Or maybe he felt justifiably guilty about his role in allowing the key to disappear, instantly rendering his mission a failure and allowing some unknown entity—perhaps the Soviet Union, perhaps not—access to more than a quarter-billion dollars, an amount more than sufficient to further destabilize an already fragile world economy.
But whatever the reason, he started talking after the drawn-out silence in the car, and didn’t stop until they arrived in Wuppertal. And while most of what he said was verbal white noise, designed to justify his actions and inactions, Gruber had said one thing that Tracie knew immediately was significant: the operative had demonstrated conclusively that nothing was as much fun for him as paid companionship.
With a different professional companion every night.
And Tracie had known immediately how she was going to recover the key.
***
One thing Gruber had managed to do without screwing up was to remain out of sight while tailing the Soviet. Tracie knew Gruber had not been made, because only a suicidal idiot would have stuck around town more than thirty seconds after completing his mission had he known he was under surveillance.
In the process of shadowing the Russian, Gruber had ascertained the location of the man’s hotel room: number 417, which was located approximately two-thirds of the way along the corridor after exiting the elevator. And the Soviet’s nightly routine was extremely consistent, varying only in the identity of the prostitute with whom he spent his evening.
Tracie’s first move was to reserve Room 401. It was already occupied, but a small—relatively speaking—bribe convinced the desk clerk to relocate the couple already housed in that room to one on a different floor under the guise of room maintenance that was so critically important it simply could not wait.
Once inside the room, Tracie changed into her new dress and waited. Gruber told her that the Soviet always went out drinking early in the evening, returning to his room by eleven p.m. sharp. Shortly afterward, his companion for the night would arrive at the hotel, walk to his room and knock on the door. She would disappear inside and, in every case, not reappear until morning.
It was now ten fifty-five. The Soviet operative appeared right on schedule, stepping off the elevator and weaving his way drunkenly down the corridor. Tracie watched him pass by in the hallway through the peephole and then very quietly opened her door a crack and monitored his progress as he approached his room.
She had been careful not to give herself away, but realized after watching the man that she could probably have hired a brass band to play in her doorway and the Soviet would not have noticed, so drunk was he, not to mention focused on getting into his room and awaiting his nightly treat.
He disappeared inside his hotel room and Tracie waited.
And waited.
Eleven-fifteen. Nothing.
The elevator stopped on the fourth floor. Tracie stood with her door closed, right hand on the knob, one eye glued to the peephole.
False alarm. Three businessmen exited, dressed in wrinkled suits and loosened ties. They had clearly been drinking since Happy Hour. The men stumbled past, arguing drunkenly about which of them had left the biggest tip for the barmaid.
Silence descended on the hallway and she checked her watch. It was now nearly eleven-thirty. Where was the hooker? She should have appeared by now. The Soviet had demonstrated a discernible pattern of behavior, and barring unusual circumstances people did not tend to change their behavior patterns.
The bell at the end of the hallway dinged again.
The elevator door slid open.
And Tracie saw her.
The young woman was tall and blonde and willowy, with firm breasts stuffed into a short dress that looked remarkably like Tracie’s. She wore lace stockings and six-inch spike heels, and adorning her lips was the reddest shade of lipstick Tracie had ever seen.
It couldn’t have been more obvious she was a prostitute if she had worn a flashing neon sign. This was definitely Tracie’s girl.
But there was a problem: the hooker wasn’t alone. A young couple stepped out of the elevator right behind her, the woman wearing a scowl of distaste at having to share the car with their riding companion. The man was trying hard—and failing—not to be obvious about checking her out. At the moment his eyes were glued to her butt, and Tracie knew if she watched the man a little longer, his eyes would begin to travel down the prostitute’s long legs.
But there wasn’t time to watch longer. The couple was following the hooker down the hallway, and soon Tracie’s chance would be gone. The young woman would enter the Soviet operative’s room and disappear.
She opened her door and stepped out of her room.
“Oh!” she said, praying her German would pass muster. She hadn’t worked in the country in nearly a year and despite her degree in linguistics from Brown University, German had never been her best language.
She slurred her words in an attempt to cloak the deficiency in the guise of drunkenness and carried on. “Gerda, I’m so glad to see you! You would not believe what the oaf in this room just tried to do to me.”
She stepped toward the hooker with a wide smile on her face, conscious of the couple’s attention shifting to her. She had to get rid of the elevator riders before the hooker voiced what her expression was already making clear: that she had no idea who this drunken prostitute was, or what her problem might be.
Or why she would care.
Tracie whirled toward the couple and stamped her foot. “This is none of your concern! How about a little privacy? Just mind your business and continue on your way.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed and it was obvious she was about to give Tracie a piece of her mind, but her boyfriend or husband took her by the elbow and spun her around. He whispered something in her ear and she shook her head in disgust but to Tracie’s immense relief kept walking.
“What is this about?” the hooker said. “I do not know you, and my name is not Gerda.” She kept her voice low, obviously looking to avoid a noisy confrontation that would result in her being removed from the hotel before collecting what was sure to be a significant payday from the horny young man waiting down the hall in Room 417.
And now it was too late for her. Tracie stepped behind the hooker before she could spin around. Her confusion and her six-inch heels practically stapled her to the floor.
In an instant, Tracie lifted her right hand and placed it palm side up on the woman’s right shoulder, like a waiter carrying a tray of drinks. At the same time, she circled her left arm around the hooker’s neck, nestling it into the crook of her elbow. Then she lowered her own head to her hands and clasped them together, squeezing as she did so.
The hooker’s head was immobilized, and she had nowhere to go, and Tracie applied steady pressure to the woman’s carotid sinus. The hooker lifted a leg in an attempt to kick backward at Tracie, but she was fighting a battle she could not win, already beginning to lose consciousness.
In seconds she went limp in Tracie’s arms.
The young couple was still walking away down the hall. Their backs were turned but if one or both decided to look behind them there would be no way for Tracie to explain what had just occurred, so moving quickly was critical. Tracie kicked off her heels and hooked her arms under the prostitute’s armpits. Then she dragged the unconscious woman into her hotel room.
Once inside, she eased the door closed with her foot. Her shoes were still on the hallway floor, but they were of secondary importance. An abandoned pair of high heels would arouse nothing more than curiosity from anyone exiting a room or the elevator.
Tracie had left the supplies she would need lined up in a neat row on the floor just inside the doorway. She ripped a long strip of duct tape off a roll and then picked up a hotel washcloth. She stuffed the washcloth into the hooker’s mouth and secured it with the tape, wrapping it around the back of the woman’s head twice and then slapping it down. She used a second cloth to cover the hooker’s eyes, securing it wi
th duct tape as well. Then she hogtied her with nylon cord before dragging her onto the bed.
The unfortunate hooker would awaken soon, utterly immobile but safe, if likely extremely angry.
Tracie double-checked her handiwork and then nodded in satisfaction.
“Sorry about that,” she said to the unconscious woman. “But I’ll take it from here.”
She returned to the door and checked the peephole.
The hallway appeared empty.
She stepped into the corridor and closed the door behind her, double-checking the lock.
Then she strode down the hallway, running a hand through her hair and pulling one last time on the hem of the short dress. It was time to introduce herself to the horny Soviet operative.
9
The man’s door was ajar.
Something was wrong. The situation stank to high heaven. Tracie supposed it was technically possible the Soviet operative had left his door cracked on purpose, to allow the prostitute to enter without knocking, but she knew that wasn’t what had happened. Gruber had made it clear that the Soviet didn’t know any of the women he hired; didn’t even know what they looked like, in fact, until they showed up at his door.
And he was still a KGB professional, charged with getting a key worth three hundred million dollars back to Moscow. It strained credulity beyond the breaking point to think he would be that reckless, no matter how much he liked to party.
So this was bad.
She reached instinctively for her weapon before remembering that her dress was so skimpy she had had no place to put it.
She cursed silently.
Turned toward the fire door at the far end of the hallway. She hadn’t wanted to leave her gun inside the hotel room with the hooker, no matter how securely she had trussed up the woman. So she had left it with Gruber, who was standing in the stairwell, providing backup.
Retrieving her gun from her new partner before returning to the Soviet’s room would take several seconds of precious time, but entering without it under these circumstances was out of the question.
She kicked off her heels—again—and scooped them up into her hand, then trotted the length of the hallway. Where the hell was Gruber? Why wasn’t he coming forward to meet her and pass her gun to her? He had to know why she was coming.
Within seconds she had arrived at the heavy steel door, annoyed and impatient. She glanced through the tiny, wire-reinforced window and the stairwell appeared empty.
She shoved open the door and stepped cautiously through it and found…nothing. Gruber had disappeared, and apparently taken her weapon with him.
And her backup gun was locked away inside the CIA safe house three blocks away.
Dammit.
Tracie raced up the stairs to the fifth floor landing, moving quietly in her bare feet. This floor was as empty and still as the one she had just left. She turned and reversed direction, taking the stairs three at a time, hurrying down to the third floor landing.
It was deserted as well.
Gruber was nowhere to be found.
Tracie blew out a breath in frustration. Her plan had come unraveled in near record time.
She returned to the fourth floor and looked through the tiny window.
The corridor was empty.
She slipped through the fire door and down the hallway, stopping once again just outside the Soviet’s room. His door was just the way she had left it less than a minute ago, cracked slightly open.
And Tracie had no weapon.
She eased the door farther open with one foot, using its heavy metal construction to shield her body—as much as possible—from any hostile who might still be inside. It swung smoothly and slowly, revealing a room that had been trashed.
And a man lying on the floor.
And a lot of blood.
Tracie’s pulse spiked. Her adrenaline had already been pounding, but now it flooded her system. Her hands shook and her breathing became shallow and ragged. She fell back on her training. Breathed slowly through her mouth and forced herself to think. Priorities would be crucial.
She needed to clear the room first, and then check the victim for a pulse. It was already obvious he was dead, but she could take nothing for granted.
She leaned back against the door and eased it closed with her hip until it latched with a heavy clunk. The room was a crime scene and she had no gloves, so opening and closing doors would be problematic. But there were always work-arounds.
The hotel room’s layout was simple and open. With the exception of the bathroom it was nothing more than one big living area featuring a single closet. The closet door had been left ajar just like the entry door, and Tracie pushed it open fully using her foot, prepared to strike with a sidekick if occupied.
It wasn’t.
The only place left to clear was the bathroom, and by now Tracie knew nobody would be inside it. Whoever had been here just a few minutes earlier was long gone.
Still, Tracie wasn’t about to make an assumption that could get her killed. She dropped one shoe silently onto the carpeted floor. Grasped the other in her right hand. She slipped across the room, careful not to step in any blood.
Then she pressed herself against the wall adjacent to the bathroom door.
Took a deep breath.
Dropped into a crouch and gently tossed her shoe into the right side of the bathroom, hoping it would serve as a distraction in the event she was wrong and whoever had murdered the Soviet was hiding in there. It struck the side wall and before it hit the floor Tracie was moving, swinging around the door jamb and into the bathroom, staying low, left hand wrapped around her right fist, prepared to drive her hands under the jaw and into neck of any assailant.
She would crush his windpipe before he could squeeze off a shot.
But the bathroom was empty.
Tracie was alone in the room with the corpse of a Soviet spy.
“Dammit.” She kept her voice down but couldn’t stop herself from uttering the curse. What should have been a relatively straightforward—if dangerous—assignment had come apart at the seams.
She stalked out of the bathroom and across the living area to the victim. He lay motionless on his side, a pool of blood surrounding his upper body, soaking into the carpeting and beginning to congeal at the edges.
Tracie knelt, contorting her body awkwardly in order to avoid the blood while still getting close enough to the man to examine his wounds.
His throat had been slit nearly from ear to ear.
It would be impossible to sustain such an injury and survive, but she pressed two fingers gently against his carotid anyway. The skin was slick with blood that was just starting to turn sticky.
The official murder investigation would reveal that someone had checked for a pulse, but she would smear the blood in order to eliminate fingerprints, and the investigators would assume the killer had wanted to be sure his victim was dead. There would be no reason for them to suspect someone else had been inside the hotel room.
She hoped.
Tracie located the carotid and was unsurprised to discover no pulse.
She removed her hand from the corpse’s neck and shook her head in frustration. Her plan had not included killing the Soviet, only forcing him to turn over the Amber Room key. But she wouldn’t lose any sleep over the murder, either.
What she would lose sleep over was that she had been too late. Someone had had the same plan as she—surprise the sloppy Soviet and relieve him of his valuable prize—but they had beaten her to the punch. The whole thing had gone down just minutes ago, too, because it had been no more than half an hour since she had watched this very man stagger down the hallway and enter his hotel room.
His body was still warm.
His attacker had probably been killing him even as Tracie was busy subduing the hooker.
She cursed again and glanced around the room.
Wondered whether anything would be gained by searching it.
Decided against it.
The condition of the room—furniture overturned, television screen shattered—suggested the Soviet had fought hard against his attackers before succumbing. Whoever had surprised the man in his hotel room would not have made the mistake of killing him before getting what they came for, which meant Tracie could search until hell froze over and she wouldn’t find the key.
It was gone.
She rose to her feet and retraced her steps to the bathroom. Picked up her shoe and moved to the door. Checked the peephole. The hallway was clear as far as she could see, but that didn’t mean much. It was a long way from here to the elevators, as well as to the stairs at the other end, and it was entirely possible someone would be walking along the corridor when Tracie stepped out of the dead man’s room.
But there was no alternative. The longer she stayed here, the colder the key’s trail became.
She took a deep breath and slipped a hand under the hem of her dress, then raised it to the door handle. The dress lifted to her waist as she did so, but the man lying in a pool of blood behind her was beyond caring about seeing a naked ass.
Tracie turned the handle and pushed the door open an inch, then pulled her dress down. Eased her head out the door just enough to see that the hallway was deserted from Room 417 to the stairs at the far end. She had to poke her head a little farther out to see the other direction, and as she did she could see the elevator door sliding open.
Someone would be coming down the hallway in a matter of seconds.
She eased back into the room and counted slowly to sixty.
Tried again.
Now the hallway was empty in both directions. Tracie slipped out of the dead man’s room, again using the material of her dress to avoid leaving fingerprints as she pulled the handle closed. It clicked crisply and she smoothed her clothing one more time before padding down the hallway to her room, high heels dangling from her right hand.
***
Tracie had expected the hooker to be angry, and she was. But she was mostly frightened.
Tracie Tanner Thrillers Box Set Page 79
