There was no way, Jake thought. He’d checked the building for cameras. But could someone have caught him on a hand-held video camera? Perhaps. Jake took another drink of beer to think. Would it matter if he came clean?
“Vladimir Volkov was an asshole,” Bernard said. “I’m glad you killed the bastard.”
“I didn’t kill him,” Jake said emphatically.
“But you were there. Video doesn’t lie.”
“Did the Polizei actually name me?”
Bernard shook his head. “No. But when I saw it, I knew it was you.”
This would actually help his case when he went to collect on the one million Euros for Vladimir’s death. “I was there,” Jake said. “But, just like now, I was only trying to get some info. Two guys showed up and shot him.”
“And you shot them.”
“Right.”
“Before or after Vlad gave you what he knew?”
“He never got a chance to tell me anything. At first I thought someone had somehow followed me. Even though I knew that couldn’t be true.”
“Because you’re too good for that?”
“No. Because I took extraordinary precautions.”
“And you were busted by some local amateur with a three hundred Euro camera.”
“They must have heard my shots. The Russian guns were silenced. It took me a while to get downstairs.”
“Long enough for the cameras to roll,” Bernard said, his head swishing side to side. “It was so much easier in the old days. You only had to deal with pros taking your picture. And these new spies. They’re…”
“They’re what?” Jake probed.
“Impatient. Impetuous. Arrogant.”
“Why do you suppose they’re trying to kill off all the old timers?” Not that Jake really considered himself in that category. After all, he was just a young officer at the end of the Cold War.
The Stasi man lifted his shoulders high. “You’ll have to find out. I have no idea. Maybe they’re the young wolf who wants to be the leader of the pack. But to become the lead wolf, the Alpha, they must kill the old leader. Or at least drive them away.”
That made some sense. “But why bring all the attention?” Before the German could answer, Jake finished on his own. “They’re cleaning house. Getting rid of anyone who knew the old ways. Knew the old secrets of the Cold War. It’s a God damn purge.”
The German snapped his fingers. “I think you’re right.”
Jake finished his beer and rose to his feet. He started for the door and stopped, his gaze upon the old Stasi who had sunk to half his former self. “You don’t seem too worried about someone killing you.”
He smiled broadly, more so than Jake had ever seen from the man. “Did you know I have a sister?”
“No.”
“We got her to the West just before the wall went up. We haven’t talked much until recently. She has two children in their early twenties. Good college students. My sister has never told her children about me. She was embarrassed by my position with the Stasi.”
“I’m sorry,” Jake said.
“It’s all right. I did what I thought was right at the time. We saved one soul to sell the other. Anyway, when I heard there was a hit notice out on me, I took out a one million Euro life insurance policy on myself, with benefit going to my sister’s children. So, what do they say in America? Bring it on, asshole. Maybe I take a few down with me. Don’t want to make it too easy for them.”
The old Stasi officer got up and met Jake at the door, shaking his hand with all the strength he could muster.
“It’s been nice knowing you,” Jake said.
“You too. Take those young arrogant bastards for everything they’ve got. If they try to screw you over, take them out.” He swung his fist up into the air.
“I will. Take care. Thanks for the drinks.”
Jake left the man there, wondering what would kill him first, the drinks or the bullets. He hoped for the sake of the man’s ancestors the later. Part of him felt guilty having drinks with a man who had brought so much pain to his own people over the years. Maybe time had healed Jake’s position a little. Bernard was doing what he thought was right at the time, regardless of how misguided that might have been.
As the German closed his door, Jake noticed the young couple from the elevator walking down the corridor toward him. When they were twenty feet away, the hairs on the back of Jake’s neck tingled. He turned to walk toward the elevators and simultaneously reached into his jacket for his gun. Turning his head, he saw the couple had stopped at Bernard’s door. Should he let them go? His gun out now and behind his back, Jake backtracked down the hallway. Approaching the young couple, he saw they had silenced guns at their sides. Okay, they weren’t Polizei.
The couple raised their guns together, aimed at Jake. Flashes burst from the barrels with the sound of small pops, just as Jake returned fire and shifted his body sideways to make his own target smaller. Jake didn’t stop firing until the man and woman were crumpled on the gray industrial carpet, frothy blood pooling out from multiple bullet strikes. Out of bullets, slide locked back, Jake calmly walked toward the couple smacking a full magazine into the gun butt.
Suddenly, Bernard’s door opened and the German stood with his Walther P38.
“You should have let them come, Jake,” the Stasi man said.
“Instincts,” Jake said. “Besides, I couldn’t let these two young punks take down former Stasi officer, Bernard Hartmann. Who would believe that?”
The German smiled. “You better get going.”
Jake agreed and hurried off down the corridor, taking the stairs this time. He’d have to get to a cross street before the Polizei reached the road in front of the apartment building and closed it off, stopping anyone and everyone along the way.
As it was, he had plenty of time. He didn’t hear the sirens until he got most of the way back to Alexanderplatz. But that was a problem as well. There were cameras in the square, he knew, with face recognition. If Bernard was right, every Polizei in Germany would now have Jake’s photo. The situation was starting to clear in his mind. It was amazing how one could hold back the obvious from escaping the deeper confines of the brain. Only time would tell if the theory he and his old German associate had developed was true.
Determined and trying to walk without a limp, Jake was more sure of himself with each step.
27
Changing his body position and walking like a wounded duck, Jake made his way across the edge of the large Alexanderplatz square toward his hotel. He’d pulled his T-shirt off and wrapped it over his head like a scarf, hoping to appear as an old hunched over woman, his face obscured from the cameras.
Once Jake got toward the entrance of the hotel, he slid the shirt down to his neck like an ascot, stuffing the ends down into his leather jacket.
Avoiding the front desk, Jake went directly to the elevator. When he got off on the second floor, he punched all the other elevator buttons before leaving.
He was shaking from the excitement of the last half hour. This case had become much more complex than he’d first thought. Was he or Anna the actual target in Austria? The more and more he thought about it, he had to have been the intended target. But then why had someone not killed him while he rehabbed in the hospital. He was an easy target then.
Getting to his room, he hesitated. On the floor was a tiny piece of paper he’d wedged in the door so he would know if someone had gone inside while he was away. A cheap trick.
He glanced down both sides of the hallway. Nothing.
He pulled his gun and opened the door. Then he rushed in, his gun aiming his way and centering on the figure laying in his bed. A split second is all he had to shoot or not shoot, his heart racing.