Blood Relics (A James Acton Thriller, #12) (29 page)

Renner
Security was good at its job.

Including
its paperwork.

And it
had given him a false sense of security. It had never occurred to him they
would actually try and hack their system, and even if they had, their data
retention protocols weren’t supposed to reveal anything worth stealing.

But it
had been confirmed that one of those on assignment had used their Swiss bank
account for their regular paychecks. And Renner had no doubt that any payment
for this job had been made to the same account, which meant the payment might
be traced back to its source.

And that
same source had paid
him
.

He looked
at Kessler, still waiting in the doorway. “I’m screwed.”

Kessler
stepped inside, closing the door behind him. “How so?”

“They’re
going to be able to follow the money all the way back to me.”

“Perhaps
we need to clean up the mess?”

Renner’s
eyes narrowed. “How?”

“Eliminate
our former employees and their new employer.”

Renner
had always known Kessler was cold; it was what made him so good at his job. But
to actually hear him talk about killing their own in such a calm fashion sent a
chill down his spine.

He shook
his head. “No. The problem is electronic, not soft. You could kill them all,
the banking records would still lead back to me.”

Kessler
nodded. “Then what will you do?”

Renner
frowned. “I’m not sure.” He waved Kessler away. “I need to think.”

“Of course,
sir.”

Kessler
left the room and Renner turned toward the wall adorned with the memories of
better times.

It’s
over.

Hotel Astor Saint Honore, Paris, France

Reading massaged the bridge of his nose, squeezing between his tired
eyes, his phone on the hotel room table, the speaker doing a disservice to the
man he was talking to. “A wound like that, how long could she last without
treatment?” he asked.

“That
depends, do you mean how long until she would die if not treated at all, or how
long she would have before treatment would need to be started in order to save
her?”

“The
latter.”

“Well,
that depends.”

“You’re
not being much help, Arthur.”

Dr. Arthur
Goodman laughed. “No, but I’m trying to be precise.” Goodman was an old friend
of Reading’s from his Scotland Yard days, a coroner from London he had dealt
with on far too many occasions.

“I’m not
the Crown Prosecutor preparing the case, I’m a copper trying to narrow down a
search radius.”

“Okay,
okay. From what you’ve told me of the wound, I’d say she’d have as little as
fifteen minutes and as much as an hour, perhaps even more if your
characterization of it is completely wrong.”

“There
was a fair amount of blood.”

Goodman
grunted. “To your untrained eye, perhaps, but looks can be deceiving.”

“I’ve seen
my fair share. It looked bad.”

“Too bad
Chaney wasn’t with you, he’d have been able to tell.”

Reading
felt a dark cloud settle over him at the mention of his former partner,
Detective Inspector Martin Chaney. He had disappeared after the events in Venice,
never to be seen again, at least by him. He was still officially on medical
leave, but no one knew where he had disappeared to. Reading was certain it had
everything to do with the Triarii, an ancient cult Chaney was part of that had
caused Reading and his friends a lot of grief over the years, and with the
number of bodies that had piled up due to their beliefs, he feared the worst
for his friend.

But he
had another friend that needed him right now, and thinking of Chaney would just
be a distraction.

“Well,
he’s not here, so you’re going to have to deal with my amateur assessment.”

Goodman
chuckled. “Glad to see you’re as pleasant as ever.” He became serious. “From
what you’ve told me, I’d cap your radius at no more than one hour from the
moment of the shooting. If it was really bad, she never would have survived
that helicopter ride. How long was it again?”

“Fifteen
minutes.”

“Right.
If she were bleeding out, she’d have been too far gone to be saved. But the
fact she was means she was bleeding slowly, so an hour is reasonable.”

“But it
could be more.”

Reading
could almost hear him shrug. “Could be, but from what you described, I doubt
it.” There was a pause. “You’re sure they didn’t just transfer to another
helicopter?”

Reading’s
head dropped. “I hadn’t even thought of that.” He rapped his knuckles on the
table top. “No, that’s right, there were two sets of tire tracks, four-by-fours,
and no evidence of any other vehicles. Another helicopter would have left
evidence behind.”

“You
sound tired, my friend.”

Reading
sighed. “You have no idea. I’m getting too old for this shit.”

“You and
me both!” laughed Goodman. “Now I’m going to let you go, my wife tells me I
can’t afford to lose any beauty sleep. You call if you need me for anything.”

“I will.
Thanks, Arthur.”

He ended
the call and looked at the map laid out before him showing concentric circles
radiating out from the helicopter landing site. He looked at the circle for the
45 minutes of driving time they would have had.

It’s
hopelessly huge.

About
the only good thing was it was mostly countryside and small villages.

But it
was still huge.

There
was a knock at the door.

He
looked at his watch and frowned.
Who the hell would be calling at this hour?
He checked the peephole and smiled, opening the door. “Gentlemen.”

“I’m
guessing you don’t associate with a very good crowd if you’re calling us that,”
said Niner as he and Dawson entered the room.

“Success?”
he asked as Dawson closed the door behind them.

Dawson
nodded. “We planted the transmitter and got the data, but they’re onto us.”

Reading
dropped into a large, plush chair, his sore buttocks and back thanking him.
“How so?”

“They
objected quite strenuously to us leaving,” replied Niner, pointing at the
fridge. Reading nodded and Niner grabbed several bottles of water, firing one
at Dawson who caught it handily, the other bouncing off Reading’s chest and
onto the floor, his arms not having moved an inch. “Sorry.”

Reading
shook his head slightly. “I’m dead.”

“You
catch like it,” said Niner, picking up the bottle and placing it on the table
in front of Reading. “Good thing I wasn’t throwing beer bottles.”

Reading
grunted, his head lolling over to the side in Dawson’s direction. “So what do
they know?”

“Only
that someone is looking into things. They probably also know what data we stole
by now.”

“Which
means if they’re involved they’re going to be disappearing into the woodwork.”

Dawson
took a long swig of his water. “I would. But if someone’s actually dying from
some incurable disease as we’ve surmised, then it might not be that easy for
them to just up and leave.”

Reading
frowned. “But not impossible.”

Niner
flipped his already empty water bottle in the air. “Which means we don’t have a
lot of time.”

Reading’s
eyes drooped as he began to fade fast.

He heard
the two much younger men rise and his eyes opened, Dawson waving off his
attempt to get out of his chair. “We’ll leave you to get some rest. We’re going
to do a quick debrief then get some rack time. Hopefully Langley will come up
with something by the morning.”

Reading
gave a tired wave of the hand without removing it from the arm of his chair,
his eyes already closed as he drifted off to sleep.

Kruger Residence, Outside Paris, France

Dietrich’s phone vibrated in his pocket as he paced in front of his
father’s bed. He fished it out and frowned, looking at his mother, his father
having passed out from medicine administered earlier by Dr. Heinrich.

“I have
to take this.”

She
nodded, her slumped shoulders and the dark circles under her eyes indicating
just how exhausted she was. He had urged her to get some sleep while his father
was resting but she refused to leave his side.

She
knows he’s going to die soon.

A lump
formed in his throat and tears welled in his eyes as he looked at his father,
his breathing labored, his fluid filled lungs causing a heavy rasp with each
intake of breath.

He
swiped his thumb and held the phone to his ear as he stepped out into the
hallway.

“How did
you get this number?”

“I have
my connections.”

Dietrich
scowled at himself in a large gold framed mirror. “You were never supposed to
call me.”

“It’s
become necessary.”

He had
never spoken to Karl Renner, all contact done through an intermediary, but
obviously someone had spoken.

Probably
one of his men told him how to reach me.

His
blood began to boil at the thought of the breach in protocol.

“You
have sixty seconds.”

“The CIA
was here asking questions.”

This
piqued Dietrich’s interest, his chest tightening slightly. He looked around.
“What do they know?”

“It’s
hard to say, but it’s clear they’ve tied my firm to your actions.”

‘Your’
actions?

“So?
You’ve been compensated very well for just that possibility.”

“It’s
not enough.”

“It was
before.”

“Well,
not now. Not after you started killing people. Before my firm was simply
involved in providing
former
personnel who would have been accused in
involvement with several robberies. Now there are multiple murders. That means
a very powerful microscope is going to be focused on me and my firm. I have to
disappear.”

“Then
disappear. I paid you millions. I’m hanging up now.”

“Wait! I
need another ten million euros.”

“That’s
ridiculous. Good bye.”

“I’ll
have to go to the authorities and tell them everything I know, otherwise I’m
going to go to prison.”

Dietrich’s
free hand curled into a ball, his nails digging painfully into his palm. “I’ll
call you tomorrow. Be at your house at nine a.m.”

He ended
the call, pacing in front of the mirror several times as he tried to control
his rage. He had never been extorted before.

And he
didn’t like it.

But
there was another takeaway from the phone call.

The CIA
was getting close.

If
Renner was panicking—and his background research into the man suggested he
never
panicked—there was more going on than he was letting on. The CIA paying Renner
Security a visit shouldn’t have been unexpected to the man, after all it was
his men being used and there always was the possibility they’d be caught on
camera. That was why their paydays were so huge—they would need to disappear
for a long time.

Which
meant the CIA must have said something that panicked Renner. And if Renner was
panicked, it must be significant, and the only thing he could think of was that
they had somehow tracked him down.

But that
didn’t make sense. If they knew who he was, then why weren’t they here, now,
breaking down his door? No, they didn’t know who he was.

But
maybe they’re on the right track.

His face
on camera hadn’t been ID’d yet, which wasn’t a surprise. His family was very
reclusive. They never entertained, and when they went anywhere it was under
assumed names. His father’s name would appear in the business section of the
newspaper from time to time, but photos were never made available.

The only
way the CIA could trace him would be some sort of paper trail, which meant a
money trail. Everything had been done through wire transfers from secret bank
accounts to what were supposed to be equally secret accounts. Nothing would
lead back to him.