‘You got any idea why they headed over to New Jersey?’ Hannah asked.
‘How long’s a piece of string?’
Hannah felt prickly heat rise up over her head as she shot out of her chair and turned for the office door.
‘Many thanks Miss Warner, you’ve been very helpful indeed.’
‘Always a pleasure.’
Hannah was half way down the hall and storming toward the exit before Vaughn caught up with her.
‘You’ve really got to reign in that attitude of yours, Hannah,’ he said as they walked out into the sunshine.
‘The hell I do,’ Hannah shot back. ‘That cow in there only just fell short of giving me the bird. Why do I think that if we visit Warner’s parents we’re going to get the same treatment?’
Vaughn sighed.
‘Because Warner might actually be a stand up guy,’ he replied. ‘Maybe there’s something more to this than we know about?’
‘Yeah,’ Hannah uttered, ‘maybe. All we’ve got left now is his former commander in the Marine Corps, a Douglas Jarvis. His address is in the district but he’s also DIA so he’s going to be wrapped up tighter than a mosquito’s ass.’
Vaughn shrugged.
‘That doesn’t mean he won’t talk. Let’s stick with it, maybe Jarvis will open up a little and we may even be able to figure out why Warner’s in New Jersey.’
They walked together across the street and got half way to their pool car when two glossy black SUVs pulled into the sidewalk alongside them. Doors opened as armed agents stepped out and surrounded them.
‘What the hell is this?’ Hannah uttered as she reached for her badge.
An agent’s hand shot out and forestalled her as the rest of the agents reached for their concealed weapons. Hannah froze, as did Vaughn.
‘We’re FBI,’ Vaughn warned them.
‘We know who you are. Step inside the vehicle, please,’ said the lead agent, square headed, shaven hair, eyes hidden behind designer wrap around shades.
It wasn’t a request.
XV
The enormous C–17 Globemaster III of the 305th Air Mobility Wing out of McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey, landed at Ramstein with barely a rumble of wheels on asphalt as Ethan watched the base’s massive illuminated control tower pass by to his right. The airbase was consumed by a pre — dawn darkness, bright lights demarking the runway and taxi ways around them.
The Globemaster had lifted off from McGuire and flown non — stop across the Atlantic on a routine supply mission to the USAF Europe headquarters based at Ramstein, allowing Ethan and Lopez to catch a ride on the DIA’s ticket.
‘You think anybody’s tailing us this time?’ Lopez asked as the massive aircraft taxied off the runway toward a service ramp.
Ethan knew what she meant. Since they had taken up again with the DIA they had encountered a new and potentially lethal enemy in the form of a cabal of powerful industrial and military leaders known as Majestic Twelve. Formed during an extraordinary meeting between military leaders and President Harry S. Truman via an Executive Order in 1947, the event had become the stuff of legend but the group had recently revealed themselves as all too real through the work of their chief field operative, a man named Aaron Mitchell.
‘We’ll have to assume so,’ Ethan replied as the aircraft came to a stop and he unbuckled himself from his seat. ‘MJ–12 has taken an interest in everything we’ve been working on since Argentina. They’re always watching.’
Ethan led Lopez out of the huge aircraft as its enormous tail ramp lowered to facilitate the removal of the military vehicles with which he and Lopez had shared the aircraft’s cavernous interior. Groups of USAF loadmasters hurried inside and began unchaining the vehicles as Ethan saw two agents awaiting them beside an unmarked vehicle.
‘Warner, Lopez,’ the taller of the two greeted them. ‘We’re your ride. Anywhere you need to go, just ask.’
No names. No unnecessary information. Just the way the DIA liked it after what had happened a few months before in Abu Dhabi, when an otherwise effective agent had resigned from the agency after witnessing a truly horrific murder. Whatever had to be done would be down to Ethan and Lopez, keeping official agents off the record.
‘Do we have a location for Heinrich Muller?’ Lopez asked, equally aware of the new rules.
‘His residence is to the south,’ came the brisk reply. ‘We can take you there now and obtain him before he travels to his clinic.’
‘Do it,’ Ethan said as he opened the car’s passenger door. ‘I want this guy off the streets.’
Ethan climbed in alongside Lopez and within moments the vehicle pulled away from the aircraft servicing area, its passage smoothed by pre — warned security guards who allowed the vehicle through the various gates without delay.
‘What are we going to do with this guy once we get him?’ Lopez asked.
Ethan took a deep breath as he considered his reply. Nobody who had served in the military could fail to be aware of the issues surrounding information obtained by the measures implemented by the CIA under the Bush administration. Extreme rendition and “enhanced interrogation techniques”, a sanitized name for agency sanctioned torture at prisons like Abu Ghraib, had provided intelligence often proven to be unreliable at best and outright false at worst, prisoners compelled to say anything in order to prevent their further suffering.
Ethan had never been a proponent of such methods, not wanting to cross the line in his mind that he believed separated him from the kind of people he was paid to hunt down. But now time was of the essence, and it was highly probable that Muller was their man and had something to do with the horrific deaths suffered by so many US military personnel.
‘We do what we have to do,’ he said finally, and then leaned forward and tapped one of the agents in the front of the vehicle on the shoulder.
‘Do we have a secure safe house?’
‘Yes sir,’ came the reply. ‘You can operate from there for as long as you require.’
Ethan nodded.
‘Good. We’ll need to pick up some things along the way. I’ll write a list.’
Heinrich Muller awoke as he always did, with the dawn.
It was not as easy to get out of bed as it once had been and he could feel his advancing years aching in his bones. The room seemed colder than it used to despite the heat from the radiators, but he forced himself out from beneath the warm duvets and dressed slowly before making his way out of the bedroom toward the ornate circular staircase that descended through the mansion.
Nestled in the hills south of Kaiserslauten, Muller had lived in the house alone since his wife had passed away and his children moved out into new lives of their own. He had made his fortune both as a much — respected surgeon and for his willingness to offer his services to those who could afford them, whether those services were necessarily legal or not.
Muller reached the bottom of the staircase and rubbed his cold hands together, glancing instinctively at the digital thermostat on the wall and wondering whether there might have been a power outage during the night that had tripped the boiler’s fuse. It was then that he saw the front door to his home, wide open.
Muller froze in mid — stride as he stared at the open door. The mansion was alarmed, and he knew that he had set it before bed the previous night because he was paranoid about such things and he never retired without double — checking the system.