Eleven
Berlin, 7:15 p.m.
Caroline paced the concourse at Tegel Airport, careful where she set her feet.
She had cleared her weapon with Hungarian airport security; the forms had been filed, the flight crew notified. All that remained now was to wait. The sense of vertigo she had attributed yesterday to jet lag was back with redoubled force — but tonight, it sprang from fear. She was flying to Hungary on pure gut, she lacked most of the pieces of the puzzle, and her mind bucked and surged with panic. Was Eric really in Hungary? And was Sophie Payne with him? Or had she clutched at the wrong straw out of desperation and hope?
She had tried to think as Eric would: as a case officer in the field. She had tried to work from instinct. But the terrain was unfamiliar, like the interior of a house navigated by dark; she was terrified of hitting walls where corridors should be. If she was wrong, Sophie Payne could die.
The airport concourse swayed. Vertigo. She stopped short and took a steadying glance at a television monitor. The evening news flickered across the screen. She understood German poorly — it was a language that had never taken, somehow — but the images were clear.
Uniformed riot police, a man's bloodied, twisted face, a bottle exploding in midair. Shattered windows along the boulevards of Pest. Hungary was in turmoil.
“I guess the news got out,” someone said behind her; she turned to see the battered raincoat, the five o'clock shadow along his jaw-line.
“Shephard,” she said stupidly.
“I think I'm seated next to you.” He fished in his pocket for a ticket and scowled down at it. “Ten-B. That means I'm in the middle seat, doesn't it? Damn Mrs. Saunders! I suppose the old bat gave you the window.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Following Sally Bowles to Buda.”
The implication was obvious: She had deceived him in the matter of Mahmoud Sharif, and he wasn't about to lose sight of her now. She almost snapped his head off in annoyance, but then Shephard shrugged as though nothing much mattered and said, “The investigation on this end is dead.”
“What about Old Markus and the dump truck?”
“The stuff's going to a landfill,” he said bleakly. “Wally's agreed to lead a Bureau forensics team in there after dark. Wanna bet they find zip?”
“With that as an alternative, I'd get out of town, too.” She forced a smile.
He nodded toward the chaos on the television screen.
“I hope you don't expect to use your ATM card while we're in happy Hungary. Stock market plummeted. The banks have frozen their assets.”
“I've got cash. What do you expect to do there?”
The hazel eyes flicked back to her face.
“The Secret Service requested me. For the Lajta embezzlement probe. I'm the Central European LegAtt, remember?”
“Of course. Sorry to be so dense. I'm a nervous flyer. I should have a drink or something.”
To her surprise, he produced a flask from his coat pocket.
“Here. Have a swig. Or do women sip?”
“I've never actually seen one of these.” It was a dull silver, polished smooth from countless pockets. Someone had engraved his initials.
“What's in it?”
“Single-malt Highland whiskey from a distillery I can't pronounce.”
“Is this legal?”
“Come on. It's Berlin.”
On the TV screen overhead, a woman screeched; Caroline could recall enough Hungarian from her Budapest days to understand the obscenities. Az anyadi Your mother. Lofasz a Seggedbe! A horse dick up your ass. She tipped the neck of Tom's flask into her mouth and felt the Scotch burn down her throat. Bassza meg.
Fuck it.
“Thanks. I have no idea what that actually tasted like — but thanks.”
He laughed.
“Why the nerves?”
There was no reason he should know, of course.
“Unexpected turbulence,” she lied.
The plane, as it happened, sat two to a row on the left side of the cabin, so that Mrs. Saunders's good sense was redeemed and Tom Shephard's long legs were thrust out into the aisle. Once they were airborne, Caroline passed him the sports section of her newspaper. She was thankful for a quarter hour of silence.
The news was rife with speculation about the Vice President's kidnapping but mentioned nothing of the economic chaos in Hungary — so there had been no hint, then, of the “series of events” in Central Europe. Nothing an analyst could point to, no sign of a chink where the dam would give way. She flipped through the front section and found a picture of Pristina. Rank upon rank of Kosovar children, lined up for German vaccines. Twenty-three hundred kids were now sick.
Another thousand dead. And the numbers were climbing. Vaccines — Caroline's thought was interrupted by a flight attendant with a drinks cart. She asked for a gin and tonic. Shephard got a beer. In all the business of napkins and ice, the newspaper was set aside and her time for solitary thought was done.
“Wally let me read your stuff. You seem to have a handle on Krucevic,” Shephard told her.
“Whether it's the right handle is the question.”
“How do you research your personality assessments, Carrie?” His tone was careful, but she heard a judgment lurking somewhere. He didn't buy the psychobabble.
“When I haven't got the guy on a couch, you mean? I use his date of birth and consult an astrologist. Krucevic was born in Saturn with Mercury rising. I don't have to tell you how bad that is.”
He cracked a smile.
“No, seriously.”
“I use everything I can find, Tom. International police reports, foreign and domestic press, State Department reporting .. .”
“Psychiatric evaluation?”
“I usually collaborate with a staff psychiatrist, yes.”
“And they think Krucevic is sane.”
“Mian Krucevic has never betrayed the least sign of mental instability. You can't call a man nuts just because he kills people.”
“Haven't you ever wanted to?” he asked her searchingly.
“Call Krucevic nuts, or kill people?”
“I mean, what's it like to follow this guy for years, Caroline? Knowing he murdered your husband?”
She felt a spark of anger toward Wally. Impossible to have a private life in the Intelligence community.
“Are you asking whether I'm on a personal vendetta?”
“Let's just say you have a variety of motives for whatever you're doing. It didn't take all that talk of the Third Reich to tell me that. I saw your clandestine getup this morning. I doubt even Wally knows about Sally.”
Caroline sipped her drink and decided to ignore that particular probe.
“Tom, my personal life has undoubtedly affected my analysis. Let's take it as a given that I'm prejudiced against 30 April. We all are.”
“But some of us more than others,” he pointed out. “I may want to put Krucevic out of business, I may want to save the Vice President but I'm not motivated by revenge. That has to make a difference.”
