“Why would he kidnap me?”
“He asked your father to support his neo-warfare plan and your father turned him down, as did many others. Rostock reasoned that getting a Marshal of France on his side would be the first domino.”
“That’s delusional,” René said. “He’s delusional.”
He’s made the leap, Jack thought. He said with a smile, “Takes one to know one.”
René smiled back. “Are you still going to call the police?”
“Are you going to stop acting like a dickhead?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’re good.”
Jack helped René to a sitting position. René sighed. He gave himself a slap on the head. “God, what have I done? Idiot! Is Bossard hurt badly?”
“I’ll look him over, but I don’t think so. Did you ask him anything?”
“No, not yet. After I started beating him, I froze. I realized that beyond getting my hands on him, I didn’t have a plan.”
“Did you speak to either of them?” René nodded. “In French or German?”
“German. Why?”
“We might be able to turn this to our advantage,” Jack replied, then spent the next few minutes explaining what he had in mind. “Is your German good enough to pull it off?”
“Ja, sicher! Much better than yours.”
“Good. Follow my lead.”
René got to his feet. Jack grabbed him by the collar and marched him down the hall into the bedroom. Jack positioned him between Bossard and his wife, then cuffed him in the head. “Los!”
In German and with some decent acting skills, Jack saw, René apologized to the Bossards. He’d overstepped his authority, had misunderstood his instructions. The people for whom they work want Jürgen Rostock, not Bossard. Millions have been spent and promises have been broken. They were supposed to get a Mumbai or an Ontario. We know you’ve been helping him. If you choose to help us instead, you’ll come to no harm. If you call the police or Rostock we will know. We will come back.
When René finished speaking, Jack jerked him by the collar and shoved him out of the room. Then Jack squared off before Bossard. The man’s one undamaged eye was wide open and he was sitting erect, alert. Their piece of theater had had its desired effect. Bossard would play along, but how thoroughly, only time would tell. At the very least they had stuck a wedge between Bossard and Rostock. Now Jack wanted to drive it home.
He walked behind Bossard’s chair and cut his hands free of the duct tape.
Jack said, “Do you speak English?”
Bossard rubbed his wrists and stared up warily. “Yes, I do.”
“Five years ago your daughter Suzette was kidnapped in Brazil, correct?”
“Yes, what—”
“And Rostock rescued her. Shortly after that you took RSG on as a client. That was no coincidence. He’s done it since. It’s a recruiting technique. Verstehst du?”
“Ich verstehe,” replied Bossard. “I understand, but I have trouble believing Jürgen would do such a thing.”
“Then you haven’t looked hard enough. You can believe me or not believe me. It changes nothing. You’re either with us or against us. Someone will be in touch. Have your answer ready.”
WINDHOEK, NAMIBIA
Effrem hadn’t answered his phone since René and Jack arrived at the Zurich airport for their return flight. Almost eighteen hours and no contact. Jack had a sinking feeling what that meant, and he hoped he was wrong. According to Jack’s phone, the GPS tracker on the Pilatus hadn’t moved an inch from its spot at Midgard Airstrip. If Effrem had disobeyed Jack’s orders and gone to Khorusepa Lodge to keep an eye on Möller, his silence might mean nothing. That far outside the city, cell coverage was spotty at best. Or it could mean he’d been caught and Möller was getting another chance at interrogating Effrem.
As he and René stepped onto the tarmac and headed toward the terminal, Jack dialed Effrem’s phone one more time and again got his voice mail.
“You try,” Jack told René, who dialed and then disconnected. “No joy.”
Jack’s phone beeped. It was a text from Mitch. The time stamp was from eight hours earlier. Call me.
Jack did. Mitch said immediately, “Klugmann moved. He left the Hilton.”
“How long ago?”
“I texted you as soon as it happened. When I didn’t hear back I called Effrem.”
“Where’s Klugmann now?”
“I have no idea.”
Jack had a fair idea where, which meant Effrem did as well. “Mitch, I’m going to text you an e-mail address. If you don’t hear from one of us in five days, send all the Bossard docs to that address. Can you do that?”
“Five days, no problem. Should I include an explanation or a—”
“No, they’ll figure it out. Thanks. See you.”
Jack disconnected. He recounted his conversation with Mitch to René. “Let’s get back to the hotel.”
—
The suite was unoccupied, but some of Effrem’s clothes were missing, as were some items from Jack’s go-bag he’d left behind: binoculars, digital camera, multi-tool, duct tape, and first-aid kit.
“Idiot,” Jack said.
“At least I’ve got company,” René replied. “What do we do?”
“We go after him. Do you have any idea where we can get some weapons?”
—
René had no specific ideas, but, he said, having lived and worked in Africa for years, he knew generally where and for whom to look. “Weapons dealers here use a lot of the same survival strategies,” he said. “They’re often not so frightened by the police but by rival dealers.”
“To cull competition?” Jack asked.
“And to increase their own inventory. Plus, it’s a matter of pride. If you’re going to be a merchant of death in Africa, you can’t be shy about using violence. You must walk the walk.”
—
At least Effrem hadn’t taken the Land Cruiser, Jack thought.
With Jack behind the wheel, they toured the city. Though he occasionally glanced at the foldout map in his lap, René spent most of the time gazing out his window, telling Jack to turn in here, circle back there, pull to this curb or under this tree, where they would watch the people for a while before moving on. At open-air markets and cafés René would leave Jack behind in the Toyota, then walk around and chat with locals. Though Jack didn’t understand what exactly René was seeing or asking, it was clear the soldier was getting a feel for Windhoek’s pulse and rhythm.
“Do you think he’ll be there?” René asked after a while.
“Who, Rostock?”
“Yes.”
“I doubt it. Rostock’s a general. As much as they may want to, generals know better than to go into the field. Möller is his captain. We’ll be dealing with him and however many RSG operatives he brings along. At least eight that we can count on.”
“So be it,” René murmured, staring out the window.
—
After another hour of scouting, René declared that Katutura Township Central, the heart of Windhoek’s worst slum, was their best chance for finding what they needed.
Jack took the Western Bypass highway north to the edge of the city, where he turned west onto the perhaps sadistically named Independence Avenue, which took them into the slum proper. Everywhere Jack looked there was nothing but dirt and rolling, rock-strewn hills, all packed tightly with sheds and huts made from a mishmash of materials, from cardboard to aluminum to massive highway signs that had been bent into open lean-to or A-frame shelters. Everywhere smiling black children ran and played while women waited in quarter-mile lines at a water pump.
“Seventy percent of Windhoek lives right here, Jack,” said René. “About a hundred and forty thousand people.”
Jack had the urge to stop the Land Cruis
er, get out, and empty his pockets, but he knew it would likely cause more harm than good. A problem like Katutura wouldn’t be changed by simply throwing money at it. Jack didn’t know what the larger solution was, but looking at the faces of the kids waving as they passed made his heart ache.
After a few brief stops to ask for directions they found the neighborhood they were looking for, the aptly named Soweto. Given the conditions here, Jack imagined most of its occupants would prefer living in its South African namesake.
The road took them over a hill and down into a shallow valley whose slopes had been tiered into lots for huts. Soweto’s business district was a hundred-yard-long stretch of mom-and-pop businesses that offered food, repairs, and medicines. At René’s direction Jack pulled the Toyota to a stop beside a brick building painted bright red. The sign over an open garage bay said SMARTY’S REPAIRS.
They got out and went into the cool of the garage. In German, René asked one of the mechanics something. The man pointed to an open door to their right. Inside, they found a potbellied middle-aged man sitting at a desk. His head was shaved. He was rubbing lotion into his scalp. He raised a hand in greeting, then wiped his hands on his pants and walked up to the counter.
“English?” René asked.
“Some good, some not.”
“Tell him what you want, Jack.”
“Just like that? Can we trust him?”
René chuckled. “You think he’s an undercover cop, so dedicated he chooses to live here year round and run a business? No, this is Smarty, the owner, and the most honest arms dealer in Windhoek.”
“Who told you that?”
“Everyone . . . no one,” replied René. “Go ahead, tell him what you want. If he has it, he’ll give you a price. There’s no haggling. His prices are fair.”
Jack had been assembling an equipment list in his mind. He shrugged. When in Rome . . . As Jack spoke each item, Smarty would say either “yes” or “no.” He had eighty percent of what Jack requested, including a trio of AK-47s and a thousand rounds of ammunition.
Smarty wrote a price on a strip of paper and slid it over to Jack, who said, “That’s fair. You take dollars.”
“Everything but Discover card,” Smarty replied.
—
It was late afternoon by the time they put Windhoek in the Land Cruiser’s rearview mirror and began the two-hour journey up the Western Bypass. Assuming that at some point he would be returning to Khorusepa Lodge, Jack spent some extra time studying the area’s topology and road systems, if they could be called that. As he’d learned during his first reconnoiter, once off the Western Bypass the roads were all dirt and often little wider than a vehicle. Still, looking at the Google Earth screenshots he’d stored on his phone, he counted at least four ways in and out of the Khorusepa Lodge area.
They were twenty miles south of Osona Airstrip when the sun began dipping behind the mountains to the west. René, whose window had borne the brunt of the afternoon sun, said, “Thank God,” and returned the visor to its overhead position.
Jack’s phone chirped. “What’s the screen say, René?”
“It says ‘tracking.’”
“That’s the GPS I planted on the Pilatus. The app icon is on the home screen, lower-left corner. Call up the map. The tracker will show up as a pulsing blue dot.”
“Yes, I have it.”
“Tell me where it’s going.”
“South.”
South. That was wrong. Midgard’s runway ran east to west. “Let me see. Take the wheel.”
René grabbed the wheel and Jack studied the phone’s screen. The tracker was indeed moving south, away from the runway and onto the same road he’d taken into Khorusepa Lodge. When the dot reached the fork in the road, it turned left toward the lodge itself.
Clearly it wasn’t the Pilatus taxiing down that narrow ravine road. Someone found the tracker and planted it on a vehicle. Who? It had to have been either Effrem or Möller—Effrem in an attempt to aid Jack’s pursuit of Möller; Möller hoping to make it look that way and lure Jack into an ambush. Here was another classic “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario. Either Effrem was aboard this vehicle or he was still at the lodge.
Jack watched the dot until it came to a stop in what he estimated was the lodge’s lobby turnaround.
Jack retook the Toyota’s wheel and handed the phone back to René, who asked, “Well? What do we do?”
“Nothing’s changed. We keep going.”
They drove in silence for five minutes before René said, “It’s moving again, back the way it came . . . Now turning north toward Swakoppoort Dam Reservoir.”
“It’s heading for the Western Bypass.”
“Can we intercept them?”
Jack checked his watch and did a quick calculation. “Maybe. It’s going to be tight.”
Jack pressed harder on the accelerator.
—
The miles and minutes ticked by as Jack and René kept heading north and the blue dot west toward the Western Bypass. The sun’s upper rim finally slipped behind the hills and Jack turned on the Land Cruiser’s headlights. Bugs began to strike the windshield with rapid, overlapping clicks.
The sign for Osona flashed past the windshield, followed soon after by the sign for Okahandja. Ten miles to the turnoff. Jack asked René, “Where is it?”
René turned the phone so Jack could see the screen. “Still heading west, closing toward the Western Bypass. He’s got maybe four miles to go.”
“Too close . . . too close,” Jack murmured.
René said, “We don’t even know if he’s in that vehicle, Jack.”
“I know that. If he isn’t and we lose it, that tracker won’t last forever. Beyond fifty miles the signal will be too weak. If he’s still at the lodge . . .”
René finished his thought. “There’s only one reason Möller would leave Effrem behind.”
Because Möller was finished with him.
And if Effrem was aboard that vehicle it was as a captive, in which case he was still alive, but on borrowed time.
Lose-lose.
Jack stomped on the accelerator. The Toyota’s speedometer swept past 146 kph. The headlights picked out a sign ahead: OKAHANDJA 3 KM.
“The turnoff to the lodge is well before that,” René said. “It’ll come up fast. You might want to start slowing.”
Jack kept his foot on the accelerator. “Get the AKs from the backseat and prep them.” Their best opportunity to ambush the vehicle was before it traded the narrow dirt road for the broad blacktop.
Another sign: D2102 500 M.
Jack let his foot off the accelerator.
René had his face pressed to his window, hand cupped around his eyes. “I see them! Headlights. They’re very close, Jack.”
Jack doused the Land Cruiser’s headlights. “I’m going to have to turn hard right, so hang on. As soon as I come to a stop, open fire on the vehicle’s engine block. Get it stopped, but keep your shots low. I’ll go for the occupants.”
“Jack, hit the brakes!”
“What? Why?”
“I count three pairs of headlights—no, four! It’s a convoy. We can’t handle four at the same time, Jack, you know that! Get us out of sight!”
“Damn it!”
Jack stepped on the brakes. The Land Cruiser started fishtailing. Jack eased right and the tires bumped onto the shoulder.
Ahead, the lead vehicle was coming to a stop, its right blinker flashing in the darkness. It was a Toyota Hilux, Jack saw.
He braked again, jerked the wheel harder right, and pointed the hood toward the drainage ditch. The front tires thumped over a berm, and the nose vaulted upward, then dropped again. Jack braked and the Land Cruiser ground to a halt beside a boulder.
Jack climbed out and, using the boulder as cover, maneuvered
until he could see the turnoff. The fourth and final vehicle in the convoy turned onto the highway and sped north into the night.
WESTERN BYPASS, NAMIBIA
You have to decide, Jack,” René called from the Land Cruiser. “What’s it going to be?”
Jack turned and sprinted back to the Land Cruiser. “The lodge.”
He backed out of the ditch onto the road, then pulled ahead and turned onto the dirt road. Jack covered the ten miles to the airstrip-lodge fork in twenty minutes. Headlights off again, he turned left until he saw the edge of the runway. The Pilatus was still there, wheels chocked and windows dark.
Wherever that convoy was headed, it was either too close to justify the flight or located too far from a landing site.
Jack turned around, made his way back to the fork, and turned toward the lodge. When he reached the cobblestone entrance, Jack said, “Rostock rented out the entire lodge; there’s no staff. Anyone with a gun is fair game.”
“I understand,” said René.
“We’ll check the bungalows first.”
“I’ll follow your lead.”
Jack braked to a stop ten feet before the arch and shut off the engine. René handed him one of the AKs and a pair of magazines. Jack inserted one of them into the AK, cycled the bolt, then made sure the safety was on. They climbed out of the SUV.
With Jack in the lead, they headed through the arch. He pointed right, toward the lobby doors. René nodded and checked the doors. He shook his head. They continued on. When they reached the lawn, Jack pointed across to the line of eight bungalows, then gestured to René and mouthed, Spread right. Twenty feet apart and walking abreast, they crossed the lawn. No lights were visible in the bungalows.
Jack angled toward the one on the far left. René adjusted course to match him, his AK raised and tracking back and forth. When Jack reached the first bungalow’s walkway, René stacked up behind him and gave him an “I’m here” pat on the shoulder, and together they approached the door, then split, one on either side of the door.