Black Ops

It was a photocopy of two pages of the data section of a passport. Castillo saw first that it was a Russian passport, and a split second later saw that it was a Russian diplomatic passport.

Across the bottom of the first page was the legend SECOND SECRETARY OF THE EMBASSY OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY.

The second page had a photograph of a man of about Castillo’s age. His neatly trimmed, light-brown hair was nearly blond. He wore a crisp white shirt with a neatly tied, red-striped necktie.

He looks, Castillo thought, more Teutonic than Slavic.

It gave his name as Dmitri Berezovsky. It said he was born in the USSR on 22 June 1969.

Which makes him four days younger than I am.

What the hell does that mean—if anything?

Castillo looked at Delchamps, who met his eyes and then said, “I think the passport is real, Ace.”

Castillo waited for him to go on, and when he didn’t, said, “And? Come on, Ed!”

“None of that could be traced back to your friend Dmitri. All you’ve got is four blank calling cards on which the names of three towns and Tom Barlow have been printed by a cheap computer printer. Berlin is X-ed out. So far as the photocopy of the passport is concerned, that could come from the Germans or whoever else’s border Dmitri has crossed and had it stamped. Just about everybody routinely photocopies the passports of interesting people.”

“All of which means?”

“First wild-hair scenario,” Delchamps said. “What we could have here is a spy who wants to come in from the cold and has decided you have the best key to the door of freedom. And, of course, the CIA’s cash box.

“He’s proved that he knows who you are, knows where to find you, and suggests either Budapest or Vienna, but not Berlin, is where he would like to meet.”

Castillo grunted, and looked at Jack Davidson.

“This guy is good, Charley. If he wanted to take you out, I think he could have,” Davidson said.

“And Edgar’s scenario?”

“I think he’s on the money, Charley.”

“No second scenario?”

Davidson shook his head.

“I don’t know if this is a second scenario or not,” Delchamps said, “but I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy knows who whacked the Kuhls. And I’d sure as hell like that information.”

“So what do we do now? Go to Vienna or Budapest and wait?”

“Yeah,” Delchamps said. “But right now we have to go to the church. It’s supposed to start in ten minutes.”

“And you don’t think anything’ll happen at the church?”

“Dmitri told you he ordered the hit. And you responded the way he thought you would. The place is now crawling with cops and private security. I don’t think any Stasi guys are going to commit suicide to get you or Billy or Otto. Not when they can do it quietly elsewhere. So you stay alive, which is what Dmitri wants.”

Castillo looked at Davidson, who nodded his agreement.

“Okay,” Castillo said. “Let’s go to church.”

Delchamps held out his hand for the envelope, and when Castillo gave it to him, dropped it in his briefcase.

V

[ONE]

The Big Room

Das Haus im Wald

Near Bad Hersfeld

Kreis Hersfeld-Rotenburg

Hesse, Germany

1630 27 December 2005

Hermann and Willi Gorner went straight from the elevator to Onkel Billy’s apartment, where Madchen and the puppies had been left. Onkel Billy and everybody else went straight to the bar.

The service in Saint Elisabeth’s had lasted almost an hour. Otto Gorner had delivered the eulogy. Castillo had heard only a little of it. He hadn’t known—as Otto conveniently had not mentioned his role in the services—that Otto was going to make himself a perfect target in the pulpit for almost ten minutes.

Castillo thought it quite possible—if unlikely—that Otto would be shot in front of his boys.

That didn’t happen. Nothing untoward happened in the church, or in the cemetery later, if you didn’t count the behavior of the goddamn press. When that had happened—both at the church and in the cemetery—Castillo suddenly had been conscious that press passes can readily be forged, and that the still and video cameras shoved in the mourners’ faces could easily have concealed a weapon, if not a modified firearm then a compressed air system to launch darts tipped with ricin or some other lethal substance.

That didn’t happen either.

The only thing out of the ordinary at the cemetery was that Eric Kocian told Otto Gorner he was getting a little short of breath and felt dizzy and thought it would be best if he went back to das Haus im Wald rather than to the Friedler home.

Gorner wanted to call for an ambulance, but Kocian insisted that he would be all right once he had lain down for a few minutes, and that he would ask Karlchen to drive him to Bad Hersfeld.

The minute Charley had driven the Jag carrying Billy, Max, and Jack Davidson out of the cemetery, Castillo had asked Kocian if he was sure he didn’t want to go to a hospital, or at least see a doctor.

“My medicine is in the house in the woods. Now just drive me there, Karlchen, at a reasonable speed, and spare me your concern. I know what I need.”

Castillo thought he heard a snicker from the backseat, but when he glanced in the rearview mirror all he saw was Max putting his head on Davidson’s lap and Jack ostensibly taking in the view of the glorious German countryside.

At the house, Delchamps, Torine, Yung, and Doherty were in the Big Room when Max led in Castillo, Kocian, and Davidson.

They all had watched as Kocian made a beeline for the liquor bottles and poured four inches of Slivovitz into a water glass, drank half, then smacked his lips and set the glass down.

“You want me to get you your medicine before you drink the rest of that?” Castillo said.

Kocian shook his head in disbelief, raised the glass, and finished off the Slivovitz.

“I just took my medicine, Karlchen, thank you very much.”

Castillo laughed. “You old fraud! You weren’t dizzy or short of breath!”

“Karlchen, which would have been kinder: To tell Gertrud Friedler that I thought I had expressed my sympathy enough and what I was going to do now was find the sonsofbitches who did this to him? Or to announce I wasn’t feeling well?”

“Touche.”

“Pressing my advantage, Karlchen, I suggest that in the morning you and I—and the dogs, of course—catch the nine-oh-five fast train from Kassel to Vienna.”

“You do?”

“That will put us—after a nice luncheon on the train—into the Westbahnhof a little after five.”

“You don’t want to fly down?”

“I don’t like to fly, period. And the dogs have suffered enough from the miracle of travel by air.”

“And have you a suggestion about what I should do with the airplane?”