Page 13 of Denied Access (Mitch Rapp #24)

B ARCELONA , S PAIN

T HE Hotel Casa Fuster was one of Barcelona’s most luxurious accommodations.

Tucked away just off the iconic Passeig de Gràcia, the hotel was a study in stunning architecture, fantastic dining, and a service staff that embodied old-world sensibilities.

The hotel was not anywhere near Rapp’s price range, which was why he’d never entertained the idea of staying there let alone renting the grand suite in which he currently found himself.

Then again, money didn’t really factor into the decision-making criteria of the man seated across the coffee table from Rapp.

Though he’d been born and raised in East Germany, Herr Carl Ohlmeyer had escaped to West Berlin shortly after receiving his degree in economics from the prestigious Humboldt University.

He excelled in the field of finance and found work in one of West Germany’s most important banks, where he eventually made the acquaintance of a brash young American intelligence officer by the name of Stanley Albertus Hurley.

Together the two men wreaked financial havoc on the East German banking system and the Soviet patronage that kept the corrupt system afloat.

Now that the Cold War was over, Ohlmeyer ran his own family bank with the help of two of his sons and his favorite granddaughter.

Officially, he was out of the intelligence business.

Unofficially, he still helped his lifelong friend Stan Hurley obtain the occasional off-the-books passport or financing for operations too sensitive to be traced back to the CIA’s collection of shell companies.

Ohlmeyer was a serious man who’d spent the entirety of his adult life engaged in the serious business of fighting on behalf of freedom-loving people against the ravages of fascism and communism.

He also happened to be Greta’s grandfather.

“What are your intentions toward my granddaughter?”

Rapp resisted the urge to take a swallow from the cup of coffee he held in his left hand.

Herr Ohlmeyer was a savvy businessman and had deep connections into the world of espionage.

In addition to the support he provided to Hurley’s official capacities, Ohlmeyer ran a retirement service for Stan and several other Orion operatives in the form of numbered Swiss bank accounts and safe-deposit boxes containing cash, passports, and the other assorted credit cards and licenses needed to establish a new identity.

Ohlmeyer was quite literally Hurley’s get-out-of-jail-free card, and he provided these same services to Rapp.

In turn, Rapp had repaid the banker’s kindness by fomenting a clandestine romantic relationship with his granddaughter.

A relationship that had exposed Greta to the dangers of the covert world he inhabited.

Rapp had been dreading this conversation, but it was time to face the music.

Squaring his shoulders, he did something extremely difficult for a spy.

He told the truth.

“I love her.”

The words rolled off Rapp’s tongue a little easier than expected, partly because he’d been practicing them on Greta, but also because he really did love Ohlmeyer’s granddaughter.

This had not always been true.

In the beginning, their relationship had mostly been built on lust. He and Greta were young, attractive, and available.

Rapp had been taken with Greta’s fierceness as much as her physical beauty.

Though he couldn’t read her mind, he believed that part of her initial attraction to him centered on his vocation.

She was bedding an assassin. A wolf among sheep.

A member of a select cadre to whom her grandfather afforded a special kind of respect, while making it abundantly clear to her that such men were not appropriate targets for his beloved granddaughter’s affection.

Had it not been for Paris, the torrid sex would probably have fizzled out, and Greta would have gone the way of the women who’d preceded her.

But Paris had happened.

Finding himself with a gunshot wound to the shoulder, betrayed by his country, and the target of an international manhunt, Rapp had reluctantly brought Greta into the clandestine side of his existence.

He’d fully expected her to bolt after experiencing the bloody reality of an assassin’s life in all its gory detail.

She hadn’t.

Instead, Greta had risen to the occasion and Rapp found himself responding to her sacrificial love in a way he hadn’t since…

since his college girlfriend had perished in the wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103 in Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.

It had taken Rapp longer to echo Greta’s proclamation of love, but once he’d spoken the words he did so with the single-minded intensity that he applied to all aspects of his life.

Rapp did love Greta.

Whether that love would survive her grandfather’s scrutiny remained to be seen.

Herr Ohlmeyer stared back at Rapp for a long moment, his flinty blue eyes giving away little.

This was the face of a man who’d helped Hurley run operations against the Stasi, the nickname for East Germany’s secret police.

The face of the man who had the ability to keep Rapp looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life with just a few well-placed phone calls.

After an eternity, the patriarch slowly nodded.

“I believe you. More importantly, I believe she loves you, but she doesn’t understand you or your world. Not the way I do.”

“I think she understands more than you think,” Rapp said. “It was never my intention to put her in danger, but—”

“Danger still found her,” Ohlmeyer said, waving away Rapp’s argument with slender fingers.

“This is precisely my point. You of all people should understand that she will never be safe so long as she is with you. My friend Stan Hurley says that you’re good, Mr. Rapp.

Perhaps one of the best he’s ever trained.

But being good wasn’t enough to keep you from getting shot, was it? ”

Despite his best efforts to remain cordial, Rapp felt his blood pressure beginning to rise.

“That’s a bit hypocritical, don’t you think?

When most everyone else in West Germany was content to ignore the menace of communism, you used your position in one of your nation’s most important banks to facilitate clandestine operations against East Germany.

Are you telling me that your actions didn’t put your family and loved ones at risk? ”

“They absolutely did!” Ohlmeyer slammed his fist against the coffee table as his German accent grew more pronounced. “My work came at a price. A horrible price. One I would spare my granddaughter.”

A flush crept across the old man’s cheeks and his chest heaved as he fought to catch his breath.

His physical reaction, more than the substance of Ohlmeyer’s argument, persuaded Rapp to hold his tongue.

Rapp did not run agents like a traditional CIA case officer, but he didn’t need to be a master spy to realize that he’d struck a nerve.

One of Ohlmeyer’s bodyguards vacated his position by the door in response to the old man’s outburst, but this seemed to only further anger the banker.

“I’m all right, damn you.”

Greta’s grandfather did not appear to be all right.

Though Ohlmeyer had always looked every bit of his sixty-odd years, the former spy didn’t seem to be himself.

His face was puffy and his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep, too much alcohol, or perhaps both.

Rapp had originally chalked Ohlmeyer’s appearance up to worry about his granddaughter, but now realized that the banker’s concern was a symptom, not the problem.

Something had caused him to fly to Barcelona and dispatch members of his security detail to round up his granddaughter.

Judging by the man’s genuine surprise at finding Greta sequestered with Rapp, their relationship wasn’t the catalyst for Ohlmeyer’s behavior.

The old man was spooked.

After several deep breaths, Ohlmeyer’s breathing returned to normal, and his expression turned from irritation to a look Rapp couldn’t quite read. The banker rubbed his chin and his gaze traveled across Rapp as if seeing him for the first time. “You truly love my granddaughter?”

Rapp nodded. “I do.”

“Then let’s see if your words have conviction. She needs help.”

Rapp again felt his temper stir. He was not accustomed to having his veracity challenged and Ohlmeyer had done so twice in a single setting.

“Help with what?”

“Someone who wants to kill her.”