what? A message through channels, a cable to Hal Reidy to track him down? Weeks either way. Whoever he was sailed nameless on the Atlantic, another t uncrossed. Jake slid the drawer shut.
He put his hand on the next cabinet, where Jeanie had filed the police report weeks ago, and, curious, flicked the drawer open to see if it was still there. Tully had a thin folder to himself. The CID report, all of it, with ballistics; an official condolence letter to the mother; a shipping receipt for the coffin and special effects; nothing else, as if he really had been swallowed up in the Havel, out of sight. He looked at the report again, but it was the same one he’d seen, service record, previous assignments, promotions. Why is Sikorsky still interested in you? he wondered, flipping the pages and getting the usual blank reply.
He opened the drawer below, rummaging now. Something cross-referenced, perhaps, like the files at the Document Center. Kom-mandatura minutes, food supply estimates, all the real business of the occupation, drawers of it. He worked his way back up to the transfer file and opened it again, automatically reaching for the T’s, idly thumbing through and then stopping, surprised, when the name leaped out at him. Maybe another Patrick Tully, luckier. But the serial number was the same.
He took the sheet out. Traveling orders, Bremen to Boston, a July 21 sail date. Home to Natick at the end of that week. A new wrinkle, but what kind? Why come to Berlin? Not to fly on to Bremen, with no luggage. The obvious answer was payday, to collect the traveling money for the trip home. Then why go to the Document Center? Jake stared at the flimsy. There hadn’t been any orders in his effects. Was it possible that Tully hadn’t known? Still up to business as usual while his ticket home floated through the paper channels that crisscrossed Germany?
“Find what you’re looking for?”
He turned to see Jeanie standing in the door with a sandwich and a Coke.
“You’ve got a nerve.”
“Sorry. It’s just that I did remember his name, after you left. So I thought I’d get the address. I didn’t think you’d mind—”
“Next time you want something, ask. Now how about getting out of here before I find out what you’re really up to.”
He shrugged, a schoolboy with his hand in the principal’s file. “Well, I said I was sorry,” he said, putting the paper back and closing the drawer. “It’s not exactly a state secret.”
“I mean it, blow. He finds you in here, he’ll have both our heads. You’re nice, but you’re not that nice.”
Jake held up his hands in defeat. “Okay, okay.” He went to the door, then stopped, his fingers on the knob. “Can you tell me something, though?”
“Such as?”
“How long does it usually take for orders to come through? Copies, I mean.”
“Why?” she said, suspicious, then put the Coke on the desk and leaned against the edge. “Look, things get here when they get here. Depends where they started. Your friend was in Frankfurt? Any time. Frankfurt’s a mess. Munich comes right away, but Frankfurt, who knows?”
“And if they were canceled?”
“Same answer. What is this, anyway?”
“I’m not sure,” he said, then smiled. “Just wondering. Thanks for the help. You’ve been a peach. Maybe we can have that drink sometime.”
“I’ll hold my breath,” she said.
He left the office and started down the sweep of opera house stairs. Any time from Frankfurt. But the dispatcher’s orders were already here-why not Tully’s cancellation, which must have been earlier? Unless no one had bothered, letting death cancel itself out, a no-show on the manifest, one less paper to send.
Outside he took in the line of jeeps stretched across the forecourt like one of the old taxi ranks at Zoo Station or the Kaiserhof. Now they parked here, or at headquarters in Dahlem, motor pool branches, waiting for different fares. If you wanted a ride, this would be the place to come. Unless you already had a Russian driver.
He got back to Savignyplatz to find Erich playing with some of the girls from down the hall, their new pet. More attention, Jake thought, than he’d probably had in his life. Rosen was there with his medical bag, drinking tea, the whole room oddly domestic. Lena followed him into the bedroom.
“What happened?”
“Nothing yet. Sikorsky wants to have dinner at the Adlon.”
“Well, the Adlon,” she said ironically, patting her hair. “Like old times.”
“Not for you. Dinner for two.”
“You’re going alone? What about Shaeffer?”
“First I have to set things up.”
“And then I go?”
“Let’s see what he has to say first.”
He took Liz’s gun from the bureau and opened the chamber, checking it.
“You mean he won’t do it?”
“Well, at the moment he says Emil’s in the west.”
“The west?”
“He says,” Jake said, catching her anxious expression in the mirror. “Don’t worry, he’ll do it. He just wants to do a little fencing.”
“He doesn’t believe you,” she said, still agitated.
He turned to her. “He believes me. It’s his game, that’s all, so we play by his rules.” He took her shoulder. “Now stop. I said I’d get Emil out and I will. This is the way we do it. He’s the kind of guy who likes a little dinner first, to break the ice.”
She turned away. “It’s true? That’s all, dinner?”
“That’s all.”
“They why are you taking the gun?”
“Seen the Adlon lately?” She looked at him blankly. “Lots of rats.” Contents — Previous Chapter / Next Chapter
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It went wrong from the start. The Russians, for no apparent reason, had set up a checkpoint at the Brandenburg Gate, and by the time Jake had shown his ID and was waved through he was late. He lost more time trying to find his way through the deserted shell of the Adlon, rescued finally by a man in a formal cutaway who appeared out of the dark like a ghost from the old days, a desk clerk without a desk. Given the damage, it seemed a miracle that anyone still lived here at all. The lobby and main block facing the Linden were smashed, but a rough path had been cleared through the rubble to a wing in the back. The clerk led him with a flashlight past small heaps of brick, stepping over them as if they were just something the hall maid hadn’t got around to yet, then up a flight of service stairs to a dim corridor. At the end, as surreal as the rest of it, was a brightly lit dining room, buzzing with Soviet uniforms and waiters in white jackets carrying serving dishes. The open windows looked down on the gaping hole where Goebbels’ garden had been, and Sikorsky sat near one of them, blowing smoke out into the night air. Jake had barely started toward him when a hand caught his sleeve.
“Whatever are you doing here?”
Jake jumped, more nervous than he’d realized. “Brian,” he said numbly, the florid face somehow surreal too, out of place. He was sitting at a table for four, with two Russian soldiers and a pale civilian.
“Not the food, I hope. Although Dieter here swears by the kohlrabi. Have a drink?”
“Can’t. I’m meeting someone. Interview.”
“You couldn’t do better than this lot. Took the Reichstag. This chap here actually planted the flag.”
“He did.”
“Well, he says he did, which comes to the same thing.” He glanced across the room. “Not Sikorsky, is it?”
“Mind your own business,” Jake said.
