Chapter Thirty-Nine
Valencia, Spain
Thanks to Nicklas Drescher’s fast coordination, a BND operator stationed in Istanbul who had clearly been ready to intervene had reached Liesel within minutes of Caspian alerting Ranger.
The contact had exfiltrated her from the alley and gotten her to a private clinic on the Asian side of the city.
The doctor—who Caspian had no doubt had been well compensated for his effort and discretion—had worked quickly.
While Liesel’s blood loss had been significant, the wounds were noncritical.
She would need rest and probably rehab, again, but she was alive.
And out of the fight, he thought.
Caspian wasn’t sure whether to feel grateful or cursed.
She’d been shot in Bordeaux and stabbed in Istanbul. Two different cities, two different operations.
And both had nearly killed her.
He sighed. Either someone upstairs had their hand on her shoulder . . . or she was running out of time. Now, it was up to him to figure out who had ordered Sofie Bergmann killed, who had taken Paul Hobb, and why.
And step one was right here in Valencia. He would find out who had chartered Veloce and go from there.
Caspian adjusted his shirt as he rounded the rear of the Audi, ensuring it draped cleanly over the concealed Kydex holster at the small of his back where the Wilson Combat SFX9 was secured.
Whoever had staged the Q5 for him had done it right.
Not just with the pistol but with the extra magazines, the suppressor, the industrial zip ties, and a lockpick kit that had been neatly stowed into the low-profile backpack that now hung over his shoulders.
He hadn’t taken a spare magazine with him because he hadn’t liked the printing through his jeans.
The SFX9 held sixteen rounds—fifteen in the magazine and one in the chamber.
If he needed more than that today, then this operation had already gone sideways.
Hopefully, he wouldn’t need any.
Like it had been in Port de Sóller, the streets were alive with the kind of crowd that masked threats well.
There were plenty of families wandering around with strollers, tourists photographing anything and everything, and local cyclists weaving through selfie takers along the boardwalk.
Caspian walked at a casual pace. His eyes, hidden behind a pair of polarized lenses, moved constantly but never paused too long on anything.
Just before he reached the Marina Beach Club Restaurant, his peripheral vision tagged a figure.
A lone man was seated on a bench beneath a palm tree that bordered the public footpath, right in front of a children’s playground.
The man’s sunglasses made it impossible for Caspian to determine if the man was observing him or not.
Caspian looked around, searching for anything else that would trigger his suspicion.
But nothing did. The man had no obvious support, but Caspian had been in the field long enough to know that a good surveillance team was hard to spot.
He filed the man’s face, his clothes, and his posture into his mental Rolodex, and kept walking.
The brokerage office was housed in a modern ground-floor space between a strip of restaurants and the towering concrete elegance of Veles e Vents, the striking architectural landmark that had been inaugurated in 2006 as the centerpiece for the thirty-second America’s Cup.
To Caspian, the twenty-five-meter-high building loomed over the marina like a maritime control tower.
He didn’t walk straight to the brokerage office. Instead, he ducked into a frozen yogurt stand and ordered a small chocolate cup. He paid cash, left a small tip for the teenager behind the counter, then carried the yogurt to a tall metal table near the sidewalk.
He didn’t anticipate a trap, but that didn’t mean he was about to walk blindly into the office of the broker who had chartered out Veloce either. Caspian gave himself five minutes to observe the restaurant terraces, the office’s door, and the decks of nearby yachts.
Satisfied his sixth sense hadn’t been tickled, he spooned the last of the yogurt into his mouth and wiped his hands with a napkin. He threw the empty cup into the bin, adjusted the pack on his shoulder, and headed toward the brokerage office.
As he reached for the door, he paused just long enough to scan his surroundings one more time, and that’s when he noticed someone he hadn’t picked up on earlier.