CIA Fall Guy (13 page)

Beth nodded encouragement at David to “go on.”

He was scheduled to attend as representative of the U.S. embassy's political section — his cover at the time. “Lots of people knew I was going to attend,” he said.

Beth thought about this. It didn't make sense. “Why kill other people simply to get at you? There must have been an easier way.”

David nodded. “I've gone over and over that question. Unless I wasn't the only target that day. Maybe some of the others also got the riddle.”

Riddle. Why had Stephen died?

David touched her arm. “What were you and Stephen doing at the club that day?”

The plane's engine rumbled as it started up and her stomach flopped. Or maybe her stomach flopped because of the memory.

“Stephen had to meet someone in Frankfurt.” She had gone up with him on the train the night before so they could spend a night in Frankfurt. And the next day she had gone to the PX while he went off to his meeting. “We were to meet up at the officers club.”

“He was waiting for you there?”

She nodded. “The funny thing is that Jack Lockheim had told me not to bother eating at the Frankfurt Officers Club. Said it had lousy food.”

David sat up straighter. “Jack Lockheim warned you off the officers club?”

Beth looked at David. “Warned me off? He just said we shouldn't bother trying the lousy food.”

David didn't reply so Beth spent the flight watching the landscape below, thinking about how she and Stephen had flown to Berlin together. And how scary it had been as the plane came in to land at Tempelhof, almost seeming to touch the roofs of the nearby buildings.

But this time they weren't landing at Tempelhof. She watched as Rodney landed on yet another runway in the middle of a field. But just as the plane was about to stop, it turned and rolled back down the runway and took off again.

David and Beth tore off their seat belts and squeezed into the cockpit with Rodney and Kathleen.

“What the hell was that about?” David asked.

“A wave-off. Didn't you see the car at the far end of the runway? Had a German flag flying from the radio antenna.”

David nodded.

“That was the wave-off signal. My guy didn't want us to land.”

“What about radio contact?” Beth asked. “This is the modern era.”

“Didn't want the opposition to know. Would put my guy at risk. Better to let them think we noticed something.”

“We'll have to try our back-up plan,” David said.

“I'm not going to jump out of a plane again,” Beth said.

David grabbed her arm. “You're an old hand at this now. And we don't have any other options.”

Beth opened her mouth to protest. But, really, what else was there to do? She followed David back to the chutes. This time she even put on her own chute. But she did say, “Will you hold my hand again?”

David nodded, opened the rear door, checked the ground, and called to Rodney “Now!”

He took her hand and they jumped.

This time she watched David, and when he pulled his chute she pulled hers.

Even her landing was better this time.

David gathered his chute and hers. “I knew you could do it,” he said.

And he leaned down and kissed her. For a second she felt …

He pulled away. “I got carried away.”

He thrust the chutes under a large tree and led her to the road, where he waved down a farm truck.

He lifted her up onto the truck bed and followed her up. But he didn't look at her or touch her again.

Beth counted the trees they passed as the truck drove towards the former West Berlin.

When they reached the Kudamm they got off and waved thanks to the driver. David took her arm and led her off the main boulevard and into a street of small shops.

At the entrance to a bookshop he held the door open for her. Inside an old man sat hunched over his wares.

David said,
“Haben Sie ein Buch von Sigmund Freud?”

The man replied,
“Ja, habe ich.”

Beth remembered just enough of the German she had studied in two German for foreigners courses to know that David has asked for a book by Sigmund Freud and the old man had said he had one.

The old man punched a button partly submerged under the books on his desk, and David walked to the back of the shop and pushed open a door into a room beyond. Beth followed David through the open door, which clicked shut behind her.

The disparity between the old book shop interior and this room shocked Beth. This room was stuffed to overflowing with computers, laser printers, and other equipment.

A young man rose from his desk to greet them. David shook the young man's hand, then said to Beth, “This is Jim. He may look young, but he is a repository of knowledge that all the old gang could give him as well as that of his beloved computers.”

Jim smiled at Beth while David bent closer to Jim to speak into his ear.

Beth asked where the restrooms were, and on her return she found David typing at a computer terminal.

David pointed to his screen. “According to official reports, Jack Lockheim died in a boating accident off the Gulf of Mexico. His body was never recovered.”

Beth nodded as David pointed at a photo on his screen. “Here's the last official photo of him, taken 10 years ago. Now I'm going to age him 10 years.”

David tapped on some keys, then asked Beth if the photo looked familiar.

Beth studied the photo, then thought of the man in the cafe in Schwabing. She told David what she thought.

“His warning to you about the Frankfurt Officers Club. I think he was waving you off. You just failed to take the signal.”

Beth sank into a chair next to the computer station. How could this be? Had Stephen been killed because she didn't pay attention to what her boss had told her?

David reached over and took her hand. “It's not your fault.”

She looked up at David. How sensitive of him to guess what she was feeling.

She took a deep breath and said, “Why would he want to bomb his own country's men? Whose side was he on?

Before David could answer Jim came over to them and handed a single sheet of paper to David. He read it and then fed it into the nearby shredder.

“What did it say?” she asked.

David took her hand and pulled her up. “Let's eat,” he said.

“Now there's food service?” Beth said.

Ten minutes later Beth and David sat at a small table at an outdoor cafe on the Kudamm. Beth leaned closer to David and said, “It's about time you gave me some information.”

David shrugged. “Every time I think I'm getting close, something happens to confuse the picture. Now Jack Lockheim may have been in Schwabing yesterday watching us.”

The waiter arrived at their table and put a glass of wine in front of each of them. Beth reached for her glass.

“Did you order this wine?” Beth asked.

For answer David knocked the glass out of her hand and yanked her up with him as his glare took in the whole room.

He thrust money on the table and propelled Beth out of the cafe with his one hand still clamped on her arm.

Before Beth could even get out one word, David had pulled her into a dress shop. A salesclerk moved towards them as David said, “Your bag! Give me your bag.”

David released Beth and grabbed her backpack with both his hands. Beth and the salesclerk watched him searching. Then he pulled something from the lining of the backpack.

“Let's go,” he said. “We need to lose this.”

Beth smiled at the clerk, then said to David, “I suppose we don't have time to shop. I could use a change of clothes.”

David flipped over the price tag of the nearest displayed outfit. “Not at these prices,” he said.

**

In George's office it was still early in Washington. But he had asked Charles to come in at this time today.

“I'm concerned that Mark hasn't caught up with Beth yet,” George now said. “The tracking device isn't working?”

Charles crossed one knee over the other. “Yes, but she's moving fast. Mark is definitely dogging her; he just hasn't made contact yet.”

George looked out the window. What should he say?

“And we have no more information on where Hans Wermer may have misplaced himself to?” George asked?

Charles smiles, his beautiful patrician smile. “He's also vanished from sight.”

George nodded his dismissal and said as Charles crossed the room, “This is not good, not good at all.”

The moment Charles crossed the door behind himself, George picked up the phone and dialed.

“Mark, where are you?” George asked. “Berlin? Do you have them in sight now?”

George listened to Mark's reply, then said, “Stay with them and complete your mission. Also, Charles just told me that you hadn't sighted Beth. Interesting?”

**

The moment Charles left George's office, he strode to his own office, dialed a number, said one sentence, and then grabbed his gym shoes from a desk drawer.

A while later he was jogging on the Capital Mall as Matthew, also apparently jogging, came up alongside Charles.

“We're working on our little problem,” Matthew said. “Moving targets are not so easy to hit, especially now that she has an escort.”

“Have you IDed the escort? We haven't.”

“Not yet. But we're right there with them.”

Charles paused in his jogging to retie a shoelace. Matthew stopped beside Charles.

“Do you really need to derail this woman and whoever is with her?” Charles asked.

Matthew didn't reply at first. Then he said, “When you got involved with us, you know we played hardball. Relax — and leave the doing to us.”

When Charles stood up from re-tying his shoelace, Matthew was gone.

**

In Berlin David hurried Beth down the street, causing pedestrians to get out of their way.

“Don't you have a way to call for help?” she asked.

David didn't answer, just led her towards the entrance to the train station and through the platforms until he found the train he wanted.

Striding down the corridor in the first-class section with Beth in tow, David found a first-class compartment occupied only by a solitary German man. David pushed Beth into the compartment. He knew she wouldn't ask questions in front of a stranger.

But when a few minutes after the train started the man left the compartment, David knew he was in for it.

Instead Beth said, “I have to use the facilities. I'll be right back.”

“Make sure you don't vanish,” he said.

Beth looked at him, then watched as he wrote an unintelligible word on the steamed-up window. When she smiled, he knew she got it.

“I saw the classic film ‘The Lady Vanishes’ at the Munich city museum when I lived in Munich,” she said. “There was a Hollywood festival with English-language films.”

Then she was out the door.

David looked at his watch and looked at it again a few minutes later. What could be taking Beth so long? He looked at his watch another few minutes later.

He got up, opened the compartment door, and peered down the hall. He saw nothing but felt a loud thump on his head.

**

Beth shook her head, trying to clear the confusion she felt. She tried to raise a hand to feel why her head hurt, but she couldn't move her hand.

She looked down to see her feet were tied and her wrists were apparently tied behind her. This was ridiculous! Did David think he had to actually enact the film “The Lady Vanishes”?

In the next moment she saw David tied up beside her and apparently still unconscious.

She looked around, saw they were in a baggage compartment and that no one else seemed to be there. Then she risked speaking. “David, David!”

No answer. She wiggled closer to him and butted her head gently into his shoulder.

“David, wake up!”

David groaned, shook his head, and looked at her.

“We vanished,” she said.

David eyed their trussed bodies. “At least we're not mummified in bandages.”

Beth laughed, then glared at him. “Think, David. We have to get out of here before the next train stop.”

“Can you reach inside my belt with your mouth?”

“What?”

“I have a tiny but very sharp knife taped inside my belt.”

For heaven's sake. First the underground bunkers and now playing assistant in a carnival contortion act.

“How am I going to hold a knife in my mouth to cut the ropes?”

“Just get the knife.”

“I'll cut myself.”

“It's snapped closed!”

Beth wiggled herself into a better position and maneuvered her mouth down to David's waist. She bit into the belt until she got her mouth around the knife — and pulled it from the holder. Thank heavens there were no cameras to catch her doing this!

“Now put the knife in my hands,” he said.

She maneuvered behind him and brought her mouth down to his hands. Shit!

He appeared not to notice but simply wrapped his hands around the knife and flipped a tiny button that flicked the blade out.

David now wiggled behind Beth and worked on cutting the ropes off her hands. When he succeeded, she took the knife from him and cut the ropes off David's hands.

Then he used the knife to cut the ropes from both their feet.

While he did so, Beth had a momentary memory of playing cowboys and Indians at age 10 with a neighborhood boy. He had tied her to a tree and it had been fun then. Not so much now.

David got up and pulled Beth up before returning the knife to his hiding place. He checked for his gun, which of course wasn't there. Then he grabbed their backpacks, which Beth hadn't noticed lay nearby, and there were no guns there either.

David opened the door of the baggage car and eyed the terrain. He turned back to Beth.

Before he said anything, she said, “We're going to have to jump again, aren't we?”

“Afraid so.”

“And we don't have chutes this time.”

David put her backpack on her back and his backpack on his back.

“Roll when you hit the ground.”

She stood with him at the open door.

“Now!” he said.