The Diaries - 01 (33 page)

As he walked, he mechanically
processed what had happened.
 
The nausea
abated once his mind was in fast motion.
 
Gage had been over his and Monika’s actions hundreds of times as he
trudged on, desperate to know what exactly had gone wrong.
 
Had Jean and the DGSE killed her?
 
Or more likely, had it been the Glaives?
 
As ruthless as the DGSE was known to be, he
had a tough time picturing Jean’s ordering up a cold-blooded killing of an
innocent woman.
 
After what Gage had done
to the French agent, he could maybe envisage a private hit ordered on himself,
but not Monika.

But mobsters, that
was another issue altogether.
 
During his
time on Hunter’s team, Gage had seen, many times, mobsters use death as an
instrument.
 
To them, killing was no
different than kidnapping or strong-arming.
 
It was simply a means to get whatever it was they wanted.
 

And the policeman
on the scene had said
rape
was a
possibility.

Rape.

“Motherfuckers,”
Gage spoke to the chill morning air, not quite able to muster the anger he so
desired.
 
As the sun rose, he donned his
sunglasses.
 
Predictably, his head ached
as bad as it ever had, pressing his troubled mind back to snippets of Crete.
 
Like what had happened there, he knew this thing
with Monika, and whoever killed her, wasn’t the type of thing to just go
away.
 
Every time he imagined her kind
face and deep brown eyes, the pain rushed back in.
 
She had been killed because of him.

He should have
never spared the other man in Metz, and for that he blamed the affair in Crete.
 
As always, all roads in Gage’s mind pointed
to Crete: his colossal, leaden cross to bear.
 
He shook the thoughts from his head, whispering aloud a phrase Colonel
Hunter had drilled into them:

“Stay focused.
 
You’re
inside
the mission.”
 

A stone stairway
led into a small town to Gage’s left; a bike path marker indicated the town as
Kahl
am Main.
 
He
ascended the stairs, stopping to let a work truck rumble by in the growing
light.
 
There likely wouldn’t be a police
station in the small burg, just a constable.
 
If he so desired he could go to the low-level official, explaining
everything.
 
Surely it wouldn’t be hard
to go back to Metz and prove his innocence by talking the investigators through
the actions of that fateful night only four days earlier.

“But only if Monika
hadn’t been murdered,” Gage said to himself as he scoped out the small town,
his mouth watering from the smell of good German bread baking.

The low sun peaked
through the gray clouds, sending intense rays of light through the near
freezing temperatures, actually making Gage feel colder while he experienced
their scant warmth.
 
He was soaked to the
bone.
 
However, his outer appearance,
while sloppy, wasn’t so bad that he would draw attention to himself.
 
His stomach was queasy, screaming for water
and nourishment.
 

The town wasn’t
the typical German village.
 
This one was
mostly new, the stadtmitte laid out in a grid like a kid’s checkerboard.
 
The streets were clean and damp as if a
street cleaning truck had just blasted them clear for Gage’s arrival.
 
He kept his head lowered as he moved down the
narrow street of the town, turning left and following the smell of strong coffee
and the baking bread.
 

Located just off
the modest town square was a simple café.
 
Gage peered through the window, seeing the working men eating their
breakfasts of
brötchen
and speck, hot coffee and
juice.
 
He stepped inside, his hunger raging
at the smell of the fresh bread.
 
A few
of the men, mostly laborers from the nearby coal-energy plant, glanced at the
stranger before dipping their heads back to their plates.
 
Gage stood at the counter, waiting on two
older men to finish paying.
 
Above the
coffee makers, a small television quietly displayed the national morning news
on
RTL Punkt-6
.
 

Gage studied a
paper menu, planning to order a sack of bread, bananas, two egg sandwiches and
two large bottles of water.
 
Just as the two
older men reached the cashier, his blood went to ice as his own passport picture
filled the television screen.
 
Below his
picture, in German, the text announced him as wanted for questioning about a
double murder in Frankfurt.
 
It reported
Gage as armed and dangerous.

Gage glanced
around.
 
It seemed every person had stopped
what they were doing and was staring at Gage.

Again, his world
spun.

Forcing panic from
his mind, Gage surveyed the room again.
 
Actually, no one was even giving him a second glance.
 
The men at the counter had their eyes on
their plates.
 
The two older men in front
of him were discussing their bill.
 
The
servers busied themselves with coffee.
 
No one even noticed him.

Delusions.
 
You need food and rest.

Controlling his
breathing, Gage glanced at his watch and grunted, turning on his heels and
hustling out of the café as if he had just remembered an important
appointment.
 
He made an immediate left,
walking further into the town’s residential area.
 
His picture would be on every television
station, in every newspaper.
 
They would
have checked his name, and by this time they would surely know it was an
alias.
 
The Germans would be screaming at
the Americans to tell them who Gage Hartline really was, but the State Department
would have no idea.
 
They would dig
through his past, finding a bevy of false fronts but no substance.
 
To his knowledge, his identity was hidden
deep in the CIA, and something as trivial—to the CIA—as a murder would not be just
cause to open the Pandora’s box of Hunter’s team and the shadowy jobs they had
pulled.

But the DGSE knew,
thought Gage, questioning himself.
 
Still, he didn’t think a murder investigation would yield anything other
than dead ends.
 
A snippet of fear went
through Gage’s mind as he thought of the soldiers who he had once served with,
prior to his stint on Hunter’s team.
 
Would they be able to identify him, by his picture, after all the years?

“That’s not
pressing,” he growled to himself as he moved into a small neighborhood, his
hands jammed deep into his pockets and his chin on his chest.

But the thought
persisted.

Other than a tiny
pocket of people in the Pentagon, the only people who could finger Gage as
Matthew
Schoenfeld
would be Hunter and the members of
the old team, or those who had known him before.
 
He wasn’t concerned about the team members,
and it was very likely everyone from Wisconsin or the regular Army had
forgotten him a year after he left, much less seventeen years.

But now that his
picture was out, he needed a new cover, and fast.
 
As he walked down a street, Gage slowed as a
man in a factory worker’s heavy uniform left his modest stone house, yelling
goodbyes to his wife and son.
 
The boy
had his coat on as well and, as Gage milled around the bus stop at the top of
the block, he finally saw the boy and his heavyset mother set out in his
direction.
 
The boy wore a backpack.
 
She was walking him to school.
 
Gage passed them with his head down, hearing
the woman in her thick Bavarian accent—a sure sign she wasn’t from
Kahl
—speaking about what snacks the boy might want from the
market.

Dad went to work.
 
Son heading to school.
 
Mom to school and then to the market.

The man had been
approximately Gage’s size.

He waited until
they turned the corner at the top of the street before he opened the gate that
led to the enclosed back yard.
 
Prepared
to break a window, Gage was relieved when the back door opened without protest.
 
He went to their refrigerator, spiriting
pieces of ham and cheese into a piece of foil.
 
He removed four slices of sourdough bread from a bag on the counter,
adding a dollop of butter to the mix.
 
Gage wrapped the package, placing it on the counter, also taking a few
bruised apples from a bowl.
 
After
glancing through a window up the street, Gage removed a tumbler from the
cabinet, holding it under the faucet and guzzling three full glasses.
 
He rinsed the tumbler, drying it with a towel
and replacing it in the cabinet.

Gage hustled
through the tidy house, finding the bedroom in the back.
 
He went to the closet, removing a pair of
tattered khakis, a flannel shirt, underwear, and a black canvas jacket with the
Würzburger
Bier logo on the breast and back.
 
Gage changed clothes in a hurry, also
grabbing a pair of socks from the man’s drawer, stuffing them in the pocket of
the new jacket, jamming his soaked clothes into his pack.
 
It was almost as if he had forgotten what it
felt like to be dry and warm again.
 
Even
as black as his thoughts were after Monika’s death, physical warmth went a long
way towards making him feel human again.

Thievery was
despicable in Gage’s mind, but due to his predicament, he could see no other
option.
 
Gage went to his pack, removing
his wallet and producing five hundred euro.
 
He folded the bills, stuffing them into the breast pocket of the only
suit in the closet.
 
He then ran to the
front of the house, again looking up and down the street from the window.
 
No sign of the woman.
 
Gage locked the front door.

In the bathroom,
Gage used the scissors, purchased the night before from the
apotheke
,
and went to work.
 
Moving
recklessly, he clipped his face and head, getting as much of his hair that he
could.
 
He swept the hair from the
counter into a bundle of toilet tissue, flushing it.
 
Then, using the man’s razor and shaving cream,
Gage shaved his face and head, nicking himself on the cheek and above the
ear.
 
He had to redo the back of his head
three times due to missed patches.

Gage rinsed the
razor as quickly as he could, using a damp bath towel to wipe the counter
before replacing everything from where he found it.
 
He made his way back to the kitchen, and that’s
when he heard the front door knob being jiggled.
 

Gage froze.

The knob rattled
again, and then Gage heard the woman’s heavy feet turn and move from the
porch.
 
She would be coming to the
back.
 
He grabbed the silver packet of
food and apples, running to the front door and unlocking it.
 
As soon as he heard her at the back door, he
would simply sprint out the front and she would never know he had been
there.
 
He turned the door handle as he
heard her at the back door, then he stopped cold.

His pack was on
the bed!

Gage glanced
around, finally diving behind a coral-colored antique sofa.
 
He listened as the woman entered the house,
muttering to herself about the locked front door.
 
Gage’s heart went to his throat as she came
to the front door, cursing as she learned that it was not locked after
all.
 
If she were to look to her left,
she would see him.
 
Gage was prepared to
pounce.
 
He would have to cover her
mouth, take her to the bedroom, and then he would somehow tie her up so he
could get away.

She pulled the front
door open, twisted the knob, closed it.
 
She stared at it, frowning.

Gage didn’t
breathe.
 
The woman shook her head,
trying the lock again.
 
With a shrug, she
moved away, turning in the opposite direction from where he lay.
 
Now his concern was her going to the bedroom
and seeing his backpack.
 
He jumped up,
stopping at the hallway and listening.
 
He heard the refrigerator open and close, along with cabinets and drawers;
she was putting her groceries away.
 
He
chanced a look.
 
Her back was turned, so
he tiptoed down the hall and grabbed his pack, moving back up the hallway and
spinning into the other room as he saw her shadow moving toward the hallway
again.

Flattening himself
against the wall, Gage stood ready in case she came into the boy’s room.
 
He didn’t want to hurt this woman, but there
was no way to prevent terrifying her if she happened upon him.