Ryker drove the whole way back to Frankfurt. Darkness had fallen before they’d even left Switzerland, and Lange spent a good deal of the drive on her phone, either in hushed, and very one-sided conversations or tapping away emails and messages to whomever. She’d not told him anything in Elliott’s cabin other than that Weller was dead, though Ryker truly believed her lack of information at that point was because the sketchy details were still so new, and she really didn’t know anything else.
Still, Ryker became more and more irked as they moved north, well aware that Lange, through all her conversations, was finding out more and more, but being ever so careful not to let anything slip that she didn’t want Ryker knowing.
She finally put her phone down and then tutted and shook her head as she looked out of her window.
‘What?’ Ryker said.
‘I can’t believe this. We were there, in Frankfurt. Only yesterday. I didn’t even get a chance to speak to him.’
That’s what she was bothered about? That Weller had been murdered before she’d gotten from him what she needed?
‘What happened?’ Ryker asked. ‘What do you know?’
She glanced over at him. He knew by now what the look meant. The ‘what can I tell him’ look.
‘He was gutted,’ she said, looking fearful as the words passed her lips. ‘Literally gutted. Sliced open like a pig in a butcher’s shop.’
Ryker clenched the steering wheel a little harder.
‘At a brothel, of all places.’
‘Do you know who did it?’
‘No. I don’t know if there’s any suspect even. The investigation is in the hands of the local police for now, so we’re only getting snippets. I’ll be the first on the scene from UK intelligence. If my boss can get me clearance in time. Otherwise, we’re just going to be playing catch-up.’
To Ryker, it felt like they already were.
‘This isn’t a coincidence,’ Ryker said. ‘Grichenko is murdered, then a few days later Weller, right after we both go to Frankfurt to speak to him.’
‘I know what you mean, but it makes no sense.’
And she seemed to really mean that. Was there any likelihood at all that Lange, or the people she worked for, were responsible? Ryker couldn’t rule it out, as ludicrous as it seemed.
‘Grichenko and his new wife were killed quietly, discreetly,’ Ryker said. ‘Poison. But what you’ve told me about Weller suggests something else altogether.’
Lange didn’t say anything.
‘This could be a revenge attack,’ Ryker said.
‘Revenge for what? Weller’s a damn accountant or whatever now. And I know he had nothing to do with what happened to Grichenko.’
‘You know that?’
She tutted. ‘You know what I mean.’
Did he?
‘So what do you think, then?’ he said.
Again Lange was silent.
‘I know you feel conflicted, but I really can help,’ Ryker said. ‘If you tell me everything you know, it’s not going to do you any harm. It could help us both.’
‘That’s not it at all.’
‘What’s not?’
She sighed and turned away.
‘Then maybe Weller was into something else,’ Ryker said. ‘Drugs or whatever. He’s been taken out in a revenge attack by a gangbanger. Or an angry pimp because he beat up a prost—’
‘No,’ Lange said. ‘It’s not any of that. It is connected. I just don’t understand how. Or why.’
‘So you are at least confirming his death is connected?’
No answer now. Perhaps she’d not meant to say that.
‘Which means, for whatever reason, we could all be targets,’ Ryker said. ‘Me, you, Diaz, Salman, Elliott. Do the others know what’s happened?’
‘Well, obviously, Elliott doesn’t,’ Lange said. ‘I don’t even know where Salman is. We’ve been working on tracking him, but he’s kept himself so clean. Diaz…’
‘Diaz what?’
‘I know she still works for— She still works in intelligence, but it’s not that easy.’
‘What’s not easy?’
Ryker hadn’t found it that difficult to track her down. Lange didn’t say anything.
‘If you’re saying what I think you’re saying, then any one of us could be next,’ Ryker said. ‘Come on, Nadia, talk to me properly. Drop the battle lines. I thought we were working together here. Don’t make me operate with one hand tied. You’re only hurting yourself if you do.’
But he got no response. Lange didn’t even seem to be listening. Moments later she was on the phone again. She barely said a word through the conversation before the phone was put down.
She looked over at Ryker. She was shaken.
‘Diaz is fine,’ she said.
‘That’s good,’ Ryker said, though her apparently positive words didn’t explain why she was now so rattled. ‘Was that it?’
‘You can’t come with me. I need to do this the right way.’
Ryker gripped the steering wheel a little more tightly.
‘There’s a town coming up in a few miles,’ she said. ‘If you drop me off there, someone’s going to pick me up and take me the rest of the way to Frankfurt.’
‘So this is it. We’re done?’
‘There isn’t another way.’
‘Yes, there is. Instead, you’re cutting me out, even though you know the danger.’
‘No. I don’t know the danger. Maybe there is no danger for me, or for you. But I don’t have a choice but to leave you. There’s more happening here than you realize, Ryker.’
‘I’m well aware of that. It’s just a shame you won’t tell me what.’
She didn’t say anything to that.
‘And you must realize I’m not going to just slink off,’ he added.
‘I know. I wish there was another way.’
But her words felt meaningless to Ryker, and the conversation ended there. Minutes later they’d turned off the autobahn, and Lange gave Ryker directions to the parking lot of an out-of-town shopping center. The center included not just shops but restaurants and a cinema, and despite the late hour, the parking area was still packed. He parked up on the far edge, furthest away from the shops. As he shut down the engine the heavens opened. Sleety rain pelted down.
Lange had her phone pressed to her ear again.
‘Okay, I’m here already,’ she said before putting the phone down. She turned to Ryker. ‘They’re five minutes away.’
She grabbed the straps of her backpack.
‘Thanks for everything,’ she said. ‘And… I’m sorry it happened like this.’
‘You don’t want to wait in the car? It’s really coming down.’
‘No. It’d be better if you’re not here when they arrive.’
With that, she opened her door and stepped out.
‘See you around,’ she said.
She closed the door and headed off into the rain, toward the shops. Ryker watched her for a few moments. She looked back twice as she walked as if checking if he’d gone yet. Seconds later she moved between two parked vans and was out of sight.
Ryker stayed where he was for a few moments, contemplating. He could follow her. Head back to Frankfurt, or wherever else she was going. Watch her, and her investigation, from a distance and slowly figure out what she knew, and what she didn’t. Or he could run and hide. Lie low in case he really was the target of someone now.
There was another option, of course. He could continue his original plan. He’d already been to see Diaz once. Lange said she was fine, and the earlier conversation had all but confirmed that Diaz remained an agent. She was not only well enough protected but was perhaps too protected for Ryker to talk to her again.
What of Ali Salman? Ryker still hadn’t figured out where he was. He would try to. Tracking down Salman now was perhaps more important than ever, given the discrepancy in Diaz’s and Elliott’s accounts.
Elliott. For all his faults, despite whatever had gone wrong in his life to turn him into a washed-up recluse, and putting aside the fact he could have been lying through his teeth to Ryker earlier, could Elliott still be a capable ally if they were all on someone’s hit list now?
Plus it was also still weighing heavily on Ryker’s mind that Elliott seemed to know a lot more about Lange than Ryker did… What was the story there?
He turned the engine back on. Then headed out the way he’d come. Without hiccups, he’d be back in Switzerland by dawn.