That Time in Paris Read online

  They think I’m Canadian.

  The desk clerk handed him the passport, along with the watch and euro notes. “You have twelve hours to leave France, Monsieur Listener.”

  Wolfgang flashed her his standby grin. “No worries. I’ll be home by then.”

  He followed Megan outside and ducked into the waiting Mercedes. It was Kevin’s car from earlier that night, but there was no sign of Kevin or the others. Sunlight streamed over Paris from the east, bathing the car in golden light and reminding Wolfgang how good it was to see another day.

  “They’re waiting on the plane,” Megan said as she slipped into the driver’s seat. “We’ll take off as soon as we arrive.”

  “How did you get me out? I mean, they have to think I was at fault for the bomb.”

  Megan shrugged. “Edric made some calls. SPIRE pulled some strings. I imagine that if we stuck around another few hours, you’d be arrested again, but all we needed was an opening.”

  “Thanks,” Wolfgang said.

  He watched as Megan piloted the car onto the highway. Her hair was held back in a simple ponytail, and she wore a leather jacket and jeans. Somehow, she looked even better than she had in the dress.

  He looked away, his stomach tightening. “How mad is Edric?”

  “Edric is more flexible than he lets on. A lot happened last night. Were it not for you, a lot more would have happened.”

  “What about Spider? I found his body—”

  “In the alley, yes. Edric already spoke to the CIA. Apparently Raven pushed too hard and blew his own cover. Spider wasn’t talking, and Raven eliminated him, rather than letting him go.”

  “Sloppy work. I can’t imagine the CIA is pleased.”

  “They’re not,” Megan said. “I get the feeling Raven will be out of a job pretty soon. How did you figure it out, anyway? Your com went dead.”

  Wolfgang tapped the watch. “The Geiger counter went off in my watch when I searched Spider’s body. It shouldn’t have done that unless he’d been recently exposed to radiation. That’s when I realized there must already be a bomb. A dirty bomb made the most sense. Constructing an actual nuclear device would require resources and know-how that even a nuclear scientist like Spider couldn’t have obtained on his own. But a dirty bomb is just nuclear waste packed around an explosive. I figured Spider could’ve obtained the waste. So, then it was just a matter of where he put it.”

  “How the hell did you guess the Eiffel Tower?”

  “There was paint on his shoes. I’d read that the tower was being painted, and anyway, it made sense. Setting it off that high over the city would dramatically increase its effectiveness.”

  “Damn . . .” Megan shook her head, and Wolfgang thought he saw genuine respect in her eyes. “That was quick thinking,” she said. “And quick driving.”

  Wolfgang laughed. “Yeah, too bad we can’t take the Ferrari home. Hey, what about the Russians?”

  “What about them?”

  “Are they . . . alive?”

  She nodded. “We ended up tasing the one outside. Your guy is gonna have one hell of a concussion, but he’ll survive.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “You’re glad?”

  “He was never the enemy,” Wolfgang said. “He was just doing his job.”

  Megan laughed. “Even so, I’d recommend you avoid dark alleys next time you’re in Moscow.”

  “Hey, if it’s up to me, I’ll never be in Moscow.”

  The car grew quiet as they approached the airport. Megan rubbed her lip with one finger, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. He didn’t say anything, but he knew what she was thinking, and he was dreading the conversation.

  “I know Kevin left his post,” she said.

  Wolfgang nodded. “Yep.”

  Megan put both hands on the wheel and let out a breath. “There’s . . . there’s something you need to know about him. And me.”

  Wolfgang faced the window. “You’re exes. I know.”

  “Exes?” Megan’s voice turned shrill. “Gross! He’s my brother.”

  “Your brother? What do you mean?”

  “How many definitions does brother have?”

  “You have different last names.”

  “Well, okay. Half-brother. We share a mother.”

  “Wait, so . . .”

  Megan held up a hand. “Just listen, okay?”

  Wolfgang sat back and waited for Megan to clear her head. She stroked hair out of her face, and he thought he saw a tear forming in the corner of her eye.

  “Edric told you we lost a man on our last mission.”

  Wolfgang nodded.

  “His name was James. We worked together for a long time.” Her voice wavered a little, but she regained control. “Kevin and James were best friends. They used to hang out a lot outside of work. Hunting trips and football games…James was more like a brother. They were very close.”

  Again, she paused, then swallowed, as if the next thing she had to say was going to be the hardest. “James and I were also . . . a thing. I mean, we were together. Dating, or whatever. Edric didn’t know, or at least he pretended not to know, because of course it was a bad idea. The thing is, we worked so well together, I guess he figured it didn’t matter if we were involved.”

  Wolfgang knew where this was headed, and he felt like a miserable, disgusting jerk.

  “Our last mission was in Damascus. Edric, Kevin, and James were in a two-story building collecting intel from a terrorist organization. Something went wrong. The terrorists found them there, in the building.”

  Megan looked out her window, and for a long moment, she said nothing.

  Wolfgang felt an overwhelming longing to grab her hand—to comfort her and speak to her, and have her stop the car so he could hold her. But he waited.

  Megan wiped her eyes and nodded a couple times. “Kevin blames himself for what happened. He was closest to James and Edric when the gunfire started. A hand grenade went off and blew Edric out of a second-floor window. He broke his shoulder and humerus on impact, but Kevin was able to get to him before the fighters closed in. James never made it out.”

  Megan nodded a couple times, as if she were accepting the reality of what had happened all over again. “It’s my fault. I should have been there. They left me behind because, you know, it’s Damascus. Women can’t just go places without being noticed. But maybe, if I’d been there…” She glanced at Wolfgang from the corner of her eye, as if remembering who she was talking to, then cleared her throat and sat up. “Anyway. I just thought you should know. I guess I was a little cold to you before. And Kevin came across a little ugly, I know. He’s protective of me, and he feels like you’re replacing James. He can’t accept that.”

  Megan turned off the road and into the private airfield where the Gulfstream sat at the end of the runway, ready for takeoff. The others were already inside, and Wolfgang felt a strange comfort thinking about being around Edric and Lyle again. And Kevin.

  “You won’t have to worry about him now, anyway.” Megan put the car in park. “Edric will fire him for leaving his post.”

  Wolfgang reached for the door handle, then felt Megan’s hand on his. He flinched, lightning flooding his body, and when he turned, it surprised him to see her smiling.

  She gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “I like you, Wolfgang. You’re good at your job, and you’re fun to have around. But you should know . . . I’ll never become involved with somebody on my team again.”

  The exhilaration that flooded him only moments before crashed down like a house of cards. A weight descended into his stomach, and he nodded dumbly. Megan ducked out of the car, and he hurried to follow, feeling awkward and foolish as he ascended the steps into the plane.

  The door shut automatically behind him, and he followed Megan into the cabin where Edric and Kevin were. Lyle sat in the back, hidden behind a computer screen.

  Edric jumped up and hurried across the aisle, smacking Wolfgang on the back with his good a
rm. “Wolfgang! Dammit, it’s good to see you. Hell of a job last night. Hell of a job!”

  The warmth in Edric’s tone was more than Wolfgang had ever heard him express. As the captain called for them to fasten their seatbelts, he took a seat across the aisle from Kevin, feeling the bigger man’s eyes on him the entire time. As the seatbelt clicked, he glanced at Kevin and saw him look away.

  There was a shadow in his eyes—a little shame, or a little sadness.

  The plane’s engines whined, then the aircraft shot down the runway, lifting into the air like a bird.

  As soon as the seatbelt light went off, Wolfgang turned to Edric. “Hell of a thing with those Russians.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Wolfgang shrugged. “If Kevin hadn’t seen them walking in and come to warn me, they probably would’ve got the jump on us.”

  Edric’s eyes narrowed, and Kevin sat up. They both stared at Wolfgang. Lyle and Megan were watching him, also.

  “He came to warn you?” Edric asked quietly.

  Wolfgang nodded. “My earpiece was giving me trouble all night. Guess he couldn’t get through. Right, Kev?”

  Kevin’s cheeks flushed, and he looked down. But he nodded. “Yeah . . . that’s right.”

  Wolfgang could tell Edric wasn’t fooled, but he said nothing. He stared at Wolfgang for a long moment, then grunted and slapped Kevin on the shoulder. “Good job, Kevin. Lyle, let’s take a look at those earpieces.”

  Wolfgang walked to the tail of the plane, stopping at the minibar next to Lyle. He poured himself a water and sipped it, shooting Lyle a sideways glance.

  The computer wiz smirked then whispered, “There’s nothing wrong with those earpieces if you charge them.”

  “Roll with me?” Wolfgang said.

  “I guess I owe you one.”

  “Owe me one?”

  Lyle’s cheeks flushed red, and he turned back to the computer.

  “Owe me for what?”

  Lyle sniffed, and a grin tugged at his lips. “Oh, nothing. It’s just that . . . the bomb was disabled after the second wire.”

  “What?”

  Megan turned in her seat, and Wolfgang was suddenly aware that the entire plane was listening again.

  He growled. “The second wire? What about the purple wire? You told me to pull the purple wire!”

  “Sure,” Lyle said. “That just disabled the clock.”

  Wolfgang slammed the glass down. “My god, man. I was about to have a heart attack!”

  A ripple of laugher echoed through the plane, and Lyle broke into a grin. “Welcome to Charlie Team, Wolfgang.”

  Wolfgang Returns in…

  Turn the page to read the first chapter for free.

  That Time in Cairo

  A Wolfgang Pierce Novella

  September, 2011

  Even in late summer, Buffalo was cool. Sharp wind drifted off Lake Erie and tore through the city like the revenging hand of God, searching for anybody who may be guilty of being comfortable. Only weeks from now, the snow would start, and a month after that, it would clog Buffalo, piled high against every building. For now, standing outside was still bearable, but the shortening days and sharpening wind were an omen of what lay ahead.

  Wolfgang stood thirty yards from the building with his hands jammed into the pockets of a light windbreaker. From his vantage point on the sidewalk, he could see through the smeared windows and into the dingy interior of Jordan Fletcher Home for Children. Harried workers ran back and forth, dressed in scrubs featuring safari animals, while children played in any number of small rooms with colorful walls.

  These were the outcasts—the orphans and the lonely—children who were between foster homes or awaiting an impending adoption mired in red tape. Wolfgang knew their stories because he was one of them, and so was Collins.

  Through the third story of the shabby building, Wolfgang could see her room. It was small, with a mechanical bed lifted into a seat. Collins’s room was more akin to a hospital room than a child’s bedroom. Sure, the same bright paints adorned the walls, and the same toys littered the floor, but Collins didn’t run and play like the other children. She didn’t laugh as loud or walk as fast.

  And she never would.

  Wolfgang found a park bench that faced the facility. The wooden slats of the bench creaked under his weight, but it felt good to sit. He watched the little room on the third floor. From this angle, he could just make out the top of the bed and the small, curly-haired head that rested against a pillow. Eyes shut. Cheeks pale.

  Another blast of lake wind tore down the street, crashing around Wolfgang’s windbreaker like water over rock, but he didn’t move. He didn’t even shudder. Wolfgang just watched the room, thinking of Collins, and for the dozenth time that year, he told himself to get up and go inside. Go to her room . . . sweep her up in a hug. Tell his baby sister that he loved her.

  But he couldn’t.

  He closed his eyes and heard the crash of glass against hardwood. He heard the yell of a drunken man out for blood. The scream of a panicked woman shielding her children. The broken sob of a little girl, her breaths ragged and filled with pain.

  “Throw that runt out!” the man had screamed. “No child of mine is defective!”

  More glass shattered. More household items flew like artillery shells, exploding against marred drywall, already battered by a hundred such engagements.

  And so it went, two, sometimes three nights a week—as often as the man found the bottle, and the bottle found the floor, and the little girl cried and sheltered behind her bruised mother while her older brother cowered in the shadows . . . and did nothing.

  Wolfgang opened his eyes. They stung with cold tears as the wind intensified. He couldn’t see Collins’s head now, but he imagined he could. He imagined he could hear her breaths, each one filled with pain as the ravages of her disease clutched her body.

  He stood up, leaning into the wind and hurrying across the street, then stopped in front of the smudged glass entrance and stared at the handle. Wolfgang turned to the right and approached the donation slot next to the door. He dug a thick envelope from beneath the windbreaker, packed with anonymous cash, and crammed it through the slot. Casting another furtive glance at the window, three floors up, he whispered to Collins as he always did. “I love you, and one day, I’ll make it right.”

  Wolfgang’s phone buzzed. He turned from the building and retrieved it, grateful for the distraction. There was a text message from a contact labeled simply as E.

  headquarters. 12 hours.

  A flood of excitement filled him—enough to burn away the cold, but never quite enough to burn away the guilt. He shoved the phone back into his pocket and held out his hand for the nearest taxi.

  Buffalo might’ve been in the throes of premature fall, but in Saint Louis, summer was still alive and well. Wolfgang found Charlie Team waiting for him on the fourteenth floor of the Bank of America Plaza, and he scrubbed his shoes on the mat outside the door before ducking inside.

  “Wolfgang! Better late than never,” Edric called from the far side of the room.

  Wolfgang blushed, glancing around the room to see Lyle sitting behind a computer at the table and Kevin standing next to the minibar, mixing a cocktail. Megan sat by herself next to the window, right where she had the first time he’d met her four months prior. She leaned against the wall with her legs crossed and stared out at the gleaming Gateway Arch only a half mile away. She wore yoga pants and a loose-fitting shirt that fell an inch short of her waistline. She was beautiful in a simple, elegant way. He loved that.

  “Like a drink, Wolf?” Kevin’s commanding voice boomed from the minibar, and the big man offered Wolfgang a reserved nod.

  “A Sprite would be great,” Wolfgang said.

  Kevin reached for the soda as Wolfgang settled into a chair. This was Charlie Team—an elite detachment of SPIRE, a company specializing in professional espionage services. They worked for whoever could pay their hefty fees, co
nducting specialized undercover missions around the globe. Their diverse capabilities were prominently advertised in their name: Sabotage, Procurement, Infiltration, Retaliation, and Entrapment. SPIRE did it all.

  Wolfgang joined Charlie Team earlier that summer after working for SPIRE as an independent operator for three years, conducting corporate espionage and entrapment rackets in mostly American cities. Now his missions would carry him around the globe. In June, the team had barely survived a delicate operation in Paris, which almost cost a great deal more than their own lives. Wolfgang thrived on that mission, winning the respect of the rest of the team, but failing to win everything he really wanted.

  As Megan sat next to the window, he heard her words play back from moments before they left Paris. “I like you, Wolfgang. But you should know . . . I’ll never become involved with somebody on my team again.”

  Wolfgang looked away, shoving his feelings deep inside a mental box and locking them there. Megan was right, after all. They were a team. They had a job to do. Getting involved with each other didn’t play a part in that.

  “Here you go.” Kevin offered Wolfgang the Sprite with another reserved nod.

  Kevin was Megan’s half-brother, and prior to the Paris mission, he was about as friendly with Wolfgang as a dog with a burglar. Wolfgang could still feel the awkward tension between them, fueled predominantly by Kevin’s suspicions that Wolfgang was making a play for his sister, but at least Kevin was handing him drinks now instead of throwing punches. Wolfgang could appreciate the progress.

  “Thanks, Kev.”

  Wolfgang sipped the soda as Edric approached his favored whiteboard and produced a red marker. Edric’s right arm rode in a sling, almost recovered from his two-point break in Damascus a few months prior, but still limited in mobility. The injury had hamstrung Edric in Paris, and Wolfgang wondered how much it would limit them on whatever mission lay ahead.

  “I hope guys had a nice break. We’re back at it, and we’re going someplace warm.”