Anna seemed to sense where Jake was heading, her strides keeping up with his easily.
The first bullet whizzed by, the sound coming a microsecond later. Jake and Anna came to a road. They didn’t stop, weaving through the traffic, cars honking and skidding to a halt. Ignoring that, they kept on running, the skating rink just ahead over a small rise. They were now running through four inches of crunchy snow.
The second bullet hit a tree. Jake pulled his gun and yanked Anna behind the large oak. Cars honked as the three men made their way across the road. Jake shot once toward the three men. They stopped suddenly and looked for cover, but they were pretty much in the open. They only found a few naked bushes to scoot behind. The man returned fire with two shots. They hit the tree with a thud.
“We can’t stay here,” Anna said. She now had her gun out, had taken two shots, and her eyes searched for a better location. Looking toward the skating rink a hundred meters away, the bright lights were blinding. Turning back, she said, “Damn, Jake. I’m glad you’re on my side. They’re blinded as they look at us, but we’ve got a great view of them in the light.”
“Right. I just hoped it had been cold enough in the past few weeks to freeze the pond. Seeing the people with skates, I knew it had to be open.”
Another bullet smashed into the tree.
Suddenly sirens approached from the south, their wailing getting closer.
“Do you know your Budapest counterparts in Interpol?” Jake asked her.
“Not well,” she said. “And I sure as hell have no reason to be here pulling my weapon.”
Neither did Jake. He couldn’t explain either gun. His permit was for Austria. “Then you better get going. We’ll have to split up.” Sliding around the edge of the tree, Jake shot twice and pulled back behind the tree trunk.
“Where do we meet up?”
“Go around the outside of the ice rink. There’s a path around the castle to the Baths. Wait in the trees for me to show up.”
“And if you don’t?” Her face was filled with incertitude.
“I’ll be there,” he said. “They won’t stay here long with the police coming.” He thought for a moment, hoping his logic would hold. “Go,” he yelled at her.
She ran across an open area toward the ice rink. As she did, Jake shot a few more times slowly, giving her time to run.
Two more shots came his way.
Jake shot again and then tried to remember how many shots he had taken.
As it was, he didn’t have time to think about that. He could see two cop cars wind around the square. Glancing around the tree, he saw the three men take off toward the Metro stop. Jake shoved his gun in his holster and casually walked toward the ice rink.
He never looked back toward the police cars.
Fifteen minutes later, Jake walked cautiously toward the front entrance to the Szechenyi Baths. It was the largest complex of spa baths in Europe, built in the late 1800s in a Neo-Baroque style.
People came and went through the entrance, and Jake lingered there for a moment, his gaze cast across an open area to a group of low trees. Having time to think, he now felt the pain from his knife wound in his left arm. He guessed the bleeding must have stopped, even with his constant movement. That was a good sign. It couldn’t have been as bad as he first thought.
Movement at the trees. Anna walked slowly toward him, her eyes still concerned, shifting from side to side to scan for the shooters. Breathing through her mouth, her frozen breath billowed out to him as she stepped up to him and kissed him on both cheeks.
“You’re shaking,” Jake said, his hands rubbing her arms.
“I’ve never been shot at before.”
He smiled. “You haven’t been hanging around with me very long.”
“Very funny.” She gently touched his left arm. “How’s this? We need to get you to a doctor.”
Jake glanced about the street, thinking of their current situation. Now he was pissed off. Happened every time someone took a shot at him, his adrenalin coursing through his body.
A few cars came and went from the front of the Baths, dropping off people and picking them up.
When a cab came and did the same with two older men, Jake said, “Come on.” He pulled Anna toward the cab. “I have a first aid kit in my car.”
13
It was 284 kilometers from Prague to Vienna. On a good day with light traffic and good weather, the drive would take two and a half hours. Miko had made the drive once a couple of years ago in two hours. But that was crazy driving and Miko had grown to his current age, forty-five, by not taking risks like that anymore. So, the drive with Jiri in the front passenger seat and Grago sleeping in the back had taken three hours.
The dark Skoda cruised now along the Opern Ring in Vienna, the State Opera coming up on the left.
“She never misses the opera,” Miko said. He turned right on the next road. He’d have to drive around the block and set up the car on an avenue facing the front of the opera house. That way they could see the woman’s Audi A8 limo pull up to whisk her away.
“Are you sure the president won’t be with her tonight?” Jiri asked.
Miko turned right again and drove slowly. “Two reasons, my friend. First, he’s attending a performance of the Boys Choir with the president of Argentina, followed by the obligatory viewing of the Lipizzaner horses. And second, the opera tonight is Carmen. The president hates French opera more than the French.”
“Good for him,” Grago said from the back seat.
“Hey, you’re with us back there,” Miko said, viewing him in the rearview mirror, and then turning right again. There just ahead was the State Opera House, the lights from outside shining up on the front of the Baroque façade.
“Should we talk with Conrad before we kidnap the president’s wife?” Jiri asked nervously.
Miko thought about that and pulled over to the curb in a no parking zone. “Did the Teutonic Knights ask the Grand Master for permission before they acted? No.”
Grago rubbed his face and then combed his hair with his fingers. “Jiri has a point, though. This could be a huge problem. We would have every member of the Staatpolizei, the army, and every intelligence organization in Austria looking for us.”
Miko had to admit they had a good point. “What do you suggest, Grago?”
“Simple. We have a friend inside. He can look up Albrecht’s financials. His Visa. His Eurocard. Check his bank accounts and look for activity. We could find him that way.”
Squeezing down on the steering wheel, Miko lowered his head and closed his eyes. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
Grago patted Miko on the shoulder. “That’s why I was the goalie and you were the enforcer.”
Looking over his shoulder, Miko said, “Right. That’s why they call you the Butcher of Prague…and why you just killed an innocent bartender and two of Albrecht’s security guards.”
Grago shrugged. “Different times, my friend.”
Miko pulled out his cell phone and punched in a series of numbers. A local call. Their man would be at home now, but still had access to his computer. Once that was done, and their man agreed to look into it, Miko tried calling Hermann Conrad. No answer. That was strange.
At that same moment in Budapest, Jake Adams sat behind the wheel of his Volkswagen Golf TDI, the engine purring and the heater working to keep them warm, Jake’s eyes concentrating on the apartment a block away. They were a couple of blocks off of Attila Ut, a main street on the west bank of the Danube just below the Castle District. Anna had done an outstanding job patching up his arm with materials from his car first aid kit.