degree of sophistication. The man who called himself Peter Wiegler screamed as though his throat would split from the effort. He'd already bitten through his lower lip in previous efforts to keep silent. The only good thing about using electricity was that it wasn't especially bloody, just noisy.
“You must understand that you are being foolish. Your courage is impressive, but wasted here. Courage only has use when there is hope of rescue. We've already searched your car. We have your passports. We know that you are not German. So, what are you? Pole, Russian, what?”
The young man opened his eyes and took a long breath before speaking. “I am an investigative reporter with the Berliner Tageblatt.” They hit him again with the electric cord, and this time he passed out. Bock watched a man's back approach the victim and check his eyes and pulse. The torturer appeared to be wearing a chemical- warfare-protective suit of rubberized fabric, but without the hood and gloves. It must have been awfully hot, Bock thought.
“Obviously a trained intelligence officer. Probably Russian. Not circumcised, and his dental work is stainless steel, not especially well-done. That means an East Bloc service, of course. Too bad, this lad is quite brave.” The voice was admirably clinical, Bock thought.
“What drugs do we have?” another voice asked.
“A rather good tranquilizer. Now?”
“Now. Not too much.”
“Very well.” The man went off-camera, then returned with a syringe. He grasped the victim's upper arm, then injected the drug into a vein inside the elbow. It took three minutes before the KGB man regained consciousness, just enough for the rush of drugs to assault his higher brain functions.
“Sorry we had to do that to you. You have passed the test,” the voice said, this time in Russian.
“What test—” The answer was in Russian, just two words before his brain took hold and stopped him. “Why did you ask me in Russian?”
“Because that was what we wished to know. Good night.”
The victim's eyes went wide as a small-caliber pistol appeared, was placed against his chest, and fired. The camera withdrew a bit to show more of the room. A plastic sheet — actually three of them — covered the floor to catch blood and other droppings under the metal chair. The bullet wound was speckled with black powder marks, and bulged outward from the intrusion of gun-gases below the skin. There wasn't much bleeding. Heart wounds never produced much. In a few more seconds, the body stopped quivering.
“We could have taken more time to ascertain additional information, but we have what we need, as I will explain later.” It was Keitel's voice, off camera.
“Now, Traudl…”
They brought her in front of the camera, hands bound in front of her, her mouth gagged with the same bandaging tape, her eyes wide in terror, naked. She was trying to say something around the gag, but no one there had been interested. The tape was a day and a half old, of course. Gunther could tell that from the TV that was playing in the corner, tuned to an evening news broadcast. The entire performance was a professional tour de force designed to meet his requirements.
Bock could almost hear the man thinking, Now, how do we do this? Gunther momentarily regretted the instructions he'd given Keitel. But the evidence had to be positive. Magicians and other experts in illusion regularly consulted with intelligence agencies — but some things could not be faked, and he had to be sure that he could trust Keitel to do terrible and dangerous things. It was an objective necessity that this be graphic.
Another man looped a rope over a ceiling beam and hauled her hands up, then the first pressed his pistol into her armpit and fired a single shot. At least he wasn't a sadist, Bock thought. Such people were not reliable. It was quite sad to watch in any case. The bullet had punctured her heart, but she was too excited to die quickly, struggling for more than half a minute, eyes still wide, fighting for breath, still trying to speak, probably begging for help, asking why… After she went limp, one checked the pulse at her neck, then lowered her slowly to the floor. They'd been as gentle about it as they could have been under the circumstances. The shooter spoke without facing the camera.
“I hope you are satisfied. I did not enjoy this.”
“You weren't supposed to,” Bock said to the television set.
The Russian was taken off the chair and laid beside Traudl Fromm. While the bodies were dismembered, Keitel's voice spoke. It was a useful diversion, as the visual scene simply got more horrible. Bock was not squeamish about many things, but it troubled his psyche when human bodies were abused after death. Necessary or not, it seemed gratuitous to him.
“The Russian is undoubtedly an intelligence officer, as you have seen. His automobile was a rental from Berlin, and is being driven tomorrow to Magdeburg, where it will be turned in. It was parked down the street, normal procedure for a professional, of course, but a give-away in the event of capture. In the car we found a list of names, all of them in the DDR nuclear-power industry. It would seem that our Russian comrades have suddenly become interested in Honecker's bomb project. A pity we didn't have another few years to follow up on that, no? I regret the complication involved, but it took us several days to set up arrangements for disposing of the bodies, and we had no idea Frau Fromm had her ”guest“ when we knocked on the door. At that point, of course, it was too late. Besides, with the rain we had ideal conditions for the kidnapping.” Two men were working on each body. All wore the protective suits, and now they had their hoods and masks on, doubtless to protect them from the smell as much as to protect their identity. As in a slaughterhouse, sawdust was applied in bucketfuls to soak up the copious amounts of blood being spilled. Bock knew from experience just how messy murders could be. They worked quickly as Keitel's voice-over went on, using powered industrial cutting tools. Arms and legs had been removed from the torsos, and then the heads were removed and held up to the camera. No one could fake this. Keitel's men had truly murdered two human beings. The dismemberment in front of a playing television made that absolutely certain, and would doubtless also make disposal easier. The pieces were assembled neatly for wrapping in plastic. One of the men started brushing the blood-soaked sawdust into a pile for yet another plastic bag.
“The body parts will be burned at two widely separated locations. This will be accomplished long before you get the tape. That ends our message. We await further instructions.” And the tape returned to the dramatization of the 1920 Olympics — or was it 1924? Bock wondered. Not that it mattered, of course.
“Yes, Colonel?”
“One of my officers has failed to check in.” The Colonel was from Directorate T, the technical branch of the First Chief Directorate The holder of a doctor's degree in engineering, his personal specialty was missile systems He had worked in America and France, ferreting out the secrets of various military weapons before being promoted to his current job.
“Details?”
“Captain Yevgemy Stepanovich Feodorov, age thirty, married, one child, a fine young officer on the major's list He was one of the three I sent into Germany at your direction to check out their nuclear facilities He's one of my best.”
“How long?” Golovko asked.
“Six days. He flew into Berlin via Pans last week. He had German papers, good ones from downstairs, and a list of ten names to investigate. His instructions were to maintain a low profile unless he discovered something important, in which case he was to make contact with Station Berlin — what's left of it, I mean. We scheduled a periodic check-in, of course. He didn't make it, and after twenty-four hours, I got the alert.”
“Could it be that he's just careless?”
“Not this boy,” the Colonel said flatly. “Does the name mean anything to you?”
“Feodorov… wasn't his father…?”
“Stefan Yurievich, yes. Yevgeniy is his youngest son.”
“Good God, Stefan taught me,” Golovko said. “Possibility of…?”
“Defection?” The Colonel shook his head angrily. “Not a chance. His wife is in the chorus with the opera. No — they met in university and married young over the objections of both sets of parents. It's a love-match like we all wish we had. She's a stunningly beautiful girl, voice like an angel. Only a zhopnik would walk away from her. Then there's the child. He is by all reports a good father.” Golovko saw where this was leading.
“Arrested, then?”
“I haven't heard a whisper. Perhaps you might arrange to have that checked. I fear the worst.” The Colonel frowned and stared down at the rug. He didn't want to be the one who broke the news to Natalia Feodorova.
