“Okay, have the FBI do a quiet investigation,” the President said, ending the issue, he thought.
“That won't work.”
“Why?”
“Ryan has a very close relationship with the Bureau. They might balk on those grounds, might smooth the thing over.”
“Bill Shaw isn't like that. He's as good a cop as I've ever met — even I can't make him do things, and that's the way it should be.” Logic and principle again. The man was impossible to predict.
“Shaw worked personally on the Ryan Case — the terrorist thing, I mean. Prior personal involvement by the head of the investigative agency…?”
“True,” Fowler admitted. It would look bad. Conflict of interest and all that.
“And Shaw's personal trouble-shooter is that Murray fellow. He and Ryan are pretty tight.”
A grunt. “So, what then?”
“Somebody from the Attorney General's office, I think.”
“Why not Secret Service?” Fowler asked, knowing the answer, but wondering if she did.
“Then it looks like it's a witch-hunt.”
“Good point. Okay, the A.G.'s office. Call Greg tomorrow.”
“Okay, Bob.” Time to change subjects. She brought one of his hands to her face, and kissed it. “You know, at times like this I really miss cigarettes.”
“Smoke after sex?” he asked with a harder embrace.
“When you make love to me, Bob, I smoke during sex… ” She turned to stare into his eyes.
“Maybe I should think about relighting the fire…?”
“They say,” the National Security Advisor purred, moving to kiss him again, “they say the President of the United States is the most powerful man in the world…”
“I do my best, Elizabeth.”
Half an hour later, Elliot decided that it was true. She was starting to love him. Then she wondered what he felt for her…
16
FUELING THE FIRE
“Guten Abend, Frau Fromm,” the man said.
“And you are?”
“Peter Wiegler, from the Berliner Tageblatt. I wonder if I might speak with you briefly.”
“About what?” she asked.
“Aber…” He gestured at the rain he was standing in. She remembered that she was civilized after all, even to a journalist.
“Yes, of course, please come in.”
“Thank you.” He came in out of the rain and removed his coat, which she hung on a peg. He was a captain in the KGB's First Chief (Foreign) Directorate, a promising young officer of thirty years, handsome, gifted in language, the holder of a master's degree in psychology, and another in engineering. He already had Traudl Fromm figured out. The new Audi parked outside was comfortable but not luxurious, her clothing — also new — very presentable but not overpowering. She was proud and moderately greedy, but also parsimonious. Curious, but guarded. She was hiding something, also smart enough to know that turning him away would generate more suspicion than whatever explanation she might have. He took his seat on an overstuffed chair, and waited for the next move. She didn't offer coffee. She hoped the encounter would be a short one. He wondered if this third person on his list of ten names might be something worth reporting to Moscow Center.
“Your husband is associated with the Greifswald-Nord Nuclear Power Station?”
“He was. As you know, it is being closed down.”
“Quite so. I would like to know what you and he think of that. Is Dr. Fromm at home?”
“No; he is not,” she answered uncomfortably. “Wiegler” didn't react visibly.
“Really? May I ask where he is?”
“He is away on business.”
“Perhaps I might come back in a few days, then?”
“Perhaps. You might call ahead?” It was the way she said it that the KGB officer noticed. She was hiding something, and the captain knew that it had to be something—
There was another knock at the door. Traudl Fromm went to answer it.
“Guten Abend, Frau Fromm,” a voice said. “We bring a message from Manfred.”
The captain heard the voice, and something inside his head went on alert. He told himself not to react. This was Germany, and everything was in Ordnung. Besides, he might learn something…
“I, ah, have a guest at the moment,” Traudl answered.
The next statement was delivered in a whisper. The captain heard approaching steps, and took his time before turning to look. It was a fatal error.
The face he saw might as easily have come from one of the endless World War II movies that he'd grown up on, just that it lacked the black-and-silver-trimmed uniform of an SS officer. It was a stern, middle-aged face with light blue eyes entirely devoid of emotion. A professional face that measured his as quickly as he—
It was time to—
“Hello. I was just about to leave.”
“Who is he?” Traudl didn't get a chance to answer.
“I'm a reporter with—” It was too late. A pistol appeared from nowhere. “Was gibt's hier?” he demanded.
“Where is your car?” the man behind the gun asked.
“I parked it down the street. I—”
“All those spaces right in front? Reporters are lazy. Who are you?”
“I'm a reporter with the—”
“I think not.”
“This one, too,” the one in black said. The captain remembered the face from somewhere… He told himself not to panic. That, too, was a mistake.
“Listen closely. You will be going on a short trip. If you cooperate, you will be returned here within three hours. If you do not cooperate, things will go badly for you. Verstehen Sie?”
They had to be intelligence officers, the captain thought, making a correct guess. And they had to be German, and that meant that they would play by the rules, he told himself, making the last mistake of what had been a promising career.
The courier arrived from Cyprus right on schedule, handing off his package to another man at one of five preselected transfer points, all of which had been under surveillance for twelve hours. The second man walked two blocks and started up his Yamaha motorcycle, tearing off into the countryside just as fast as he could in an area where motorcyclists were all certifiably mad. Two hours after that, he delivered the package, certain that he had not been followed, and kept going another thirty minutes before circling back to his point of origin.
Gunther Bock took the package and was annoyed to see that it was to all appearances a movie cassette — Chariots of Fire — rather than the hollowed-out book he'd requested. Perhaps Erwin was delivering a message along with the cassette. Bock inserted it in a player and switched it on, catching the first few minutes of the feature movie, which was subtitled in French. Soon, he realized that Keitel's message was on what intelligence professionals really did. He fast-forwarded through ninety minutes of the film before the picture changed.
What!
“Who are you?” an off-camera voice asked harshly.
“I am Peter Wiegler, I am a reporter with—” The rest was a scream. The equipment used was crude, just an electrical cord ripped off a lamp or appliance, the insulation trimmed off the free end to expose a few centimeters of copper. Few understood just how effective crude instruments could be, especially if the user possessed some
