But every path he’d pursued had turned into a dead end. Secure Investments, the company the German first claimed to represent, didn’t exist — not even as a shell corporation. It was pure fiction. And none of the confidential files he’d asked the Berlin field office to pull on former Stasi agents had yielded any leads.
Despite all his efforts, Wolf remained a faceless ghost — a shadowy, commanding presence heard only over the phone.
Until now.
Mcdowell raised his glass to Hoover’s own ghost and swallowed the bourbon — reveling in the way it lit a smoky fire straight down his throat and straight up into his brain.
The pieces had finally started to fall into place yesterday — right after he learned that the Director had shut down the investigation into that Caraco-leased warehouse in Galveston. It hadn’t taken him too much poking and prying to find out why.
Mcdowell had been impressed — very impressed. Not every corporation’s top management had the kind of political clout needed to make both the White House and the FBI sit, roll over, and fetch. In his book, that made Caraco a power to be reckoned with — and a potential target for a little discreet brownnosing on his part. It was all a matter of doing your homework — of knowing exactly who to approach with an occasional background briefing on FBI operations that could affect Caraco’s various enterprises.
So he’d ordered his staff to assemble a dossier on the company and its highest-ranking people.
The dossier sitting open on his desk.
Mcdowell smiled nastily.
There it was in black-and-white — Wolf, Heinrich, Chief of Security, European Division. That smug son of a bitch hadn’t even bothered to use another cover identity when dealing with him. Well, that carelessness would cost the Stasi prick heavily.
What would his new bosses say if they knew they had an ex-German secret policeman running heroin using Caraco as a cover?
Mcdowell knew that he wasn’t out of the woods — not yet.
But at least now he had some leverage. If Wolf threatened him with exposure and ruin again, he could turn the threat against him. And, if need be, he could always shop the German bastard to the FBI’s counterintelligence section as part of a plea bargain.
He recapped the nearly empty bottle and slipped it back into the drawer. Have to remember to bring in a new one, he thought.
The bourbon wasn’t lasting as long as it once had.
The light on his phone flashed and he scooped it up. “Mcdowell.”
“This is Wolf.”
Mcdowell choked back a laugh. Speak of the devil … “Hello, Heinrich.”
“I have an assignment for you.”
Mcdowell shook his head. “Not sure I can help you, Heinrich.” He picked the Caraco dossier off his desk and spun around in his chair to face his office window. “Fact is, I’m thinking about retiring …”
“From the FBI?” Wolf’s voice hardened. “That would be a serious mistake, PEREGRINE. One with grave consequences.”
The FBI agent shrugged. “I don’t know about that, Heinrich.
Seems there are a lot of opportunities out there in the private sector right now.” He narrowed his eyes. “I could always apply at Caraco.
Seems to me they might need a new security chief for their European companies real soon. What do you think about that, Herr Wolf?” The German said nothing for several long seconds. Then he said slowly, “Are you attempting to renegotiate our arrangement, Mr. Mcdowell?”
“Yeah, I guess I am.” Mcdowell turned back to his desk. “My terms are pretty simple: You leave me alone — permanently. In return, I keep my mouth shut about your little extracurricular activities. And everybody goes away happy.”.
“Your terms are unacceptable,” Wolf said grimly. “You overestimate the strength of your position, PEREGRINE.”
“Oh? How’s that?” Mcdowell asked, feeling doubts creep into his mind for the first time since he’d pinpointed the German’s current identity.
This conversation wasn’t going according to his plan.
“You may inconvenience me for a short while,” Wolf explained. “You may even cost me some money. But I think you would find that a poor exchange for years of hard labor in one of your federal maximum-security prisons. I do not believe that your fellow FBI agents view traitors kindly. And, as you know, prison can be a dangerous place.”
This time it was Mcdowell’s turn to stay quiet. He chewed his lower lip in frustration. Wolf wasn’t rolling over the way he’d expected.
“But I will offer you a compromise, PEREGRINE — as a token of my goodwill.”
“What kind of a compromise?”
“If you successfully complete this one last assignment for me, I will cancel your remaining debt to my organization. We will be even, and you will be rid of me.”
That sounded promising. Still holding the phone in one hand, Mcdowell fished the bottle back out of his desk with the other.
“What do you want done?”
“Special Agent Gray and Colonel Thorn are in Washington, D.C” Wolf said flatly.
“What?” The bourbon glass fell onto his carpeted floor and rolled under the desk. “Impossible!”
“Evidently not. Thorn and Gray are clearly quite. resourceful,” the German said. “Too resourceful to be left at large.”
“Well, what more do you expect me to do about them?” Mcdowell demanded. “Because of me, they’re already subject to arrest on sight. I can pass the word they’re hiding out somewhere around here to the local Bureau field office, but that’s about it.”
“No,” Wolf said. “I insist on a permanent solution to the problem.”
Mcdowell shivered involuntarily. He cleared his throat. “I see.”
“Good,” Wolf said. “Now, listen carefully. Your part is simple — but you must make no mistakes …”
Mcdowell heard him out in silence, desperately wishing he could take one more drink. The warm glow he’d been nursing all day had suddenly withered into a dull, pounding ache between his ears.
It was after sunset.
Peter Thorn lay flat on the bed with his hands folded behind his head.
By turning his head, he could see Helen Gray sitting silently by the window. She was on watch — scanning the street below for any signs that the FBI or their mysterious enemies had finally tumbled to their presence back in the United States.
Their room was in darkness — lit only by a soft yellow glow from the street lamps outside. Neither of them wanted to risk their night vision to brighter light.
Thorn frowned. Something had been nagging at him for days.
Something about the trap they’d triggered near the Wilhelmshaven docks.
He’d run the scenario backward and forward in his mind a hundred times, but he still couldn’t see how the men who’d tried to ambush them had tagged them so quickly.
The man who’d called himself Steinhof had come straight up to them — in the very first bar they’d visited.
That couldn’t have been an accident.
And unless Thorn was willing to believe the impossible — that the people they were after had enough operatives to cover every waterfront dive in Wilhelmshaven — then Steinhof and his murder squad had spotted them earlier. But where? At the Port Authority?
He summoned up his memories of the office there. No, nobody had been within earshot when they’d asked their questions, about Baltic Venturer. Could the bad guys have been alerted by the German clerk who’d helped them, Fraulein Geist or Geiss or someone like that? He shook his head, remembering the drab, rigid woman behind
