Talons of the Falcon (26 page)

As Aleksei looked at the file now, he had a good idea who it was. But he had decided to keep that knowledge to himself for the moment.

All of that background information should have been of no importance now. The KGB had blown up Bradley’s plane. But a few months ago the colonel had come back from the dead, compliments of a certain megalomaniac named Hans Erlich. And Moscow had started scrambling for explanations.

The pencil between Aleksei’s fingers snapped. Despite Erlich’s obvious talents, the East Germans were playing out of their league again. When would they learn that running half-baked operations behind the KGB’s back could only lead to retribution?

When Bradley turned up alive, after all, Moscow had no option but to mount a cleanup operation that would have been worthy of a major oil spill in the Persian Gulf. There was the matter of stealing Bradley’s air force medical records so the Americans wouldn’t be sure they had the right man, planting an operative at Pine Island, and now this showdown in Berlin.

He himself had just been called on to the case. Maybe that was the only lucky thing about this whole mess. He was in an excellent position to take care of a very tricky problem—with a minimum of damage.

* * *

I
T TOOK ALL OF
Mark’s efforts to go calmly through the motions of briefing Gustav and Berdine about the developing situation at Shultz and Stein. But he knew as Eden watched his tense features that she wasn’t attributing his distress to Herr Glück’s untimely death.

Mark would have preferred to remain sitting around the kitchen table drinking Gustav’s dark German beer and munching from the platter of ham sandwiches and pickles Berdine had set out. But Eden pointed out that they had traveled most of the night before and needed a rest. The moment she got him alone in their tiny room over the bakery, however, it was apparent that she had anything but rest on her mind.

“All right, what happened when you made that phone call?”

He turned his back and began to unbutton his shirt. “You were sitting at the table. Weren’t you listening?”

“Yes, I was listening. But I was also watching your face. You might be able to hide something from them, but I know you too well. Whatever happened this afternoon in that phone booth has shaken you down to your toes.”

“Get off my back!” he exploded. “When I agreed to bring you along on this trip, I must have been crazy.”

Eden winced. His harsh words stung as though he had slapped her in the face. If she hadn’t understood what was motivating him, she would have turned away. Instead, she held her ground, aware that Mark was using anger as a defense. Well, let him; she’d fuel him until she cut through to what was really bothering him. “It’s being back in Berlin, isn’t it?” she tried.

His jaw was rigid. “No.”

“All right then, you must be afraid that you don’t have what it takes to complete this assignment.”

He whirled and grasped her shoulders, his fingers digging into the delicate flesh. “Don’t you ever say that to me again,” he threatened, his voice like a pitchfork grating across cement. At the same time, he gave her several rough shakes.

“It might be more effective if you grabbed me around the throat. Then I wouldn’t be able to talk.”

His eyes darted to her neck where the faint marks of his fingers still lingered. “Lord,” he whispered. This time it was half apology, half a cry for help.

“Mark, it’s all right. I understand.”

“I doubt it.”

“Then tell me.” There was still no reply. Tentatively Eden reached out and touched his cheek. “Mark, I’ve been to hell with you and back. Surely you know you can trust me now.”

Despite her words, he still had to fight the impulse to turn away. In that phone booth his worst fears had been confirmed. He felt like a prize marlin on the end of a line. The hook was buried deep in his head. And though he could put up a fight, the outcome was almost certain. Hans Erlich was going to reel him in. How could you talk about something like that? he wondered. Yet at the same time, he had come to realize that if anyone could wrench that hook out of his psyche, it was Eden Sommers.

She waited, watching the signs of an inner struggle.

“All right,” he finally conceded. “See what you can do with this. After I made that call to Schultz and Stein, there was another number that suddenly flashed into my mind.”

“002-72-52?”

For a moment his mind spun crazily. Was this some nightmare where he was going to wake up and find that Eden had been working for Erlich all along?

She saw the panic and anger on his face. “Mark, don’t think
that
of me.” The plea was the same one he had used when she had come to his room at the Aviary and then been afraid he was repulsed by what Marshall had done to her.

He recognized his own words, and some of the tension went out of his rigid body.

“At Pine Island,” she continued, “when I took you back to the plane crash, you recited that number just before you told me you couldn’t remember anything else. And then in Ireland when I hypnotized you into thinking I was Erlich, you said it again. But I wasn’t in any shape then to realize its importance.”

Comprehension wrinkled his brow. “It was when I was strangling you, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. But I won’t let you keep blaming yourself for that. What matters is beating this thing—together.”

“You mean `if’ we can beat it.”

“We will.” She looked around the tiny room. The high double bed, chest and armoire had left no space for a chair. “We might as well make ourselves comfortable,” she observed, propping up pillows against the headboard and sitting down on the bed in an effort to dispel some of the tension.

Mark followed her lead. “I thought getting in bed with your patient during a therapy session was against the guidelines of the American Psychological Association,” he remarked.

“There aren’t any guidelines to deal with something like this.”

He nodded, sobering again.

“Okay, quit stalling. What’s the significance of that number?”

“It’s a local phone number. But I’m sure it switches to a microwave link that goes across the border to East Germany.”

“You called it?”

“Yes. Erlich answered.”

“But how...?”

“He had an answering machine set up just for me. But within two minutes he was on the line himself. God, I tried to hang up, but my fingers were locked around the receiver as though I had rigor mortis.”

His fingers had gone rigid at the memory, and Eden reached out to stroke them. “What happened?”

He briefly summarized the conversation. “I couldn’t resist him. He still has me in his power.”

“That isn’t entirely true.”

“How can you say that?”

“Think about it. You didn’t give away anything about Orion. You didn’t give me away, or jeopardize the Falcon’s contacts in Berlin.”

“But I told him about Schultz and Stein!” His self-accusation stabbed the air. “All Erlich has to do is make a few phone calls and he’ll figure out what’s going on over there.”

“Then we’ll be ready for him.”

“How?” The question was edged with despair.

Eden realized suddenly that this was match point. If she couldn’t convince Mark to believe in himself now, the game was lost. “We’ll fight Erlich with his own weapons. Mark, you resisted him in almost every way. But he had you for so long and in so much pain, that you couldn’t hold out on every front. However, your basic integrity has remained intact. You wouldn’t be upset about any of this if that weren’t the case.”

A glimmer of hope kindled in his dark eyes. “What are you getting at?”

“Another posthypnotic suggestion—this time from me, not him. Remember, you didn’t give away anything about the Orion project. We’ll use that resistance to negate any power Erlich still has over you.”

He felt like a drowning man who suddenly sees a life preserver bobbing in the water. “Do you really think it will work?”

“Yes.” Her voice rang with confidence.
God, I pray it does.

“Then when are we going to try it?”

“We can do it right now. Let’s go into the induction routine.”

This time it was easier than ever to put Mark under. He was so desperate to clutch for the life preserver she’d thrown to him that within less than a minute he was breathing slowly and evenly.

“The Orion project totally depends on you,” she began, knowing that this suggestion could go either way. It had the power to protect him; it also had the power to destroy him. She knew his mind would turn it into another test. If he couldn’t measure up, the guilt might break him.

“Do you understand?” she continued.

“Yes.”

“If you have any more contact with Erlich, you will file your secrets in the Orion project. Orion will fill your mind—Orion, Orion, Orion.”

“Orion, Orion, Orion,” he repeated.

* * *

M
AJ
. R
OSS
D
OWNING
set down his glass of schnapps and looked around the restaurant terrace at Blockhaus Nikolskoe. For the afternoon he was dressed as a tourist, in a brown corduroy sport jacket and khaki pants. He sat with his back to a rustic wall and his face to Lake Havel. This well-known restaurant in the suburbs of Berlin had been built in the style of a Russian log cabin. In fact, it had been a wedding present from Friedrich Wilhelm III to his daughter Charlotte when she married the future Czar Nicholas I more than 150 years ago.

It was a strange place in which to be waiting to meet the German who had called him last night at the bachelor officers’ quarters. But his curiosity had been aroused. He had been beating the bushes here in Berlin for the past three days. And so far he’d netted a big fat zero. He took another sip of his drink and waited.

At a table not too far away, but discreetly in the shadows, Aleksei Rozonov waited, too. Although the setting held a certain interest for him in its romanticized portrayal of old Russia before the revolution, the restaurant wasn’t what had motivated him to take the short drive from the city this particular afternoon. He’d known about Major Downing’s arrival in Berlin since the man had stepped off a military plane at Templehof. He’d observed the American’s efforts to locate Bradley with a certain amount of apprehension. Downing was an unknown quantity in this little drama.

If Aleksei were to believe Wayne Marshall’s reports, the major was a hard-nosed security type who never left a job unfinished. Was that why he’d found it necessary to come here personally? Downing couldn’t have the whole picture. But whatever his motives, the man still had the power to interfere. There was no way to put him out of commission at this point, so the best Aleksei could do was look and listen and find out as much as he could.

He watched as a stocky German man made his way toward Downing’s table. He wore a loden jacket and an Alpine hat with a small feather in the band, the very picture of a well-dressed tour guide.

“Herr Downing?” Gustav Hofmann asked, inclining his head slightly.

The American officer nodded.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet me here. I’m sure I can give you a specialized city tour that will meet all your requirements.”

“We’ll see,” Downing observed dryly.

The German pulled out a chair. “May I?” Without waiting for an answer, he sat down and gave his cover name. “Herr Schwartzkopf at your service. Let me show you a proposed itinerary.”

Downing accepted a brightly colored brochure. Inside were several neatly folded sheets of paper. He had time for only a quick glance, as the waiter was approaching with menus.

“The wursts here are quite good,” Gustav remarked. “I think I’ll select one for lunch.”

“Fine,” Downing agreed. The sooner they got the ordering over with, the sooner he could begin evaluating this fellow’s information.

Just before the waiter left, Gustav asked for directions to the men’s room. Then he excused himself.

Downing opened the neatly typed pages and began to read. It was an effort to keep his expression neutral. He hadn’t known what he was expecting. But this story sounded like a Grimms’ fairy tale.

Yet, if it was true, it explained so much about what had happened, both at Pine Island and before. When he finished reading, he had a thousand questions, and he waited impatiently for the man who had delivered this startling information to return.

But as the interval lengthened, Downing suspected that the courier wasn’t coming back. Finally, when two orders of wurst and sauerkraut arrived, he sighed and began to eat his portion, wondering if they’d meet again at the auction gallery where Schultz and Stein were holding court.

Aleksei thought about taking the second plate of wurst off Downing’s hands. He could just picture the major’s face if he pulled out the empty chair at the table and started a conversation about their common interest—Col. Mark Bradley. From the stunned expression on Downing’s face, he’d bet those innocent-looking travel folders duplicated some of the information in the dossier back in his hotel. And why not? In this case, Washington and Moscow had certain objectives in common. Both of them were out to get the microdot Bradley had left with Schultz and Stein.

The Russian shook his head. He’d hate to be in Bradley’s shoes right now. The colonel had been burned, beaten and all but buried, and he was still on his feet and fighting. His was the kind of indomitable spirit that couldn’t be bought. Bradley must have a fierce loyalty to his country, and Aleksei respected him for that. He couldn’t help feeling that it would be a damn shame if the colonel ended up as a sacrifice now.

* * *

“H
OW DID THE
Falcon respond, Herr Hofmann?” Eden asked Gustav anxiously that evening. She had managed to corner him alone after dinner and before the briefing they would all be attending at 2100 hours.

“He decided we need reinforcements. Luckily there was an American security officer already in Berlin. His name is Maj. Ross Downing. I brought him up-to-date this afternoon.”

Eden closed her eyes. Ross Downing of all people!

“You don’t approve?” Gustav questioned, reading her troubled expression.

“Downing’s the man who was doing his best to break Colonel Bradley on Pine Island.”