by Rob Sinclair
She reached the bottom of the stairs and moved out into the main foyer of the apartment block, heading left toward a fire exit rather than out through the main entrance. She pushed down on the release bar to swing open the double doors and walked into a dingy and dank back alley. It was raining heavily. The Red Cobra huddled down into her leather jacket and sunk her hands into its pockets.
She kept her head down as she walked along, scanning the area as best she could. She turned left at the end of the alley onto the main street. The pavement was intermittently busy with both locals and the occasional tourist – likely heading toward the nearby Kurfürstendamm, one of Berlin’s busiest shopping streets – though the heavy rain seemed to have deterred most folks from venturing out on foot.
Up ahead, two suited men approached, each carrying ridiculously big umbrellas. The Red Cobra had to stoop to her right to get past unimpeded and without breaking her pace. She stumbled off the pavement into a puddle in the gutter. The men carried on oblivious. She cursed at them under her breath. Then was caught by surprise when she stepped back onto the pavement only for an unseen figure to barge into her. She spun round, her eyes fixed on the man who’d knocked into her.
‘Es tut mir sehr leid,’ he said.
The Red Cobra understood his German: I’m very sorry. She said nothing in return, just stared at him. He wore blue jeans and brown boots, and he had on a rain jacket. The hood partially covered his face, but she saw enough to recognise him.
The man from the hotel.
She felt her body tighten, priming herself for attack. Inside her jacket pocket, her left hand wrapped around the handle of the eight-inch blade she was concealing, her grip so tight it felt like the handle would burst.
The knife, a long-time companion, was sheathed in a specially stitched compartment that ran from the inside of the left pocket across her midriff. She rarely ventured outside without a weapon of some description. The blade, although large, was easily hidden if you knew how, and so much more practical than lugging a gun around. They were cumbersome and noisy, and they needed re-loading. They simply didn’t suit her needs. The knife on the other hand...
A second passed. Then another. The Red Cobra stared at the man. The street was quiet, but not empty. She was in two minds as to whether to gut him right there. She was certain she could do it before he could defend himself.
Before a third second passed, the man stepped back, apologised again, then turned and walked away.
The Red Cobra stood for another beat before she too turned and walked off in the opposite direction. She was calm on the outside, but inside her brain was on fire.
She walked for nearly two hours, taking a circuitous route through the city. She remained wary the whole time, employing every counter-surveillance technique she knew to spot any lurkers, but she saw no indication that the man or anyone else was following her.
Eventually, the Red Cobra headed across the border that had once separated east from west. She’d never known the city as it had been back then; she was only a child in the late eighties when the wall came down. Yet moving into the east of the city, she could still feel the presence of the old regime. Of communism and the Soviet Union. Was it the people, or the architecture? Perhaps it was just the tourist sights, from Checkpoint Charlie to crumbling sections of graffiti-covered wall to the myriad rusting Trabi cars available for hire.
Whatever it was, as the Red Cobra headed through Alexanderplatz back to where she was staying – a nondescript three-star business hotel – she felt more at home in her surroundings in the east than she had in the west.
Under the canopy of the hotel entrance, the Red Cobra shook herself down, removing the excess water that was dripping from her head to her toes. She walked in through the main doors and, head down to avoid her face being caught on the CCTV cameras, moved directly over to the staircase.
With her eyes still busily scanning her surroundings, but not so much as to make her look on edge, the Red Cobra walked along the corridor on the second floor. She was just about at her door when a man stepped out of his room four doors down.
It took a split second to determine he wasn’t a threat. Still the Red Cobra kept on going, past her room and past the man. She took a series of left turns, working around the square layout of the floor until she emerged back at her bedroom door again. This time, the corridor was empty. She took out her keycard, unlocked the door and stepped in.
Once safely inside, the Red Cobra threw off her backpack, her cap, her jacket, and her boots, then she sat on the end of the bed. Her head was swimming with thoughts of her next step.
After a few minutes, she grabbed her laptop and sat on the bed while it fired up. She located the secretive chat portal she had been using to communicate with her employer. She left a coded private message to tell her employer the spotting position was compromised, that she’d need time to find another if they wanted more surveillance, and that there was a potential threat to eliminate.
She sent the message then stared at the computer screen, hoping for an immediate response. The employer wasn’t online, but would have received a notification of her message.
After fifteen minutes, there was still nothing.
The Red Cobra got up and headed to the bathroom. She turned on the light and stared at herself in the mirror. Then she pulled off her shoulder-length blonde wig and released the pins to allow her long dark brown hair to fall over her shoulders. Next she took out the blue contact lenses to reveal her naturally hazel irises. She undressed and took a soothing shower.
As soon as she was dry, she once again checked the laptop for any messages. There were none. Then she lay down, shut her eyes, and nodded off to sleep.
The Red Cobra awoke over two hours later when the ding from her computer told her a message had arrived. She felt groggy as she woke up from the deep sleep. The past few days she’d been filled with adrenaline as she’d staked out the hotel suite in the Waldorf. She welcomed the chance for a brief rest even if she was now feeling unusually anxious.
She opened up the message and grunted. The note was simple. Hold tight. Await further instructions.
She swore at the screen and angrily closed the laptop lid. A second later though she’d calmed. She hated not knowing, not being in control, but this was the job she was being paid for. And handsomely too. There was little point in second guessing the orders. Best to ride over the frustration, and wait and see what happened next.
The Red Cobra dressed in jeans, high heels, and a sparkling blouse then put on some make-up before heading out of her room and downstairs to the hotel bar. It was nearly six p.m. and the bar would soon be full of post-work drinkers. She may have been working, but the Red Cobra still needed her downtime, and despite her secretive and dangerous job, she wasn’t averse to striking up a conversation with strangers – hiding in plain sight, she knew, was often a good tactic. And her striking good looks meant she could count on attention, when she wanted it, wherever she went.
The Red Cobra sauntered into the bar and was pleased to see a number of eyes caught by her presence. She moved over and sat on a tall stool by the bar, then ordered a dry gin martini from the young bartender who by now recognised her face but didn’t know her name.
The drink arrived and the Red Cobra sipped it then spun round in her chair to look out across the room. One or two men quickly looked away from her., eyes down at their drinks. That was fine. It was early, and she knew she already had their attention. Sooner or later one of them would come over. They always did.
She turned back round to the bar.
In the end it was sooner, rather than later.
‘Do you mind if I sit here?’ the husky male voice said after a few moments. He spoke in German, not the Red Cobra’s native tongue, but she knew his words had been perfect.
She turned to look up at the man standing next to her, a warm and ever so slightly sultry smile on her face in greeting.
It was a hard task – a very hard task – but somehow
she managed to maintain that smile even when she saw the already irritatingly familiar face staring down at her. It was the casually dressed man from the suite at the Waldorf.
33
‘Ich spreche nur ein bisschen Deutsch,’ the Red Cobra lied. I only speak a little German. She emphasised the words in all the wrong places.
‘But you do speak English, don’t you?’ the man said. ‘I heard you order your drink.’
The Red Cobra was thinking on her feet. In fact she could speak several languages fluently, including both English and German. She regularly used English when working on jobs. It was the easiest choice. Most people understood her in the many countries she travelled to. Plus there was something nondescript and unmemorable about a English woman travelling on business rather than a Georgian or a Russian or a Slovakian or a Serbian who no one could understand.
‘Yes, I speak English,’ the Red Cobra said, realising there was little point in playing dumb.
‘But you’re not English,’ the man said, obviously picking up on her accent. ‘So where are you from?’
‘Here and there.’
The man laughed. ‘Yeah, me too.’
The Red Cobra smiled, resigned to going along with whatever game this man had in mind. It wasn’t like she could leap up and choke him to death in the middle of a packed hotel bar, whoever the hell he was.
‘What are you drinking?’ the man asked.
The Red Cobra shook her glass. ‘Martini.’
‘Bit strong for me, this time of night.’ He ordered himself a half-litre beer from the barman, downed a third of it, and finally took a seat next to her.
‘So what’s your name?’ he asked.
‘You can call me whatever you like.’
‘How about Anna?’
The Red Cobra did her best to hide her reaction. But she was feeling anything but her usual confident self. Anna surely wasn’t a random name he’d plucked from nowhere.
What did he know?
‘Sure. If you like,’ she said, smiling. ‘And what should I call you?’
‘You can call me Carl. Carl Logan.’ He extended his hand and she didn’t hesitate for even a second before reaching out and giving it a gentle shake.
‘So are we going to play games all night, Carl?’
‘All night? That’s quite a proposition. I only met you five minutes ago.’
‘You’re very confident, aren’t you?’
‘I like your hair that way. More natural.’
‘Wow, charming too. How about you get to the point.’
Logan smiled and took another big gulp of his beer. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I was trying to have a quiet drink.’
‘I mean in Berlin.’
‘Working.’
‘Spying?’
‘That’s not me.’
‘But that was you in the apartment.’
‘Which apartment?’
‘It’s a bit late for that.’
She thought for a moment. Curiosity got the better of her. She had to find out what was happening. ‘Surveillance.’
‘It’s a good location,’ he said. ‘Unobstructed view to the hotel. Not a great exit route though. One stairwell. One lift shaft. One street entrance. One exit at the back. Easy to run into problems.’
‘It was the best I could find.’
‘Yeah. I thought the same. I guess that’s how I found you so easily.’
The Red Cobra hid her anger at his scathing comment. She sipped her martini, doing her best to remain cool and calm. ‘How did you find me? Here I mean.’
Logan said nothing, just stared at her. She shook her head. How could she have been so stupid? She’d been so focused on him when he’d bumped into her in the street, on whether to kill him or let him go, that she’d fallen for a cheap trick.
‘Where?’ she asked, referring to the tracking device that she knew he must have placed on her.
Logan shrugged, keeping quiet. It only angered the Red Cobra further to see him thinking he was in control.
‘You know who he is?’ Logan asked. ‘The man you’ve been spying on?’
‘No,’ she lied. Though it wasn’t an outright lie. She knew his name, a few details about him. Just what she needed. She didn’t care for any more. ‘I do only what I’m told. I don’t ask questions.’
Logan paused and gave her a cold, hard stare. She could tell he knew her answer was bullshit. But what did he expect? For her to blurt out everything she knew?
‘Igor Gazinsky,’ Logan said. ‘You heard of him?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, come on. He’s a pretty big deal. Worth billions. Made his money stealing state assets from the Russian people during privatisation. You know the type.’
‘I’ve heard of the type, yes. Oligarchs. You don’t like them?’
‘Them? Oligarchs. I’ve not met many. The ones I have met probably wished I hadn’t. And what do you think of men like that?’
The Red Cobra shrugged. ‘I’m not into politics.’
‘You’re not? Then I’ll ask you again, why are you spying on Igor Gazinsky?’
‘Because I’m being paid to.’
‘Do you want to kill him?’
‘Why would I want to do that?’
‘Because he’s a horrible human being.’
‘Do you want to kill him?’
‘I haven’t been asked to yet.’
‘And neither have I. Yet.’
‘So how about we help each other out here?’
‘What do you think I am, exactly?’ the Red Cobra asked with genuine curiosity.
‘I think you’re dangerous. Lethal. I think you’re someone I should never trust in a million years.’
Perversely, the Red Cobra was pleased with his comments. ‘And yet you want me to help you?’
‘I’m used to working under such conditions.’
‘And who exactly is it that you work for?’
‘You tell me, I’ll tell you.’
‘I work for myself,’ she said. ‘It’s better that way.’
‘But you said you don’t know Gazinsky? So there must be someone else paying you. Someone with a beef against him, I’m presuming. So who is it?’
‘I’m not going to tell you that.’
‘Okay. Then how about I start first. I work for the British government.’
‘That’s hardly a bombshell, given the conversation so far.’
‘That doesn’t make you nervous? To know the intelligence services are on to you?’
‘On to me for what? And no, why should it?’ Though really her brain was moving at a thousand miles an hour trying to figure out how she could recover this mess. Of course she already knew the intelligence services of many countries had her on their radars. After all, she’d been paid by some of them, one way or another. But no one had ever been close to apprehending her, or even to conclusively linking her to any of her jobs. Her reputation was built largely on hearsay and fable. So to be sat in a bar like this with a spook... it wasn’t exactly good news.
‘Would you like to know what I’m doing here, in Berlin?’ Logan asked.
‘Oh, I’m dying to know. Look at me. Can’t you tell how excited I am to find out?’
Logan smirked, and despite herself, the Red Cobra reciprocated.
‘I don’t know what you’ve been told about Gazinsky. I’m guessing your orders are to surveil him. Then assassinate him.’
The Red Cobra shrugged.
‘And to be honest, that’s fine with me,’ Logan said. ‘But not yet. I won’t allow you to kill him yet.’
‘You won’t allow me.’
‘No. You see, that’s why I’m here. To protect him. To make sure no harm comes to him in Berlin.’
‘You said he was a horrible person?’
‘He is. But this is my job. Gazinsky is scum. He’s corrupt as hell. But such is life. He could also make a good asset for my employers. Which, I’m guessing, might link in to why you’re here. To stop that from h
appening.’
‘I’m not working with Moscow, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘No. I’d have known if you were. And we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation.’
‘You think you know a lot, don’t you?’
‘Yes. About some things I do.’
‘Why do you want me to help?’
‘You’ve got certain... talents. Talents that are hard to find. Someone like you could be useful to someone like me. And I know you don’t have real loyalty to anyone. That’s fine. You do this for the money. That’s fine too. You tell me who sent you here, or I’ll find out the hard way. You tell me, I’ll pay you twice as much to walk away.’
‘You think I do this for money?’
‘You don’t? Great. So you’ll help me for free?’ Logan smiled.
‘Why are you protecting Gazinsky? What’s the play?’
‘Isn’t it obvious? You’re staking-out that hotel suite. I was there checking it’s safe. You didn't wonder why that might be happening? What might be planned?’
‘A meeting,’ the Red Cobra said. ‘There’s going to be a meeting.’
And she got it, even before Logan confirmed it. That was why she hadn’t yet been given the green light. Her target wasn’t just Gazinsky. It was whoever he was due to meet with.
‘My boss is meeting with Gazinsky,’ Logan said. ‘Tomorrow. Gazinsky is a spy. He works for us now. And that’s why I can’t let you kill him. At least not until we find out what he knows.’
34
The Red Cobra looked away from Logan and finished the rest of her martini. Then she ordered another. Logan signalled the barman to make him one too.
‘May as well give it a go,’ he said.
Logan and the Red Cobra sat silently as the barman made the drinks. She looked over at Logan. He turned to her and smiled. She had to admit, he wasn’t at all bad looking. His green eyes shimmered under the lighting of the bar. His face was strong, hardened. He was confident, certainly – it was an attractive trait – but the Red Cobra got a strange feeling when she stared into his eyes. Because she saw nothing. No emotion. No feeling.
