“Did Greg forget you?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t told him I’ve come back, and I don’t know if I dare.”
She fell silent, staring into the distance again. David wondered how difficult her life was.
“Very difficult,” she said, making him grin.
“This’ll take some getting used to. It must have made growing up kind of hard.”
“The worst thing was working out what was special and what wasn’t. It was all ordinary to me, so I made loads of silly mistakes.” She then told him something of her life.
“You sensed the gift in me all the way across town?”
“It wasn’t that far, but yes.”
“You said I could develop, in what way?”
“You’ve managed the first hurdle, which is recognising you have a power, now we need to develop it and get you into a position where you can control it.”
“We?”
She looked at him again. “I don’t know of anyone else who can help, do you?”
Chuckling, he shook his head. “Okay, how about we start by letting me buy you lunch?”
“Okay,” she said, standing up.
David held out his arm to her, so she smiled as she linked hers through his. He felt a curious feeling of rightness as they walked out of the park and back into civilisation once more. There was something very comforting having her close to him, as if he was suddenly complete. For Amber, the same feeling was intensified, so she no longer felt alone.
They ate lunch at a small Italian restaurant, chatting about their respective lives. Amber told him about her time in Berlin, working as a spy-catcher. She found it cathartic talking to David, as she felt that he was one of the few people who could understand, or, if he couldn’t now, he would be able to soon.
On his part, David found himself sharing details about his broken marriage and subsequent divorce. Amber was the first person he had ever told the full story. David had married Gail just prior to his transition from city cop to the military. Gail had been a legal secretary with a large law firm in Chicago. Her dream of a big house and two-point four children was shattered when her clean cut detective husband took a move that stretched his skill but stagnated her dreams.
To give her due credit, she stuck it out for a while, but then one of the lawyers offered her a substitute dream and she took it. David had originally regretted never having children, but when Gail arranged for the divorce papers to be served, he felt a degree of relief.
“I felt a little ashamed that I couldn’t save the marriage or even prevent the rot before it happened, but, to be honest, I was too engrossed in my job to know anything was wrong at home.”
Amber simply smiled gently. “You don’t have to explain, but I know it helps to talk about it.”
He looked into those distracting eyes; aware he was opening further with her than with any other human, ever. Frowning, he tried to understand what was happening to him.
“Are you doing this?” he asked.
“No, I assure you, I’m doing nothing; this is all you. I think you’ve needed to offload all this for a while. Besides, I wouldn’t be so obvious. If I was doing anything you’d be the last person to know.”
Davis toyed with his coffee, watching the cream swirl into the dark liquid in a spiral. His life had seemed so ordered, with simple parameters and guidelines within which he operated. In a single stroke, she’d come into his life and changed everything. He was a soldier, actually, he was a cop who happened to be a soldier, but he understood the chain of command and where he belonged in the system.
“Okay, so what happens now?”
Smiling, Amber finished her coffee, replacing the cup into its saucer.
“First you pay the bill, and then we go see my boss.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Colonel Vassily Comrakov didn’t like East Berlin. He distrusted Germans generally, and particularly those who worked for the Stasi. His family had suffered at the hands of the Nazis during the Second World War, so he wasn’t inclined to forgive the Germans that easily, even if these ones were supposed to be his allies.
His KGB masters had ordered him to attend a meeting at the Stasi Headquarters with an agent who claimed to have uncovered information that had the potential to threaten the security of the whole of the Warsaw pact. Therefore, he had little choice but to do as he was ordered. He was part of a top-secret unit dedicated to seek out those adepts who had telepathic powers, and ascertain whether they had sufficient potential for use in the intelligence and counter-intelligence field.
Code-named Operation Strugatsky, after the Russian brothers who both wrote science fiction; the Russians followed their own course to identify and then train men and women to be special. The projects of the fifties and sixties, utilising all manner of external influences, such as hallucinogenic drugs and electric shock therapy reaped scant rewards. Only now, in the seventies, were a few gifted individuals skilled enough to be recruited and trained to work in the field.
Vassily was responsible for the day-to-day management of the small unit, reporting to General Vladimirov of the KGB, and as far as the rest of the Soviet block was concerned, his unit did not exist. His speciality was the identification and training of gifted individuals.
With him was his star, a slim young man in a Lieutenant’s uniform. He was called Ivan Limosovitch, and had been ‘discovered’ at a nightclub in Moscow. His act was of mind-reading and sleight of hand.
Vassily had found out about the act from a colleague who had been in the club and lost his wallet, watch and braces, all without his knowledge. However, this he had taken in good part, but then when the young man told him he was an officer in ‘that’ organisation, he felt that some extra investigation could be called for.
Vassily had set up surveillance on Ivan, to no good result. There was no doubt that he was skilful, but whether it was special powers or well rehearsed show business, he couldn’t tell.
One morning, whilst seated at his desk Vassily received an unexpected visitor.
It was Ivan.
The young man entered his office and sat, unbidden, in the chair opposite Vassily.
The colonel regarded the younger man with a critical eye. He was well dressed, in his early twenties, medium height, very slim and faintly camp. Languid, would be an ideal description of his manner of movement.
“Colonel, you’ve been watching me, may I enquire why?” His voice was soft but quietly masculine, belying any suggestion of any effeminacy.
“Who told you?”
The man had smiled.
“No one, I sensed them.”
“Explain.”
Colonel Comrakov was a seasoned soldier and KGB officer. He’d been to many fields of conflict and employed all manner of skills to undertake his duties. Rarely had he been as surprised as when Ivan told him his tale.
Born Alena Limosovitch, Ivan wasn’t aware of Amber, but had he been, he’d have known he was not as alone as he thought, for Alena had been physically a perfectly normal girl, just as Andrew had been a boy. The sixth daughter of a poor farmer and his wife, Alena had always felt different.
As she grew up, she found she had little in common with her sisters or even her mother. They were all large females, with board hips and Slavic features. Alena, on the other hand, was fine featured and slender. Schooling was basic, as it was envisaged that all girls in her situation would be ready to marry and produce fine sons for Mother Russia. There was little point in wasting precious education on girls who would be married and producing children soon.
She also felt different in that, deep down, she knew that she wasn’t meant to be a girl. Her father had always wanted a boy, so was disappointed that his wife could produce no more children after Alena.