The Berlin Target

by Nick Carter

  "Why shouldn't I?" she murmured. "It isn't often I arrange to have someone murdered."

  "True. But I think you also shake because you find me repugnant."

  This time she met his gaze directly. "Yes. I do," she replied, snatching her arm from his grasp and stepping back.

  His massive shoulders shrugged. "No matter. It doesn't bother me. Everyone, my entire life, has found me repugnant. I've learned to feed on it."

  "Would you please count the money? I have to get back. Needless to say. I have a long day ahead of me."

  "Yes, you do, don't you." He laughed, and it instantly turned into a gasping wheeze. It was several moments before he got his breathing back under control. "The bar is there, against the wall. Fix yourself a drink."

  She didn't want to spend a minute more than necessary with him, but a drink would help. She could feel his tiny eyes peeling away her clothing as she poured liquor into a glass.

  When she turned back to face him, it was even worse. As his meaty hands extracted the bound bundles of one-hundred-dollar bills from the briefcase, his eyes never left her.

  She shivered. She felt as though he were actually raping her with his eyes.

  "I have done some checking… made a few inquiries."

  "So?"

  "I know who you are, Fräulein. I know your connections, and from a few deductions I think I can safely say that you are not doing this entirely on your own initiative."

  "You have been paid," she said, trying in vain to keep a nervous quiver out of her voice. "Whatever you know, the money is to buy your silence as well as the deal."

  "I think not." He finished stacking the money and gave her his full attention. "I think my silence requires an added payment of sorts."

  "How much?"

  "Oh, not monetary."

  "What, then?" The eyes narrowed until she could hardly see the pupils at all. Her whole body was shaking now.

  "You are very beautiful. Fräulein. Your body beneath that clothing is, I'm sure, a work of art. I would like to see you naked."

  "You're mad."

  "No, not mad… lustful. Under this bulk I am a volcano of seething lust."

  "You mean you want me to…"

  "Have sex? Yes. But not with me. I cannot, you see. My doctors tell me the excitement would kill me. My heart, you know."

  She set the glass down on the bar. Her hands were trembling so hard now that she couldn't hold it.

  "What, then…" she stammered.

  "I want to watch you make love. I have already arranged for a young man to drop by shortly."

  "No!"

  "He is Italian, and quite handsome. He is also, I assure you, very clean. I do believe, my dear, that in the end you will enjoy it."

  "You are mad, completely mad!" she cried, lurching toward him without fully realizing what she was doing. "I won't do it! You can't make me! You daren't say a word! You are as implicated as I!"

  "Ah, that is where you are wrong. It would be your word against mine. And I assure you, my dear. I can provide the authorities with enough information that they would look no further than you or your lover."

  Suddenly his left hand shot forward and captured her wrist. His strength was immense, and the speed with which he pulled her toward him astounded her.

  His right hand was equally as quick and adept as he gathered the front of her dress in his fingers.

  "Stop! Stop it, you pig!"

  His hand yanked, and the buttons from the bodice to the hem parted. In almost the same movement, his fingers slid beneath one cup of her bra and began to painfully knead her breast.

  "Beautiful, sheer perfection," he wheezed.

  "Bastard!" she shrieked, and raked the right side of his face with the claws of her left hand.

  Blood spouted from four even red lines in his fat cheek. It gathered on his chin and dripped down to spread a crimson stain on his shirt.

  But he didn't howl in pain, nor did he remove his hand from her breast. Instead, he smiled.

  "A predator… a sleek cat with claws. Remove your underwear… and we'll have you ready for Tony when he arrives."

  His breath was coming in gasps now, so strained that he could hardly utter the words. He was perspiring heavily, and his chest was heaving with obvious effort.

  "Your… flesh… excites… me…"

  Suddenly she stopped trying to get away from him. The rage faded from her face, replaced by a smile. Her eyes narrowed as the idea took hold, and her body became pliant under his hands.

  "My body… it pleases you?" she purred.

  "Shouldn't do this… dangerous… for me."

  "Let go of my arm so I can take off my bra."

  "Yes… beautiful…"

  Leaning forward so her scent filled his nostrils, she lifted her legs and slipped off her pumps. Clasping both hands behind her neck, she stretched languidly, like a cat, breasts thrusting upward.

  Hessling clasped his own hands to his chest, as if by doing so he could ease the incredible pain he could feel building inside it. He tried to look away, but he found it impossible. Her eyes and her body challenged him to ignore her, to be unaware of what she was offering.

  She shrugged and the ripped dress slid over her shoulders, arms, and hips, falling in a heap at her feet. Her figure was exquisite, a voluptuous jewel of perfect proportions. She leaned down to retrieve the dress, full breasts moving impatiently in the tight confines of her bra.

  She smiled, placing the dress over a chair. Touching her lower lip with her tongue, she concentrated on rolling the black sheen of panty hose to her ankles, then stepped free. The stomach was flat, the legs firm and delicately muscled, the lines of her body free from bloat or softness.

  He gasped in admiration, as much for the practiced performance as for the undeniable beauty.

  The lacy bra was so tight it cut into the smooth flesh. Unhooking it, she pulled it down over her arms. Her breasts were high, conical, and tipped with delicate pink.

  With a smooth action of her hips, she removed the black panties, tossing them away.

  "That's… enough, for now," he choked, thumping his chest with his meaty fists. "We shall wait for the boy…"

  "What for?" she chided, running her hands under and over her breasts.

  She stepped forward and took one of his hands. It was balled into a tight fist.

  Holding his wrist with one hand, she raked the nails of the other hand down to the curled fingers. When they opened, she thrust the hand between her legs and clamped her thighs over it.

  "Oh, God… oh, God…"

  She pulled his head between her breasts and squeezed their soft fullness with her elbows.

  Involuntarily, his hand began to move between her legs. Her perfume made his mind reel, and even as he felt breath leaving him, he blubbered between the twin mounds of soft flesh that denied him air.

  "Ox…oxygen…" he gasped, his free hand snaking across the desk.

  She saw the movement and stopped it with her own hand.

  She speeded up her gyrations. A moaning sound joined his labored breathing. His body was heaving now. and he began to whine. And then the whine turned into a rattle.

  Suddenly he lurched, sending her against the desk. He swayed to his feet, clutching his chest, and then toppled with a dull thud to the floor.

  "Pig," she hissed, tears streaming from her eyes. "Dirty pig!""

  She didn't want to touch him again, but she had to. She practically had to grind her fingers into the folds of flesh at his neck before she was sure he was dead.

  She dressed quickly. She found the buttons that had been pulled from her dress and dropped them into her purse. With paper clips, she fastened the dress, and then returned the stacks of bills to the briefcase.

  Then, briefcase and purse in hand, she stood at the door and surveyed the room a last time.

  The glass. It was all she had touched besides the front doorknob.

  She cleaned the glass with her skirt and used the garment again on the knob as
she let herself out.

  Barely taking a breath, she ran all the way to her car and tumbled inside.

  Then she fell apart.

  It was twenty minutes before she could make her fingers work to put the key in the ignition.

  As she drove past Hessling's in the predawn darkness, she saw a tall, handsome young man pushing the button.

  Five

  There was nearly an hour and a half between flights. Carter guessed that Lisa's layover would be about the same.

  His first guess as to where she would spend the time was right on the button: the cocktail lounge in the Pan Am concourse of Frankfurt-am-Main Airport.

  The way she had sounded on the phone the previous evening. Carter guessed she could use several Bloody Marys.

  When he entered the lounge he recognized her immediately even behind the dark glasses and the new, shorter hair style. She was wearing an ice-blue dress that accented high breasts, a slender waist, and softly rounded hips.

  Somehow she sensed his approach and spun to face him on the armed stool. Her eyes were even with his, and he wondered what they were doing behind those dark shades.

  She didn't smile. Carter hadn't expected she would. He wondered if she were remembering — as he was — that night: the ambush in the hotel room, the chaos of gunfire, the smell of cordite, and the wild ride to the hospital that they had barely reached in time.

  "Hello, Lisa."

  "Hi. Want to compare scars?"

  Now she smiled and the ice broke. He planted his lips gently but firmly on hers, and slid up onto the adjacent stool.

  "Thank you for coming."

  "I'm on vacation," he shrugged, and nodded to the bartender. "One of those, not too hot."

  "This may be just Delaine, you realize. We may be sisters, but we're quite different. She has a tendency to get a little frantic."

  Carter sipped the Bloody Mary and smiled. "I'll do what I can, but I really came to see you."

  "Let's hope Berlin is just fun."

  "Yeah, let's hope."

  His antennae were vibrating. It was the sixth sense that every good agent acquired over the years, if he stayed alive.

  As Lisa continued to speak, Carter listened with one ear and let his eyes travel around the small lounge; an old woman with a young blond-haired boy; a couple of coed types with hair so long they were sitting on it; a short, gray-haired man reading the morning paper; an older couple in the midst of a quiet argument.

  Carter moved his gaze back to the gray-haired man. The eyes behind half glasses came up from behind the pages to meet Carter's.

  They stared at each other for a few seconds, and then the man folded his paper. He checked his tab, placed a bill on the table, and left.

  The bill was carefully folded and refolded until it resembled a star.

  "Lisa…"

  "Yes?"

  "Excuse me for a second, will you? Nature calls."

  "Of course."

  A waitress was trying to unfold the bill without tearing it as Carter passed. He heard her grumble something about big tip or no big tip, she wished customers wouldn't try to be so cute.

  The man was washing his hands as Carter pushed through the door. He saw legs under one of the stall doors, and moved to the door two down.

  Their eyes met in the mirror, and both heads barely nodded.

  It took almost five minutes before the man emerged from the stall, washed his hands, and left.

  "How was your flight from Paris?"

  "Fine."

  "You are on Pan Am Nine-two-two, I believe."

  "Yes, to Berlin."

  "Very convenient. Peter Limpton received a call very early this morning in London from one of his West German contacts."

  "A buyer or seller?" Carter asked.

  "It would appear a seller." He pulled a thin manila envelope from his inside jacket pocket and set it on the mirror tray in front of Carter. "His name is Oskar Hessling. All we have on him is in there."

  "What did Limpton have to say?"

  "Hessling was putting the squeeze on a big American electronics manufacturer. He had told Limpton earlier that the goods would be pure gold. In fact, worth more than gold to Limpton's people. Evidently, the squeeze didn't work. Hessling called him a couple of weeks ago and said that the deal was off."

  "And last night it was back on?"

  The man nodded and began to dry his hands. "He directed Limpton to give him a call Tuesday in Berlin. Alma wants you to do a little digging before then."

  "Will do."

  "Have a nice flight."

  Carter returned to the lounge and answered Lisa's quizzical stare with the truth. "Business."

  "So you're not on vacation."

  "It would seem that I'm not," he replied. "But it's just routine. I'll still look into your problem."

  Right 922 was called for boarding. When they had passed through security, Lisa folded her arm through Carter's and leaned close to his ear.

  "Do you travel without your friends now?"

  "Oh, no. False bottom in the suitcase I checked."

  The «friends» she was referring to were Carter's 9mm Luger, which he affectionately called Wilhelmina, a deadly little stiletto named Hugo, and a walnut-sized gas bomb dubbed Pierre.

  Carter actually thought, that sunny morning walking down the airport concourse with the beautiful and appealing woman on his arm, that he wouldn't need his «friends» on this trip to Berlin.

  * * *

  Every day at noon, the Freiheitsglocke in the American Memorial Library building boomed out the hour. It sounded each noon to remind Berlin and the world that all men derive the right to freedom equally from God.

  Dieter Klauswitz cared nothing about symbols or God. About his freedom, he had an undying passion to keep it. He removed the five pieces of his means to keep his freedom from the leather case and began assembling them.

  From his sunny, 260-foot-tall perch above Berlin, he had a commanding view of the boulevard in front of the library. On the steps, workmen were putting the finishing touches to the podium and seats with bunting for the rally.

  On the sidewalks and in one lane of the partially blocked-off boulevard, the curious, the demonstrators, and the enthusiasts had already begun to gather.

  Berlin police manned the barricades, their spotless uniforms and white helmets gleaming. Uniformed and plainclothes SSD, men and officers of the special security department, stood about grim-faced in the heat.

  They looked uncomfortable.

  Klauswitz himself was slightly uncomfortable. His muscles ached from lying on the ground all night. But not enough to jeopardize his performance. With the added clothing beneath the leather, he was perspiring, but not enough to impair his determination.

  When the F1 was completely assembled and checked, he scooted around on his belly until he found the perfect piece of hard, flat ground for the bipod. When this was done, he fit the stock to his shoulder and his eye to the scope.

  The line from the open end of the scope down the twenty-eight-inch barrel, over the front sight and the silencer, was clean and pure all the way to the library steps.

  An electrician in blue coveralls stood at the podium, connecting and adjusting a bank of microphones.

  Klauswitz moved the cross hairs of the scope against the sight until a button on the man's left breast pocket was sighted in. He adjusted the range, then rolled the magnifier to full.

  The button seemed to explode in size in the scope.

  "Bang," Klauswitz said, "you're dead."

  He popped the box magazine and, one by one, loaded it with the cyanide-treated shells. When the magazine was reset, he made one more sighting calculation.

  Perfect.

  He scooted over to the wicker basket, withdrew the thermos and sandwiches, and like so many of the workmen below him, proceeded to have his lunch.

  * * *

  The honeyed shade of her dark blond hair, the slant of her eyebrows, and the intense blue eyes were the only physical evid
ence to the fact that Delaine Berrington Conway was Lisa's sister.

  Where Lisa's figure was full and roundly feminine, Delaine's was angular, with small breasts and almost boyishly slim hips.

  Even her face, with its sharp bones and planes, lacked the soft character of Lisa's.

  At this moment she was dressed in a plain white bra and white panties. She sat at her vanity, idly rolling an eyeliner pencil back and forth between her fingers.

  "Jesus Christ, aren't you dressed yet? We have to leave in ten minutes!"

  Delaine looked up to see her distinguished-looking husband, her champion of industry, scowling at her from the doorway.

  "I really don't feel like going, Stephan."

  "Bullshit. You're going, and that's all there is to it!"

  Delaine stared at him in the mirror. It wasn't hard to see why she had fallen in love with this man, married him, and endured him for the last four years.

  "You have to go, Delaine," he said, his face darkening with menace.

  It was a chiseled, leathery face, but not a coarse one. The long nose had been accidentally broken once, but it retained an aquiline grace. And the long, horizontal dimple in his left cheek never lost its appeal, even when he clenched his jaw tightly, as he was doing now. His eyes, normally a warm and moody gray, were now hidden beneath his heavily frowning brow.

  "Who was she, Stephan?"

  "What?"

  "Last night's conquest. Do you have a mistress on your staff over here, or did you bring her with us in the entourage from the States?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "It's not like you to pick up a cheap tart off the streets, Stephan. Besides, the perfume I smelled on you last night when you got into bed was too expensive for a tart."

  "Delaine, please, do we have to go into this…"

  "I guess I would rather have it be a tart, though. That means you would forget her the next morning. But you haven't been forgetting this one. And that perfume has become familiar. You should stick to women who use my brand of perfume, Stephan."

  "Christ, Delaine, we'll talk about this tonight…"

  "I want to talk about it now!"

  "Well, I don't!" he shouted, and stomped to the closet. With an angry growl, he threw the doors open and bunched the clothing in his big arms.