Dead Wrong Page 19

  This trip she would be traveling light. With the exception of the internationally configured burner cell phone in her jacket pocket, she wouldn’t be taking any electronic devices. And she didn’t plan on switching on the phone unless there was an unforeseen emergency. Grabbing her keys from the wall peg, Bones slid into her winter coat, stepped out of her apartment, and locked the door behind her.

  When the white Ford Fusion departed Columbia, Maryland, and merged onto I-95, headed toward the Baltimore/Washington International Airport, Bones felt her face flush with excitement. Because her breakthrough was about to change the world, it was only right that she be present to watch it happen.

  CHAPTER 71

  Jack stood outside the cabin, looking out toward the mountains that rose into the sky to the west. With the dawn of a brilliant new day, the smell of the mountain air clean and crisp after the recent rain, Jack finally felt like he was beginning to make some sense out of this mess into which he’d stumbled. It was a very good thing that the last two years of his special type of private consulting work had left him with very deep pockets, because so far this job was looking like a losing proposition. And that was assuming he didn’t get himself killed trying to finish it.

  Yesterday’s covert trip to an Internet café in Cochabamba had yielded a plethora of historic information about Pizarro, the Incan Empire, and the Quechua people. In addition, Jack’s special sources had delivered encrypted files concerning Klaus Barbie’s research. What had become very clear was that this whole thing wasn’t about Tupac Inti. It was about the staff shown in the tattoo on his chest. Apparently, the staff was close to being found after all the centuries since Pizarro had held it in his hands. Jack understood why Tupac would want it. It was, after all, a symbol of the Incan emperors, the knowledge of which had been passed down through a long line of lore keepers. The tattoo marked Tupac as a direct descendent and a designated keeper of those traditions, for which his birth had volunteered him, whether he wanted that destiny or not.

  Why Conrad Altmann wanted the staff so badly was a mystery within a mystery, but Jack had enough secondhand information to make a poorly educated guess. Klaus Barbie had been interested in the artifact’s history, and based upon the journal Jack had purloined from the Altmann study, Conrad Altmann had inherited his Nazi father’s interest. But the effort Altmann was putting into his pursuit of the staff indicated that he valued the artifact far beyond what seemed reasonable. Of course, “Nazis” and “reasonable” didn’t really belong in the same context.

  The NSA’s involvement was yet another mystery. For some reason they had made a deal with Tupac Inti that involved him allowing himself to be captured and tortured as the NSA stalled Conrad Altmann. Janet was with the neo-Nazis, which meant that she was deep cover.

  A movement caught Jack’s eye. Circling high above, its distinctive white underside highlighted by black, a king vulture looked down at him as if it was judging his likelihood of becoming dinner. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility; Jack had to give the big fellow that.

  What Jack should have been doing was getting the hell out of Bolivia. Tupac had refused to accompany him on his second rescue attempt. In the meantime, Jack had saved Stefan Rosenstein’s life and rid the world of a few more Nazis. At this point, waving off this mission made total sense.

  But this was no longer only about Tupac Inti. After studying Pizarro’s journal and its relation to his own dream-memories, Jack found himself needing to put his hands on the Incan Sun Staff. It had freed Pizarro. It could do the same thing for him.

  The idea was a foolish hope, one that lacked credible underpinnings. But it was a gut feeling, and Jack had always been a go-with-his-gut kind of guy.

  Shifting his thoughts back to the present, Jack turned and walked back inside the cabin. Stripping off his shirt, he examined himself in the metal camping mirror he had propped on the sink. Having acquired better-quality dyes for skin and hair, it was time to wash off as much of the shoe polish as possible and take his native look to the next level.

  If he was going to find out where the staff was hidden, he had to be watching Altmann’s compound when Tupac finally told the Nazi where to find it. That still left the difficulty of finding out where Altmann’s helicopter would take him after that. But the odds were decent that someone left behind at the compound would know where Altmann had gone, and there were ways to make such people talk. Especially if they thought you were flat-out crazy.

  Applying the brown dye to his face and neck, Jack saw the familiar red reflection fill his pupils. That was okay. He could do crazy.

  CHAPTER 72

  Janet looked over the foreman’s quarters toward the west, her eyes scanning the horizon without seeing what she was searching for. Conrad Altmann’s three-helicopter flight was late arriving at the Cochabamba estate. Despite the sunny morning here in Cochabamba, La Paz sat at twelve thousand feet above sea level, and that extra four thousand feet made a big difference. One of those side effects, especially after a few days of rain, was morning fog. And flying helicopters through the high Andes in the fog wasn’t conducive to living to fly another day.

  The van arrived at the front gate five minutes before the scheduled 9:00 A.M. shift change, the stink of its diesel exhaust fumes scrubbing the fresh morning smells from Janet’s nostrils. Ignoring the leers and loud voices of the six guards that climbed from the van as well as those coming from the men who strode toward the gate from their stations within the compound, Janet turned and walked back through the tall double doors into the tiled foyer.

  She closed the doors behind her, shutting off the smell of diesel and all thought of the neo-Nazi guards. As Janet walked across the tile toward the sliding glass doors on the north wall, the click of her leather heels sounded preternaturally loud, drawing the glances of the two cooks in the open kitchen.

  Feeling an undercurrent of irritation, Janet pushed the sliding door open and stepped out onto the deck, looking out over the infinity pool that was enfolded on three sides by the U formed by the house. Beyond that, the hundred-foot cliff dropped away, the same cliff that Jack had climbed during his assault on this facility. Here, away from the fumes and noise out front, Janet stood still, taking in the beautiful morning view of the valley west of Cochabamba, stretching away to the north and east.

  For some reason, she felt odd this morning, her senses and nerves on edge as if something bad was headed her way. There was no doubt that this was the reason for her irritation. Jack Gregory was the seat-of-the-pants guy, not her. Janet relied on the superiority of her planning, the intricacies of her logic, and aggressive action to defeat her enemies. And when plans went wrong, as they almost always did, the detailed preparation that had gone into the original planning gave her the edge on making rapid adjustments.

  Today was the day when the NSA’s master plan would come into conflict with Conrad Altmann’s, and violence would ensue. Even though Janet had not originally been a part of that plan, she’d been sent in to make sure that the train stayed on its rails. Just as she had done last year in Kazakhstan, she would play her role.

  The sound of helicopters interrupted her thoughts. There they were, coming in low, just visible above the west wing’s red tile roof. Janet turned, walked back through the house and across the driveway toward Conrad Altmann’s helipad. In a virtual replay of the three-chopper arrival on the morning after Jack’s attack, Altmann’s helicopter landed inside the compound as the two larger birds settled to the ground outside the main gate.

  Altmann, Dolf, and a dark-haired woman climbed out of his helicopter as two dozen men exited the helicopters outside the walls, all but Altmann’s party armed with a mix of AK-47 and the more modern but smaller caliber AK-74 assault rifles. Interesting. For previous operations, they’d mostly carried 9mm submachine guns. To Janet, the Kalashnikovs meant that Altmann was anticipating longer-range conflict against opponents with increased firepower. Hardly a favorable development.

  His voice reverberating l
oudly through the compound, Altmann directed his yell at one of the men by the gate. “Get these helicopters refueled. I want to be in the air in thirty minutes.”

  Seeing Janet, Altmann motioned toward the house. “Let’s go get Inti.”

  Coming around the side of the foreman’s house to the west of the helipad, Renaldo and two guards hurried forward, catching up with Altmann as he stepped into the foyer. Renaldo and his two men took the lead, followed by Dolf, Janet, Altmann, and the unknown woman as they made their way down the stairs to the dungeon.

  Fully dressed in his original clothes, Tupac stood inside his cell, waiting for them.

  “Step back from the door,” Renaldo said as the two guards covered Tupac with their AK-74s.

  When Tupac complied, Renaldo fitted the large key into the lock. With a clank and rattle, the door opened, and Renaldo stepped inside, expertly snapping a pair of stainless-steel handcuffs on Tupac’s wrists, binding his hands behind his back, and then shoving him out of the cell. Beside Janet, Altmann nodded at the guards, and their guns suddenly shifted toward her.

  As Janet started to reach for her Glock, Dolf’s voice stopped her.

  “Go ahead. Try it.”

  Janet shifted her head slightly, bringing the big man behind her into view, his Sig P226 pistol aimed directly at her head.

  Conrad Altmann turned to face her, a wide grin on his face. “You won’t be accompanying us. Carefully now, drop your weapon.”

  Feeling ice slide through her veins, Janet met his gaze. Slowly, she drew the Glock from her shoulder holster with two fingers and dropped it at his feet, the clunk of polymer against stone echoing through the chambers.

  Altmann motioned toward the cell Tupac had just exited. “Put your hands on the bars.”

  As Janet did as she was told, Dolf stepped forward, kicking her feet back, more than shoulder width apart, so that if she released her grip on the bars, she would fall. Bending down, Dolf’s huge hands removed her boots one at a time, throwing them and the small knives contained in each across the tunnel. His rough touch progressed up each leg to her crotch where it lingered while he thoroughly explored this region for more hidden weapons.

  Her belt knife joined the pile of other weapons. As he finished groping her torso and breasts, Dolf noticed the six-inch-long, needle-sharp hairpin and removed it. Grabbing a handful of her shoulder-length hair, Dolf pulled her head back until his lips were close to her ear.

  “Whether you admit it or not, this is how you like a real man to treat you.”

  Janet turned her focus inward, intent on allowing no emotion to show on her face.

  “Enough,” Altmann said. “Lock her up.”

  Grabbing Janet by the neck and left arm, Dolf hurled her into the cell. Janet felt the rough stone scrape her left shoulder before she rolled back to her feet, facing out. The door swung closed, the key rattled and clanked in the lock, and Conrad Altmann stepped up close to the bars.

  “I’m disappointed. You Americans are so easily manipulated. Tell me, Fraulein Mueller—or whatever your real name might be—are you familiar with my family history?”

  Stunned by his knowledge that she was an American agent, Janet made no response.

  Altmann continued. “Do you know why the American intelligence organizations protected Klaus Barbie after World War II, why they employed his services for five years, why they helped him escape to Bolivia, and why, in October 1967, they again used his help to capture Che Guevara?”

  Conrad Altmann’s blue eyes gleamed in his shadowed face, his neatly groomed beard and shoulder-length gray-blond hair sparkling where touched by the bare bulb’s harsh light. Janet was very familiar with hate. It had filled a significant part of her childhood. But the raw hatred that blazed in Conrad Altmann’s eyes went beyond even that.

  “Klaus Barbie’s ability to infiltrate intelligence organizations was unmatched, and the Americans were smart enough to recognize it. Through the years, they used him repeatedly to infiltrate the Soviet, French, German, Bolivian, and Cuban intelligence services. What amazes me is how an agency that is smart enough to make such effective use of my father didn’t realize that he would infiltrate their own ranks just as thoroughly.”

  Altmann gripped the bars and pressed his face so tightly against them that Janet almost expected his head to compress and stretch until the whole thing popped through.

  “In the end, it was the Jews, not the Americans, who were my father’s undoing. What they failed to realize was the extent to which he passed his brilliance, knowledge, and skills to his bastard son; how through the years that followed, I not only appropriated but expanded Klaus Barbie’s connections, even compromising America’s newly anointed god, the almighty, all-knowing NSA.”

  Stepping back, Altmann grinned. “All along, this has been about more than the possession of the Sun Staff. It’s all about timing. Nothing could begin until I deciphered the clues that led me to uncover the golden orb. Without that, Tupac’s knowledge of the silver staff’s hiding place and the location of the Altar of the Gods was useless to me. So I left him locked up in Palmasola while I hunted for the orb, a search that took me considerably longer than I had anticipated.

  “Even after finding it, I needed someone to unravel its secrets, something that only an organization like the NSA could accomplish. Of course, I couldn’t just send them the orb and ask for help. But I didn’t need to, did I?

  “Don’t get me wrong. Your cover was very good. I wasn’t even sure you were working for the NSA. But I knew that once I had both the orb and Tupac, the NSA would attempt to gain access to the orb, because Tupac needed the answer just as bad as I did.”

  Turning to look at Tupac Inti, Altmann continued. “Didn’t you, Tupac? After all, how were you going to relink the orb to the staff without those codes? How were you going to mount it to the altar? Wasn’t that the deal you made with Admiral Riles? All because you believe that one of the staff’s functions enabled Manco Capac and later Sapa Incas to unite the native peoples and create the Incan Empire. You wanted to restore what Francisco Pizarro took from your ancestors.”

  Once again Altmann shifted his gaze to Janet. “I know it must seem like I’m gloating, but we all need our little victory party, don’t we? And thanks to the NSA, today I have reason to celebrate.”

  Altmann turned to Renaldo.

  “Make sure nothing happens to our little NSA agent while I’m gone. I have days of questions for her, and upon my return I will pry their answers from those pretty lips.”

  Renaldo inclined his head in assent. “Yes, sir.”

  As Conrad Altmann, turned to go, Janet’s eyes were drawn to the face of the woman who watched him so intently. In that moment, the realization struck Janet with such force that it startled her. This wasn’t someone who just worked for Altmann. This woman worshipped him.

  A moment later, the Altmann party departed, and the iron-bound door banged closed, leaving Janet alone in the black, her only company the occasional drip-plop of ceiling water landing in a shallow puddle on the cold stone floor. The knowledge of her mission’s failure siphoned that chill into her core.

  CHAPTER 73

  At the foyer, Dolf watched as Conrad Altmann headed for the sliding glass doors to the pool deck.

  Altmann motioned toward Renaldo and the two men who grasped Tupac Inti’s arms. “Bring him out back and sit him down in a chair by the pool. We’ll wait out there until the helicopters are all refueled.”

  As the men moved to comply, Dolf spoke up. “I’ll check on things out front.”

  “Fine.”

  Dolf watched as Altmann followed Renaldo out onto the deck, accompanied by the woman they’d met at La Paz’s El Alto International Airport earlier this morning. Dolf had heard rumors of a decades-old love affair that had produced a secret love child with a married woman. But Altmann’s introduction of this woman as his daughter had caught Dolf off guard.

  The resemblance was there, mainly in the intensity of her intelligent gaze.
She was clearly thrilled to finally meet the man whose secret she had nurtured all these years. And Dolf had seen that Conrad Altmann had been excited to see her.

  Bringing his thoughts back to the present, Dolf struggled with his next move. Instead of going out through the front doors as he’d said he was going to do, he turned back toward the stairs to the basement, feeling the thump of his heart against his chest. This was his one opportunity, and he couldn’t let it pass him by.

  It felt so different, descending the stairs to the dungeon alone, with someone other than the big native shaman waiting at the bottom. His thoughts were interrupted as he opened the bottommost door, hearing its squall announce his presence. Dolf reached out, felt along the wall for the light switch and flipped it on, grabbing the key ring from its hook beside the door.

  He didn’t have much time. By now the refueling truck would be close to finishing the second helicopter and shortly would move on to the third. That meant Dolf had ten minutes, max. But that was okay. He had no intention of engaging in foreplay.

  From this angle, he couldn’t yet see into the cell where Janet Mueller waited. That meant she couldn’t see him either. She didn’t call out to ask, “Who’s there?” Instead, she waited silently for her mystery man to reveal himself.

  Don’t worry, baby, I’m coming.

  At the cell door, Dolf put the key in the lock but did not turn it. Inside the cage, Janet stood at its center, her eyes reflecting a cold light. It was a hungry look. That was fine. It was exactly what he wanted. In a couple of minutes there would be a far different look on that face as he rammed his body into hers while he pinned her to the floor.