Call After Midnight

by Tess Gerritsen

  “Then what happens?”

  “It will soon be plain to everyone involved that Fontaine’s really dead. They’ll leave her alone. We’ll have to find Magus some other day.”

  “What about Wes Corrigan? I want him let off the hook.”

  “Already done. There’ll be no harm to his career. Not a mark’ll show up on his personnel file.”

  Slowly Nick sat down. He gave Potter a long, hard look. His decision and its consequences rested on only one thing: Could he trust these men? Even if he couldn’t, what choice did he have? Sarah was alone out there, hiding from a killer. She’d never survive on her own. “If this is some kind of scam—”

  “There’s no need to threaten me, O’Hara. I know what you’re capable of.”

  “No,” said Nick. “I don’t think you do. And let’s hope you never find out.”

  * * *

  “WHERE WILL I FIND HIM in Amsterdam?” Sarah asked the woman.

  They were walking through the trees to the Citroën. The ground was damp, and Sarah’s heels sank deeply into the young grass.

  “Are you certain you wish to find him?” asked the woman.

  “I have to. He’s the only one I can turn to for help. And he’s waiting for me.”

  “You may not survive this search. You know that, don’t you?”

  Sarah shivered. “I’m barely surviving now. Every moment I’m afraid. I keep wondering when and how it’ll end. If it will be painful.” She shuddered. “They used a knife on Eve.”

  The woman’s eyes darkened. “A knife? Kronen’s trademark.”

  “Kronen?”

  “Son of the Devil, we used to call him. He is Magus’s favorite.”

  “He wears sunglasses? And he has blond, almost white hair?”

  The woman nodded. “You’ve seen him, then. He’ll be looking for you. In Amsterdam. In Berlin. Wherever you go, he’ll be waiting.”

  “What would you do if you were me?”

  The woman looked at Sarah thoughtfully. “In your place? With your youth? Yes, I would do what you’re doing. I would try to find Simon.”

  “Then help me. Tell me how I can find him.”

  “What I tell you could kill him.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  The woman searched Sarah’s face, once more weighing her chances. “In Amsterdam,” she said, “there is a club, the Casa Morro. On the street Oude Zijds Voorburgwal. It is owned by a woman named Corrie. She was once a friend to Mossad. To all of us. If Simon is in Amsterdam, she will know how to find him.”

  “And if she doesn’t?”

  “Then no one will know.”

  The Citroën’s door was already open. They climbed in and the driver headed toward the Ku-damm.

  “When you see the Casa Morro, don’t be shocked,” the woman said.

  “Why would I be shocked?”

  The woman laughed softly. “You’ll find out.” She leaned forward and spoke to the driver in German. “We can drop you off near your pension,” she told Sarah. “Is that what you wish?”

  Sarah nodded. To reach Amsterdam she would need money, and Nick was carrying most of their cash. Tonight, when he was asleep, she could lift it from his wallet and leave Berlin. By morning she’d be miles away. “I’m staying just south of—”

  “We know where it is,” said the woman. She muttered a few more words to the driver. Then she turned to Sarah. “There is one last thing. Be careful whom you trust. That man you were with yesterday—what is his name?”

  “Nick O’Hara.”

  The woman frowned, as if trying to place the name. “Whoever he is,” she said, “he could be dangerous. How long have you known him?”

  “A few weeks.”

  The woman nodded. “Don’t trust him. Go alone. It’s safest.”

  “Whom can I trust?”

  “Only Simon. Tell no one what I’ve told you. Magus has eyes and ears everywhere.”

  They were nearing the pension. The street outside looked so exposed, so dangerous. Sarah felt safer in the car; she didn’t want to get out. But the Citroën had already slowed down. She was reaching for the door handle when the driver suddenly cursed and floored the gas pedal. Sarah’s shoulder slammed against the door as they swerved away from the curb and shot back into the traffic.

  “Nach rechts!” the woman shouted, her face instantly taut with fear.

  “What is it?” cried Sarah.

  “CIA! They’re all over this street!”

  “CIA?”

  “Look for yourself!”

  They were coming up fast on the pension. Like all the other buildings on this street, it was a featureless box of gray concrete, distinguished only by a splash of shocking red graffiti scrawled on its front wall. On the sidewalk next to the graffiti stood two men. Sarah recognized them both. Planted solidly on his two short legs was Roy Potter, who squinted up the street in their direction. And standing close by, his face frozen in disbelief, was Nick.

  He seemed unable to move, unable to react. As the Citroën roared past, he could only stand and stare. Just for an instant, his eyes met Sarah’s through the car window. He grabbed Potter’s arm. Both men dashed into the street after the Citroën in a futile attempt to grab the car door. That’s when she understood. At last it was clear.

  Nick had been working with Potter all along. Together they’d engineered a plan so intricate, so well acted, that she’d been totally taken in. Nick was with the Company. She’d just seen the proof, there on the sidewalk. He must have returned to the room and found her missing. Then he’d sounded the alarm.

  Sarah collapsed against the seat in shock. She heard Nick’s voice one last time as he shouted her name. Then the sound faded away, drowned out by the engine’s roar. All of Sarah’s strength was gone. She huddled against the car door like a hunted animal. She was a hunted animal. The CIA was after her. Magus was after her. No matter which way she fled, someone’s net would be closing in.

  “We’ll have to leave you at the airport,” said the woman. “If you board a plane immediately, you may have time to get out of Berlin before they can stop you.”

  “But where are you going?” cried Sarah.

  “Away. We take a different route.”

  “What if I need you? How can I find you—”

  “You can’t.”

  “But I don’t even know your name!”

  “If you find your husband, tell him Helga sent you.”

  The sign for Tegel Airport came up too quickly. There was so little time to gather her courage, so little time to think. Before she was ready, the Citroën stopped at the curb. She had to climb out. She didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to Helga. As soon as Sarah’s feet hit the pavement, the door slammed and the car sped off.

  Sarah was alone.

  On the way to the ticket counter, she glanced through the cash in her wallet. There was barely enough for a meal, much less a plane ticket. She had no choice. She’d have to use her credit card.

  Twenty minutes later a flight took off for Amsterdam. Sarah was on it.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  AFTER IT LEFT Tegel Airport, the black Citroën headed south toward the Ku-damm. Helga had to make one last stop before she left Berlin. She knew she was taking a big chance. The CIA had seen her license plate; they could trace her address. Death was closing in fast. Already Eva was gone. She would have to call Corrie, tell her to warn Simon. And she would ask her about this man, Nick O’Hara. Helga wondered who he was. She didn’t like new faces. The most dangerous enemy in the world is the one you do not recognize.

  She would have to abandon the car and board the train to Frankfurt. From there she could move south to Switzerland and Italy, or west to Spain. It didn’t matter where she went; what mattered was that she left Berlin. Before Eva’s fate caught up with her, too.

  But even spies can be sentimental. Helga couldn’t leave the city without her few precious possessions. To anyone else they were worthless things, but to Helga they were bits and pieces
of a life she’d left behind: photographs of her sister and her parents, all of whom had died in the war; a half dozen love letters from a boy she would never forget; her mother’s silver locket. These things reminded her of her humanity, and she would never leave without them, even under threat of death.

  Her driver understood why they were stopping at the house. He knew it was useless to argue. He took her home one last time and sat in the car while she ran inside to collect her belongings.

  From all the secret places in her bedroom came those few treasured items. They were packed, along with her pistol, in the false bottom of a satchel. Then clothes were thrown on top, the old skirts and housedresses she favored for their lack of distinction. She glanced out the window and saw the Citroën parked in the street below. What a pity to abandon such a fine car, she thought, but she had no choice.

  She closed the window and headed downstairs. Outside, the sunlight made her blink. For a few seconds, she stood on the porch and let her eyes adjust before she locked the door. Those few seconds saved her life.

  From the street came the screech of tires. Almost simultaneously, gunfire ripped the afternoon silence. Bullets spattered the Citroën. Helga threw herself to the porch, behind a row of clay tulip pots. Gunfire burst out again, and shards of glass rained down from the windows above her head.

  Desperately she rolled beneath the railing and threw herself into the flower bed behind the porch, dragging the satchel with her. She had only a few seconds to act, a few seconds before the assassin would move in to finish the job. Already she heard his car door slam. He was coming.

  She reached in the satchel. The false bottom slid open. Her hand closed around cold steel.

  The footsteps moved closer. He was climbing the steps now; for him it would be a straight shot into the flower bed.

  But she beat him to it. She raised the pistol, aimed and fired. The man’s head was flung backward as a bright blotch of scarlet sprang out above his right eye. He fell, smashing through the far railing, and toppled like a disjointed doll among the garden tools.

  Helga didn’t bother to check his condition. She knew he was dead. The man’s companion didn’t wait around to confirm her marksmanship, either. He was already back in the driver’s seat. Before she could aim and fire again, the car had roared off and disappeared.

  One look at the Citroën told her her driver could not have survived. She had time for only a twinge of regret, but no tears. She had trusted the man. While they hadn’t been lovers, they had been colleagues and they had worked well together these past five years. Now he was dead.

  She grabbed the satchel and walked briskly down the street. A block away she broke into a run. To remain in Berlin any longer would be foolish. She had made one costly mistake, and she had survived; next time she might not be so lucky.

  * * *

  BLOOD WAS EVERYWHERE.

  Nick shoved through the crowd of onlookers, across a street littered with broken glass, toward the black Citroën. Voices were shouting around him in German; on the sidewalk ahead, ambulance attendants crouched next to a body. Nick fought to get through, only to find himself blocked by a policeman. But he was close enough to see the dead man lying on the sidewalk, face exposed, eyes wide and staring.

  “Potter!” he shouted. But there were too many other voices, too many sirens. His cry was lost in the noise. He was utterly paralyzed, unable to move or think, just another stunned body in a crowd of onlookers, all staring at the blood. The man beside him suddenly sank to his knees and began to retch.

  “O’Hara!” It was Potter, calling to him from across the street. “She’s not here! There’re only two men, the driver and another guy, over by the porch. Both dead.”

  Nick shouted back, “Then where is she?”

  Potter shrugged and turned as Tarasoff approached.

  Enraged by his own helplessness, Nick pushed through the crowd and walked aimlessly down the street. He didn’t know or care where he was headed; the sight of blood was more than he could bear. It could just as easily have been Sarah’s body lying in the street, Sarah’s blood splattered all over that Citroën.

  A few yards away, he sank to the curb and dropped his head in his hands. There was nothing he could do. All his hopes rested on the skills of a man he’d never trusted and an organization he’d always despised. Roy Potter and the good old CIA. Potter had never been bothered by moral questions of right or wrong; he just did what he had to, and the rules be damned. For the first time in his life, Nick could appreciate such amoral practicality. With Sarah’s life at stake, he didn’t care how Potter did his job, either, as long as he got her back alive.

  “O’Hara?” Potter was waving at him. “Let’s move it! We’ve got a lead!”

  “What?” Nick scrambled to his feet and followed Potter and Tarasoff to the car.

  “KLM Airlines,” said Potter. “She used her credit card.”

  “You mean she’s leaving Berlin? Roy, you’ve gotta stop that plane!”

  Potter shook his head. “We’re too late for that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The plane landed ten minutes ago. In Amsterdam.”

  * * *

  THE DUTCH, IT is said, never close their curtains. To do so would imply that one has something to hide. At night, when the houses are lighted, anyone who walks down an Amsterdam street can look through the windows, straight into the soul of a Dutch home, and see supper tables where well-scrubbed children sit watching as their mothers spoon out applesauce and potatoes. The hours will pass, and the children will disappear to their beds. Mother and father will go to their accustomed chairs. There they will watch TV or read, all in plain view of the world.

  This open-curtain policy extends even to the Wallen district of Amsterdam, where members of the world’s oldest profession display their charms. In the brothel windows, ladies knit or read novels, or they look out the windows and smile at the men gawking from the street. To them it is only a business, and they have nothing to hide.

  It was in this neighborhood that Sarah found the Casa Morro. The afternoon had already slipped toward dusk by the time she crossed the small canal bridge to Oude Zijds Voorburgwal. In the sunlight the city had glowed with the gentle patina of age. But with the darkness came neon lights and throbbing music and all the strange and restless people who do not sleep at night. Sarah was just one more in a street of wanderers.

  In the shadows by the low stone bridge, she stood and watched the passersby. The dark waters of the canal gently slapped the boats behind her. A young man shambled by with the bent shuffle of a street addict. In the window across from her, four women in various stages of undress were displayed, the human offerings of Casa Morro. They looked like altogether ordinary women. The tallest one glanced around as someone called her name. Then, putting down her book, she rose and disappeared through the blue curtains. The other three women did not even look up. Don’t be shocked, Helga had said. This is what she had meant. After living on the edge of death, something as commonplace as a brothel could hardly shock Sarah.

  For half an hour, she observed the steady flow of men in and out the door. The three women in the window eventually departed through the curtain; two others emerged in their place. Casa Morro appeared to be a thriving business.

  At last Sarah went inside.

  Even the scent of perfume could not hide the building’s smell of age. The odor hung like a heavy curtain over what had once been an elegant seventeenth century home. Narrow wooden stairs led to a dim hallway above. Persian carpets, worn from years of traffic, muffled Sarah’s footsteps as she walked from the foyer into a sitting room.

  A woman looked up from a desk. She was in her forties, black-haired, elegantly tall and rawboned. Her gaze swept across Sarah in a swift look of assessment. “Kan ik u helpen?”

  “I am looking for Corrie.”

  After a pause the woman nodded. “You are American, aren’t you?” she asked in perfect English.

  Sarah didn’t answe
r. Slowly she circled the room, taking in the low couch, the fireplace with its brightly polished grate, the bookcase with its shelves of obscenely humorous knickknacks. At last she turned back to the woman. “Helga sent me,” she said.

  The woman’s face remained absolutely expressionless.

  “I want to find Simon. Where is he?”

  The woman was silent for a moment. “Perhaps Simon does not wish to be found,” she said softly.

  “Please. It’s important.”

  The woman shrugged. “With Simon everything is important.”

  “Is he in the city?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “He’ll want to see me.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m his wife. Sarah.”

  For the first time, the woman looked perturbed. She went to her desk and sat down. Tapping a pencil nervously, she studied Sarah. “Leave me your wedding ring,” she said. “Then come back tonight. Midnight.”

  “Will he be here?”

  “Simon is a cautious man. He’ll want proof before he comes anywhere near you.”

  Sarah removed her ring and gave it to the woman. Her hand felt naked without it. “I’ll be back at midnight,” she said.

  “Madame!” the woman called as Sarah turned to leave. “There are no guarantees.”

  Sarah nodded. “I know.” The woman’s warning had not been necessary; Sarah had learned that nothing was guaranteed. Not even her next heartbeat.

  * * *

  CORRIE WAITED ONLY a moment after Sarah left. Then she walked outside and down the block, to a pay telephone where she dialed an Amsterdam number. It was answered immediately.

  “The woman Helga called about was just here,” said Corrie. “Long hair, brown eyes, early thirties. I have her wedding ring. It is gold, inscribed Geoffrey, 2-14. She will be back at midnight.”

  “She’s alone?”

  “I saw no one else.”

  “And that man Helga mentioned—O’Hara—what did your friends find out?”

  “He’s not CIA. His involvement appears to be purely… personal.”

  There was a pause. Corrie listened carefully to the instructions that followed. Then she hung up and returned to the Casa Morro, where she placed the wedding ring on a pedestal in the front window where it would be easily visible from the street.