And so it was that Mark Cole relaxed his stance, placed the H&K pistol on the ground in front of him, put his hands in the air, and allowed himself to be placed into the custody of the Munich municipal police department.
93
‘Are we still on track?’ Jensen asked over a cup of coffee in the sitting room of his Washington residence. Number One Observatory Circle was a quaint nineteenth century house located within the grounds of the United States Naval Observatory, used by Vice Presidents and their families since the 1920s.
Hansard took a sip of the well-brewed drink from the bone china cup. ‘Well Richard,’ he announced finally, ‘we’ll just have to wait and see.’ He pulled out his pipe and tobacco and started to pack it with a practised economy of motion. He knew Jensen hated the thing, but the man didn’t say anything. It was just as well; with Jensen’s role about to increase exponentially, it wouldn’t do to have him acting above his station already. Charles Hansard was still the Vice President’s mentor, having subtly and unnoticeably guided his career to its present position, and it just wouldn’t do to give the man too much freedom.
Part of Hansard’s plan, in fact, relied upon manipulating Jensen from the shadows; and so it was important for the ex-Governor of Nebraska to know his place, and who it was that really gave the orders. He lit his pipe, blowing smoke up to the ceiling.
‘It all appears to be going well so far,’ Jensen offered helpfully.
‘It does,’ Hansard agreed, ‘it does.’ He paused. ‘Is Abrams still set up for the press conference?’
Jensen smiled and nodded his head; he could sniff the prize that awaited just out of reach. ‘Yes sir,’ he confirmed. ‘Tomorrow morning at nine o’clock.’
‘Then we’ll soon know for sure.’
Jensen’s smile widened.
94
When Hansard got back to his office, he set about how to deal with the one major problem he still had — Mark Cole.
His own agents had not succeeded in neutralising the man, but Cole was now in custody at least. The problem Hansard now faced was what to do with him.
His agents in the area were now sadly depleted — Cole had seen to that. And even if he did have reliable personnel available, he couldn’t just send them in to execute the man. Cole was now being kept in a Munich jail cell, and there was the thorny issue of legality to consider. It was one thing to gun a man down in the street — a case could always be made that a deadly threat was being posed, after all — but it was another thing entirely to kill someone who was already in police custody.
He sipped from a glass of cognac and considered the problem. He would need to get Cole extradited back to the United States, where he could be handled ‘in-house’. It would be complicated, but it certainly wasn’t impossible.
He lifted the handset of his secure telephone and dialled the chief of Munich’s municipal police force. He would have Cole on a plane back to Washington within the hour.
He would demand that the man be sedated first, of course. After all, he didn’t want Cole talking before he could be dealt with properly.
95
Fucking bitch. Albright looked at himself in the mirror by his bedside. Fucking bitch!
He was blind in his right eye, which had been gouged out from the socket completely, and his nose was all but destroyed. The surgeons had managed to re-attach it, but it was covered by thick bandages, which wouldn’t be coming off for some time.
He also had bandaging around his head, protecting the small hole in the skull created by the impact with the sharp corner of the bathroom cabinet. Maybe I should sue the rail company?, he wondered idly, but the laughter only brought more pain. His temple had been missed by less than an inch, and the doctors felt that it was something of a miracle that he was still alive.
As Albright looked at himself through his remaining eye, part of himself wished he wasn’t. Dark, ugly scabs formed across his previously perfect face, left by the woman’s clawing nails; his once beautifully coiffured blond hair had been shaved off to allow the surgeons access to his skull. And that wasn’t even to mention his eye and his nose. His face, he realized in grim depression, was ruined. Sure, he could always have plastic surgery, and it might even be a pretty good job; but it would no longer be his face, and he would always have to live with that.
The part of him that wondered if life was now worth living was easily silenced, however. Of course it was, he reminded himself. How else am I going to kill that bitch and her entire fucking family?
And so slowly, carefully, yet with grave determination, he unplugged the drips and monitors that surrounded him and raised himself up in the bed, swinging his legs off the side and onto the cold hospital floor.
Back to work.
96
Sarah came around towards nine in the evening. She had waited up for Mark’s arrival all afternoon, until the pain became too bad and Steinmeier insisted — indeed, practically forced her — to take more medication. It had laid her out again, and when she awoke in the dark, she was confused and disorientated.
‘Sarah,’ Steinmeier said comfortingly from the armchair near her bed. ‘It’s okay. You’re safe.’
‘Mark?’ she wondered out loud.
‘Still no word, I’m afraid. But there’s no point worrying, you’ll just slow down your recovery. He’ll be here, just not on schedule, that’s all.’
Sarah lay back in bed, thinking. She had always known her husband was capable, and although she knew his work was dangerous, she had never before truly worried about him. Partly this was due to his own nonchalance, brushing away any talk of such danger when the subject came up. But mostly, she now realized, it stemmed from her utter ignorance of the reality of violence, and of the world her husband lived in.
She had now been exposed to that world first hand, and the experience had changed her outlook on things irrevocably. Like an epiphany, her eyes had been opened to the cold, hard, brutal world, and now that she knew what her husband was up against, her faith in his safe return had started to slowly ebb away.
Steinmeier stayed with her, calming her down until she was asleep again, and then took a long hard pull from the vodka bottle by his side. He stared at his friend’s wife for several minutes before leaving the room.
He still didn’t know what he was going to do.
97
Cole awoke to a dull roar, which seemed to be coming from all sides at once.
At first he didn’t open his eyes all the way, but instead kept them as narrow slits as he scanned his current location.
He was in what looked like a large metal container, securely restrained to a large metal chair, which was in turn secured to the metal floor. A uniformed German police officer sat to one side, working on a small laptop computer.
He remembered being in the stark white cell back in Munich, overhearing the conversation regarding his transfer to Washington. He then remembered being given an injection, and wondering whether it would prove lethal, Hansard executing him whilst in the supposedly safe hands of the German police.
It had just been a sedative though, as it turned out — presumably to stop Cole from talking before Hansard’s agents picked him up from Andrews Air Force Base, where the aircraft would almost certainly be landing.