“We’ve met,” Shephard said. “At the crater.”
“I walked over to the Brandenburg to take a look around,” she explained to Wally.
“You took more than that.” Shephard continued to study her, as though she were a rare form of plant life he had only just discovered. The hazel eyes were still sharp, but the earlier simmering anger had vanished. “Do you always put your foot in it like that?”
“No,” she replied tersely. “And I usually don’t have to be reminded of it, either.”
“Was there some problem?” Hunter Price was the sort, Caroline suspected, who loved to recycle his neighbors’ affairs each morning over embassy coffee.
“Mud,” she replied. “Mud was the problem. The Tiergarten is churned to mush, and I definitely put my foot in it. See, Mr. Shephard? I even changed my shoes before this meeting.”
“Let’s get started, shall we?” The ambassador slid back into his seat. Caroline set her laptop on the ground unopened; she had brought it with the intention of typing her meeting notes, but the computer’s battery had run down and there did not appear to be an electrical outlet in the embassy garden. She drew out a yellow legal pad instead.
“I think we’ve all read Ms. Carmichael’s material and found it quite compelling,” Dalton observed. “Should we ever locate the Vice President and her attendant thugs, we shall be in the proverbial clover with Ms. Carmichael here on board. I hope you will excuse our impromptu picnic, my dear. We cannot entirely trust the acoustics within the residence.”
Caroline frowned. “You think you’re being bugged? In Germany?”
“We sweep the place every week,” Wally broke in, “and we haven’t actually found anything. But there have been … incidents. Or should I say coincidences?”
“Within six weeks of taking up my post, Ms. Carmichael, I discovered to my astonishment that whenever I presented my objectives to Mr. Voekl’s late, unfortunate foreign minister—you were familiar with Graf von Orbsdorff, I presume?—he invariably knew what to expect. Either Orbsdorff was a clairvoyant, or he was cheating at the international game. Personally, I plump for the notion of cheating.” Dalton scowled, an honorable schoolboy. “And so I adopted the habit of taking my conferences en plein air. A fresh breeze focuses the mind wonderfully, don’t you agree?”
She smiled at him. “Can anyone summarize for me what we know of the bombing to date?”
“For that, I defer to Wally and Mr. Shephard,” Dalton said briskly. “Gentlemen?”
“We know that the embassy blueprints were sold to the highest bidder,” Wally began, “probably by the project architect long before construction was completed. Worse, we know that 30 April knew precisely where to hit the internal surveillance equipment. Agency techs have already gone through the building. Every camera and fiber-optic insert along the gurney’s path was shot to hell.”
Eric, Caroline thought. He could have looked at the embassy’s blueprints and predicted with certainty where the security equipment would be placed. The realization came to her with a sick sense of disbelief-—that Eric could have betrayed a U.S. installation so easily to someone like Krucevic. She closed her eyes to shut out the image of the tilted platform, the twenty-eight dead. And thought of something else: If Eric had told his 30 April cronies where to find the cameras and fiber optics, he’d as much as told them about his Agency past. Which meant that they knew everything that mattered.
Did they even know about her?
She felt chilled to the bone. “So your VTC room is out, as well as cable channels.”
“They’ll be up and running in another twenty-two hours.”
“It’ll take at least a week to get the building completely secure and operational,” Tom Shephard said. He ran his fingers distractedly through his hair. “It’s like these guys had a three-D map of the building downloaded off the Internet, or something.”
So much for her cutout channel. And the ambassador’s residence was bugged. Caroline would have to call Headquarters from a corner pay phone and speak in riddles.
“They certainly hit the embassy fast,” she commented. “From the news coverage, it looks like nine minutes from explosion to kidnapping.”
“Which means they practiced.” Paul Dougherty’s eyes were alight, as though he’d awakened this morning to find himself cast in a techno thriller.
With the faintest suggestion of indulging the children, T. Hunter Price drawled, “This is infinitely fascinating, but it has nothing to do with the problem at hand. That being the location of Vice President Payne.”
“Go ahead, Hunter,” said Shephard with studied politeness. “If you know where she is, we’d love to hear.”
“I wouldn’t dream of stealing your moment, Tom,” Price replied. “I merely attempted to focus. The ambassador’s time is short.”
“Mr. Shephard has clearly profited from the fresh air,” Dalton declared placidly, “and may be allowed to proceed. Tom, tell us what you’ve learned from the crater.”
“We think the bomb was in a television broadcast van parked right next to the Gate,” Shephard said immediately. “We’ll know more once Forensics has cataloged and thoroughly tested the wreckage, but the truck axle has already surfaced—and been ID’d.”
“That was quick,” Wally observed.
“Luck.” Shephard shrugged. He was studying the path made by his forefinger as it trailed across the surface of the ambassador’s card table. “The truck belonged to Berlin’s TV Channel Four. The two cameramen and the reporter who were supposed to be in it were found floating in the Spree last night. They’d been assigned to cover the Veep’s speech. They never arrived.”
“So instead of renting a van to park under the Gate, 30 April stole one and killed its occupants. These guys weren’t about to leave a paper trail.”
Shephard’s eyes flicked over to Caroline. “Multiple murder increased their risks considerably. But it also covered their tracks more effectively. No rental documents, as in the Oklahoma City bombing or the hit on the World Trade Center. And being a real broadcast van, the truck looked far more plausible in place.”
“What about the medevac chopper?” Caroline asked. “Has anyone located that?”
“Possibly.” Shephard focused on his finger again. “Somebody parked a helicopter near the rail lines south of Templehof yesterday—that’s the old East Berlin airport—and set it on fire.”
“Destroying any traces of prints or fibers,” Caroline said.
“Most of them. Yes.”
“Have any of the local hospitals reported a missing medevac pilot?” Wally asked.
“A young woman by the name of Karin Markhof,” Tom Shephard told him. “Still no trace of her. Either Markhof was paid to turn over the bird to 30 April and got out of town fast once the Brandenburg blew—or she’s lying dead somewhere.”
“She’s dead.” Caroline said it without hesitation. “Krucevic leaves nothing to chance.”
“Then let’s hope he screws up somewhere down the line. Because that’s all we’ve got.”
Wally stroked his goatee, eyebrows furled like question marks. T. Hunter Price adjusted his tie. Dougherty looked from face to face like an eager puppy.
“Does the station here have any 30 April assets, Wally?” the ambassador inquired.
“A few, sir.”
“What’s ‘a few,’ Wally? Exactly?”
“Two,” the Chief of Station conceded. “In the developmental stage.”
“Which means you’ve got squat,” muttered T. Hunter Price.
“We’ve got a woman who works in the Berlin office of VaccuGen, Krucevic’s main front company,” Wally shot back. “She’s not on the payroll, which means she hasn’t been vetted, and I’m not at liberty to discuss her particulars. But one of my officers has been developing her for months.”
“And?”
“Fred is still trying to make contact.”
Price threw up his hands in mute eloquence.
“What about the other recruit?” Caroline ask
ed.
“He’s a different kettle of fish. Brilliant, oddball, and an unreconciled Communist. Krucevic wants to own him, but our guy thinks Krucevic is poison. He cracks security systems for a living.”
“So how’d he come to us?” Caroline asked.
“He applied for an embassy job. As a security expert.”
“Fascinating,” burbled T. Hunter Price. “You just brought this crook in, I suppose, to discuss your mutually shady pursuits over a glass of Schultheiss. And in the process, you probably gave away the embassy’s fiber optics and security installations, Wally, to no less a personage than 30 April’s chief safecracker. I congratulate you, friend. I really do.”
“Horse pucky,” the station chief said. “I didn’t interview him at the embassy.” But he had flushed an angry red.
“Have you talked to him since the bombing?” Tom Shephard was rigid with interest.
“Last night. I didn’t tell him why we wanted Krucevic.” Wally glanced around the table. “Nobody in Berlin knows for a fact that 30 April did the Brandenburg, much less the Vice President, so I made it a fairly general query. But my guy thinks Mlan is headed for Hungary. Krucevic told him to get to Budapest and await instructions. I asked him nicely to keep us informed.”
Budapest, Caroline thought. I’m wasting my time here in Berlin.
“So this asset of yours is working for the terrorists.” Shephard was scowling.
“He’s not an asset. He’s a developmental.”
“Which means you’re not paying him.”
“Not formally. No.”
“But you’re considering placing him on your payroll. A borderline criminal who consorts with terrorists.”
“You want a terrorist asset, Tom, you’ve got to get your hands dirty.”
It was the oldest debate in the counterterrorism game: how to penetrate the organizations you pursued without adopting their methods. Most of the people at the CTC, Caroline thought, would agree that it was impossible. You could trace a terrorist’s funds. You could blow up his training camps and operational bases. But you could not learn his most private thoughts, his most diabolical schemes, without an ear in his private councils. That meant controlling one of his own. Paying for terrorist treason. And that single fact almost guaranteed that someday, somebody—in the halls of Congress or the pages of the Washington Post —would accuse you of bankrolling a monster.
“Hungary,” the ambassador said thoughtfully. “It’s a big place. But this is good, Wally It’s a start. I suggest you get on the horn to your opposite number in Pest and direct him to work his assets.”
“Yes, sir,” Wally said briefly. He did not remind Dalton that the secure phones were down.
“There must be a 30 April body somewhere in that city,” the ambassador said. “We must get to him before Krucevic does.”
“Isn’t there some way to prevent 30 April from entering Hungary?” Shephard asked. “The borders should have been closed as soon as the bomb went off yesterday.”
“They haven’t been, and they won’t be,” Dalton told him. “The President undertook to give Krucevic his freedom until Sophie Payne is recovered. Any sign of an international manhunt, we jeopardize her safety.”
“That can’t go on indefinitely.”
“As far as our German friends are concerned, I imagine it could. It serves their ends to admiration. Why close the borders, when the enemy is within? You of all people must know, Tom, that the enemy is the infidel Turk. He lives among us. He is to be punished for 30 April’s crimes, while 30 April gets away with murder.”
“Which raises a few questions about Fritz Voekl,” Caroline observed, “and his commitment to fighting international terrorism.”
Dalton smiled at her regretfully. “There are so many questions about Fritz Voekl, my dear. Questions that even I shall not put to him, I’m afraid. We need more information—the kind of information that can be used to pressure him—if we are to proceed from a position of strength. And now, if you’ll excuse me,” the ambassador said with a general nod, “I must present my respects to the chancellor and his daughter. It is young Kiki’s sixteenth birthday, and le tout Berlin will be raising a glass.”
EIGHT
Pristina, 2:13 P.M.
ENVER GORDIEVIC WAS STARTLED AWAKE at the first knock on his shanty’s door. His heart pounded. He glanced first at Krystle, the baby, who was napping in the lower bunk; she stirred drowsily and began to wail. Then he looked toward the door. No windows in the hut, no way to know who stood there. But it must be faced. Even if it was Simone.
He took the three steps at a run and pulled open the flimsy piece of wood. The Canadian doctor was framed in the doorway, her face lined with weariness, all her heart in her eyes. Alexis—
“You’d better come,” she said. And he didn’t ask any questions, just gathered up the little one in her blanket and raced across the churned mud to the medical tent. Simone was there before him, by the side of the cot where his daughter had lain through the early hours of morning, an IV taped into her small wrist. Her hand was on Alexis’s forehead, her stethoscope was searching the little girl’s chest. His daughter looked spent; her eyes were closed. She was not, Enver thought, even moving. He waited, holding his breath, for Simone to shake her head, to draw the sheet up over his daughter’s golden hair—for his world to crack apart like a shattered glass.
He’d spent eight hours pacing the hospital tent floor, running his hands through his hair and talking, talking, to the woman with the French name, while friends watched his baby and Alexis spiraled downward into death.
“How will I tell her mother?” he had asked Simone once in despair, and she had looked at him in surprise.
“You’re married?”
“Was married. She was killed in a fire. During the civil war.” I was supposed to take care of the girls. “She’d always wanted a little girl. Someone to dress up, like a doll. I wanted boys, you know? Kids I could play soccer with.”
“Girls play soccer, too.”
He’d nodded distractedly. “It doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t trade my girls now. They’re all I have left of Ludmila—she was only twenty-eight when she died. And I loved her.”
He had paused, embarrassed to be talking so freely to this woman, who had hundreds of other children to care for, other parents to hear. But Simone was sitting quite still, her eyes on his face; his confessions hadn’t bored her.
“Your wife must have been beautiful,” she had told him. “Your girls certainly are.”
“She named them after movie stars. From an American television show. Dynasty —you know it? She wanted everything for Alexis. Everything she never had. And for a while, we were doing so well. I had my practice, she had her apartment house—she inherited it from her father. Six apartments, six families. None of them survived the fire.”
He had spoken without emotion; he had told this story too many times to feel it anymore.
Simone had risen and gone to a small boy turning restlessly in the cot next to his daughter’s. “How did you escape?”
“I was in Budapest. Attending a constitutional-reform seminar sponsored by the U.S. Justice Department. My mother brought the girls to me for a holiday—she had never been to Hungary herself-—but Ludmila couldn’t get away. When war broke out, she called and begged me to stay. She wanted the girls to be safe.” He had looked directly at Simone, his eyes bright as if with fever. “I never saw her again.”
“But you and your daughters survived.”
“So we could die here?” he had retorted. It was the first sign of real bitterness he’d allowed himself to feel.
Simone had ignored it. She pressed a cold cloth against Alexis’s forehead. “You’re a lawyer, then.”
“That doesn’t mean much in Kosovo. Law has nothing to do with survival.”
“But someday, you’ll use what you learned in that seminar. Don’t give up hope, Enver.”
Alexis had whimpered in the cot, and Simone felt for her pulse. There
were so many children now. One hundred and fifty-three more had arrived at daybreak. They lay in the tent with barely eight inches between their cots, some on pallets on the dirt floor. They moved into beds when another child died—
“Why aren’t you getting it?” he had asked her abruptly. “This disease. Why is it just the kids?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t strike adults. Or maybe, if you’ve had the more common forms of the disease or been inoculated against them, you’re immune. We know so little about this strain—we don’t even know how the epidemic started. Or why the disease strikes boys far more savagely than girls—every gland in the boys’ bodies is swollen. But a German lab has been studying the virus intensively and has come up with a new vaccine. We expect some German medical teams to fly in any day and begin inoculation.”
“A vaccine? Specifically for this strain? How did they make it so fast?”
“I don’t know.” Her eyes met his, and the agony in them was like a lash. “Enver, I’d urge you to have your youngest vaccinated.”
“Do you think it’s safe?”
“I think it can’t be worse than what we’ve got.”
He had thought about it all morning, while Alexis worsened; he had carried the idea of a vaccine back to his shelter when Krystle needed a nap. He had fallen asleep despite his best intentions in the quiet of that room, thinking of mumps, of killing strains. And while he slept, his elder daughter’s time had run out.
He took a step now toward Alexis’s cot and reached for her hand. It was cold—colder than his own, which was clammy with fear and raw weather. If only she would open her eyes one last time and look at him—if only he could hear her say his name—
Simone shook her head and removed her stethoscope from Alexis’s chest.
He would not look at Simone. He would not let the glass shatter, and with it, all the world—
“I’m so sorry, Ludmila,” he whispered to his dead wife. And buried his face in their daughter’s sweat-soaked curls.
NINE
Bratislava, 3 P.M.
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