12 Drummers Drumming

by Diana Deverell

  Stefan said, “We can’t help you go home, not yet. We can’t give your people what we’ve got on Global Flight 500. Hans knows a place where you’ll be safe till we can.”

  My safety again. Stefan claimed to be so concerned about me. But I felt pushed aside. Told to put my life on hold, while he risked everything to make contact with a shadowy informant. The matching Swiss passports and the Jetta with Swiss registration were leftovers from an earlier fallback plan. One that had Stefan and Erika posing as a couple. They’d have to rewrite the script if they wanted to bolster the fiction that Stefan was dead. But they’d still be working together.

  I wondered how Stefan had missed the obvious. I could give him precisely the help he needed now. It was as clear to me as if I were watching myself on a video.

  “Enough of this,” Erika told van Hoof. “Let’s not waste any more time.”

  She was so eager to get rid of me. I wished I could let her have her way. I wished I could leave. But I didn’t trust her to protect Stefan. Not the way I could.

  Ego. My own worst enemy.

  9

  “You’ll waste less time if you let me in on this,” I said. “Was Major Reinhardt Krüger part of HVA?” I used the shorthand for the Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung, the now-defunct foreign intelligence service of the former East Germany.

  Interest flared in Erika’s eyes. “Yes.”

  “I thought he must be,” I said. “Then I can give Stefan a better shot at meeting safely with his informant. I have a way to distract Major Krüger.”

  “You?” The glimmer of interest was gone. “You’re a fugitive. Discredited by your own State Department. Pursued by the FBI.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “I’m in big trouble. If I went back to the U.S., I’d be thrown in jail. Unless I brought home a big prize. Something the FBI wants badly. Like an answer to the question that’s been bugging them: How far did HVA penetrate into U.S. intelligence during the Cold War? The FBI wants to know who spied for HVA and what the East Germans got from them. The FBI would trade a lot to get all the facts. I can act as if I want to broker that deal. As if I wanted to swap what Krüger knows for my freedom from prosecution plus safe haven for him in America.”

  “No.” Stefan’s eyes were hazel ice. “You cannot deal with Reinhardt Krüger. He would destroy you.”

  I said, “I wouldn’t go through with it. But I can make the proposition. Get his attention long enough for you to make contact with his associate. Find out where they’re going to plant the next bomb.”

  “You think your proposal would get Krüger’s attention?” Erika’s tone was too dismissive. “He has no interest in going into hiding in the U.S.”

  “Of course he does. He knows his cover won’t hold up much longer. If you spotted him in November, others did, too. And when the German authorities catch up with him, they will arrest him. Only the old East German spy managers are exempt from prosecution. They won’t go easy on anyone as involved with the terrorists as you claim Krüger was. If he has any survival instinct at all, he’s looking for a bolt-hole. He’ll be eager to enroll in our Witness Protection Program.”

  Erika asked, “Why would Krüger believe you could make a deal like that?”

  “The media’s inflated my reputation,” I replied. “I’m an important international criminal. One who’s had mysterious dealings with the FBI and the CIA. Now I need to save myself. What could be more credible to a slimeball? Mutual self-interest: We don’t have to trust each other. He’ll go for it.”

  Van Hoof said, “Her situation can be turned to our advantage.”

  “No,” Stefan said. “I won’t allow her to do it.”

  “She won’t actually confront Krüger,” van Hoof countered. “She’ll put out the word that she’s got something he wants. That alone will be sufficient to provide the diversion you require.”

  “Visibility like that is too dangerous,” Stefan said. “She’ll be an instant target.”

  “Too dangerous,” Erika echoed. But her voice lacked conviction. And she was no longer looking at Stefan.

  I said, “Stefan will be in greater danger if I don’t help him. Nobody will be foolish enough to kill me before that contract is paid. Not while there’s a chance I’ll draw Stefan to me. Besides, Krüger will want to hear more about my offer. He’ll order them to leave me alone. I’ll be bulletproof.”

  “The al-Nemers won’t be deterred,” Stefan said.

  When he spoke the family name of the assassin who’d pursued us out of Poland, I heard a worried undertone in his voice that set off an echoing tremor in my stomach. But I had to do this. I pushed my fear aside. “No reason to think they’re still interested in me. I’ve had the Department keep a lookout for them. No al-Nemers have left the Shuf Mountains in the past year.”

  “You must try to be objective,” van Hoof said to Stefan. “We’ve been all through this. Your informant knows where Krüger has told the terrorists to strike next. But he’s deathly afraid he’ll be seen with you. The high price he’s asking for that information reflects how dangerous it is for him. He’ll meet you once only, at the time and place he’s named. But you can’t go there with all of Krüger’s gunmen searching for you.”

  Van Hoof’s voice took on greater urgency and he leaned toward Stefan. “If Casey creates a flurry of activity at another location, your chances of success are much improved. And if she seizes Krüger’s attention as well, all the better.”

  “I agree.” Erika’s voice had an undertone of pleading when she spoke to Stefan. “Hans is right.”

  Stefan said, “The danger to Casey outweighs the potential value.”

  “Be objective.” Van Hoof banged out the word like a hammer on hardwood. “Not pigheaded. Without her help, you’ll be dead. And we’ll have no way of finding out that date and flight number. This is no time for heroics.”

  Stefan’s face went blank. As though he’d been sucker punched.

  No one said anything for the next fifteen seconds.

  Van Hoof broke the silence. “It’s settled, then. Casey will take the initiative.”

  I said, “So I’ll work with Stefan—”

  Van Hoof shook his head. “Stefan must operate independently. Absolutely no communication between the two of you.”

  “We have to communicate,” I insisted. “To coordinate this thing.”

  “No,” van Hoof said. “Erika will be the liaison between you. You’ll deal only with her.”

  Not the outcome I wanted. I said quickly, “I’m not going to be credible if Krüger sees me working so closely with someone from the Father-Major’s network.”

  “Neither Erika nor Hans has ties to Holger,” Stefan said. “I contacted Erika on my own. And she introduced me to Hans.”

  He’d contacted Erika? Suddenly, I was so tired I had difficulty moving my lips. “Fine,” I told him, my voice weary. “I’ll work with Erika. But only until you’ve gotten what you can from that informant. Once you have that specific piece of information, I’m going home. I’ll need something to give to the FBI. And I’ve got to be free to answer their questions about Global 500.”

  “Do this for us,” van Hoof said. “Clearing your name will be no problem after Stefan talks to his man.”

  Too glib.

  But Erika spoke before I could. “I’ll get to work on her. She has to look more like a fugitive.”

  “Change her appearance,” van Hoof said. “Then set her up with Ebertus Wouters.”

  “No,” Erika said. “I’ll put her with one of my people in Antwerp.”

  Antwerp again. The town where Erika worked for a private arms trader. Erika and van Hoof were moving so fast, it was obvious they’d been over this ground before. Probably had considered and rejected an approach to Krüger through someone in Antwerp.

  “We can’t put her with any of your associates,” van Hoof told Erika. “There has to be more distance between you two. She’ll fit right in at Bert’s. Plus, his loyalty to me is not common knowledge. I’ll let h
im know she’s coming.”

  “At Bert’s, then.” Moodily, Erika lifted the crumpled pack from the night stand and tugged the last cigarette from it. “I’ll work with her on her legend.”

  “Nothing too elaborate,” I said. “I was abducted from Hamburg by a man posing as a cop. I thought he’d been sent by the same people who set Stefan up to be killed. That he’d kill me, too. I escaped.”

  “We can flesh that out.” Erika removed the matchbook from her coat pocket. “A trucker picked her up on the E19, gave her a lift as far as the port. I’ll drive her to the spot where he dropped her off, walk her from there to Bert’s so she’ll have the details right.”

  “Good.” Van Hoof bent down, picked up Stefan’s shirt and jacket and tossed them to him. “You have anything to add?” van Hoof asked.

  “I don’t want her doing this.” Stefan’s voice was tight.

  “We don’t have a better option,” van Hoof said.

  “I disagree.” He pulled on his shirt. “But I appear to be outvoted.”

  Van Hoof said to Erika, “You have to move quickly. Thursday night, Stefan must attempt contact. By then all the attention must be focused on her.”

  Thursday night. New Year’s Eve. Fewer than forty-eight hours away. “Too soon,” I said. “Good idea, using a go-between to make the first contact. But I can’t put the offer of safe haven in a message. That has to be done face-to-face. All I can do by Thursday is get word to Krüger that I want to deal. That may not be enough to do the trick.”

  “Make it dramatic,” van Hoof said. “Stefan’s informant will see him only during the height of the festivities, between ten P.M. and two A.M. on New Year’s Eve. That gives him only a four-hour time frame in which to work. After two o’clock on Friday morning, his window of opportunity will be locked tight.” He was urging Stefan toward the door.

  One more minute and Stefan would disappear again. I had to stop him. I had to know if he still wanted a life with me. “Stefan,” I said.

  He turned toward me, his expression unreadable.

  I didn’t look at Erika or van Hoof, but I felt them watching us. I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t say the words. I couldn’t ask if he loved me, not in front of them. Instead, I said, “This is a one-time thing I’m doing. When it’s over, I’m going home. Tell me that’ll be possible. That you’ll help me clear my name.”

  “No time now,” van Hoof said, reaching for the knob.

  “Wait,” I said.

  The door clicked shut.

  Erika took the half-smoked cigarette from her mouth and stabbed the burning ember into the ashtray. The inch-long cylinder folded in half, then flattened against the thick glass, the lipsticked end crushed like a blood-filled mosquito. Her gaze ran over me. Then she smiled. “First, the hair. The hair has to go.”

  10

  By six o’clock the following morning—Wednesday—I was standing with Erika in front of a waterfront dive. Garbage overflowed from the can at the sidewalk’s edge. I smelled vegetable peelings, their rotting odor blending with the briny scent of the Scheldt River.

  Less than a kilometer to the north, Antwerp’s gigantic port operated day and night. But at the edge of downtown on the next-to-the-last day of the year, people were still sleeping. All I heard was the lap of water in the canal and the murmur of a pigeon nested nearby.

  Erika rapped twice on the glass of the entry door. The sound echoed off the cobblestones; then both sound and echo disappeared into the early-morning mist.

  Someone was moving in the murky darkness on the other side of the door. A white-clad torso topped by a stubbled male face appeared behind the glass. The dead bolt snapped back, the knob rattled and the door opened. I followed Erika into a meager room, half of it given up to a scarred wooden bar backed by an assortment of bottles. I caught a whiff of the universal pre-opening smell of a workingman’s saloon: pine-scented disinfectant atop stale cigarette smoke, old grease and sweat.

  The man pushed the door shut behind us and walked back toward the bar. His bare feet slapped on the linoleum. He was close to sixty years old, his sleeveless undershirt stretched tight across a large belly, his stained wool pants hooked at the waistband but unzipped. He yawned, then asked Erika a question in Flemish.

  “Let’s do this in English,” I said. I was carrying a worn knapsack and it made a soft thud when I dropped it to the floor.

  “I’ll handle it,” Erika said. “Bert won’t rent to anyone he doesn’t know.”

  “And not to every little shit I do know,” Bert said.

  I looked at him more closely. His face was mapped with the broken veins of a serious drinker and the skin sagged into furrows as though still sodden with sleep. But his blue eyes were as clear as those of a Siamese cat and as startling in his ruined face. Deep-set in pouches of flesh, they had the crystalline clarity of a pair of ice cubes. There was a chilly disdain in them when he spoke again to Erika. “This the one the major called about?” he asked.

  Erika nodded.

  Bert’s eyes probed mine, his gaze sharp despite the liquor clouding his breath.

  I started to rub the heel of my hand across my forehead. Old habit, shoving at my hair when I was uncomfortable. I stopped. All that remained of my collar-length blond tresses was a one-eighth-inch razor cut darkened to sable. I’d argued hard against going bald, but Erika had prevailed. She was so pleased by the results, I was sure she’d made me ugly as sin.

  But Bert didn’t appear repulsed. As he ran his gaze over a pair of pants that fit me like skin, his smile actually grew approving, maybe appreciative. I wondered if he was trying to emphasize his hostility toward Erika. I was sure of it when he spoke in a tone that was unexpectedly playful. “You want my usual arrangement?”

  “Depends,” I said, matching my voice to his, the way you do when you’re hanging out in the neighborhood bar. I needed an ally and Bert was the best candidate who’d come along.“Does it include plenty of beer?”

  He barked out a laugh. “I’m going to like you, I can tell.” He pulled a skeleton key from under the bar. It clunked heavily against the wood as he set it before me. “You conduct your business elsewhere. When you’re here, I’ll see you’re left alone. That’s the arrangement. We can negotiate about the beer later.” And then he winked.

  “Fine.” I put my hand over the key. “I’m set,” I said to Erika. “You can take off.”

  Erika looked from Bert to me and back to Bert.

  Bert farted.

  She shrugged, then spoke to me. “Remember what I told you. Afternoon, between four and six, is your best shot. I’ll get things started on my end. Let the right people know you’ve turned up.” Then she left.

  Bert bolted the door behind her. He turned and gestured toward a curtained opening. “Through there, then up the stairs.”

  “You go first,” I said, sliding the key toward him.

  “No need for that,” he said.

  “Humor me.”

  He started to chuckle, but it came out a raspy wheeze. He palmed the key and turned away from the bar. “Okay, since you’re new,” he said over his shoulder as he shoved aside the curtain.

  Knapsack in hand, I followed him up the wooden staircase.

  He unlocked the door and pushed it open. “Take it or leave it.”

  I saw a boxy room, one corner partitioned off for a toilet. A scratched table and two mismatched chairs sat in the center and a cot was shoved against the far wall, positioned to do double duty as a couch. The air smelled like someone had been boiling cabbage in that room forever.

  Bert handed me the key. “See?” he said. “Empty. You’re all alone up here.” I stepped around him. Stale liquor fumes clung to him as though they were coming out of his pores. He added, “Get some sleep. I’ll look after things.” Then he winked again.

  I shut the door and leaned against it, listening to the slap of his bare soles as he went back downstairs.

  Empty, he’d said. “Barren” was the word I’d have chosen. I felt a t
winge under my breastbone, a pang of longing for my condo in D.C. Foolish me, I hadn’t known then how lonely I could feel.

  I dropped my knapsack and rubbed the back of my neck with both hands, trying to massage away the aching tiredness. I went to the window in the east wall and drew aside the dusty curtain. The horizon was turning a lighter gray, the rooftops zigzagging in darker outline below it. A wide alley ran along-side the building, ending in a parking lot. Beyond the alley lay an inlet named Willemdok, a fingerlike extension from the port zone north of me. A red-and-white harbor tour boat was moored there, gently rocking on the swells from the Scheldt. A sign advertised the next event in four languages. The English-language letters were so boldly drawn that I could read GALA NEW YEAR’S EVE LUNCHEON CRUISE. I could have wept, it sounded so festive. And so far removed from the life I was leading now.

  I stumbled to the cot and dragged it across the room, out of the line of fire of anyone shooting through the wooden door. Clumps of dust huddled against the wall where the cot had been. I shoved the table toward the door. The legs marked a trail through the grit on the floor. If I examined the shadowy corners, I’d see cobwebs draped from ceiling to floor.

  I positioned the table in front of the door. Maybe at this moment Erika was letting the “right people” know where I was. I understood the logic. Reinhardt Krüger still had a contract out on Stefan. His gunmen had been told to watch me, in case Stefan had somehow survived and was trying to make contact with me. I’d dropped out of sight in Hamburg early on Tuesday morning. No doubt they’d spent the past twenty-four hours searching frantically for me. Not good. Who knew what they might discover? I had to surface again. Become visible, at least to Krüger’s minions.

  Was I crazy?

  More dust puffed from the cot when I sat on it. I looked at the table. Not much of a barrier, but it’d slow down anyone who got past Bert.

  Was there any terrorist so feeble he couldn’t get past Bert?

  I lay down on the cot, too tense to sleep. But as the minutes ticked by, my fear began to ebb. Slowly, in its place, came a sense of anticipation. I felt the way I had years ago, the night after I crashed my bike and broke my wrist. My mother had been hysterical when my father and I returned from the doctor’s office, my left arm in a sling. I was a few inches taller than she was, but I felt puny before her uncontrolled frenzy. She calmed down only when my father swore he wouldn’t replace the damaged front wheel, wouldn’t allow me back on a bicycle. My father didn’t lie. I knew I’d lost the last of my freedom. I took my wounded body to my room. My father came in later to sign my cast. He ran a hand through his hair and grinned. Then he smoothed his cowlick back down carefully, the way he always did, and told me to cheer up. He leaned close and whispered. As soon as my wrist mended, we’d start those driving lessons. But I was not to mention our plan to my mother.