Author: James R. Hannibal
Category: Thriller
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/james-r-hannibal/page,13,59578-shadow_maker.html
The microwave camera had last shown the flat’s one occupant on the first floor, in a room on the right side. By now, he could be anywhere. Nick checked the living area first. He saw no one, just some ugly green furniture and a couple of ebony curios full of knickknacks. As he returned to the hallway, Drake appeared at the other end. Nick pointed at his own eyes and shook his head and then pointed at Drake. His teammate shook his head as well. Drake had not seen anyone either. Then Nick heard a bump from the wall to his right.
Drake heard it too. The two operatives converged on a closed door beneath the stairwell. Nick held a finger up for his teammate to wait, raised his Taser, and then nodded.
As soon as Drake turned the knob, the door swung open. A broom handle came crashing down and smacked him in the forehead. Nick would have laughed if the handle hadn’t reared back again for another blow.
Drake grabbed the stick and yanked hard, and a young Indian woman stumbled out into the hall, still maintaining a death grip on the other end of the broom. She struggled hopelessly against Drake for a couple of seconds and then abandoned her weapon and ran, hitting Nick in the ribs with a sharp little shoulder as she shot between them. She disappeared into the kitchen.
“Why didn’t you Tase her?” asked Drake, rubbing the welt on his head.
“Why didn’t you?”
Nick tilted his head toward the kitchen. “She’s going for a knife. We should probably go get her.”
“After you, then.”
The girl took a swipe at Nick with a chopping knife as soon as he passed through the doorway. He lurched back and then maneuvered deeper into the room so that Drake could follow and hem her in. He assessed the subject. Other than the knife, she hardly looked threatening—five foot three in her heels and a buck ten, if that. She wore formfitting gray slacks and a forest green blouse, not the typical attire of a burglar or a terrorist. He kept his Taser pointed at her shins. “We’re Interpol, ma’am. Drop the knife.”
“Please, ma’am,” Drake chimed in, circling right. “Drop it.”
Before Drake finished the command, it was Nick’s turn again. “Drop the knife. We don’t want to Tase you.”
The technique was called barrage. A single, rapidly repeated command issued from multiple angles. Sensory overload blocked a subject’s ability to make complex decisions, leaving them with only three basic options—fight, flight, or compliance. All but the most hardened criminals chose compliance.
After the second round of commands, the woman dropped the knife onto the counter with a heavy clank and raised her hands. Tears formed at the edges of her almond eyes. “Who are you? What have you done with my father?”
Nick held out a badge that declared him to be Nicholas Stafford of American Interpol, the same badge he had used in Istanbul. While the girl’s eyes were focused on the wallet, Drake stepped in and pulled the knife away. “We haven’t done anything with your father,” said Nick. “We just want to ask him a few questions.”
It took several minutes to calm her down, and Nick was forced to produce a British search warrant that Scott had created, signed by a local magistrate who did not exist. When she was finally convinced that the two Americans were not there to kidnap her, the young woman introduced herself as Chaya Maharani, the biologist’s daughter. She led them into the living area and invited them to sit down in a pair of worn mint-green chairs. Chaya remained standing, pacing in front of the matching sofa, her reflection ghosting back and forth across a polished ebony coffee table.
“I have not heard from my father in two days,” she explained. “His company claims that he came to the office yesterday afternoon and took a leave of absence.” Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. “Mother is gone. I am his only family. If he went on a vacation, I would know it.”
“Did you go to the police?” asked Drake.
“They said he hasn’t been missing long enough. Please, if you know something about his disappearance, you must tell me.”
Nick did not have time to play things close to the vest. He put his cards on the table. “Miss Maharani, we believe that your father is involved in an attempt to create a biological weapon.”
“Impossible.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes and then her hands went to her hips. “My father’s viral research is designed to improve life, not take it.”
“What if he’s being coerced?” asked Drake. “Is there anything a terrorist group could use against him? Maybe an affair?”
Nick cast a sharp glance at his teammate.
Chaya scowled at him too. “I just told you that my mother is gone. If my father were seeing anyone—which he is not—it would hardly qualify as an affair.”
Nick was losing her. He softened his tone, switching roles from interrogator to helpful outsider. “What about his finances? Does he have any large debts that might make him vulnerable?”
Chaya collapsed onto the sofa. “Everyone has mountains of debt these days. And what would I know about his finances? In my culture, a child does not question her parents about such things.”
Nick smiled, hiding his frustration behind empathetic words. “My family is from the midwestern U.S.,” he said. “We have the very same tradition.” He stopped asking questions. This whole exercise was pointless. Molly had already delved into the biologist’s past. His known financial dealings were clean, and just as Chaya had said, his work was aimed at attacking disease and genetic disorders, not symbols of democracy.
Nick stood and offered a hand across the black coffee table. “Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Maharani. We need to go.”
The girl walked them to the door and saw them out without any pleasantries. They made it all the way back to the Peugeot before she suddenly called out from the doorway. “Mr. Stafford,” she called, using the name from Nick’s Interpol badge.
He turned to see her standing on her father’s steps, holding his warrant out at arm’s length. Nick patted his coat. Had he really left the bogus legal document in her hands? He put on his best government employee smile and hurried back across the street to keep her from raising her voice and involving the whole neighborhood. “Yes, ma’am?”
Chaya closed the door and walked down the steps. She had donned a tapered blue peacoat, like she was going somewhere. “You can drop the ma’ams, Mr. Stafford. I’m not one of those Brits who equates all Americans with cowboys. I’m also not one who blindly accepts a warrant. When you looked into my father, you must have read something about me. Did you happen to notice what I do for a living?”
Nick winced. Yes, he had. “Chaya Maharani,” he recited, “assistant solicitor for the firm of Taylor and Brown, London office.”
“What does that mean?” whispered Drake, catching up to him.
“It means she’s a lawyer,” Nick whispered back.
“Oh. Not good.”
Chaya offered him a congenial smile. She seemed to have gathered her composure rather quickly since the impromptu interrogation. “Mr. Stafford—may I call you Nicholas?”
“Nick’s fine.”
“Nick it is, then. As you might guess, I’m quite familiar with the magistrates in Central London.” The girl held up the warrant pinched between a thumb and forefinger and jiggled the paper. “I find it odd that I’ve never heard of this one.”
Nick reached up to retrieve the warrant, but Chaya jerked it away.
“What are you implying?”
“I’m not implying anything . . . yet. I would like to propose a partnership. My father is missing, and you are the only ones who seem to know anything about it. Why don’t you let me tag along on your investigation?”
“Out of the question.”
“Then Interpol won’t mind if I give this document to one or two nonfictional magistrates that I know.” She gave her hair a melodramatic toss and batted her eyes. “You’ve no idea how eager to please these judges can be around cute little solici
tors like me.”
“Oh, I think I do.” Nick’s hand went for his Taser of its own accord.
Drake caught his wrist. “She can help. Who knows Maharani better than his own daughter?”
Chaya flashed a sugar-sweet smile, showing perfectly straight white teeth, and then stepped around Nick and hooked Drake’s arm. She tucked the warrant into the pocket of her peacoat. “I guess it’s settled then.”
CHAPTER 29
Frankfurt, Germany
Had Katy known the power of Kurt Baron’s lectures, she would have asked Nick’s dad to move in with them a long time ago. Luke was sound asleep. Katy was on the verge herself.
The dark lecture hall offered a welcome break from racing around Frankfurt. Kurt, aka Clark W. Griswold, had been running them ragged since they arrived. They saw the cathedrals, the botanical gardens, the Frankfurt Zoo. Most of it was a blur, but she did find the enclosure full of guinea pigs at the zoo oddly amusing. Maybe they weren’t considered disposable pets in Germany.
To stay awake, Katy took her eyes off the giant timeline of Jericho artifacts on the screen and let them drift around the room. About half the students were paying attention. The other half were either playing with their phones or passed out like Luke. None of them took any notice of her.
Good.
Throughout their tourist activities, Katy had noticed people watching her—the tall guy at the zoo, the car that followed them all the way to Mainz, the blonde woman who stayed with them from the train to the botanical gardens and then reappeared when they came out. And there were others. Maybe some of it was her imagination. Maybe all of it. Kurt had said as much, but he didn’t know the history. He didn’t understand what Nick did for a living. He didn’t know what Katy had been through already.
She was jet-lagged. She missed her husband. She told herself these things were making her paranoid. She needed to let go and start enjoying herself.
Katy squeezed her sleeping son, took a deep cleansing breath, and focused on her father-in-law’s lecture, but Kurt was droning on about a broken oil lamp preserved in the shelter of the Jericho wall. She sank a little in her seat. Maybe she could start enjoying herself later.
—
When the lights came up, a short, stocky individual stretched in his seat and picked up his pile of books. He started up the stairs with the rest of the students rather than hanging around to wait for Dr. Baron to pack up. That would be far too obvious. Besides, he knew where the professor and his daughter-in-law would exit, from the green room backstage. He could pick them up in the hall.
The woman came down the stairs on the other aisle as he went up. She did not see him this time, but this time he was more cautious. He wore a yarmulke. It was amazing how a little cultural item could become camouflage. He had also shaved, removing the beard of stubble, and he carried a thick pile of books under his arm, naturally raising his shoulder and ruffling his jacket to disrupt his form and cover his face.
He examined the woman with his peripheral vision only. She looked wary, alert. Baron had trained her well.
Out in the upper hall, he found a dark alcove and dialed his phone. The man who answered spoke German—a courtesy to him and a way to minimize the risk of inadvertent exposure.
“How was the lecture?”
“Enthralling.”
“Any further problems?”
The short man glanced over at the lecture-hall doors, watching the last of the students filtering out. In a minute or so he would need to reposition to keep tabs on his quarry. “No, we’ve adjusted.”
“I told you not to underestimate her.”
“Yes. You did. I assume you want me to remain hidden?”
“For now, but be ready to move in if I need you.”
The man reached into his coat and felt the butt of the Glock 42 holstered in his waistband. “Always.”
CHAPTER 30
London, United Kingdom
Although common sense seemed to have taken a backseat, Nick had enough of it left to keep Chaya with him when he and Drake split up. Between his teammate and the girl, it was hard to tell who was the wolf and who was the prey. Either way, Nick knew leaving them alone together was a bad idea. Amanda could thank him later.
To keep Drake out of trouble, Nick sent him up to Cambridge in the Peugeot to chase down a hunch. Meanwhile, he took the unscrupulous lawyer to her father’s office to see what they could dig up. Without a car, that meant twenty-five awkward minutes on the Tube’s Central Line—great place to sit and be a target, in multiple senses of the word.
“I take it you’re single too?” asked Chaya, breaking the silence as they left Kensington Station on their way to Holborn.
“No.”
The monosyllabic answer shut her down, but not for long. Passing through Oxford Circus, she gathered her courage again. “Sooo, you leave the wedding ring at home then?” She glanced pointedly down at his bare hand.
Nick took in a long breath. He didn’t like her tone, and she was way off. He missed his wife and son, and he worried about them—constantly. Katy and Luke made up the part of his life that he could never fully compartmentalize. Everything else—the mortgage, plans for the future, even his other family members—he could pack in mental boxes to save for when he came home. Most of his day-to-day life did not exist when he was out on the mission, but Katy and Luke could not be tucked away so easily. He had learned that the hard way more than a year ago, while hanging by his wrists in a Chinese interrogation room.
Nick put his hand in his coat pocket, out of sight. “It’s not like that. It’s . . . policy. When things get heated in the field, jewelry causes issues. Rings can get hung on clothes or weapons.”
Chaya looked up at him with those big almond eyes. “Do things often get heated in the field?”
“No.”
Like a gift from heaven, the word Holborn emerged from the left side of the car’s LED display and moved to the center. The train slowed to a stop. Nick got up and headed for the doors.
—
The sloped glass facade of International Biological Engineering stood as a modernistic affront to the stark gray Edwardian style of the rest of Kingsway and the Strand. The echoing lobby with its concrete walls and aircraft-aluminum trim continued the theme. Everything screamed high-tech. Nick’s badge got them past the security desk and up the elevator to the third-floor research section. There, a curving hallway walled with faceted aluminum panels led them to a faux redhead, bunkered behind a concrete reception desk.
“How can I help you?” she asked in Estuary English, covering the receiver of her cell phone as Nick and Chaya approached. Then she recognized Chaya and the plastic customer-service smile fell away. “I’ll call you back, love,” she said into the phone. She put it down and folded her hands on the desk, staring Chaya in the eye. “Dr. Maharani is on leave, same as I told you this morning. He lef’ strict instructions tha’ he was not to be disturbed.”
Chaya grabbed the ID wallet from Nick’s hand and thrust it in the receptionist’s face. “And I told you I’d be back. This man is from Interpol. You have to tell him where my father is.”
Nick gently but firmly pulled Chaya’s hand back and reclaimed the badge, using the pressure from his fingertips to tell her, You’re not helping. Confrontation rarely worked with witnesses. As Walker once told him, no matter how loud you shout, you can’t argue a fish into your boat.
Nick quickly shifted the mood, baiting his hook. “What Miss Maharani is trying to say is that her father may have vital information relating to a counterterrorism investigation.”
The receptionist’s eyes widened. “Counterterrorism?”
“Yes, counterterrorism.” Nick slowly turned the reel, bringing the bait to life. “Of course, I must inform you that anything we discuss from this point forward is strictly classified. You cannot share our conversation with anyone.”
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The receptionist glanced down the hallways on either side of her pill box and then leaned forward on her elbows, brushing back the ragged strands of mauve that fell about her face. “You can count on me, love. How can I help you?” This time the question sounded much more sincere. The fish was on the line.
Unfortunately, the fish knew very little. She explained that Maharani’s leave of absence was nothing unusual. Bioengineering was a high-stakes, high-pressure field, and minds like his needed the occasional respite. IBE had a generous leave policy, and all of its researchers took full advantage, Chaya’s father included. The receptionist handed Nick the researcher’s leave request. “He only lef’ me his home address,” she said. “No resort or vacation house.”
“Then shouldn’t you be concerned that he isn’t at his home address?” asked Chaya.
The receptionist pursed her lips. “They all put down their home addresses. I’ve got a department full of regular absentminded professors who can make a rat grow purple hair but can’t remember the name of the resort they’re headed to.”
Nick examined the form. There was a list of equipment at the bottom. It appeared the doctor had signed out assorted beakers and containers, a pair of laptop computers, and some culturing solution. “What’s all this?” he asked, pointing out the list to the redhead. “Did Dr. Maharani indicate that this was a working vacation?”
The girl bobbled her head, making the mop of red flop back and forth inconclusively. “Not really. The professors of’n take a few supplies along, ’case they get ideas halfway through their holiday.” She raised her penciled eyebrows and took on an expression she must have thought looked quite intelligent. “A true genius does not choose his moments of inspiration.”
Nick scanned the list of supplies again. “There’s a lot of glass here. More than an older gentleman like the doctor can carry.”