When he opened the door, I saw the white van pull up outside. Good. Our sentries were back on duty. For a second I thought again of Erika. I swallowed hard, crossed the room to stand in the doorway to my father’s cubicle. Bert had his back to me, counting out his score. Intent on Bert’s hands, my father bent over the cribbage board. He didn’t look up. The hair on the crown of his head was rumpled, sticking out at an angle. I yearned to move closer, smooth that cowlick down. Instead, I stepped quietly away from the door and headed after van Hoof.
Stefan blocked my path. “Casey . . .”
“You surprise me,” I said. “I thought you’d try to stop me from going to that building.”
“Since I cannot go, you must. If Reinhardt is there, if he’s expecting me, then you may be able to take advantage of that expectation. In a way that GSG-9 cannot.” He waited a beat, then said, “Be careful.”
“If anything happens . . .” I couldn’t finish the sentence. I swallowed. “You’ll look after my father?”
“Of course.” He touched my shoulder with his fingertips. “Go now. Nothing remains secret in Berlin. Not for an hour.”
Intelligence leaks. In this once-divided country, Germans formed and re-formed their alliances as smoothly as shape-shifters.
I looked into his hazel eyes then, saw the struggle going on inside him. I said, “Don’t worry about me.” Might as well have added, Don’t love me, don’t care, don’t stand in the center of my life, blocking my way. Let me go on alone to do what I have to do.
He gave me the steady scrutiny that meant he was reading my mind. “A good commander doesn’t give an order he cannot enforce.” And then he stepped aside.
“Come on,” I said to Holger. “We have to be in place before GSG-9 arrives.” I didn’t look back.
Outside, van Hoof stood next to the Jetta. He held up the car keys. “I know the route.”
“You navigate then.” I took the keys and motioned him into the passenger’s seat. I wanted to drive. I wanted to feel that I was in control of something. Even if it was only the speed at which I traveled.
The steering wheel was icy beneath my fingers. The chill air racheted my tense muscles tighter, and my wounded leg throbbed, a dull ache I couldn’t ignore. I forced myself upright, as if my father were there, reminding me not to crouch over the wheel. The defroster was useless with three of us in the car. Van Hoof wiped steam from the glass as he described the situation we’d be facing. He was breathing through his mouth, and whiskey fumes floated above the odor of sweat, generated not from heat but from fear. My fear, most of all. The prospect of facing Krüger again terrified me. I wanted to leave his capture to people trained to execute it. But too much hung in the balance. I couldn’t stand back, risk the wrong outcome.
“What you want,” said van Hoof, “is to make sure he doesn’t get out of there before the assault.”
“You are only to observe the GSG-9 action.” Holger spoke from the rear seat, his voice disembodied. “He’s supposed to be lying low. Why would he suddenly take off in the next few minutes?”
The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Krüger escaping, oh-so-wrong. I said, “We can’t afford to take that chance.”
Van Hoof broke in, explaining. The Libyans were located off Stresemannstrasse, four hundred meters west of the site of the immense new Checkpoint Charlie Business Center, in a converted warehouse. There were only three ways by which Krüger could exit the building.
I made the assignments. Holger would cover the roof, van Hoof the rear exit. I’d watch the front door.
Van Hoof shook his head. “The roof is tricky. I’ve been up on the adjacent building to check it out. Makes more sense if I take the roof.”
“I don’t like it,” Holger said.
Van Hoof twisted in his seat. “You have a better idea?”
“Stay together, maximize our strength.” He wanted to keep van Hoof on a short leash.
“Sure,” van Hoof said. “All of us on the roof, we see Krüger skip out the back. Before one of us reaches the street, he’s disappeared.” He grunted. “You know we have to split up.”
“No argument from me,” I said. “You take the roof, then, like you said.”
“If he comes your way,” van Hoof said to me, “don’t try to stop him. You can’t do it alone. And you don’t want to drive him back inside. Use the walkie-talkie to signal us. We three can converge on him and hold him for GSG-9. If that doesn’t work, at least we’ll be able to point them in the right direction.”
“Sounds good.” I was lying. It was no plan at all. But I went along with him, to keep him going along with me. The two of us united, dragging Holger into action.
The Father-Major’s disapproval hung behind me like a dark cloud as I drove. Van Hoof had me bypass the downtown and got me onto Potsdamer Strasse, headed north toward the Tiergarten.
I parked the car on a side street and van Hoof led us on foot to within a block of the Libyan building. Leaving Holger to cover us, van Hoof guided me to the nearest intersection. We synchronized watches—10:38—and I repeated the code we’d agreed upon. Then I slipped around the corner and into a recessed doorway. Across the street and twenty-five yards to my right was the front entrance to the building where I prayed GSG-9 would capture Reinhardt Krüger alive.
The cobblestones were wet-looking under the sallow streetlights. A foot above the door I was watching, a bare bulb shone from under a pie-plate shade. No other lamps were visible elsewhere on the block of two- and three-story buildings.
My fingers found the walkie-talkie in my jacket pocket. I glanced down to check that the light was glowing red. The door behind me was topped by a square of glass, faintly illuminated by a low-wattage bulb in the room beyond it. By its light I saw a cramped aisle stretching out in a straight line. Racked magazines lined the left side. A counter sat on the right, behind which was a wall of shelves filled with containers. I smelled cherry-flavored pipe tobacco, and beneath it, the harsher odor of unblended Latakia.
I turned my wrist to see the luminous dial of my watch. Ten-forty. Only twenty more minutes. What if Krüger weren’t in there after all? Then sometime after midnight, twelve bombs would go off. And I’d go to jail. Would anyone listen while I tried to explain how hard I’d worked to disarm those bombs? And what would become of my father?
Second thoughts. None of them any help to me now. Krüger had to be in there. And he wasn’t going to escape. Not this time.
Tires hissed on pavement. An engine rumbled closer. I crouched and pressed against the door.
A Mercedes slid past on the cross street. The rooftop “Taxi” marker was unlit. So were the headlights. Inside, the dashboard lamp cast a greenish glow on Hilly-Anne’s chin. Danièle looked directly at me, but if she saw me huddled there, she gave no sign.
Part of van Hoof’s other plan. While I’d been talking with Stefan, he’d arranged something with the girl gang. In another five minutes they’d be up on that roof with him. And then what? I checked my watch again. Ten forty-two.
The light above the entrance to the Libyan building went out. Then the door swung open. A cigarette glowed in the gap. The red coal sailed through the air, landing in the street with a shower of sparks. A man emerged, stood on the threshold. He was immobile for at least thirty seconds. Then he stepped back inside.
I heard the jingle of fine chain. A snuffling sound. The click of toenails on cement. A dog skittered outside, strained against the leash, then squatted at the edge of the sidewalk. A female German shepherd.
A bundled figure followed the dog outside. The door slammed shut. The dog pulled against the leash, dragging her companion in my direction. I crouched down again, trying to blend with the wood in the lower half of the door. The man holding the leash yanked it sharply. He said something harsh in German. I didn’t need to understand the words. I knew their meaning from the tone. Do what I say, bitch. Your life is in my hands.
The blood in my veins seem
ed to lose its heat, turn to ice, stop moving. The chill paralyzed me.
Krüger. Departing seventeen minutes before the scheduled raid.
Someone had warned him. Nothing else would have brought him out in public. Strolling toward the Tiergarten, like any late-night dog-walker. Good cover. Not likely GSG-9 had cordoned off the area yet. And if the commandos were nearby, they wouldn’t expose their position. Not to confront a civilian moving providentially out of the line of fire.
Krüger was about to disappear.
My thumb found the push-to-talk button on the walkie-talkie. All I had to do was click three times to alert van Hoof and the Father-Major. Three clicks would tell them that I’d spotted Krüger. Tell them to come to me. But before I could depress the button, a muffled boom sounded from inside the former warehouse. I heard the thumping blast, then the shatter of glass as the force blew the skylights upward from the roof.
The assault. But it was too early for GSG-9! And I knew Teutonic precision. They’d never have jumped the gun.
Another grenade exploded. An attack, for sure. Van Hoof and his team, going in from the roof. Right now, on their own, a kamikaze action. He didn’t believe Krüger was in there. But he hadn’t voiced his doubt. Agreed instead with everything I’d said. Used me to reach his own savage goal.
The dog moaned, a piercing whimper of distress. She pressed her body against the sidewalk. Krüger yanked at the leash, cursing. He got her moving again toward the corner, faster after they turned right, the two of them hurrying away from me.
Automatic weapons rattled inside the building. I smelled tear gas. I shoved in the button and put my lips against the walkie-talkie. “Holger,” I said. “Krüger’s on foot, headed your way. You can cut him off.” I released the button.
Holger’s voice. “Pinned down.” The crackle of static. Then nothing.
Helpless, I watched Krüger’s back vanish into the night.
29
The front door of the Libyan building flew open. A hunched figure staggered out, hands to his face, fighting the gas.
A siren wailed in the distance. The German cops coming in loud.
I bent low and ran across the intersection. Behind me came the sounds of small-arms fire, screams, explosions. I smelled gunpowder and my eyes smarted.
But nobody tried to stop me. I jogged along the empty street. It narrowed to an alleyway. I stopped to listen. All I heard was a distant siren. A few blocks to my left was the Land-wehrkanal. If I continued straight, I’d come to Potsdamer Strasse. A right turn there would lead back into the Tiergarten. A man with a dog—what could be a more reasonable destination than a large urban forest? I started running.
The maze of streets and alleys dumped me out near Potsdamer Platz, construction booming where the Wall had once stood. Building cranes spiked above half-finished structures, the security lights reflecting off the cloud cover to illuminate the uninhabitable skeletons. The scene had an eerie brightness, as if the East Berlin border guards had left their searchlights behind to shine on this prime real estate, created from the former no-man’s-land. Night-owl tourists clustered outside the entrance to the Info-Box, a three-decker red cube perched on stilts to offer a panoramic view of the chaos in front of me.
I looked around frantically. But for what? Not a policeman. I couldn’t ask for help from a German cop. Language was my enemy now; I was a wanted woman. I longed for the cell phone I’d abandoned in D.C. I could call Stefan, have him tell the cops where to find Krüger. I felt in my pockets for a coin while I searched the area for a pay phone.
At that moment I spotted him. The dog was sniffing at something on the sidewalk a half block away. Krüger yanked at the leash again. He pulled the dog around the cluster of people and into the crosswalk, headed again toward the forest.
My breath burned in my throat. I had to keep moving. I couldn’t stop to summon help. I had to know where Krüger was going.
We were northbound again. Tangled branches wove a frieze, guarding the approach to the Brandenburg Gate like the briars outside Sleeping Beauty’s castle. I saw the soot-stained Doric columns, topped by the ubiquitous construction cranes. A lone biker pumped through the open gate, his knapsack bouncing against his back. Beyond that intersection was another dark patch of woods. I stopped where the treeline gave way to the Platz der Republik. A hundred feet from me, Krüger and his dog made a right turn, heading toward the deserted Reichs-tag building, waiting still for the leisurely parliamentary transfer from Bonn.
I stood there, struggling to get enough oxygen. Krüger and his dog hadn’t gone into the Tiergarten after all. Instead, they were crossing the stony desert in front of the parliament building. As I watched, they turned the far corner, out of sight.
Behind the Reichstag building was a stunted finger of land formed by a sweeping bend in the Spree. Krüger had gone out onto that peninsula, a place from which he couldn’t exit without me seeing him.
I pulled out my walkie-talkie and called Holger. I turned up the volume knob to full strength. But all I picked up was static. Nothing identifiable as words. I sent my message anyway. Krüger’s at Platz der Republik. Come and get him.
As I worked the radio, I kept watch in the direction that Krüger had taken. A bird rose from the building’s facade and headed toward me. Directly above, it hovered for a moment, wings beating rapidly, head turned into the breeze coming off the river. Then it shot away, a kestrel falcon searching for easier prey. Nothing else moved. All I saw under the yellow glow of the security lights was the Reichstag.
And all I heard was the distant sound of revelry. Somewhere far away, someone playing an accordion. Oompah music.
The sound made me think of Antwerp. The harbor cruise. The boat.
And then I got it. This section of the Spree had once been part of the East-West boundary. But now it was an open waterway and an escape route for Krüger. I’d underestimated his ability to make things happen. He’d had a fallback plan. He’d gotten word that GSG-9 was moving in and he’d put his plan into motion. How much time did I have to stop him?
Maybe he was gone.
Forget caution. I burst out of the woods and cut diagonally across the deserted space toward the far corner of the Reichstag building. The wound on my leg opened, an angry throb as blood soaked through the covering pad. I ignored the pain, straining hard, pushing to get around the Reichstag to the brink of the riverbank.
Where I found Reinhardt Krüger and his dog, standing together on a struggling patch of grass.
“I was hoping one of you would show up to wish me farewell,” he said.
No lucky pursuit after all. The man had laid a trail for me. One I’d followed eagerly, as he’d known I would. I toughened my voice. “I have no intention of telling you goodbye. The police are on their way. Your best bet is to surrender at once.”
“I’ll be long gone before you can summon any police to this location.” He moved his right hand so that I could see the pistol in it. “And surrendering to you doesn’t suit me at all.”
The dog whined and rubbed her body against his leg.
Krüger said, “But if you are not so eager to part company with me, perhaps we can find a mutually agreeable way to extend our time together.”
“You’ve got to call off your goons.” My voice was too high, too much like begging. I sucked in more air. “I know they’re going to blow up twelve planes. You stop them, you’ll have a much brighter future.”
“I have no future with your people.” He chuckled, an ugly, mirthless sound. “And after tomorrow, neither will you. Nor my little brother.”
I felt as though a hand was squeezing my heart. “Any evidence implicating me and Stefan in those bombings—they’ll know you planted it.”
He checked his watch. “I doubt that by this time tomorrow, anyone will be so exacting about proof.”
He was betting on a lynch-mob reaction. A safe bet.
He bent over and patted the dog on her snout. “Don’t you think my Blondie looks like
her namesake?”
He was crazy. A match for Hitler, the master of that other Blondie. “Are you going to do what he did?” I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. “Test your poison on your dog first?”
“I’m not going to the grave, as he was. And I’m not a monster who’d destroy a fine animal.” He patted the dog again. “No, Blondie is my most faithful ally, the only one I trust.” He glanced toward the river.
I saw no other people, only the unreal yellow glow from the Reichstag’s security lights. Krüger stood between two white crosses, memorials to those who’d attempted the river crossing from East Berlin during the Cold War—and hadn’t made it. I moved my foot, trying to figure out how to spring.
He gestured toward the Spree. “My boat will be here soon. Within the hour I’ll be en route to Tripoli. But I have a problem. Help me solve it, and I’ll give you six of the flight numbers you claim you want.”
Six out of twelve. A chance to save a half-dozen planeloads of people. Wouldn’t come cheaply. Wary, I asked, “Your price?”
“My friends in Libya will be unhappy about the loss of their comrades this evening. But if I bring them the one responsible . . .”
The weight of his offer was crushing. “You need a scapegoat.”
“Your presence would save me some personal unpleasantness. And I’m certain that with you there, eventually my brother will show up, too. Worth halving the effort I’d planned for tomorrow.” Krüger glanced at his watch. “In less than one hour, the first bomb will explode. We can send the message that will stop that one. And the next five.”
“What, you think I’d deal twice with a liar like you?”
“If you want what I’m offering badly enough,” he said. “And you might consider this: I will benefit if it becomes known you arranged such a compassionate reprieve. In the short term, it will make you more useful to us.”
Holger had argued that Krüger wanted to exploit my knowledge and connections on behalf of Libya. If the targeted planes were grounded before the bombs killed anyone, it would look as if I had influence over Qadhafi. That would make me a more effective negotiator. The international press would get no hint that I was Krüger’s prisoner. “An illusion,” I said: “As you said, useful only in the short term.”
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