by Trevor Scott
They made quick and fast love the first time, both knowing they’d slow down and do it right the second time. After, they lay together in bed, the quiet overwhelmingly chaotic for Gustav. He couldn’t get his mind off the case. Couldn’t understand the significance of the murders in other parts of Europe, or how those might relate to his dead men in the Spree River.
“Where are you?” Ilka asked in German with a Russian accent. “If you think of dead corpses all the time, I’m amazed you can become hard at all.”
“I’m sorry. It’s not so much the dead bodies. It’s the motive behind them.” He couldn’t say any more, but he wanted to open up with her. Confide in her completely. Yet, it was too soon for that.
“Let’s make a deal,” she said, her lips kissing his chest and then her eyes wandering up to his. “When we are together you think only of me. When we are apart, you also only think of me.” She tried not to smile.
“That sounds fair.” He reached down between her legs and felt her moistness. This was why he’d given her his apartment key in the first place. Time to move a lot slower this time. Clear the mind and live for now. There was time to save Ilka later.
●
Anton Zukov had followed the Pole from the main terminal Hauptbahnhof, watching the hapless Polizei try their best to sift through all the passengers on the train from Poland. He had smiled when he saw his contact make it through that checkpoint undiscovered. But this Pole was a little smarter than the last man. He had agreed to meet only at a well-lit location along one of Berlin’s busiest streets a few blocks from the city’s landmark, the Brandenburg Gate. Yet, humans could only be so smart, especially when one million Euros came into play. Zukov let the man get to the meeting site first and made him wait, watching the Pole from a distance become more and more nervous as the clock clicked away, probably thinking he had killed a man with no payout.
Now, Zukov got out of his car and casually walked up the sidewalk, cars passing by faster than one would expect. At this time of night on a weekday the roads here would be mostly filled with those people shifting from late dinners at restaurants to the bars. A bus cruised toward him but kept on going. Zukov had set up the meet on this side of the road at this particular location for a reason—there were no bus stops or normal taxi stops along this stretch of the busy Unter Den Linden that lead to Pariser Platz, the pedestrian zone leading to the Brandenburg Gate. The road used to drive right through the gate, but it had been closed off with the Berlin Wall for some thirty years, opened for a short while in the nineties and turned into the tourist trap it was today at that time.
Making his way toward his contact, Zukov ran through his mind how this meeting should go. He could mess with the man’s mind for a while, make him think he was with the Polizei or something else. But that would be cruel. No, stick with the plan. He wasn’t moving as a man of strength and youth. Instead, he had a cane and make-up allowing him to appear like an old man out on an evening stroll. A slow walk. Painfully slow. Stopping from time to time as if catching his breath. His only constant was his ubiquitous black watch cap covering his nearly hairless skull.
As he approached, he saw the closest pedestrian was more than a block away, heading toward the gate. He could hear nobody behind him.
The man was nervous, it was plain to see, his feet shuffling about as his head moved on a swivel. Okay, maybe he wasn’t as smart as Zukov initially thought.
Closing in on the man, Zukov kept his head lowered and his body hunched over. Just a little closer. Nobody noticed the elderly. They were only one step higher on the food chain from the homeless, who people concerned themselves with more because they were normally younger and might just be crazy.
Ten feet now and the Pole wasn’t even looking at him.
Zukov thought again about changing his plan. No. Don’t deviate, he implored himself. Discipline.
He was within range now, that distance close enough for concern under normal circumstances.
Five feet.
With one swift movement, he lifted his cane as if to reach out for another step, pushed a button and the double-edged blade snapped from the bottom, which he swiftly thrust up into the Pole’s chest, hitting solidly above the sternum. He twisted the cane in a circular motion and shoved with all his might, sending the man onto his back into the grass along the edge of the sidewalk.
Pushing the button again, the blade returned inside the cane and Zukov continued walking as if nothing had happened. From the corner of his eye he saw the stunned expression on the Pole’s face for a fleeting moment.
His own eyes scanning now, Zukov could see a couple across the street. But they hadn’t reacted to the man falling. He turned down the next street and picked up his pace. A few minutes later he got back to his car and took off his old man make-up, removing the gray beard and bushy eyebrows. Driving away at the speed limit, he still didn’t hear any Polizei sirens. For a while he had been concerned that this could have been too risky. But people were easy. They didn’t expect an old man to kill them. Didn’t think a man with a broken arm would shoot them with the cast. And over the years he had perfected dozens of ways to kill. Not once had he even been close to getting caught. He laughed at that thought. Well, there had been that one time in the Alps a few months ago. But that was different. A direct approach. Maybe they should have used more finesse and finished the job right there.
Heading toward the east side of Berlin, he checked the clock on the car dash. Viktor Pushkin, his boss, would be waiting for him at the office. Strategy meeting. Zukov knew what was coming. He could predict the direction they would take as if he stood at a black board inside Viktor’s mind and Zukov was scribbling orders with the chalk.
Driving slowly through the industrial area of the former East Berlin, he finally pulled in front of their building. Two cars sat out front.
Anton Zukov habitually smiled as he punched in the security code to access the front door, knowing he was being watched by one of his colleagues in a back room through closed circuit TV. He lifted his cane as a salute.
Inside, he walked past the display area, where dozens of cell phones sat for their corporate customers to handle. Thankfully they didn’t do business with the general public, only selling the service and phones to companies at a huge discount. They could afford to do so. They had no corporate board, no stock holders, no owners. It was the perfect front for their operation. They made huge profits off phones that had been stolen from the Finns, they sold them to hundreds of accounts, and even profited from the cell service, which was handled by another of their subsidiaries, who then had direct access to all the phones in their target market. They could keep track of any call they wanted, pulling in corporate intel, and blackmailing businesses on each side. They could even keep track of the users physically by GPS. What a business. Make money coming and going.
Zukov wandered through the office into a back room, where large shelves held stacks of phones from floor to ceiling, and into a break room. He stuck the end of his cane into the sink and released the blade. He first ran hot water and soap over the knife blade and the end of the cane. Thinking this might take a while, he plugged the sink and filled it with water, completely submerging the end of the cane. Then he poured two liters of bleach into the water. Let it soak, he said to himself.
Satisfied, he walked back through the storage room and out into the front area behind the counter. There were a few desks there with computers, which were almost never used. This part of the office was mostly for show.
He headed back into a hallway toward Viktor Pushkin’s office, knocking lightly on the door. His knuckles barely left the wood when the door swung in. It was Nikolai. Zukov couldn’t remember the man’s last name, but remembered he had been with the Red Army until about a year ago. Big guy. Brutal as hell. That’s all he really needed to know.
Sitting back in his leather chair in the show office, Viktor Pushkin smiled and motioned for Zukov to take a seat.
“How did it go?” Viktor
asked, stroking his thin beard. “Did the man get his money?” He laughed and kept a smile on his face.
“He got what he deserved,” Zukov assured his boss.
“Any problems?”
Zukov shook his head. “No. Not the best location.”
“I agree. Don’t let that happen again.”
He had thought the same thing from the moment he’d made that mistake. But Zukov couldn’t cancel or make changes after the initial order. Neither were to make any communication. They knew how easy it was for someone to listen in on their conversation or to pick up other forms on contact. Zukov simply nodded his agreement, fighting his urge to play with his watch cap.
“I think we should change our methods a little,” Viktor said. “Maybe let a few others take some turns. How else will they get the experience?”
Trying not to look concerned, Zukov ran this information through his mind. It was never a good sign when the boss wanted others to take a turn. Either he had lost confidence in him or he was ready to replace him. That would mean a long trip back to Moscow, or worse. He would end up in the Spree River just like those he’d put there. No identification. No identity. He would die a nobody.
“I can handle it, Viktor.”
“I know, Zuk. It’s not that.” His boss hesitated, a reassuring expression on his complex face. “I need you to find the American. Take a more active role.”
Zukov let out a subdued sigh. “I understand. But what’s so important about this one man?” He had asked this before, and never got a good answer. Didn’t expect one now.
Viktor Pushkin shrugged and put his hands together. “It’s personal.”
That he did understand. “All right. I’ll get on it first thing in the morning. Anything else?”
“You’ve been leaving behind the identification on the last couple of people,” Viktor said. “Any reason for this?”
Yeah, there was a reason. But nothing his boss would find appropriate. “The Turk was a mistake,” he lied. “And the man tonight I couldn’t linger. It was a busy street.”
“Okay. It doesn’t have anything to do with this Polizei investigator, Gustav Vogler?”
Zukov thought for a second too long. “All right. You caught me.”
“You’re playing with the man,” Viktor said.
Shrugging slightly, Zukov said, “Maybe a little.”
Viktor raised his praying hands to his lips. “No more, Zuk. It’s not about you. It’s not about this Polizei man. There’s more at stake here.”
He sure as hell knew that. He’d been in on the plan from the beginning, helping develop the strategy. “I know,” he finally said. “I understand.”
“Get some sleep and get on the American in the morning.”
Zukov took that as a sign to get up. This is really what he wanted all along. A challenge. Rewards never came without great sacrifice. He went back into the break room and got his cane, before heading out into the cool night air to his car. He’d find the American. And when he did, well, things would go a little different from last time.
●
Closing in on midnight and Gustav’s cell phone shook him from his sound sleep. He swept his hand in the darkness and knocked the phone to the floor. Scrambling onto the low-pile carpet with his hand, he finally reached the phone and flipped it open.
“Ja. This better be damn good,” he sniped.
“Sir, this is Andreas.”
“I know that. Your name came up on my cell,” he muttered more calmly. “What’s up, my friend?”
“Another body.”
Jesus. What was going on in his city? “Details.”
“A thirty-two-year-old man found stabbed to death in Mitte. On Unter Den Linden, a few blocks from the Brandenburg Gate.”
“That’s brash,” Gustav said.
“There’s more, sir. He’s a Pole. He was on that train from Warsaw tonight.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir. I’m at the scene now. I have his passport in hand, with the RFID sticker we placed there. Also has a ticket stub from that train.”
“Damn it. We missed him.”
“There was no way of knowing.”
“Hold the scene. I’m on my way.”
Andreas gave his boss the address.
“How’d you get there so soon?”
“I live just five blocks from here,” Andreas explained.
The better question was why his assistant had been called first. The call should have come in to Gustav.
“I’m on my way,” Gustav repeated and then hung up.
He slammed his phone shut vehemently. This was getting ridiculous, he thought as he got out of bed and slipped into the clothes he’d hastily thrown off to have sex with Ilka. Just when they’d gotten a possible break in the case, another setback. And a brazen attack near Berlin’s landmark. This man had to be stopped. Before leaving, he gazed down at Ilka. She had not even woken with the phone or the talking. He was jealous she could sleep that soundly. If only. . . He shook his head and reluctantly left her there, knowing she was still naked under his sheets.
19
Andre had given Jake and Alexandra the guest room, but Jake had found it hard to sleep. He’d stayed up late on his computer searching all the data from Interpol, hoping to find some direction. While he did so, he also ran through his mind every case he’d been a part of over the past couple of decades. The list was long, but only a dozen or so stuck out as problematic.
Morning now, a fresh perspective, Jake stood in front of the window watching the horses graze in the small pasture. It would have been nice to go for a ride. He had done that before while staying with Andre. His horses were half Arabian and half Quarter horse. And he rode with Western saddles. They had gone to a nearby river and followed a trail up toward the Alps. It wasn’t like riding in Montana, but the countryside was beautiful and any day in the saddle or on a river was better than sitting in a car.
He glanced back at Alexandra still asleep, covered with only a thin white sheet. What was he doing? Had enough time passed by for him to be making love with another woman? Even Andre, about as sexually liberal as they come, seemed somewhat disappointed with Jake. Yet, he couldn’t let what others thought dictate who he was or what his future could be. Only he could decide that. Besides, he had come close to death too many times in the past few days to worry about proper periods of mourning. Life could be shortened at any moment. He had to live for now.
He slipped off his underwear and slid into bed, finding her warm and naked beneath the covers. Smiling, she guided him into her.
A while later, while Alexandra showered, Jake got back onto his computer and ran the intel through his fresh mind. He knew what he had to do, but he didn’t want to involve her in his plan. This was something personal. Something only he could accomplish. Perhaps it had been a mistake taking her along to begin with, even though she’d wanted to be with him. Wanted to help. But at what cost? He’d almost gotten her killed. Got her involved in an Interpol Blue Notice, which wasn’t too serious, but could be a problem with her employer. Still, she had issues to deal with on her own back in Germany.
She came out toweling off her naked body. God, she was gorgeous. He wanted to ravage her again. Yet, he still struggled with his feelings. Perhaps he already felt dead and needed to experience resurgent life.
“What?” she asked, shifting the towel to her long, think hair and rolling it up into a beehive.
“Just observing God’s perfection.”
She turned to him and slowly stepped into a thong. “I didn’t take you for a believer, Jake.”
“I’ve had my questions. For instance, how could a just God take someone like Anna but leave evil despots on Earth?”
She seemed to be considering that as she strapped her perfectly rounded breasts into a matching black lace bra. “Maybe that’s why He put us here.”
“To vanquish evil?”
“Yes.”
He left his computer and went to her, draw
ing her into his arms and taking in her fresh odor. “So, when you called to Him this morning, what were you asking for?”
She laughed. “My prayers were answered, Jake. Twice.”
They kissed gently and he ran his hand against her cheek. “I’m glad you came with me.”
“I’m glad you held out.”
“No, I meant on this trip.”
“Oh, well you actually came with me. I drove.”
She had a point.
“What are you trying to tell me, Jake?”
He pulled away from her and closed the screen on his laptop. “We need to split up,” he said abruptly.
“I don’t think so.” She put on some comfortable brown slacks and tightened a thin belt around her small waist.
“I can’t do this with you, Alexandra.”
“Why?” She looked disturbed now. With a hurried motion, she slung a black sweater over her head and flung it down to her hips.
“I have to go some places and do some things that only I can do,” he said.
Her eyes intensified. “You mean like what happened with the Serb? Or maybe the Iranian?”
They’d never discussed in great detail what actually happened to the Serb. Jake had given him a chance. More than the man had given Jake at the Austrian gasthaus.
“The Serb shouldn’t have tried to kill me. I told you it was self defense.” Well, he could have left the man to bleed out in the cold mountain air. But would that have been more humane?
She sat onto the bed, dejected.
He sat onto the bed next to her, his hand on hers. “What’s really the matter, Alexandra?”
Shrugging, she said, “I like hanging out with you. There’s never a dull moment.”
“Sure. Stay with me and get shot at daily. Maybe I should sell tickets to thrill seekers.”
“That’s not fair,” she yelled softly.
“I didn’t mean it that way. I’m sorry. I just don’t want you getting hurt.”
“That’s my job, Jake.” She had quickly fluctuated from subdued to pissed off to calm.
