“Maybe he got in, dropped off his bags at a relative’s house and then went for a walk.” Andreas shrugged his shoulders. “Ran into the wrong guy.”
“I don’t think so,” Gustav said. “Do we have a missing person reported? I doubt it. No. This guy was here for a meeting. He let someone get too close and that got him killed. But he was here for a purpose. He came directly here from the Hauptbahnhof, I’m guessing. If he had a bag he probably left it at the train station. Have our people check the cameras at the station and see if they can catch this guy on video. Maybe he actually met the killer there. Or perhaps we’ll see if he put a bag in a locker there.”
“Sir, that could take a long time.”
“Not really. We know the track, the train and the time he arrived.”
“Of course. I’ll do it myself.” Andreas hurried off to a patrol car.
Standing there alone, the medical team waiting at the periphery for his signal to take away the body, Gustav stripped off his latex gloves and shoved them in his pocket. Then he took out another piece of gum and unwrapped it, his eyes on the dead man. He thought for a second about spitting out the old piece of gum, but not at this crime scene. The others had been drop sites. This looked like the kill location. Instead, he simply shoved the new gum into his mouth and added it to the old stuff. God, he wanted a cigarette.
He thought about the case. Did he finally have a break he could use? Maybe the killer wanted to throw some evidence his way. Wasn’t he too smart to leave all of this behind? Gustav motioned for the medical team to bag the man and then wandered around the scene deep in thought. A case like this could make or break a career. It didn’t matter much to Gustav. He could move on to retire. But he could help his young associate, Andreas. Something like this could come just once in a lifetime of Polizei work. His eyes scanned the buildings surrounding the park, checking to see who might be watching the scene. Nobody out of the ordinary. They needed a break. Maybe this guy had finally made a mistake.
A woman in a black karate uniform maneuvered around the hard cushioned floor, her eyes keeping track of three potential young male attackers as her perfectly-toned body moved smoothly and gracefully counterclockwise. Suddenly a man tried to slip in from behind her. As if she had eyes in the back of her head, she thrust her left foot back, catching the man in the stomach and knocking him to the floor. Now the other two thought they found an opening and attacked simultaneously. But the woman shifted quickly to her right, swept her leg and sent one man to the mat. With a twist of her body she snapped a kick to the second man’s groin, dropping him to the ground also. She slid back, brought her fists together at her chest, and bowed her head to the three men, who dejectedly returned the woman’s bow. The three men left the exercise room for the locker room.
The woman relaxed and finally saw she had an audience of one, her assistant, Russian Army Colonel Vladimir Bortnikov. She hated when he interrupted her mid-day workout.
As deputy director of external counter-intelligence, General of the Army Tatyana Petrova was the first woman to rise so high in the SVR or its predecessor, the KGB. She had been trained at Russia’s finest universities and had started off her career in the military flying helicopters in battle in Chechnya. Along the way she had left her male counterparts behind, intellectually and militarily. She was on the fast track to become the first female SVR director. Even in her mid-forties, with her fit body, her silky blonde hair, her high cheek bones, and her elegant demeanor, she could have been confused on the street for an aging movie actor or super model. But that would have been a mistake. She was a sixth degree black belt in karate and knew how to use just about any hand-held weapon in the Russian arsenal, from knives to sniper rifles.
Wiping her face with a towel, Tatyana stepped closer to her assistant and said, “What is it, Vladimir?”
“General, you asked to be informed on any changes in Germany.”
Assessing her assistant, she noticed he seemed to have a lot more gray than when he started working for her six months ago. And he was five years her junior. Maybe she was working him too hard. Note to self…give Vladimir leave. In December.
“Well?” she asked.
“I think we might have a problem with Anton Zukov.”
She threw the towel to the floor. “Zukov’s only problem is he doesn’t seem to have any contemporaries who think outside the box like him.”
“But, ma’am…”
Tatyana waved her hand as if she would strike her colonel. “What is the problem? Get to the point so I can take a shower and eat my lunch.”
“He seems to be deviating from the plan, General.”
If she believed in a God, she’d hope he would strike this man in his tracks if he didn’t get to the point. “And?”
“He’s left one of the potential assassins dead in a park in Berlin.”
She twirled her hands for him to continue.
“And they still haven’t been able to track down that American, Jake Adams.”
“You have got to be kidding me, Vladimir. He’s one man. And he’s not even with the CIA anymore.”
The colonel clasped his hands together as if massaging arthritis from them. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.
Tatyana Petrova considered her assistant more carefully. Something was really bothering him. “What’s the matter?”
His mouth opened and closed a few times. “I don’t understand this direction,” Vladimir said reluctantly.
She squeezed down on his shoulder. Maybe she should give him leave in November. “We don’t always know everything we’d like to know, Vlad. Sometimes we must just do what we’re told. As a military officer, you know this deep in your bones. It’s programmed into your DNA.” Could she give him a little more information? Maybe it would settle him down somewhat. He was like a dog outside a Korean restaurant. Okay, she assured herself, just a little more information. “As you know, Russia has lost much power in the world in the last few decades.”
Colonel Bortnikov nodded his head as if in shame.
“Well, we’re just trying to build ourselves back up to where we were,” Tatyana said, a slight shrug of her shoulders. “You understand?”
“Of course, ma’am. But how do we do that by killing these men?”
She smiled and said, “That’s easy. We won’t be pushed around the school yard again. Their agencies will think twice about sending their operatives into the field without great caution. And this caution will lead to mistakes on their part.”
“It’s a game,” Vladimir concluded.
“It’s always a game, my friend.” She took her hand away and patted him on the shoulder as she started for the showers.
“But General.”
Tatyana stopped without turning around, taking in a deep breath. Finally, she twisted to face her assistant.
“Won’t the CIA react…” He hesitated as if seeking the proper word. But then he didn’t continue.
“We hope they react,” Tatyana said. “We live in a world of action and reaction, Vlad. We’ll see how and if they respond. That’s part of the equation.” She shifted her eyes toward the door and her assistant finally took that as a sign that he was excused.
She went back into the locker room and stepped out of her karate uniform. Then, as naked as the day she was born, she glanced at herself in the full-length mirror. Her only imperfection was a couple of scars she had gotten over the years — most were from being shot down in Chechnya. Lifting her perfectly-rounded breasts and letting them drop, she noticed they still didn’t sag but were not as uplifting as they had been in her youth. Damn gravity. Turning around, she slapped herself on the buttocks and smiled at how firm she still was in that area. She could live with that. Smiling, she stepped gracefully into the shower.