Duty and Honor

23

Jack ducked beneath the tree boughs and walked until he reached the construction site’s outer fence, then followed it until he reached the sidewalk along Grafinger Strasse, where he headed in Effrem’s direction. He could see the Audi a hundred yards ahead and across the street.

“Can you see me?” Jack radioed.

“No.”

“Good.”

Halfway down the block, Jack stopped and looked around for landmarks. Almost there. He proceeded another fifty feet, stopped again to check his location, then slipped into the trees to his left and picked his way through the foliage till his outstretched hand touched the hurricane fence. His early reconnoiter had shown what looked like a gap in the fence. He donned the NVGs and powered them on.

He’d found the spot. A triangular section of fencing had been cut away; the tool marks were old and a cluster of vines had already pushed their way through the opening. Through the gap Jack saw a pair of backhoe scoops, and beyond these a row of construction trailers. This was the site’s heavy equipment parking area and site offices. He crawled through the gap, then crept to the nearest backhoe scoop and ducked inside.

Though closed and vacant, Kultfabrik’s buildings were too many to search, and the ground was too open for Jack’s liking. Aside from the long, north-south line of abandoned arcades, pubs, and pool halls on the site’s far side, only two buildings had survived the demolition: to Jack’s left, in the center of the site, a clamshell open-air amphitheater; to his right, sitting just inside the fence at the corner of Friedenstrasse and Grafinger Strasse, an L-shaped office building. The walls of the first four floors were finished, sans windows, but the fifth floor was still mostly skeletal, with iron beams and girders backlit by the night sky. Overlapping blue plastic tarps formed the building’s temporary roof. Aluminum scaffolding enclosed the building’s first three floors.

This was his destination. If he were laying a trap, he’d want the high ground. At the very least it was the ideal observation post. As a sniper perch, it was serviceable.

Jack checked his watch: eight forty-five.

He scanned the office building with his NVG, left to right and bottom to top. In his monochrome view the walls appeared gray; the window openings were charcoal rectangles. He saw no shadows, no movement. He picked up a rock and hurled it over the bulldozer. As the rock thunked against the nearest trailer’s roof, Jack watched the building. Again, he saw no movement. Twice more he repeated the process with the same result, then once more but this time pelting the side of the building itself. Nothing.

Either Möller’s men were not set up in there, or they were too disciplined to overtly react to Jack’s stone-throwing. Either way, it was time to move.

Jack slipped back to the fence and turned left, using the low-hanging tree branches to cover his movement. When he reached the building, he paused to look and listen, then continued to the corner of the fence. He looked right; through the foliage he could just make out Effrem’s shadowed form sitting in the Audi’s driver’s seat.

“I’m at your nine o’clock.”

Effrem’s head turned. In the NVG glow Effrem’s eyes narrowed and darted. “Yeah, I don’t see you. Nothing to report. All quiet. Maybe we’ve got it wrong.”

A small part of Jack hoped Effrem was right. Getting into a firefight on foreign soil was something best avoided. Trading bullets with bad guys in a major city was downright stupid. The cacophony coming from Optimolwerke would obscure the sounds of gunfire but that was little comfort. You never fight the war you want, Jack knew. You fight the war you have.

“We’ll find out soon enough,” Jack replied. “I’m going in.”

He drew his HK, stepped out from under the trees, raised the gun, and stalked forward. He was facing the hollow portion of the structure’s L-shape, most of which was crowded with wheelbarrows, cement mixers, and sawhorse tables. With both his gun and his eyes alternating between the windows above and the ground ahead Jack picked his way through the maze to a broad archway he assumed would eventually be the lobby entrance. He ducked right, pressed himself against the inner wall. The sounds of Optimolwerke’s revelers and pumping music faded slightly. He looked around.

Though the building’s exterior was nearly finished, the interior had a long way to go. The lobby was a slab of rough concrete crisscrossed with power cables and pneumatic hoses. The interior beams were exposed along with the water pipes and electrical conduits. Half-finished ducting snaked above Jack’s head. Directly ahead lay an open elevator shaft and on either side of this a pair of stairwells leading upward.

Effrem radioed, “Jack, I see something.”

Jack cupped his hand around the headset microphone. “What and where?”

“Light, just a flicker. Second floor — no, third floor, my side.”

To my left and above, Jack thought. Instinctively he pointed the NVG that way. He answered Effrem, “Roger. Don’t make me ask next time.”

They’d gone over this: The more radio silence Jack maintained, the better his chances. Effrem’s reports needed to be concise but thorough.

“Yeah, sorry,” he said.

“I’m moving up to the second floor.”

Effrem replied “Roger” with a double click.

Jack headed to the left-hand stairwell and started upward. At the first landing he stopped, leaned forward, peeked up, saw nothing, and kept going until he reached the second floor. Here there was an opening for a door, but no door. Jack stepped forward with his HK at relaxed high-ready, until he could see left through the opening.

Effrem called, “A car just pulled up to the gate. Two men getting out.”

Shit.

“Car’s pulling away… Oh, damn!” Effrem went silent for ten seconds then came back: “It turned onto Grafinger Strasse. I don’t think they saw me.”

“License plate?”

“Missed it, sorry. Okay, the guys are at the gate. It’s not locked, Jack, they’re just pulling the chain.”

That tended to confirm Effrem’s report of seeing light on the third floor. Möller’s men were already here, and now more were arriving. Either that or these newcomers were construction-site security guards and someone had forgotten to padlock the gate.

“I’m looking for weapons,” Effrem whispered. “I can’t tell. Okay, they’re through the gate, heading your way… Lost sight of them.”

Jack double-clicked.

He took another step forward, peeked right, and saw nothing.

From somewhere above came the crackle of a portable radio, then in German: “Ja… dritten Etage.” Yes, third floor.

Jack heard the scuff of shoes on the stairs. He looked over the handrail and saw a pair of men trotting up the stairs. Each was carrying a compact assault weapon — a FAMAS bullpup or one of its variants. These men weren’t security guards. Jack stepped through the door, then sidestepped four paces down the wall and raised the HK to shoulder height. He took a breath, let it out. Slowed his breathing.

Let both of them get through the door first, he told himself.

The footsteps reached the landing, then started up the next flight of stairs.

The party’s on the third floor.

Jack counted to five, then paced forward, peeked around the corner in time to see the men turning onto the next landing. Moving on flat feet, Jack stepped out and followed. He reached the landing and leaned sideways over the railing in time to see the two men disappearing through the doorway. He started up the stairs.

He was two steps from the third-floor landing when Effrem’s voice came over the headset: “Jack, you there?”

Jack froze and gave the radio a double click.

“I miscounted. The light I saw was on the fourth floor. It just started moving again. I’m so sorry—”

Fourth floor. Men above me.

He spun left, brought the HK up. A darkened figure was pacing down the steps. The man saw Jack, muttered, “Scheisse,” and jerked his rifle up. Jack shot him twice in the chest, dropping him. The already limp body slid down the steps and landed in a heap at Jack’s feet. The report of Jack’s HK sounded like a phone book being whacked with a wooden mallet.

“Was ist das?” a voice whispered.

Where? Behind me.

He turned, saw a man stepping through the doorway, a second man on his heels. Jack fired once, stepped forward, fired again, then charged forward and bulldozed the man backward into the second man, who instinctively reached out to grab his collapsing partner. As he did so Jack shot him in the forehead. Tangled together, the two men crumpled. One of their rifles clattered to the concrete floor.

Jack turned again, checked the up and down stairways.

Both were clear.

He stepped through the door, looked right, then left. He checked the faces of the two downed men. Neither was Stephan Möller. He sidestepped the bodies and crouched behind a garbage can. His heart was pounding. He could taste acid in his mouth. He switched the HK to his left hand and wiped his sweaty right palm on his pant leg.

Effrem called, “Jack, what’s going on? I heard—”

Jack double-clicked.

Effrem went silent.

Three men down, Jack thought. Four rounds fired, eight left.

Was there anyone else upstairs? Probably at least one. Möller, maybe? Three men made little sense. Paired teams seemed more likely. If so, Jack had to assume whoever was left upstairs knew something had gone awry. Jack’s HK was quiet, but not that quiet, especially to someone with a trained ear.

Jack put himself in their shoes. What’s the best play?

Stay put, prepare an ambush, and make the attacker come to you. Force him to check every room and doorway on the fourth floor. Let the fear gnaw at him. Call for reinforcements.

Jack crouch-walked to the two fallen men, quickly searched each one and came up with two wallets and two cell phones, all of which he stuffed into his jacket pockets. He picked up the nearest rifle he saw, a FAMAS F1, and slung it over his back. Next he returned to the stairwell and frisked the other man, but found neither a wallet nor a cell phone. He was, however, carrying a pair of car keys.

What’s it going to be, Jack? He’d gotten some intel — how worthwhile, he didn’t yet know — but if there was a chance Möller was upstairs, Jack wasn’t going to let him go.

Jack returned to his hiding spot behind the garbage can and keyed his headset. “Effrem.”

“I’m here. Are you okay?”

“Fine. Anything going on out there?”

“Nothing.”

“I’m moving up to the fourth floor. Keep a sharp eye out. If any more vehicles pull up, give me as much warning as possible.”

“Will do.”

Jack crossed the floor to the opposite stairwell, posted himself beside the doorway, then did his peek-check before starting up the steps. Just below the landing he froze.

Somewhere above, a crackling sound. A snap, a rustle.

The wind had picked up, he realized, shifting the temporary tarpaulin roof.

Jack kept climbing until he reached the fourth floor, where he again paused. Through the doorway he could see a hallway, and beyond this an open space in the midst of being framed into offices, conference rooms, and communal work areas.

Jack scanned from left to right with his NVGs but saw nothing.

Clang!

Jack turned and cocked his head, trying to pinpoint the sound’s location.

Effrem called, “Jack, I’ve got movement again. I can barely make him out through the trees. Hold on, I’m getting out for a better look.”

“Don’t,” Jack rasped. “Stay put.”

“I’m almost there.”

Jack heard another clang and then recognized the sound: scaffolding.

Effrem whispered, “I see him. He’s outside, on the scaffolding stuff. My side, uhm, the north side. What do you want me to do?”

“Get back to the car and leave,” Jack ordered. If Effrem could see the man, it was safe to assume the man could see Effrem. “Circle the block and park farther down Grafinger Strasse. I’ll find you.”

“Okay, okay, I’m going.”

Jack stepped into the hallway and turned right, heading to the building’s north side. Halfway there he heard a faint pop, pop, pop. Gunfire. Jack started running.

Effrem called, “Shit, what was that? Uh, Jack, I’ve got a problem. I need help!”

Jack picked up speed. He heard the clang of feet on the scaffolding but couldn’t tell from what direction. The strap to his night-vision goggles slackened, and his vision began to vibrate, the images a jumbled gray mosaic of empty rooms, hallways, framing studs… He charged into an open space, looked left. A figure crouched in the nearest window, half on the scaffolding, half inside the room.

A muzzle flashed orange and Jack glimpsed Möller’s face; the beard was gone, but it was him.

Jack dropped and slid like a baseball player while curling himself into what he hoped would be a harder target. His momentum carried him halfway across the room, where he crashed into a sawhorse. The plywood tabletop collapsed, the wooden edge dropping toward his face. He threw his hand up, turned his head, then felt something hard slam into the corner of his eye. He rolled onto his belly, looked around, and tried to get his bearings.

To his right was the now empty window from which Möller had been firing.

He crawled out from under the plywood and stumbled that way, gun coming up.

“Effrem, you there?” Jack called.

No response.

Jack reached the window.

From below came a clang, followed by footsteps pounding on aluminum rungs.

Jack poked his head out the window, looked left, and glimpsed a figure scrambling down the scaffolding’s cross-braces. Jack took aim, but the man was gone. Jack ducked back inside, hurried to the opposite window, stuck his head through. Möller was below him on the first-floor scaffolding. He looked up, saw Jack, fired, then dashed away.

Jack sprinted back down the length of the floor to the stairwell, where he took the steps two at a time until he reached the lobby. In seconds he was outside. He looked right. Möller was gone.

He went still and listened.

Faintly he heard the slow ding, ding, ding. Jack recognized it as the chime of an open car door.

He keyed his radio. “Effrem?”

Silence.

“Effrem, answer me.”

No response.

Jack ran to the main gate. It was standing partially open. He ducked through and, gun still raised, trotted down the sidewalk to the corner.

Across the street the door to Effrem’s Audi was open, the interior dome light glowing in the darkness.

Effrem was gone.