David Hagberg - End Game

“Shit.”

“Help us find him, and you’ll walk out of here a free man. And even get to keep the money he’s already paid you.”

“I have something to say about that,” Moshonas said.

“No,” McGarvey told him. “Trust me: if we can get to Coffin, you’ll have your murderer.”

“You’re an American?” the substitute asked.

“We’re CIA, and so was the man who hired you,” Pete said. “Help us, and we’ll help you.”

The substitute had no way out, and it was obvious he knew it.

Pete took a notebook and pen out of her purse and laid them on the table. “Dates and places you met. Money he’s already paid you, and the bank and account number it was paid into, unless it was cash.”

“In an account he set up for me.”

“We’re not interested in the money — only the account number. We have someone who can trace it back to him.”

“Christ, he said he’d kill me if something went wrong.”

“We’ll see that it doesn’t,” Pete said. “The bank?”

“Piraeus Bank.”

“Do you live in Piraeus?”

The substitute nodded. “I think it’s why he picked me, because I was so close to the prison.”

“The account number,” Pete said, “and then we’ll see about getting you out of here.”

“It’s electronic,” the substitute said. He told her the bank’s e-mail address, then his online account name and password. “I don’t want to spend another night here,” he said.

“You’re coming with us,” McGarvey said. “But if you’ve lied to us, we’ll turn you over to the Greek cops, and you’ll end up back here” He turned to Moshonas. “Can you get him out of here?”

“Guaranteed.”

Coffin sat in the rooftop garden of the Alkistis Hotel in Athens’s market section, nursing a beer and considering his options, which had narrowed considerably. It was early evening, and this section of the city, bustling during the day, was all but deserted now. The hotel was one of the cheapest in the entire metro and reasonably safe for the moment. It was off-season, and no one else was on the roof with him. Nor had he seen anyone except for the clerk in the lobby when he’d checked in.

It had been Kirk McGarvey at the prison. He’d caught a glimpse of the bastard as the taxi was pulling away, and it was one of the biggest shocks of his life. He’d been with some old guy and a broad, but the point was, he’d been looking at the taxi. The son of a bitch knew where to show up, as impossible as it seemed.

Coffin had actually met the man once, a number of years ago in Afghanistan, when a meeting had been arranged with bin Laden. It was impossible for McGarvey to have remembered him, because he was just one of a group in the middle of a deployment into the Kandahar region, and they didn’t speak.

Yet McGarvey was here.

He’d had the cabby drop him off a few blocks from his house, and went the rest of the way on foot, very careful with his tradecraft. McGarvey knew about the prison; he almost certainly knew about the house.

But no one had been there. No cars, no one lingering at the corner, no one on the roofs across the street or in any of the windows. At least nothing he could see was out of the ordinary. But there could have been a drone circling overhead, quiet and completely out of sight. Or perhaps McGarvey had contacted the NIS and they had set up an electronic surveillance operation.

McGarvey himself wasn’t a threat to his life, but by coming this far, the former DCI could very well have led the only man Coffin feared to him. And the woman with him was a mystery, as was the older man. McGarvey’s rep was as a loner.

Coffin had gone around the back and gotten into his house through a rear door. He wasn’t armed, but that really didn’t matter. If it came to a fight, he could take care of himself with his bare hands. Everyone in Alpha Seven, plus their control man who’d shown up only at the last moment with surprising new orders, had the background and training to do so. It was one of the mission’s requirements.

No one had been there, and he was in and out in less than ten minutes with a small bag, a few items of clothing and toiletries, and a 9-mm SIG, a suppressor, two magazines, and a box of twenty-five bullets he had hung in a satchel on a hook in the basement wine cellar. The cops hadn’t been very thorough in their search. He’d been an art thief not a killer, and they had the evidence he’d led them to. Show them what they wanted to see, and hide everything else right under their noses.

He’d walked a few blocks away before he’d taken a cab out to the airport, and from there, twenty minutes later, a cab into the city, and a third to this hotel.

The question now was what to do with the situation that had landed in his lap. Run, or stay and fight back? He didn’t want to go up against McGarvey, but he had to consider it as one of his options. The other would be going to him for help.

For the first time in his professional life, Coffin didn’t know what to do. He had plenty of money stashed under different names in a half dozen banks around the world, so he could run and live in reasonable comfort just about anywhere. Plastic surgery, new papers. The trouble was, he’d eventually be tracked down. Either by McGarvey or the other one. A man whose real name none of them had ever known.

Assuming Wager and Fabry had been murdered, the others would probably be next, and the only reason he could think why was because one of them had cracked the last puzzle. It was the one thing he’d feared from the beginning. The main reason he had run.

He finished his beer, got his iPad from his room, and walked up toward the Acropolis. The Parthenon, the museum, and all the grounds were closed at this hour, the gates locked, guards and closed-circuit television cameras everywhere. But tourists still flocked to the place, because even from outside the fence, they could get great photographs.

A table at a sidewalk café was open, and he sat down and ordered an espresso. When it came, he powered up his tablet and went online. For just a moment he hesitated, but then went to the Alpha Seven reunion address in the newsletter and logged on with one of his old Internet names: G. Washington.

His only real option, he decided, was finesse.

When the site came up he wrote: When? Where? Why?

It took nearly two minutes for the reply to come. You’re a difficult man to find, Mr. C.

Who wants to find me?

The man getting out of the taxi behind you this afternoon.

I’m a fugitive. Is that why he came?

You were a suspect until this afternoon.

Then what does he want?

Answers.

Coffin looked up as a police car cruised slowly past. The cop behind the wheel glanced over indifferently for just an instant, but he didn’t linger.

What’s the question?

Why the murders? Why the two from Alpha Seven?

This is a hackable connection, Coffin wrote back, and he was about to power down and get away when the reply came.

No, it’s not.

Still Coffin hesitated, his finger on the power off button.

Backscatter encryption in both directions.

Who are you?

Otto Rencke. I’m in my third-floor office at the OHB. You may have heard of me, Mr. Coffin; we’ve heard of you. We know you are probably still in Athens, and we know that for the past five months, you have been in hiding. We would like to know why.

The same police car cruised past, and Coffin was about to get up and find the back door, but the cop never looked over.

Will the police be looking for me?

Do you think the killer will come after you?