The banker died eleven minutes before I arrived, but his killer left me a gift.
I know the time because his watch is still ticking. It was a gold expensive Patek Philippe watch. The kind of watch a man buys to prove he's made it. It was made by Hans Vogler, he'd made it all the way to a Berlin safe house with his throat cut open.
I press myself against the wall beside the doorway, breathing through my mouth so I don't make a sound. My heart is slamming against my ribs so hard I'm sure someone can hear it. The room smells like copper, cheap cologne and death.
Three years of CIA training, four years in the field you'd think I'd be used to bodies by now but I'm not.
Vogler is sprawled across a metal desk, his head tilted back like he's staring at the ceiling with his blue eyes open which was probably the type of dream I don't want to have.
The burner phone on his chest glows.
I shouldn't look at it but move cause I have ninety seconds before the German police arrive, ninety seconds before I'm caught at a murder scene with my fingerprints on God knows what and ninety seconds to disappear.
But the phone is lit up with probably a message or a call.
My feet move three steps before my brain approves with Vogler's blood on my shoe which I'll deal with later.
Grabbing the phone while going through the message which consists of eight words.
YOU HAVE 30 DAYS TO GET CLOSE TO KAEL SABLE OR THE NEXT BODY IS JESSA RHO.
I stare at it.
The words don't make sense. They're English words, I know English, but they're not connected. Kael Sable is a name I know, I've known that name for six months and he's the reason why I'm here, why I've been tracking Vogler, and the reason I'm standing in a dead man's blood.
And Jessa.
Jessa.
I hit the call button before I could think. The phone rang more than once but still no one picked before it went into voicemail with Jessa's voice, which was bright and sarcastic even in recording: "You know what to do, make it interesting."
Beep.
"Jessa, it's me, please call me when you get this."
I hung up with shaking hands. I shove the phone into my pocket and force myself to look at Vogler one more time. He was my only lead, it took me six months of tracking, following money trails through Luxembourg, Zurich and Geneva. He was supposed to give me the proof I needed, the proof that Kael Sable destroyed my father but now he's dead.
And someone knew I was coming.
I pulled out my own phone taking photographs of the body, room, desk, window, and the blood spatter on the wall knowing fully well that the killer was a quick skilled professional.
I'm documenting a murder scene while the man who ordered it is probably watching me through some camera I haven't found yet.
Wiping down everything I touched, the door handle, the wall beside the doorframe, the burner phone in my pocket—wait, no, I'm keeping that as evidence but I wipe it anyway, just in case.
The sirens are close now, very close. Two minutes away, maybe less.
I move out the door, down the hallway, and down the stairs. The building is cheap Soviet-era construction, all gray concrete and flickering fluorescent lights. Someone's cooking curry on the third floor while someone's arguing in Turkish on the second which was a normal life, happening right next to a dead man.
I hit the alley on a run.
Berlin at midnight is cold and unforgiving. The rain started twenty minutes ago, while I was waiting for my extraction window. Now it's coming down hard, soaking through my jacket, plastering my hair to my face which was good cause rain destroys evidence.
The alley opens onto a side street. I turn left, then right, then left again. No pattern or predictability, just movement, distance, and putting as much space as possible between me and that room.
My lungs and legs burn because I haven't run like this since the Agency and before I became a ghost hunting other ghosts.
Jessa.
I tried her again as I ran but still went to voicemail.
She's a hacker, she's always online and always answers on the first ring because she's paranoid, my best friend and because she knows that when I call, it matters.
She not answering means something is wrong which means the message on that phone wasn't a threat but a promise.
I stopped running in a U-Bahn station three kilometers from the safe house. I saw tourists, drunk Berliners and a woman playing accordion for change so I had to blend, I always blend. It's what I'm good at.
I find a bathroom stall, lock the door, and sit on the toilet with my head in my hands.
I pulled out the burner phone which was still in my pocket staring at the message glowing in the dim light.
30 DAYS. GET CLOSE TO KAEL SABLE OR THE NEXT BODY IS JESSA RHO.
Who sent this?
Who knows about Jessa? About me? About Kael Sable?
I've been so careful to the extent that I created new identities, burner phones that last a week for every operation. I haven't used my real name in months and I haven't seen Jessa in person since Prague, which was three weeks ago, when she told me I was obsessed and I told her she was wrong.
She wasn't wrong.
I pulled up Kael Sable's photograph on my phone of which I've looked at a thousand times. Dark hair, pale eyes, a face that belongs on magazine covers and wanted posters. A man who ruined my father was a billionaire Ceo of Stable Industries.
I was going to destroy him, now someone wants me to get close to him for different reasons but same target.
I don't believe in coincidence, I never have. Someone is playing a game I don't understand, and they're using me as a piece.
The bathroom door opens, heels click on the tiles, I heard a young German woman's voice, complaining to someone on the phone about her boyfriend.
I waited until she left then I tried Jessa's number again still.. it went into voicemail.
I leaned my head against the stall wall, the metal was cold, the graffiti was in German, English or something that might be Arabic. Someone has written "Gott ist tot" in red marker which means God is dead.
Maybe…Maybe not but if God is dead, who sent that message?
I have twenty-nine days left. Twenty-nine days to figure out who's threatening Jessa, get close to Kael Sable and to decide if the man I've spent six months hunting is the same man who just became my only lead.
I should go to the police. I should tell them about Vogler. I should…..
No, I can't because I'm a ghost and ghosts don't exist, ghosts don't file police reports.
I need new identities, papers and plans.
And I need to find Jessa.
I left the bathroom, stepping out. The station was still busy, loud, and filled with people who have no idea that a woman just ran from a murder scene and now she's standing in their midst, trying not to fall apart.
The accordion player catches my eye, an old woman, maybe seventy, wearing a thick coat and a wool hat. She's playing something sad and Russian. Her eyes follow me as I walk past.
I dropped a twenty-euro note in her case. She nods but doesn't stop playing.
Outside, the rain has stopped. Berlin smells like wet concrete, diesel and the river Spree somewhere in the distance. I walked, no destination, just moving.
My phone buzzed, grabbing it immediately, an unknown number was written on my phone with a text below which says, "Hans Vogler was beginning in twenty-nine days, don't waste them."
My stomach tightens then another buzz comes through, this time it's a photo of Jessa. She's tied to a chair with her hands behind her back with a tape over her mouth and blood at the side of her head, with her eyes open. She's alive, at least for now since the photo was taken a few minutes ago.
My hands start shaking, and then my phone rings with the same unknown number. Picking it up immediately but for a second, no one speaks then a man's voice comes on. He sounds calm and slow, like he doesn't have a worry in the world. He says, "You finally saw it."
My heart drops into my stomach.
"I don't like repeating myself but I will. You just have twenty-nine days to get close to me and you have to do exactly what I tell you or she dies."
Weirdly I could place the voice of which I recognize to be owned by Kael Stable cause I have heard it in interviews, business channels, and in press conferences. "You wanted my attention, now you have it." Then the line goes dead.
The city keeps moving around me, cars, people, music but no one knows my world just changed. Looking at the photo again because it was funny how I thought I was hunting Kael Sable, but I was wrong. He's been hunting me all along.