark. It could be white. What else? Lettering? Stickers? Dents?

“Keep your eyes on the exits,” Pepe said as he descended. Through the goggles, the cold highway looked white and the speeding cars black.

Semis and large trucks rolled down the left-hand lane.

“Let's hover here,” Alex said.

The chopper held its position in the air, making the traffic appear to slow down. Alex swung the goggles back and forth across the road like a radar dish, checking out every commercial vehicle.

A delivery truck!

It had rounded corners in the back. The one in the alley had sharp corners. He was positive.

The highway followed the winding path of the Tordera River. The pale moon was reflected on the water.

The cars thinned out. The first pangs of hopelessness began to gnaw at him. Maybe his whole truck theory was flawed.

The image of Jane pushed all other thoughts out of his mind. It pulsated in his temples, danced before his eyes. The loss was overwhelming.

A police car passed one of the semitrailers, its lights flashing black. The night in negative. The semi slowed and pulled onto
the shoulder. Alex nearly missed the light-colored truck that sped past it.

“That's it, Pepe!” he shouted, pointing.

The Catalan turned the chopper around and started following the truck.

“Go down. Let's try to block it,” Alex instructed.

The road rapidly loomed closer.

“Faster!”

Pepe hovered fifteen feet above the highway.

Flashing his headlights and leaning on the horn, the truck driver screeched to a halt in alarm. He stopped about sixty feet from the nose of the chopper. Pepe brought it down onto the road.

“Do you have a gun?” Alex asked.

Pepe shook his head.

“Flares?”

Blinding lights piled up behind the truck. The police would be there any minute. Pepe pulled out the emergency kit and handed Alex a flare gun. Alex climbed out and walked over to the truck. He hadn't the slightest idea what he'd find when he got there. Sticking the flare gun up against the driver's window, he ordered, “Pull over and show me your license and registration.”

“Who are you?” asked the young driver, an albino with red eyes. Another man was sitting in the passenger seat.

Alex aimed the gun at the albino's head. “Pull onto the shoulder.”

The passenger's black eyes opened wide. The two men nodded compliantly.

The truck inched onto the shoulder of the road. The chopper rose and hovered above the highway, raising a cloud of dust.
Alex signaled to the other vehicles to move along, but the curious drivers only crept forward at a snail's pace, their eyes fixed on the unusual scene. Cars honked; the chopper's engine growled and its rotor shrieked. The albino stepped out of the truck and handed Alex his documents.

“Open the back.”

The driver nodded, fear showing in his red eyes.

“Give me the keys and get in,” Alex ordered.

The albino climbed in, with Alex on his tail. The refrigerated van appeared to be empty. Alex walked down its length, knocking on the scratched metal floor as he went, and then jumped out and examined the undercarriage. His nostrils filled with the stench of hot rubber and diesel fuel, but he didn't see anything suspicious.

“Is there something wrong, señor?” the albino asked.

Alex didn't bother to answer. He went over to the passenger door and ordered the black-eyed man out. Quickly, he patted down the two men. A look of protest was beginning to form on the albino's face. A search of the cabin was equally fruitless. Alex glanced at the license and registration. They were fairly new. He returned them to the driver.

“Sorry,” he said, gesturing for Pepe to land.

The medevac chopper came down on the bare shoulder, spraying dirt and pebbles in Alex's face. The truck roared to life. It pulled back onto the road and disappeared. The helicopter rose.

Alex called the Claris Hotel. There was no one in his room, and the lady had not returned. For a long time the chopper continued to hover over the highway, but it was a wasted effort.

If Alex had been listening in on cellphone communications in the area, he would have heard the truck driver reporting, “He's gone. We're on our way.”

The sea was stormy, the waves breaking on the shore and retreating in dismay. Climbing down from the helicopter felt like surrender. Alex watched its lights grow smaller until it disappeared, leaving behind an empty black sky. His feet sank into the sand.

On the cab ride back to the hotel, he prayed that he would find Jane waiting for him in the room, as furious as she liked, just there.

The room was empty.

Alex lay down on the bed in his clothes. Muted, unintelligible voices seeped through the wall. After a while he undressed and got into the shower, but he quickly lost patience, turned off the water, and dried himself off.

He stretched out on the bed again and shut his eyes for a second. The room spun around him as if he'd drunk too much. The dead machine gunner in Leipzig floated up from the depths of his memory, bringing with him the unbearable fragility of life.

Reuven called. Alex told him about Jane. There was a long silence before the chief finally said, “I'm sorry to hear that.”

“I'm going back to Berlin. I want to get eyes on the people working out of the Syrian Air office. Parsifal told me to look for the Mud Man. Does that mean anything to you?”

“No. You have to fly to Lyon in the morning.”

“Lyon can wait.”

“No, it can't. A woman will be waiting for you in Crémieu. You don't know her.”

“Berlin is more urgent,” Alex insisted.

“The Nibelungs were just the beginning.”

“The beginning of what, Reuven? What's in Lyon? It's all tied to Berlin. As soon as the Nibelungs started disappearing—”

“Disappearing?” Reuven cut in. “Don't be a child, Alex. They didn't disappear. Neither did Jane. She's dead. They're all dead.”