“Well, if we start soiling our shorts then dropping like flies, we’ll know he wasn’t telling the truth, won’t we?” Castillo said and reached for the envelope.
“I don’t think they want you dead, Ace. If they did, they would have just put whatever on the prayer books.” Delchamps pulled, then released the wrist of his left glove; it made a snap. “But ‘Caution’ is my middle name.”
He went into the briefcase again and came out with three red-bound books.
“Billy and Otto don’t get no prayer books,” he said. “They’ll just have to wing it.”
Castillo examined the envelope. It was addressed—by a computer printer, he saw; no way to identify which one—to “Herr Karl v. und z. Gossinger.”
The envelope had been slit open at the top with a knife.
Castillo reached inside and saw what looked like calling cards. He took them out. There were four, held together with a paper clip. They were printed, again by a computer printer. One read “Budapest”; the second, “Vienna”; and the third, “Berlin.”
An “X” had been drawn across “Berlin” by what looked like a felt-tip permanent marker. The fourth card had “Tom Barlow” printed on it.
Castillo looked at Delchamps and Davidson. Both shrugged.
Castillo handed the cards to Davidson, then took from the envelope a sheet of paper that had been neatly folded in thirds. He unfolded it.
It was a photocopy of two pages of the data section of a passport. Castillo saw first that it was a Russian passport, and a split second later saw that it was a Russian diplomatic passport.
Across the bottom of the first page was the legend SECOND SECRETARY OF THE EMBASSY OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY.
The second page had a photograph of a man of about Castillo’s age. His neatly trimmed, light-brown hair was nearly blond. He wore a crisp white shirt with a neatly tied, red-striped necktie.
He looks, Castillo thought, more Teutonic than Slavic.
It gave his name as Dmitri Berezovsky. It said he was born in the USSR on 22 June 1969.
Which makes him four days younger than I am.
What the hell does that mean—if anything?
Castillo looked at Delchamps, who met his eyes and then said, “I think the passport is real, Ace.”
Castillo waited for him to go on, and when he didn’t, said, “And? Come on, Ed!”
“None of that could be traced back to your friend Dmitri. All you’ve got is four blank calling cards on which the names of three towns and Tom Barlow have been printed by a cheap computer printer. Berlin is X-ed out. So far as the photocopy of the passport is concerned, that could come from the Germans or whoever else’s border Dmitri has crossed and had it stamped. Just about everybody routinely photocopies the passports of interesting people.”
“All of which means?”
“First wild-hair scenario,” Delchamps said. “What we could have here is a spy who wants to come in from the cold and has decided you have the best key to the door of freedom. And, of course, the CIA’s cash box.
“He’s proved that he knows who you are, knows where to find you, and suggests either Budapest or Vienna, but not Berlin, is where he would like to meet.”
Castillo grunted, and looked at Jack Davidson.
“This guy is good, Charley. If he wanted to take you out, I think he could have,” Davidson said.
“And Edgar’s scenario?”
“I think he’s on the money, Charley.”
“No second scenario?”
Davidson shook his head.
“I don’t know if this is a second scenario or not,” Delchamps said, “but I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy knows who whacked the Kuhls. And I’d sure as hell like that information.”
“So what do we do now? Go to Vienna or Budapest and wait?”
“Yeah,” Delchamps said. “But right now we have to go to the church. It’s supposed to start in ten minutes.”
“And you don’t think anything’ll happen at the church?”
“Dmitri told you he ordered the hit. And you responded the way he thought you would. The place is now crawling with cops and private security. I don’t think any Stasi guys are going to commit suicide to get you or Billy or Otto. Not when they can do it quietly elsewhere. So you stay alive, which is what Dmitri wants.”
Castillo looked at Davidson, who nodded his agreement.
“Okay,” Castillo said. “Let’s go to church.”
Delchamps held out his hand for the envelope, and when Castillo gave it to him, dropped it in his briefcase.
V
[ONE]
The Big Room
Das Haus im Wald
Near Bad Hersfeld
Kreis Hersfeld-Rotenburg
Hesse, Germany
1630 27 December 2005
Hermann and Willi Görner went straight from the elevator to Onkel Billy’s apartment, where Mädchen and the puppies had been left. Onkel Billy and everybody else went straight to the bar.
The service in Saint Elisabeth’s had lasted almost an hour. Otto Görner had delivered the eulogy. Castillo had heard only a little of it. He hadn’t known—as Otto conveniently had not mentioned his role in the services—that Otto was going to make himself a perfect target in the pulpit for almost ten minutes.
Castillo thought it quite possible—if unlikely—that Otto would be shot in front of his boys.
That didn’t happen. Nothing untoward happened in the church, or in the cemetery later, if you didn’t count the behavior of the goddamn press. When that had happened—both at the church and in the cemetery—Castillo suddenly had been conscious that press passes can readily be forged, and that the still and video cameras shoved in the mourners’ faces could easily have concealed a weapon, if not a modified firearm then a compressed air system to launch darts tipped with ricin or some other lethal substance.
That didn’t happen either.
The only thing out of the ordinary at the cemetery was that Eric Kocian told Otto Görner he was getting a little short of breath and felt dizzy and thought it would be best if he went back to das Haus im Wald rather than to the Friedler home.
Görner wanted to call for an ambulance, but Kocian insisted that he would be all right once he had lain down for a few minutes, and that he would ask Karlchen to drive him to Bad Hersfeld.
The minute Charley had driven the Jag carrying Billy, Max, and Jack Davidson out of the cemetery, Castillo had asked Kocian if he was sure he didn’t want to go to a hospital, or at least see a doctor.
“My medicine is in the house in the woods. Now just drive me there, Karlchen, at a reasonable speed, and spare me your concern. I know what I need.”
Castillo thought he heard a snicker from the backseat, but when he glanced in the rearview mirror all he saw was Max putting his head on Davidson’s lap and Jack ostensibly taking in the view of the glorious German countryside.
At the house, Delchamps, Torine, Yung, and Doherty were in the Big Room when Max led in Castillo, Kocian, and Davidson.
They all had watched as Kocian made a beeline for the liquor bottles and poured four inches of Slivovitz into a water glass, drank half, then smacked his lips and set the glass down.
“You want me to get you your medicine before you drink the rest of that?” Castillo said.
Kocian shook his head in disbelief, raised the glass, and finished off the Slivovitz.
“I just took my medicine, Karlchen, thank you very much.”