Rise of the Order by Trevor Scott

let’s say this woman was like that television bitch, what’s her name? Xena?”
    â€œYeah, she was like that. Only she didn’t look like a woman in a man’s body. She was more like a super model. A brunette Heidi Klum. Big tits like that.”
    â€œThat’s worse,” Miko said. “You sure she didn’t give you a make-over?”
    Jiri Sikora sat dejected.
    â€œHey, I’m kidding, Jiri. Jesus, have a sense of humor. So, this bitch who tried to take away your manhood. She was a cop?”
    â€œI don’t know. If she was, she was like no other cop I’ve ever seen. She knew too much. She had skills. Like maybe the military would teach. She knew exactly which spots on my body to strike. First my throat. A knee to my face. Once I hit the floor, I got up part way and she took me down with a strike to the kidneys. She was good.”
    Miko tried to visualize the strike against his Brother and he felt an erection starting to form. A woman like that. What he could do to a bitch like that.
    â€œWhere we going?” Sikora asked.
    They had reached the outskirts of town and Miko was now entering the westbound autobahn toward Brno in the Czech Republic.
    â€œWhat did you tell this woman?” Miko said.
    â€œI told her nothing.”
    Slipping a white radish from a plastic bag, Miko popped it into his mouth, crunched down, and said, “She believed you?”
    Sikora hesitated a moment. Perhaps too long. “She must have,” he said. “Where are we going?”
    Sure, change the subject, Miko thought, as he savored the tangy radish with his tongue. “We have to meet Grago in Prague,” he said. “If we hurry, we can make it there by midnight.”
    Never strike the same city two nights in a row. That was their charter and mandate.
    â—
    Having dropped Albrecht off at a gasthaus on the outskirts of Steyr, Jake had told him to stay there for a couple of days until he could sort out who wanted him dead, and why, and then Jake met Kurt back in Vienna.
    The temperatures had dropped again and the rain was now coming down as a light snowfall. At least it wasn’t freezing rain.
    Jake had met Kurt at a parking ramp off of Mariahilfer Strasse, a shop-lined lane that led to the Hofburg Palace region and the center of Vienna, with a McDonalds every couple of blocks and a Starbucks on a prominent corner. Yeah, Europe had definitely changed, Jake thought. Like Chicago with low, old buildings.
    Jake parked his Golf in a ramp while Kurt waited in his Audi on the street. He changed shirts quickly and switched from the windbreaker to his normal leather jacket. Before leaving his car there, Jake felt along the front bumper of his car. Nothing. He went to the back of his car and checked that bumper. In a crotch between the bumper and the gas tank he found what he was looking for—the small GPS tracker attached to a magnetic box about the size of a cigarette pack. In a hurry now, Jake found a Mercedes a few cars down and attached the tracker in a similar spot on that car. Then he rushed out of the ramp to Kurt’s car.
    â€œEverything all right?” Kurt asked as Jake got into the passenger side.
    â€œYeah, why?” Jake buckled up.
    â€œNever mind. Let’s get going. You have Albrecht’s keys, right?”
    Jake patted his pants pocket. “Yep.”
    Kurt drove off toward the center of the city. The snow was not sticking to the road yet, but it did give the city a look of Christmas—the effect accentuated by small Christmas markets every few blocks, with kiosks of trinkets, rows of trees waiting to be selected and decorated, and booths serving hot gluwein.
    Gustav Albrecht had told Jake about a storage facility The Teutonic Order maintained across the Donau Canal about six blocks from the Donau Bar, where Albrecht’s two men had died the night before. It seemed like a few days to Jake, though. With the light traffic, they got to the