'Thanks, but we want to go to Uelzen.'
At Uelzen's gorgeous old train station Compton left his driver with them and went inside to shop for a change of clothes for Kate and Ethan. After a while the driver said he wanted to take a look around. Alone, Malloy pointed at the microphone in the overhead light, as if bragging about the technology. 'Amazing, huh? You wouldn't even see it if you didn't know it was there.'
Kate and Ethan, warned of the danger of talking, started in on technology and kept at it until the driver and Compton returned.
Compton stood outside the SUV, giving Kate and Ethan some extra room as they changed into their new clothes. When Ethan got out, he thanked Compton for the ride and shook his hand. As he walked away, Malloy climbed out of the SUV and pulled Kate away from the vehicle. Giving her the Swiss-style three kisses on her cheeks, he said, 'I'll be in Zürich tomorrow.'
'Right now I don't know where we'll be staying.'
'I'll call you.'
'No good. We're ditching the phones on the way out of town. I'll tell you what. Get in touch with Captain Marcus Steiner of the Zürich
Stadtpolizei.
I'll make sure he knows where we are.'
Malloy smiled. 'Is that your
guy ?'
'You know him?'
'He's an old friend of mine.'
'Well,
your
old friend is
my
old friend.'
'It's a small world,' he said.
'A small country at least.'
'One more thing,' he told her. 'You do understand Compton is going to try to follow you?'
Kate hadn't. Her eyes cut to Compton. 'In case some administrator decides to turn you over to the Germans, they want to know where they can find you.'
'Would they do that?'
'Check your new clothes. He planted a tag somewhere on them or he's not really CIA.
Compton got in the backseat with Malloy and asked him where he wanted to go. 'Have you got medical facilities at the Berlin Embassy?'
'You, too?'
'I got some buckshot in my ass last night.'
'In the ass?'
'You know, it's not really as funny as it sounds.'
'We can probably take care of that.' He told the driver and then settled back tiredly. It had been a long night for him as well. After a mile or so, Compton asked, 'So what's the story on the Brit and her American boyfriend?'
'I don't really know. Dale got hold of them for the job. All I can tell you is they're good. Hadn't been for those two I'd be dead right now - or sitting in jail.'
'You seemed kind of friendly with the Brit.'
'Thought she might need a new handler. I wanted her to be sure she knew how to get in touch if she was looking for work.'
'Any idea why they would refuse treatment?'
'Maybe they don't have medical insurance.'
Compton smiled. It wasn't a friendly or reassuring expression. 'You don't think it was because they were afraid we'd turn them over to the Germans?'
'That's not going to happen, is it?'
'That's not for me to decide, but it's an option the D.O. is looking at.'
'Charlie Winger?'
'I take it from that look you know Director Winger?'
'We're old friends.'
'We're going to catch some fallout from the Germans on
this, T. K. Be kind of nice to give them the people responsible.'
The Road to Berlin
With a two hour drive ahead of them Compton tried to establish some common ground before he started the debrief. Malloy played along, but it wasn't easy. They tried talking about their training instructors at the Farm, but having gone through in different generations that didn't get them much. After that they moved on to the leading personalities in the agency but once again they had virtually nothing in common. Malloy put in a good word about Jane Harrison when Compton called her the Iron Maiden. Compton defended Charlie Winger when Malloy said Charlie was a walking intelligence failure. Compton said in his opinion Mr Winger was one of the finest men he had ever known, which meant that the debriefing was probably going to end up on Charlie's desk without Jane Harrison being copied in.
After a couple of stories about the old days, one by Compton who was passing along a story he had heard from 'some old codgers', the other by Malloy, who could spin yarns all day without ever muddying the petticoats of truth, Compton ran through work at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin. Finally there was some common ground. Malloy said his father had worked at the U.S. Consulate in Zürich for seven years, back in the day when there was a Consulate in Zürich. 'That whole time,' he said, 'I never knew the old man was Company. You know when I found out? I was well into my third interview and my dad walked into the room. He said to me, "I want to know if you are as good as your old man when it comes to keeping a secret."'
Compton liked that even though the story was a bald lie. He asked more about Malloy's father, but Malloy told him the old man had kept all his secrets to himself. Eventually, Compton got around to the point of this show of camaraderie. He wanted to know what had gone wrong in Hamburg. To begin Malloy claimed he didn't know. That happened to be the truth, but ignorance is as good as a confession during an interrogation and Compton reacted by trying to blame Dale Perry. Had Dale made a bad call? Malloy went through the phone trace, mentioning that Dale's thoroughness had got them their lead in the first place.
This was while you were kidnapping the attorney?'
'Dale told me the guy was dirty, and he was right. Ohlendorf was providing Chernoff with people and supplies.'
'I want to know how someone walked up and cut Perry's throat.'
'I wasn't with him. I didn't see it.'
'How does an assassin get that close to a trained operative, T. K.?'
'If I cut your throat open right now would that be bad judgment or a mistake on your part?'
Compton smiled but he didn't like the question. 'You're saying you think it was someone he knew?'
'I think it was Helena Chernoff.'
'Helena Chernoff just walked up to him and cut his throat?'
'We were all sure Chernoff was upstairs in bed with Jack Farrell.'
'So. . . bad intel?'
'The mistake was mine,' Malloy answered.
'How is that?'
'It was
my
mission. I'm the one who walked us into the trap.'
'All due respect, T. K., but it looks to me like you walked into a couple of them last night.'
Flying to Zürich
Kate awakened with a start and realised she was on a plane. For a moment she could not imagine how that had happened. Then she remembered Ethan calling his friend in Bern, the long wait for him to arrive, the excruciating pain in her thigh throughout the day, the uncertainty of their even being able to get out of the country, and then settling into the fuselage and passing out. . .
'How do you feel?' Ethan asked.
She looked around and saw him sitting just behind her head. 'Thirsty,' she said.
He passed her some water, wincing as he used his arm. She laughed quietly. 'We're quite the couple, aren't we?'
'We'll be in Zürich in a couple hours. Marcus called. He'll have a doctor waiting at the hotel.'
'How are you doing?'
'A little sore, but I'll live.'
'I'm sorry I got you into this, Ethan.'
'What are you talking about? I had a great time.'
'Giancarlo told me I was going to get us both killed. . .'
'We're not dead yet, Kate.'
Kate smiled, and thought back to the Eiger and the terror she had felt clinging to a piece of rock as she hung over an abyss.
Not dead yet
. 'You know,' she said, 'when I lost Robert I didn't think I would ever fall in love again.'
'Everyone who has ever been in love feels that way.'
'It wasn't that I imagined I would never have feelings. I just didn't want them. I wanted to stay in love with him for as long as I lived. It was like I thought even with him gone I could still have something. . .'
'I know.'
'You
know
? You've been in a relationship like that? When was this?'
'I'm in a relationship like that right now.'
She laughed and looked away. 'You don't feel cheated sometimes - sharing me with Robert?'
'I guess I used to. I knew it was why you pushed me away; why you made jokes when I tried to get serious. After a while, I figured I had better leave or learn to live with it. I decided to live with it.'
Kate closed her eyes. 'If I had let Robert go, neither one of us would have been shot last night.'
'I'm not doing this for your first husband, Kate. I'm doing it because whoever sent those people to the Eiger meant to kill you. As far as I'm concerned, I'm not stopping until we know the truth.'
'Do you think we'll ever see T. K. again?'
'Doesn't matter. We'll do this on our own, if he decides he's had enough.'
'If I were in his position, I think I'd head back to New York.'
'No, you wouldn't. You might
want
to disappear, but you couldn't run away from a friend on a dare.'
'Is that why you love me?'
'It's one of the reasons.'
Sunday March 9, 2008.
Malloy's surgery was handled by one of the Embassy guards, who took out twenty-three pellets and then cleaned and bandaged the wounds. He finished with a shot of amino glycoside against infection. For the kidneys he gave Malloy a shot of glucocorticoids and a bottle of over-the-counter pain killers. Malloy caught a few hours of sleep afterwards and then got a hot meal.
He called Gwen from the secure line late that afternoon, early morning her time. She wished him a happy birthday and said she was hoping he would call. Was he going to do anything special for his birthday?
'Today is a travel day,' he said. 'I celebrated last night.'
'What did you do?'
'Drove around Hamburg with a couple of guys.'
'That's it?'
'We spent a few hours in one of the city parks — talking about the meaning of life. That kind of thing.'
'Oh, Thomas that sounds so boring! You're fifty, not dead! You're supposed to have fun!'
'I miss you, Gwen.'
'I miss you, too. When are you going to be home?'
'We turned up a bank account we didn't know about in Zürich, so I'll be there for a few days. When I see how long it's going to take, I'll give you a call.'
'Are you going to get him?'
'Gwen, forensic accountants can only do so much.'
They talked a few minutes more about things in New York. A gallery manager had talked to Gwen the night before about doing a retrospective of her work. It was nice, but a retrospective made her feel old. Was she old? 'I'm not old enough for a retrospective, am I?'
'You need another thirty years for a decent retrospective,' he said.
'They don't call
fifty
old for accounts, do they?'
'It's the prime of life.'
After Malloy got off the phone Brian Compton gave him an update on the damage in Hamburg. The police had found Jim Randal's body in a flat less than a mile from where he disappeared. They had not performed an autopsy, but death appeared to have been caused by a single shot to the temple. Quick and clean. At Ramstein there was better news. Josh Sutter was already out of surgery and doing fine. When Compton moved on to Company matters, the news was mixed. They had lost Dale Perry's safe house, as expected, but Malloy's computer and luggage had been recovered without incident.
Malloy asked about the cops. Anybody wounded? There had been a couple of injuries, Compton told him, whiplash mostly, but no gunshot wounds. Aside from Hugo Ohlendorf - and no one in Hamburg wanted to set his death aside - only a few Hamburg thugs had been killed. Compton ran through the rap sheets on the assassins at the scenes of both attacks, including a woman with a history of assault and weapons violations. They were all local except for a Berliner, everyone with a long history in the courts. They were all people Hugo Ohlendorf would have been able to contact through some kind of go-between like Xeno had been. None looked like the specialist Ohlendorf had mentioned.
'As expected,' Compton told him, 'the Germans are demanding the arrest and extradition of the State Department's Mr Thomas and Special Agent Joshua Sutter.'