registered with the embassy. If anything happens-”
“I don’t think we’ll need them,” Kealey cut in. “But I’m not going in there unarmed.”
“You’ll try to keep this clean?”
“If I can. It’s up to Ruhmann.”
“Well, that’s the other thing.” Bennett shot him a curious look. “How do you plan on handling this?”
“I assume Harper briefed you over the phone.”
“He did.”
“Then you know why I’m here. All I want is Vanderveen’s location.”
“And the weapons,” Naomi reminded him. “We need to know who was ultimately taking possession at those ports in the Middle East.”
“Right,” Bennett said. “But then what? You can’t leave him alive. He’ll be on the phone before we leave the building.”
Kealey’s face turned hard. “I realize that. Let’s just get up there and see what he has to say. I’ll figure out what to do after that.”
Bennett shook his head, but he pushed open the door and stepped into the rain. Kealey and Kharmai concealed their weapons and followed his lead. They moved at a quick pace down the flooded sidewalk, reaching the entrance to Reichstagufer 19 a moment later. Bennett punched a button at random, and a voice came over the intercom. “Yes?”
Bennett looked at a loss. Kharmai pushed him aside, scanned the list, and hit the same button. In rapid, exasperated German, she said, “Delivery for 4B. I’m not getting an answer, and I have other stops to make. Do you mind?”
A few seconds later, the door sprung open, and they stepped inside.
On the other side of the road, 20 meters west of the doorway, Yasmin Raseen watched them enter the building. She was sitting in the driver’s seat of the Mercedes, the engine on, the heater running at full capacity. She was clearly visible to cars passing by in the road, but that was intentional; she wanted to appear like she was waiting for someone. A magazine was sitting on the passenger seat, the German edition of Vogue. She pushed it aside to reveal the Motorola radio, then pressed the TRANSMIT button. The earpiece was already in position, the wire concealed beneath her hair. “They’re here. Two men and a woman. They just entered the building.”
At that moment, Vanderveen was on the north side of the river, lying prone on the gravel roof of a four-story apartment building. The shooting mat was tucked beneath his body, the olive drab poncho draped over his back. The rain was beating against his back so hard it nearly hurt, and the cold had numbed his exposed skin hours earlier. The weapon that lay before him, the barrel propped up by an integral folding bipod, was a Steyr Scout Tactical with a 5-round box magazine. Through the preinstalled Kahles ZF95 mil-dot scope, he had an excellent view of Ruhmann’s brightly lit office, which was not more than 100 meters away, on the far bank of the Spree. As soon as Raseen’s transmission came over the radio, he lowered the stock and returned the call.
“Give it a minute; then get inside.” Raseen had taken the caretaker’s key; she wouldn’t need to be buzzed in. “Stay in the foyer until I give you the word.”
There was a brief crackle of static, and then she acknowledged his words. Vanderveen lifted the rifle back to his shoulder and looked over the river with his naked eye. Under normal conditions, the Steyr Scout was a highly accurate weapon. In this case, however, it was practically useless, and it wasn’t because of the rain. He had picked up the weapon that same afternoon, which meant that he didn’t have time to acquire a zero. The dealer in Dresden had assured him the weapon was sighted in, but that didn’t mean a thing; zeros were different for each shooter.
Even with time to sight in, though, he would have needed to break the Steyr back down to get it up on the roof, as he couldn’t exactly be seen walking around with a fully assembled rifle. Either way, the weapon was less accurate than it was supposed to be, which explained why he wasn’t going to try to take Kealey on the street. He had considered the option, but 5 rounds didn’t leave much room for error, and Kealey was a world-class marksman in his own right. And there was another, more important factor at play: he had brought at least one other person along, the woman named Kharmai.
Vanderveen smiled to himself beneath the poncho. He had anticipated this possibility; in fact, he had anticipated everything. He was satisfied with his preparations, but there was something else, an undercurrent of pure adrenaline, that he couldn’t ignore. It seemed as though everything since Maine had led up to this moment, his chance to finish the work he’d started eight years earlier.
What was waiting for Kealey in Ruhmann’s office was simple in concept and design, but extremely lethal in practice. The improvised device he had created was modeled after the M18A1 Claymore antipersonnel mine. Both cans were filled with hundreds of steel ball bearings, the open ends sealed with duct tape. Beneath the ball bearings were thick layers of cardboard, which would act as a buffer, and then the half-pound blocks of Semtex. Vanderveen had punched a hole in the bottom of each can, through which he’d routed the electrical blasting caps. The caps, in turn, were wired to separate 6-volt batteries, and from there to the clothespins.
The clothespins served as improvised detonators. Preparing them had been the trickiest part. He’d glued metal contact plates to each prong, then soldered the free ends of the wire to the plates. The prongs were now separated by nothing more than the glass panes of the windows in Ruhmann’s office. All it would take was one round from the Steyr. The window would shatter, causing the prongs to close. This, in turn, would complete the circuit, firing the Semtex. The pressure wave would shatter every window in the room, setting off the second device and filling the office with nearly two thousand quarter-inch ball bearings, each moving at a speed in excess of 500 feet per second.
The design was less than perfect, owing in part to the time crunch. The angle left much to be desired — the shape of the cans would limit the dispersion of the projectiles — and the trap was largely dependent on the ricochet effect the brick walls would provide. Still, he felt sure it would work. Raseen would see that the ground floor was impassable; if Kealey and Kharmai weren’t shredded in Ruhmann’s office, they’d burn on the stairs. As far as Vanderveen was concerned, both were acceptable outcomes.
There was nothing to do now but wait. Vanderveen adjusted the stock of the Steyr, pulling it into his shoulder. His right eye was an inch behind the glass, his finger tapping the trigger guard lightly.
Nothing to do but wait.
CHAPTER 40
BERLIN
Kealey was the first through the door. He took in the scene quickly: a cramped, dirty foyer; a bare bulb hanging overhead; the elevator on the far wall. Turning left, he spotted the staircase. He went up the stairs quickly, Kharmai behind him, Bennett taking up the rear. It took less than thirty seconds to make it up to the fourth-floor landing, where they were confronted with the first real obstacle.
The door was simple enough; what caught Kealey’s attention was the self-contained keyless entry system housed on the wall to the right. He examined it closely, then turned and looked up to the opposite wall, near the ceiling. A small Sony camera was mounted in the corner, aimed toward the door.
He turned to Bennett. “What do you think?”
The other man shrugged. “This isn’t my forte. I have no idea how you’re going to get in without the code.”
Kealey swore and looked back at the door, thinking it through. His lock picks were buried in Kharmai’s suitcase, but he didn’t see how they’d help much in this situation. Then something came to him. “There’s an elevator on the ground floor. Check it out, will you? See if we can get up that way.”
Bennett nodded and went down the stairs. Kharmai moved to examine the keypad. After a moment she looked up and smiled. “No problem.”
He looked at her incredulously. “What are you talking about?”
“Come here.” He leaned close as she pointed to some of the keys. “These aren’t strictly ‘keys,’ Ryan, because they’re not independent of each other. The whole thing is a single pad, with circuitry underneath. The problem with this kind of system is that the same buttons are heavily used, and that makes them distinctive. You see? The
