Winter Work, page 33
“Not in the least.”
He nodded, as if to confirm his judgment upon himself.
“I should make the coffee,” Claire said. “Just tell me where everything is.”
“The pot’s on the counter. Everything you’ll need is in the drawer below it.”
“Ron, you want some?”
“Absolutely. Make a full pot.”
Kent stepped toward the picture window on the side of the great room, where he stared out toward the birds at the feeder. He went rigid as something caught his eye, and for a lurching moment Emil was certain that something terrible was about to befall them.
“You’ve got a middle spotted woodpecker out there,” Kent said.
Emil smiled in relief. A bird-watcher, then. It reminded him of Kent’s earlier remark about the stork’s nest, which in turn made him think of the blocked chimney, which made him sad and desolate all over again.
“Yes, he’s a regular visitor. There’s a pair of binoculars on the table, if you’re interested.”
“Thank you.”
Kent took him up on the offer. Emil heard the clank of the glass coffee pot, the running of the kitchen faucet, the opening and shutting of drawers. Claire came to the doorway, then paused as if taken aback by what she saw in Emil’s face.
“You should lie down. But, I’m sorry, where are the coffee filters?”
“Same drawer as the coffee.”
“There’s a box, but it’s empty.”
“Oh, right. Karola must have used the last one overnight.”
Overnight, he thought, while he was out at Waldsiedlung, playing burglar games while they were here alone, unprotected.
“I’ll get another box.”
Emil stepped wearily to the pantry closet in the great room, opening the door and reaching toward the top shelf, where a box of filters was wedged between rolls of paper towels. He was so numb to his surroundings that he might easily have missed the new item down on the floor if his feet hadn’t crunched against a clod of dried mud. In fact, now that he noticed, there seemed to be dirt all over the closet floor, and as he looked down to see why, his eyes alighted on the mud-smeared pilot’s case, which someone had placed on the floor.
Emil shook his head and then blinked in amazement, wondering if he was seeing things. He wasn’t. It was real. He felt his strength and alertness returning as if a doctor had injected him with a drug.
But how could it have gotten there?
Karola, of course. She must have retrieved it last night on her own initiative, after learning that its whereabouts had been compromised. She doubtless would have told him this at the hospital if she’d had the energy to stay awake.
Claire, coming out of the kitchen, turned to see what he was staring at. She gasped.
“Oh my God. Is that…?”
“It is.”
Kent put down the binoculars and watched, speechless, as Emil unsnapped the top and opened the flap. Inside were seventy-six boxed reels of microfilm. All three files were there—every piece of the puzzle. But he was still marveling more at Karola’s resourcefulness under pressure.
He drew a deep breath of the bracing air. All of them were smiling. As his brain began to function again, his first thought was of Krauss, and of Kolkachev’s people, his trio of killers. If they were out there now, peering into the empty hole beneath the hunting stand, their next move would be to follow the snowy footprints that led straight to the dacha.
He turned toward the Americans.
“I don’t think there’s time for coffee. We need to get going as fast as we can.”
54
They stayed off paved roads until they reached the Autobahn, a route that took them down a series of winding dirt lanes through the trees. Emil gave directions as he leaned forward from the back, while the Mercedes bounced through ruts and potholes. Snow continued to fall, and Emil was disconcerted to see that they were leaving an easily marked trail.
“So we’re looking for a Citroën?” Kent asked.
“And possibly a Volvo. Or anything expensive and foreign. Between him and Krauss, they could have all sorts of foot soldiers.”
“Maybe we should have taken your Wartburg.”
Emil shook his head.
“They know it too well. And if we end up in a chase, we’ll want something faster than two-stroke lawnmower speed.”
“It’s good you know these roads,” Claire said.
“From hiking and hunting. Fire roads and ranger paths. Never thought I’d use them for this. Take this right. That will bring us out of the woods just beyond the entrance ramp.”
The road emerged from the trees on the downside of the Autobahn’s sloped shoulder. This stretch of the highway, never busy, was now virtually empty due to the falling snow, although the flakes weren’t yet sticking to the pavement. The car banged up onto the blacktop and turned right onto the southbound lanes for Berlin. No one was following. With any luck they’d be on safe ground in twenty minutes.
A few miles later, Kent braked the car as they topped a rise. Something was blocking the roadway a half mile farther on, darkened blobs visible through the snowflakes.
“Any ideas?”
Emil got out his spotting scope and leaned between the seats, focusing as the wipers flicked back and forth.
“They’ve set up a roadblock. A Volvo, a Citroën, and a soldier. No, two of them, Russian uniforms. No idea how many people are in the cars. And they’ve seen us. Look!”
The Volvo was creeping forward. Then it accelerated, shooting toward them, heading north in the southbound lanes.
Emil watched the faces of the two Americans as Kent violently swerved the wheel into a U-turn and floored it. He wondered if the same thought was passing between all of them: Only a day earlier, this tired and beaten landscape had felt like a place free of borders, a place where you could finally breathe easy. Now it was again closed off, restricted, the oxygen limited. The status quo of four months ago was back in force, and any attempt to escape might be your last.
Kent swerved the Mercedes onto the median and crossed over to the northbound lanes.
“We have to get off this road,” Emil said. “If that’s Krauss, then he will have set up a roadblock in the other direction as well, probably just past where we came in.”
They were now on a downslope, briefly out of sight of the Volvo.
“Take that cut into the forest, just ahead on the right. Get into the trees as fast as you can.”
“He’ll see our tracks.”
“Maybe not, if he’s going too fast. Just go.”
They bounced violently down the shoulder and into the narrow opening. The black Mercedes blended well with the dark, wet trunks of the heavy pines, and they came to a stop twenty yards in, where they waited motionless as the Volvo topped the rise in a burst of roaring sound.
It flashed by them at top speed, hurtling farther down the highway. The three of them exhaled as one.
“I’ll be damned,” Kent said, as he accelerated forward. “Where to now?”
“Deeper into the woods. Fast. When they see we’ve disappeared they’ll double back and find our tracks.”
Emil kept thinking as they moved, reviewing the possible routes. A massive birch was just ahead on the right, a landmark that helped him recalibrate. Unbidden, he remembered that Lothar had once shot a stag near here. They had gutted and dressed it on the spot. He tried to recall the route they’d taken later in a truck to retrieve it.
“There’s a turnoff coming up on the right. Take it.”
The going was rougher than before, the trees bigger and denser. Emil wondered if they were still on course. After another few hundred yards he spoke again.
“See that next turnout just ahead? Pull over.”
“To stop? Why?”
“Because I’m an old man and I have to take a piss! I also need to think for a second, to make sure we’re headed in the right direction.”
Kent shook his head but did as he was told. They waited in silence as Emil got out and, with his back turned to the open door, peed into the snow with a patter against the ground and a trailing of steam.
“This will look good on our report after they catch us,” Kent said. “Next time he’s peeing out the window.”
Claire couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. She kept her voice down so Emil wouldn’t hear.
“Well, he did just get us out of a pretty tight spot.”
“Maybe we should take the first back road we hit and make a run for the nearest border crossing.”
“If Kolkachev can round up enough soldiers to block the Autobahn, who’s to say he’s not watching the crossings?”
“He can’t possibly cover them all.”
“True. But we’ve got no way of knowing which ones…unless.”
“What?”
She had just remembered something Baucom had told her on their drive back from Prenden.
“There’s an old safe house we can use, in Bernau, if Emil can get us there.”
“One of ours?”
“From a few years ago. Never used, apparently.”
“How do you know all this shit?”
“Long story. But if we stash the car back in the underground garage, maybe we can hole up long enough to arrange for reinforcements. If worse comes to worst, we could stay the night.”
Emil climbed back in as he zipped his pants.
“Sorry.”
“Can you get us to Bernau without getting back on the Autobahn?”
He needed only a second or two to think it over.
“Yes. Definitely.”
“Then let’s go. I know a place where we can wait them out.”
He raised his eyebrows, impressed.
“A friend of yours?”
“Something like that.”
She saw no reason to reveal an old trade secret, even if, technically, he was no longer the enemy.
He nodded.
“Stay on this road another mile. I should have us there in ten minutes.”
Kent put the car back in gear, and they drove onward, deeper into the silence of the trees.
55
At nightfall, Claire and Kent began to relax as they waited in the dusty safe house. Emil, so worn out that he had nodded off several hours earlier, was slumped sideways at the end of the couch. Claire had put a blanket on him, and she now sat across from him in an armchair, too edgy to sleep.
The safe house had been exactly where Baucom had described it, upstairs above an old antique shop. Emil had known of the shop, and had guided them there unerringly. The door was locked, but Emil had made quick work of that with a small kit of tools he’d pulled from an overcoat pocket, grinning like an old magician.
It was a one-story, one-bedroom apartment, with a separate doorway next to that of the shop, which opened onto a private stairwell. It was on a quiet cobbled lane that ran just inside the town center’s medieval wall. The stone wall, about twelve feet high, added an extra layer of protection, although Claire supposed it would also shut off an avenue of escape if they needed to leave in a hurry.
Claire had peeked through the glass door of the darkened shop, but saw no signs of life. No opening hours were posted, and she wondered if it were even in business any longer. Apparently they were the only living souls in the building. The furnishings were sparse, out of date, and coated in dust. It was like hiding inside a time capsule.
Their biggest initial worry was the set of footprints they’d left on their walk from the parking garage. But the snow had long since covered that trail of breadcrumbs, and other pedestrians had subsequently trampled out tracks of their own.
Kent checked the windows every few minutes, peeping out the sides of the blinds in both directions up the cobbled lane. He then looked out a back window into an alley in the rear. All was quiet. The pilot’s case and the stolen folder were in the coat closet.
“Still looks okay out there,” Kent said, keeping his voice low to avoid awakening Emil. “If they’d found our trail right away, they’d be here by now. I should get out on the streets to find a phone.”
“To call in the cavalry?”
“Don’t you think?”
Claire nodded.
“We’ve got one gun between us, so, yes, the sooner the better. And of the three of us, you’re the least likely to be recognized.”
There was no phone in the house, of course. Acquiring one would have raised too many suspicions, and there would have been a long waiting list at the time anyway. It was clear from the setup that the apartment had mostly been intended for use as an emergency crash pad.
“Probably better if you avoid any public phone boxes.”
“Agreed. I spotted a takeout joint a couple streets over on our way in.”
“The Turkish place?”
“Yeah. If I order food they’ll probably be happy to let me borrow their phone.”
“Get me a doner kebab, then. I’m starved. With yogurt sauce, fries on the side. Better get him one, too. He needs it more than we do.”
“If he’ll even eat.”
They both glanced at the sleeping Emil with an air of concern. Now that they were at rest, and in a place of relative safety, he would be more vulnerable to his grief. And he was exhausted from his long night at Waldsiedlung. Claire hoped Karola was recovering, but was worried she’d be upset when Emil failed to return to the hospital. That would be Emil’s worry as well. The longer he remained asleep, the better.
“I’m assuming you’ve got Lindsey Ward’s direct line?”
Kent nodded. A little sheepishly, she thought, but now she was glad for his easy access to someone who could get things moving in a hurry.
“How much should I tell her on an unsecure line, other than our location and the agreed-upon distress signal?”
“Say we have our full complement of items, then stress the urgency. The problem is that, if anyone’s still listening, it’s probably the Russians. Think she’ll send the cavalry?”
“Of course. You really don’t like her, do you?”
“It’s not a matter of liking or not liking. It’s trust. I worry she’s more loyal to the people who are after us than the ones we’re with.”
He sighed.
“Yeah, I get it. Maybe this folder from Mielke will tip the scale. Problem is, I can’t get into any of that on the call.”
“You think she might slow play this? Even with both our asses on the line?”
“I’m betting Kolkachev has assured her he’s only after one man, and that we won’t be harmed.”
“That’s a hard promise to keep once the shooting starts. Especially with a butcher like Volkov. Make the call, then. Stress the urgency.”
He checked the front window. The darkness was now complete. He frowned and angled for a better look to his left, this time pulling back the shade a little, an action he had avoided up to now.
“See anything?”
“Two guys just went into the place two doors down.”
“Should we be worried?”
“No idea. Not even sure if they were guys. Could barely see ’em at this angle. I’ll wait a few minutes.”
Claire stood and checked out the back window. The alley was still empty. The town seemed to be quiet. Somewhere—maybe next door, maybe farther down the block—a door closed with a solid thunk. Then, silence.
The snow had stopped. The streetlamps glowed amber on the white sidewalks. Under other circumstances, it would have been beautiful. Instead, it looked like another cloak of concealment for whoever might be out there, searching for them.
They waited ten minutes. Emil groaned, slumping forward on the couch. Then he bolted upright, eyes blinking as he looked first at Kent and then at Claire, suddenly awake.
“What’s happening? What time is it?”
“Almost seven. All quiet, or so we think. Ron’s going out for food. Is a doner okay?”
“Nothing for me, thank you.”
Claire looked at Kent, who nodded. He would get enough for all of them. With any luck, help would arrive before they’d finished eating.
“Okay, then. I’m off. Good thing you knew about this safe house, Claire. It was a godsend.”
He left. Emil and Claire listened to his footsteps recede, followed by the shutting of the downstairs door. From there, the snow muffled any sound of his progress.
Claire yawned. Emil did the same. For ten, maybe fifteen minutes they waited in silence. Then an expression of alarm crossed Emil’s face.
“Did I really hear him say this was a safe house?”
“I wasn’t going to tell you that, but yes. Never used until now, apparently.”
“When was it set up?”
“A few years ago? Why?”
“They’ll know about it, or Krauss will. And if they doubled back and found our car tracks through the forest, and then traced us to Bernau, well…”
“How would Krauss know?”
“His work with the Spezialkommission. Counterintelligence asked them to keep track of the American safe houses on our side of the Wall. There were only a few, so it was an easy job, and he’d hardly forget this one.”
“But it was never used. Maybe it stayed under the radar.”
“You don’t understand. We knew everything your people did over here. Everything. If you set up this as a safe house, we’d know. He’d know.”
Buried within his urgency was a note of pride. Claire reflexively wanted to defend her own side before admitting to herself he was probably right.
“So you think he’ll look here?”
“If they decide we haven’t gone elsewhere, yes. Especially if they find the car.”
“They’ll certainly know we haven’t reached Berlin base.”
“Your boss communicates that closely with Kolkachev?”
