CIA Fall Guy (11 page)

“Truce? I promise not to insult you if you promise not to be insulted.”

Beth nodded, then said, “Let's walk to the Chinesischen Turm. I remember it, as well as the Hellabrunn Tierpark.”

David reached for her arm to guide her and this time she didn't brush him off. As they walked toward the Chinese Tower and then the zoo, he barely noted the flower beds in full bloom, the grass cut, the paths not overcrowded with others. Instead his eyes swept their surroundings, looking for suspicious activity directed at them.

Within minutes they were in front of a monkey cage, the animals swinging from branch to branch, babies clasped to their mothers. No one except David and Beth stood before the cage admiring the monkeys.

Beth turned towards him. “David, I understand the ‘need to know’ principle. But couldn't you please tell me something of what's going on?”

David shook his head. “It's trite to say, but ignorance is protection for you.”

“Why come to Munich? Couldn't you have done all your research online via computer?”

Her backpack shifted against his arm. With his elbow he shoved it back in position, unwilling to release her arm.

“No, I couldn't. Much of our material from pre-computer days has not yet been inputted. And the East German material in Berlin is not computerized either. Also, there are a couple of people I want to check with.”

A whistling noise skittered past his ear. David's right hand stretched for his gun while his left hand, the one holding Beth's arm, shoved her behind the monkey cage. The monkeys jumped in agitation, yelping in their high-pitched voices.

“Stay down.” With no one else around, David had a clear target field towards the direction the shots were coming from. He squatted in front of Beth and squeezed off a couple of rounds, more a warning than actually an attempt to hit something he couldn't see. A few answering shots, then silence.

He holstered his gun and pulled Beth farther behind the cage and held her body to his. He could feel her trembling.

“Everything's fine,” he said.

“Being shot at AGAIN is fine!”

Beth pulled slightly away from him to look into his eyes. “David, can you teach me to shoot right now? I want to know how to shoot.”

David stood up, pulling Beth with him.

“Why?”

“I want to feel I have some control. I hate feeling so dependent.”

David nodded. “Let's go rest somewhere first. The Hofbrauhaus.”

“I hate beer.”

“It's a safe place to rest — crowds of people.”

**

Germans wearing work smocks and Japanese tourists wearing cameras occupied the lanes of tables. Oversized steins of beer cluttered the wooden table tops. Beth eyed the beer-fed waitresses hefting the steins. How much money did they earn an hour? Were drunks good tippers?

“Do you want a beer?” David said.

Beth shook her head. “Always tasted like soap suds to me.”

David waved down a waitress, told her one beer.

“What's going on?” Beth said. “I think you know and won't tell me.”

David laughed. “You have too high an opinion of my crystal ball abilities.”

The waitress slapped David's beer down in front of him. She asked for payment and David fished out the required German marks. She didn't say
danke
.

Beth tapped David's hand. “I'm tired of being shot at. I want to learn how to shoot back.”

David's eyes studied hers. Was he considering if she were serious? “Amateurs with guns are dangerous.”

Beth glanced at her hands clasped in her lap. “Amateurs without guns can be in danger if someone's shooting at them.”

A swell of singing washed over the room. A German drinking song, the words unintelligible to Beth, roared from a nearby table. Conversation was hopeless. David drank his beer in large gulps, then signaled for her to rise.

The respite was over.

**

The taxi dropped them off in front of the massive limestone structure that was the Haus der Kunst — the House of Art museum. The 20 columns of the verandah rose above them.

“The thing is to keep ourselves among people so the opposition can't take potshots at us, but not so many people that they can use the crowd as cover.”

Beth nodded. This was basic tradecraft that even she knew.

“So we're going to look at paintings.”

“Yes. Did you know that after World War II the Haus der Kunst …”

“… was used as the American Army Officers Club? Yes, I did. Stephen told me.”

David nodded. “I'm sorry. I keep forgetting you lived here.”

“A long time ago, a very long time ago.”

David took her hand, propelling her up the steps. After paying for their admission tickets, he led her into the west wing where the Neue Pinakothek and the Neue Staatsgalerie works were permanently displayed.

“The Neue Pinakothek has pictures and sculptures from the late 18th and the 19th centuries by more than 500 artists,” David said.

“What are you, a museum docent?”

“Just getting into the act.” He turned her into another gallery.

“Now the Neue Staatsgalerie has pictures and sculptures of later periods.”

“Thank you very much. I can recognize Impressionist paintings all by myself. In fact, that's one of my favorite Cezanne …”

David grabbed her hand with such force that the word paintings strangled in her throat. He yanked her against his chest and leaned his head close to her ear.

“I'm checking out the terrain,” he said.

“You're standing on my foot!”

David removed his foot. “Stay right here and don't wander off. I have to see a man about a dog.”

“You're going to leave me? Leave me vulnerable to being shot or abducted or killed? Or am I being set up as a pigeon?”

“No to all of the above. I'm just going over there to check out another picture. And the man standing there is going to tell me something I need to know.”

Beth checked the direction David indicated. An older German man appeared absorbed in the study of a Gauguin.

David released her and walked over to the Gauguin. She whirled back to admire the Cezanne. Two could play at this game.

Within moments David returned. “I knew I recognized that painting. It was one of my mother's favorites.”

“You had a mother?”

**

Beth checked out the trendy merchandise in the store windows as they walked down Leopoldstrasse, the main thoroughfare of the artists and nightlife district called Schwabing. It had been here that Beth had studied German for foreigners at Ludwig-Maximilian University. She'd had eclectic classmates, including one refugee from the spontaneous closings of universities in chaotic Italy, an Israeli couple fresh from military service, a Turkish woman whose husband worked at the American army kaserne garage, and a young man who appeared to be from Communist China (although Beth was never quite sure if that were possible). She had actually learned basic German because she had to — no English was spoken in the class although it was beginning German.

On the sidewalk a clump of people passed them. David took her elbow. “How come you never remarried after your husband's death?”

“How do you know I never remarried?”

He hesitated. “You have that look about you — unloved.”

“Unloved! I have lots of friends, besides relatives, who care for me.”

“You're missing that glow.”

“Are you talking about sex?”

He didn't answer.

“Where are your wife and kids?”

“I've never found the time. The needs of the service come first.” David steered her around a runaway cafe chair plunked in their path.

“You still haven't answered my question,” he said. “Why didn't you remarry?”

Beth hesitated, then decided it was best to get this over with quickly. “I … I couldn't. I was afraid to love someone that much and risk losing him again. Every time I started getting close to someone I was dating, I found a reason to break it off.”

David propelled her forward, a submarine forging a path through rough seas. “You were right,” he said. “That bomb in the Frankfurt Officers Club was meant for someone specific.”

Her scalp's beating escalated. “How do you know?”

“It was meant for me.”

Beth's feet stopped. She was a statue, Lot's wife turned to stone. Someone shoved her from behind, yelled something nasty in German. David drew her off to one side, out of the pedestrian stream.

Her mouth unglued. “What do you mean?”

“I was investigating an agent of ours suspected of being a double agent for the East Germans. I was getting close. I got a warning note, but it was a riddle.”

He took her arm, pulling her with him to start walking again. “I was never very good at riddles. I didn't figure it out until it was too late.”

“Why weren't you killed?”

“Timing. Probably the one time in German history that a German train was late. I got to the club moments after the bomb went off.”

Beth's entire head pounded, the anger flashing rainbow lines through her vision. “You're responsible for my husband's death! You're responsible for my miserable life!”

She exploded, swinging her right arm in a punch to David's face. He blocked her punch and grabbed both her arms, pinning them to her sides.

“Look, I'm sorry. I was sent underground after that and the trail got cold. I never found the guys I was after — the guys who killed your husband.”

Tears welled in her eyes. David let go of her arms and hugged her to him. She pulled back and slapped him across the face.

“You son of a bitch! Is this your idea of a joke?”

David grabbed her arms again. Pedestrians streamed around their island, yelling at them to get of the way.

“I swear it's true. And I swear I've never stopped looking for those guys. That's why I met up with you. I'm on to something — and that something seems to have you in the middle of it.”

Beth shook her head, her arms still imprisoned. “After all these years you think you'll find the killers?”

“You don't know the East Germans — former East Germans. They have long memories — and long agendas. Some of them are still around — and I think they're up to some of their old tricks.”

Beth's knees buckled. David's grip prevented her from collapsing. This was too much. All too much.

“Come on,” he said. “If you promise not to hit me again, I'll buy you a coffee.”

**

Beth gulped her coffee. A mistake. The liquid burned the back of her throat. She chocked back a cough, not anxious to draw attention to their table.

“Did you like working for Jack Lockheim at the 66th?” David said.

“I liked Jack. The work was boring, just typing secret reports that were sent on to you guys. At least Stephen got to analyze the humint his office received.”

“You remember the word humint?”

“Actually George or Charles mentioned it at Langley. I'm not sure I would have remembered it otherwise.”

Beth took a cautious sip. Much better. “You know, I always thought Jack Lockheim looked as German as the native Muencheners. That man over there reminds me of an older version of Jack.”

David twisted to glance over his shoulder. “Jack died a couple of years ago.”

“That's what George told me.” Although anything that George, David, Kathleen or the rest of the CIA spooks said to her was suspect.

David flashed her a smile. “Feeling better?'

Beth smiled back. “Practice on a 9mm would do a lot to brighten my day.”

**

Beth smiled again when David pulled off the autobahn. He had somehow conjured up a car a block from where they had coffee. He had just walked up to the car, put the key in the lock, and they had a car.

She guessed that this was probably why in the first place they had coffee at that particular cafe. But she didn't ask David. She didn't want to hear again that it was strictly a “need to know” operation.

David had chosen a field of clover with a solitary tree. When they stopped several feet from the tree, he pulled out his gun.

“Stand like this,” he said as he demonstrated, “and aim at the tree and pull the trigger.”

He handed her the gun and she tried to emulate how he had stood.

“Release the safety,” he said, indicating where it was. “Now shoot.”

She aimed and pulled the trigger twice.

She watched both shots go wide of the tree, but not so very wide.

David laughed. “You're pretty good for a beginner.”

“Maybe all that focusing I do in karate is paying off.”

“Put the safety back on and hand me the gun,” he said. Then he demonstrated how to aim along the sight.

Beth took back the gun, released the safety once more, and tried two more shots.

“Better,” he said. “Keep going.”

The sudden click on an empty chamber reminded Beth that the supply of ammunition was not infinite. She looked at David.

“That's enough for the first time. I want to get to the safe house before dark.”

David took the empty gun from here, reloaded it, and put it back in his shoulder holster.

Beth tried to keep up with his long strides back to the car. “Where's my gun?” she asked.

David twisted his head to look at her as she lagged behind. “I said you were pretty good for a beginner. You're not good enough to have a gun yet.”

Beth thought of all the retorts she could make. But what would even the best retort get her?

**

The fading light prevented Beth from a clear view of the road winding up a steep incline. Only when David drove around the last curve could she see the ski chalet.

David stopped but didn't get out of the car. Beth watched him sit silently as if waiting for instructions from above.

“Did our diversion work? We haven't been attacked or shot since the English Gardens,” she said.

David shrugged in response and motioned her to get out of the car. She grabbed her backpack as he unlocked the door.

Once inside, she opened each inner door until she found the bathroom. She used the facilities and then returned to the living room, where she found David lighting wood in the fireplace.