The Dolomite Solution by Trevor Scott Read Free Book Online Page B

with a German pharmaceutical company to produce the solution that would save millions of people each year, and, of course, make him even richer. He smiled with that thought.
    Thinking about his own diet that his doctor had recommended was laughable. Stay away from meat, he had said. Eat more vegetables. Eat more fruit. Asking an Austrian to give up his pork was like asking a shark to eat kelp. He was certain his researchers had found the solution that others had only dreamed of.
    â€œWhat are you looking at?”
    Bergen startled. He had been watching the front door, and Quinn had come from the kitchen. When the man took a seat across from him, Quinn’s ski jacket opened slightly, revealing the black handle of a gun.
    He studied Quinn’s blond hair sticking straight up in a flat top. He was a slight man, yet Bergen knew that was deceiving since he had seen him at the steam bath for their first meeting, and there was only muscle on the man. Bergen remembered feeling inadequate at the time.
    â€œYou’ve gone too far,” Bergen said. He was angry and he didn’t mind letting the man know, regardless of how dangerous he heard he was.
    The man smiled, trying desperately not to kill his meal ticket. “I know Jake Adams. If he was sent here, then he has to be stopped. At all cost.” His smile changed to flushed gravity.
    â€œBut now the polizei are involved,” Bergen said, hiding behind a drink of coffee. Then he took a drag on his cigarette before saying, “We can’t afford that kind of scrutiny. Not now when we’re so close.”
    â€œTrust me. You’d rather have the police involved than Jake Adams. The police have rules. Adams doesn’t.”
    Bergen looked around and then back to his new employee, whom he wasn’t sure he needed, but knew he couldn’t fire. “We still don’t know who hired him. Or why.”
    â€œHe was asking questions about our scientist,” he lied. “That means something. I’ll take care of everything, Otto. That’s why you hired me.”
    â€œI don’t want to know what you do from now on. If someone asks...I can honestly say I know nothing.” Bergen felt the sweat bubbling up on his forehead. He took another soothing draw on his cigarette and let the smoke hang out in his lungs for a while before exhaling.
    â€œI knew you’d see things my way.” Quinn squeezed Bergen’s shoulder until pain furled his brows. Then he stood and walked off, laughing softly to himself.

6
    Jake had gone to his apartment for only a few minutes. He had gotten on his computer, found Murdock’s financial accounts, his recent airlines reservations for a round trip from Frankfurt to Innsbruck and back, reservations for a car rental, which he picked up a few days ago at the Innsbruck airport, and then his hotel reservations. He had even found out where he had eaten the past few days, and that he had gone skiing the day he was killed. Damn. Nothing was sacred.
    With his newfound information and renewed enthusiasm, Jake was starting to get his second wind. The strong black coffee while he was on the computer didn’t hurt either. While he was at his apartment, he had first gone to his bedroom. He didn’t really expect to find the blonde woman there, but hoped she had at least left him a note with her name and number. No such luck. The only thing she left behind was her fragrance, which he still couldn’t identify, crumpled sheets, and memories that were unfortunately becoming less and less clear.
    He sat outside the Innsbruck Tirol Hotel, one of those newer concrete monstrosities that the locals had fought to keep out of their city, yet had been built anyway with about as much architectural foresight as a Soviet communist track house. It was one of those compromises for the 1976 Winter Olympics. The city needed the hotel spaces, and they needed them fast. Luckily the city hadn’t made the same mistake