Free Rise of the Order by Trevor Scott Page B

was no feeling now. Maybe their time had passed. Time had always been on their side, but now. . .he wasn’t sure if there was a now or a future.
    â€œWhy don’t you show me the papers you picked up tonight at Albrecht’s warehouse?” she said, her voice echoing across the room in a droning monotone.
    Jake thought about the papers inside his jacket and realized that between the time Kurt had dropped him off on the street until he got to her apartment, Kurt had called and told her about the warehouse. Now he knew they would be more adversarial than helpful. It had come to this, he thought.
    â€œGo fuck yourself,” Jake said and stormed out of her apartment.
    He stood there outside her door for a moment. Long enough to hear Toni sobbing on the other side. She had done this. Not him. That’s what he told himself as he stepped lightly down to the street.
    Standing on the sidewalk, trying his best to get his bearings, snow fell onto his head and the back of his neck. Raising his face toward the dark sky, the snowflakes tickled as they settled onto his two-day beard. He would have to walk a few blocks and pick up the U-Bahn back to his car in the parking ramp. And then what? He’d have to find a place to stay. He knew of a place a couple blocks from his car. He could stay there and figure out how to proceed in the morning. A good night’s sleep. That’s what he needed.
    In his reverie, Jake didn’t see the car pull up to the curb beside him until it was too late. It was an older Audi A4 Quattro. Black as the night. The passenger window whirled down and Jake reached for his gun, but stopped when he saw the driver.
    â€œGet in,” the driver said in English.
    Jake hesitated and then got in.

8
    The driver was stunning. That’s what Jake thought as the two of them drove slowly through the streets of North Vienna in her Audi. She had short blonde hair that hung straight down from the back of a black beret. Her gray wool coat covered most of her body, with black jeans stretching down to practical hiking shoes that worked the pedals as she shifted through the gears. Her most interesting feature, though, was her face. She was a classic beauty without make-up, her small ski-jump nose overshadowed by bright blue eyes that he could see even in the subdued light.
    She said nothing for a few blocks, and then Jake could see a bulge at her right hip—a place where most law enforcement types kept their guns. Maybe Martini had sent in the babe to get him to talk. Sounds like something Franz would do. Maybe Jake, too.
    â€œMartini sent you,” Jake said in German. It wasn’t a question. An accusation.
    She shook her head, her eyes still on the snowy road.
    â€œI guess we could go on like this for a while,” Jake continued. “Hope you have a lot of gas.”
    The woman turned left onto a road that would take them to Ottaring, a section in Vienna’s west side. The roads seemed even more snow-covered here.
    Finally she said in accented English, “I saw you lecture at a conference in Garmisch a couple of years back.”
    Jake thought back. He had been asked to talk on counter-terrorism to a group of military intelligence and police force personnel from Germany and Austria. Well that narrowed her ethnicity down to those two countries—which he had guessed anyway based on her accent just now.
    â€œThe one on the shift to information-based economies?” Jake asked, a slight smile on his face.
    She didn’t miss a beat. “Your ideas for interdiction of terrorist groups in their infancy was quite impressive.”
    Jake said, “Only a theory.”
    â€œA good one.”
    So he had a fan. “If Martini didn’t send you, then I’d have to guess local staatpolizei.” Austrian State Police had jurisdiction of broader crimes throughout the country. Jake had worked with them in the past.
    â€œYou’re getting much closer, Mr.