Читать книгу Justice Run - Don Pendleton - Страница 13

CHAPTER SIX

“How did you screw this up?” the voice on the phone asked.

Seated in the helicopter, Dumond bit down on an angry reply and squelched a desire to heave his phone across the floor. He hated the son of a bitch on the other end of the line. He didn’t even know his name. Not his real name, anyway. But he knew he’d love to put a bullet in the bastard’s head.

“It’s complicated,” the Frenchman replied, regretting the words instantly.

“Perhaps you need an easier job,” the other man said.

“No.”

“You lost the woman.”

“We’ve been over this.”

“You lost her.”

Dumond heaved a sigh. “She got away. Yes.”

“Was she looking for me?”

“No.”

“No?”

Dumond squeezed his eyes closed. “I don’t know.”

“Neither do I.”

“She never asked about you.”

“Which means nothing.”

“I told you someone attacked us. I lost eighteen people today.”

“How many did they lose?”

“You bastard!”

“Well?”

“None,” he said.

“And how many men were there?”

“You know the answer!”

“I want to hear it from you.”

“Two. It was just two men.”

The other man fell silent. Dumond thought he heard a lighter being worked, followed seconds later by the sound of a slow exhale. The pause only heightened Dumond’s anxiety.

After several seconds the voice said, “Go to Tunisia.”

The line went dead.

* * *

VOGELSGANG SLAMMED DOWN the receiver of his secure phone. The sound of someone chuckling to his right caught his attention and prompted him to spin his chair in that direction. Friedhelm Geiger was leaning against a wall, his arms crossed over his chest, staring at him. No, more to the point, Geiger was smirking at him.

“What the hell are you laughing at?” Vogelsgang demanded.

“The Frenchman screwed it up, right?” Geiger said. “Did I not say this would happen?”

Vogelsgang ignored the question and instead studied the smoke curling up from the end of his cigarette. After several seconds he nodded slowly.

“You were right,” he said. “The Frenchman was a complete washout.”

Vogelsgang quickly repeated Dumond’s account of what had happened, breaking off occasionally to puff from his cigarette. When he finished, he looked over at Geiger, who was rubbing his clean-shaved chin with his thumb and forefinger. The smirk had morphed into a scowl and his brow furrowed.

“Two men took out eighteen of Dumond’s people?”

“That’s what Dumond said. What? You don’t believe it?”

Geiger pushed himself off the wall and started across the office toward a small bar located in the corner. Opening a bottle of spiced rum, he poured some into a short glass, sealed the bottle and, drink in hand, headed back to Vogelsgang.

“Dumond’s a pussy,” Geiger said. “But his security team’s another matter entirely. I can’t believe two men took out the whole team.”

“You think he’s lying?”

“Not necessarily,” Geiger replied, shaking his head. “He may have counted wrong. Fog of war and all that bullshit. Dumond’s not a soldier. Perhaps he’s been shot at before. I don’t know. But under that sort of stress, it’s easy to get things wrong.”

Vogelsgang nodded once. “But we still have eighteen men dead. That much we can be sure of.”

“Yes.”

“Let me ask the obvious question, then,” Vogelsgang said. “What if he got it right? What if it was just two people?”

Geiger drank more rum. Staring into the glass, he swirled the liquid around. “They’d have to be damn capable,” he said.

“Indeed.”

“Especially to do this with little or no visible support. No special vehicles. Nothing but small arms. I’d say Dumond was lucky to escape with his skin intact.”

“How many people in the world could do this?”

Geiger considered the question and shrugged. “Not many. I could do it. Not too many others. A handful, maybe.”

“Exactly. That means we’ve drawn the attention of someone quite formidable. And now we should assume they’re following Dumond. They won’t let him just walk away from all this. They’ll want to arrest him.”

“That wouldn’t be so bad as long as Dumond would keep his mouth shut. But we know better. If it’d buy him another ten seconds of breathing, he’d blurt out everything he knows.”

“So deal with him. And, if someone’s tracking him, take them out, too.”

“With pleasure,” Geiger said.

He set his empty glass on a nearby table, turned and headed for the door.

* * *

VOGELSGANG WAITED UNTIL the other man had exited the room before allowing himself a small chuckle and a pitying shake of his head. Geiger was a good soldier, a true believer, resourceful and smart. His mistake was in believing they were in this thing together.

He was wrong. Geiger indeed was a formidable soldier. The former intelligence officer was, at best, a pawn, an attack dog. Like any dog, he could be useful and loyal. But, if Geiger forgot his place, Vogelsgang had people available who could deal with him.

Vogelsgang had a small army waiting in the wings and he was sitting on a storehouse of cash. That made him unstoppable.

His thoughts went back to the situation in Monaco. Whether it was two people or four who attacked Dumond was an interesting question. The more important question was their identity. Vogelsgang had to assume it was the Americans coming to help one of their own, or another country working on behalf of the United States, an ally such as Britain.

Either way it now meant they’d attracted unwanted attention. Or, more to the point, Dumond had attracted attention.

Geiger had been right. The man was a clown. Vogelsgang had hoped to use the Frenchman’s greed and stupidity to an advantage. Even so, he’d also been careful to build firewalls between Dumond and himself. Dumond didn’t know his real name or his location. Vogelsgang spoke letter-perfect English with no trace of an accent, and his secure phone processed his voice through a distortion device. He was sure the man had no idea of his nationality. Vogelsgang also paid the man with funds from a bank in the British Virgin Islands. Though Geiger had helped pick several members of Dumond’s security team, the two men had never met directly. Even if someone hunted down Dumond, chances were slim he could betray Vogelsgang and his associates. Just to be on the safe side, though, Vogelsgang would feel better once Geiger killed the man and closed that hole.

Vogelsgang didn’t need the distractions.

Not now.

He was on the edge of changing history. He’d spent a life working hard. A son of working-class parents, he’d never been satisfied when he’d looked at their way of life, stressing over mortgage payments and other bills. Vogelsgang had started work in the same machine shop that had once employed his parents. Unlike them, he’d had a head for numbers and a willingness to stick a knife in someone else’s back. Within a few years he was working on the administrative side of the business. In another ten years he’d bought the place from its original owner, using blackmail to force the owner to sell for next to nothing. From there Vogelsgang had begun the slow process of building an industrial empire, one with its roots in Germany, but with factories in India, Bangladesh and other developing countries.