18. Will
18
Will
“ W ell, those were four hours I’ll never get back,” I said, shrugging off my overcoat and falling onto the edge of the bed.
Thomas shut the door behind him and began stripping out of his coat.
“We should go through the binder,” I said, pointing to the notebook. “There’s better light in the bathroom. Can you help me translate?”
There was little point to even looking at the pages the Soviets had prepared. They would, no doubt, have tossed in a few nuggets for us to find, pieces of value whose owners were still alive and hoping to see them again. Unfortunately, most of the items would be figments of some creative soldier’s imagination. I doubted many listed on those pages ever existed. Most of the supposed owners were likely long dead.
I appeared to have more optimism than Thomas. Leaning against the bathroom doorway, I stared at him with an irritated scowl.
Reluctantly, he pushed himself up and off the bed to follow me into the restroom. Once inside, I closed the door, turned on the shower and the faucet, then spun to face him. The notebook lay on the countertop near the commode, no longer of any interest to either of us.
I stepped close and pressed my body against his. His scent filled my nostrils. I breathed him in as deeply as my lungs would allow.
I leaned forward, intent on nibbling his neck, when two palms pressed into my chest and gently shoved me back. My head cocked like a befuzzled labrador.
Thomas leaned forward until his lips were almost touching my ear. “The notebook is useless. One of our people in the west can go through it and pick out anything of interest.”
“Okay, so what now?”
“We do the meetup and go from there,” he said. “We don’t have enough information to make a better plan. We need guidance. Hell, we need contacts, assets, information, and a laundry list of other things I haven’t even thought of. We’re wandering blindly around an enemy controlled—”
Between Thomas and me, he was usually the strategist. His background in Naval intelligence made him a far better planner. It was interesting to see him ignoring the smoke and heading straight toward the fire. It was odd . . . and a little exciting.
“Dear God,” he said in a hoarse whisper.
Confusion flooded my face.
He turned his head so his lips brushed my ear. “You get me so hot when you talk business. Say something about tradecraft. I bet I pop a boner right here.”
I snorted, then slapped his chest with my hand. “I’m trying to plan, and all you can do is think with your little one?”
“Hey!” He pulled back so our eyes could lock, then mouthed, “It’s not that little.”
I snorted again.
For a moment, I thought he might pull me back into his embrace and continue our impromptu potty room planning session. Instead, his fingers gripped my belt buckle and began tugging off my trousers. His eyes never left mine as my pants hit the floor. Before I could step out of them, Thomas dropped to his knees, yanked down my boxers, and took me in his mouth.
I had to brace with both hands against the counter to keep from tumbling over.
In seconds measured by strokes of his tongue, I was harder than the hotel bed, and Thomas was a man on a wholly new mission.
Our hotel room reeked of cheap varnish and paranoia . . . and sex. The overhead light buzzed, as if mocking us with its constant presence.
Thomas and I descended the stairs, nodded at the bored-looking woman at the reception desk, and stepped outside, presumably to smoke at the tree we’d claimed for our own.
“Tails are still there,” he whispered between puffs.
I grunted agreement. “One new man. Tall. Black hat. Smokes too much. Belly looks like the top of a poorly baked muffin.”
Thomas chuckled. “Goes by Sergei, probably, or Boris.”
“Can we not name the minders?” I said. “It’s like naming a goldfish. It’ll be harder to flush them if they die.”
Thomas snorted, then shook his head. He tossed his cigarette on the ground and snuffed it with his shoe. “Let’s go get ready. We need to leave in twenty minutes.”
Once back in our room, I opened our window and cracked the door, propping it open with a book I’d found in the nightstand. The trickle of air that flowed through our room did little for the stench, but it offered a bit of a respite from the oppressive heat.
Summer had arrived and was not in a pleasant mood.
Thomas stepped out of the restroom, fully changed into dark clothing with a determined set to his jaw. He brushed invisible lint off his coat.
The lobby was dimly lit, a single bulb flickering over the reception desk. The clerk, now a thin man with wire-rimmed glasses and the demeanor of someone perpetually afraid of being reported, didn’t even look up as we strode by.
Out the corner of my eye, I caught the faintest movement in a mirror by the staircase. Sergei—or whoever the goldfish was—hadn’t even tried to conceal himself. He simply leaned against the wall by the front door, smoking, as if that were his job.
Maybe it was. The Soviets were strange like that.
Thomas opened the door for me with a mock flourish, and I stepped out. The sector was quieter than usual, the streets emptied by curfews and fear.
“Left or right?” Thomas asked under his breath.
“Left,” I said without hesitation.
We turned, walking at an unhurried pace, the kind that said we had nowhere to be and were in no rush to get there. I didn’t need to look back to know Sergei had followed. His presence felt like a hand between my shoulder blades.
I was sure Boris lurked somewhere nearby, too.
“We just left our hotel after curfew.” Thomas lit a cigarette, the flame of his lighter briefly illuminating his face. “Think they’ll send more men? Follow us into the park?”
“They’ll follow us into hell if they think we’re up to something.”
We passed by the first checkpoint easily enough. A pair of soldiers slouched against a gate, their rifles resting against a nearby stone wall as though forgotten. The men glanced at us as we strode by but did not try to engage or stop us. I thought that strange, given the hour, but Soviet ways were a mystery on the best of days.
We didn’t have to walk far, only a few blocks. The spire of an old church rose at the edge of the district, its silhouette jagged against the sky.
“It’s time,” Thomas said softly before stubbing out his cigarette against a lamppost and tossing the butt into the gutter.
We turned down a narrow alley, the kind that smelled like damp stone and regret. The light of the nearest streetlamp barely reached the ground.
I stopped walking and listened for the echo of footsteps behind us.
For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of my own breathing. Then—faint but unmistakable—the creak of a boot.
“Split,” Thomas whispered.
We didn’t hesitate.
He turned sharply at the next junction, his coat flaring briefly behind him before the darkness swallowed him whole. I kept going, my strides long and purposeful.
The trick to shaking a tail is simple: Make them think you don’t know they are there. Speed up just enough to make them work, but not so much that you give yourself away.
I rounded another corner and ducked into the recessed doorway of an abandoned building. My breath was steady, my pulse less so. I counted to ten, then stepped back onto the street.
The alley was empty.
I waited another few minutes. Time ground forward.
Still, no one appeared, and there were no more sounds of scuffing soles.
Hugging the wall that ringed the church, I crept forward, careful to roll my steps.
The grounds were eerily quiet, a place of shadows and whispers, of the wheeze of wind through trees. A stone half wall came into view, partially obscured by overgrown shrubs. I watched Thomas slide onto a bench.
His long legs stretched out casually, but his eyes were scanning, always scanning.
I sat beside him, leaving space between us.
A woman’s voice spoke without warning, low and clipped, rising from the darkness behind the wall.
“You are late.”
I flinched, ever so slightly. Thomas didn’t.
“Traffic,” Thomas said, keeping his tone even.
The voice, its accent thicker than a German beer and with all its bitterness, ignored the quip. “Did you lose them? Are you clean?”
“As well as anyone could,” Thomas replied.
“That is not good enough,” the woman snapped. Her voice carried an edge, sharp and unyielding. “If you cannot lose a tail properly, you are of no use.”
Thomas bristled. “We’re here. What do you have for us? And what do we call you?”
“I do not tolerate sloppiness. Not in this game,” she said, then paused. “You may call me Visla.”
Thomas opened his mouth, probably to jab back at our unseen contact, but I shot him a glance and shook my head. This wasn’t the time to test our only ally’s patience.
“Why are we here?” I asked.
Visla’s tone remained cold and businesslike. “Because Berlin is a chessboard, and the Soviets are moving pieces faster than we anticipated. Something has changed—or happened—or is about to happen. We are not sure. We need to know their plans.”
The sounds of the park filled my ears as she drew in a long breath before continuing.
“Tomorrow, you will visit the Reichsbank in Mitte, what is left of it. The Soviets have cordoned it off under the guise of recovery operations, but it is more than just rubble. Something there has their attention, and it is no coincidence their activity has ramped up since securing the site.”
Thomas frowned, his tone skeptical. “The Reichsbank? Do they think Hitler stashed his diary there?”
“They are searching for something,” Visla replied, ignoring his sarcasm. “Whether it is documents, gold, or something else, we are unsure. We care about why they want it. You will blend in with your cover. Antonov will escort you. Play the part and keep your ears open.”
“And if we find something they’re trying to hide?” I asked.
“You report back to me,” she said sharply. “Do not act on your own. Do not make yourself a target. Do not break cover. Gather information and report. That is all.”
The wind shifted, offering a moment’s relief from the heat. Thomas asked, “Anything else we should know?”
“Watch Antonov,” Visla repeated. “He is a loyal Soviet, but that does not mean he is predictable. He is as much a piece on this board as you are. He may not know all the moves being made around him.”
“What’s his story?” I asked. “He’s about as tight lipped as a virgin in Catholic school.”
Thomas fought a sudden surge of laughter. Visla didn’t react. If she owned a sense of humor, she’d left it locked safely in her cave or wherever she crawled back to when not meeting agents in the field.
“His father was a high-ranking officer in the engineering corps of the Soviet army. His mother was a ballerina. She died when he was a teenager. He grew up an only child with a mostly absent father who suckled on the teat of the Soviet state. He was sent to the best boarding schools, raised by teachers and fellow students. Thanks to his intelligence and aptitude, he earned his place at Lomonosov Moscow State University.”
“MSU? The university? The one the Polit bureau’s kids attend?”
“Yes, the only one that matters, outside of specialized schools.” She paused a moment, as if considering how much to tell us. “He only attended MSU one year before transferring to the Special Purpose School.”
“Shit,” Thomas said.
“What’s that?” I asked.
Thomas opened his mouth to respond, but Visla beat him to it. “The formal name is the Training School of the Main Directorate of State Security. It is the training facility for the NKVD.”
“Okay. I’m drowning here. Why does that sound bad?” I asked.
I could practically hear Visla sigh.
“It’s their main spy school. Think Camp X on steroids,” Thomas explained.
At that, Visla actually snorted—or scoffed—I couldn’t tell which. “Crude, but not incorrect. Perhaps also an understatement. Russians have been the masters of our game for centuries. Catherine the Great’s paranoia drove them to another level, and they have advanced since. They pour resources into intelligence in ways we have only begun to ponder. Antonov is a product of that system.”
“Great.” I let out a sigh of my own. “So, he’s a pro.”
Thomas brought us back to the present. “Anything about the Reichsbank itself? Why would the Soviets prioritize it?”
“My guess is it is a deception of some kind, a place they can show you while revealing nothing. Though, with Soviets, it could be anything. If the place really does store as much as Antonov claims, it could also contain secrets in its vaults, documents buried in the wreckage, or could simply be a convenient place for meetings. Your job is to find out.”
The moment stretched so long I wondered if Visla had abandoned us; then her voice again cut through the night air.
“One more thing,” she said. “We should not meet unless it is absolutely necessary. For simple messages, use the dead drop at Café Morgenrot in Wedding, behind the northmost planter near the back-alley entrance. It is small, but secure.”
“A café in the British sector?” I asked, mildly impressed.
“They will think you are drinking tea and reminiscing about grand empires,” she said dryly. “It is safer than a Soviet-controlled district.”
Thomas rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “And if we need to meet again?”
“Three nights from now, the bell tower at St. Agnes Church in Kreuzberg, twenty-three hundred hours. No tails— be sure this time.”
“Understood,” Thomas said.
I cast a quick glance over my shoulder at the half wall. Visla was well concealed. I couldn’t even see her shadow, and her voice betrayed no movement, no emotion, just facts delivered with icy precision.
“Anything else?” Thomas asked.
“There is an event in two nights, the reopening of the Kulturhistorisches Museum Viktoria,” she said.
I whistled, drawing a curious gaze from Thomas.
“Think the Louvre, but German.”
“Are you Americans always so crude?” Visla’s voice dripped with derision. “The French and their garish gilding have nothing . . . Never mind. It is a soirée you must attend. Dignitaries from across Europe will be there. The place will be crawling with agents. Find an excuse to have Antonov get you an invitation. Do whatever it takes.”
I was dying to make a snarky comment about “whatever it took” to get Antonov to act, but decided better of it.
“Get into that party,” she said. “Like I said, it will be swarming with Soviet agents. Keep your eyes open and do not waste time on what is irrelevant. Listen, observe, and prioritize. If you find anything, use the drop site. If not, report at the bell tower.”
“Do you think they would be so bold as to hide their secrets out in the open—”
She cut me off. “They are masters at deception. You must expect everything, especially what you do not.”
“That explains everything,” I muttered.
Thomas grunted.
Another gust of wind stirred the trees. I turned, half expecting her to step out from behind the wall. All I saw was stone and shadow.
Thomas gave a dry chuckle. “At least tell us you’re not going to disappear mid-sentence like in the picture shows.”
Silence.
“Visla?” I turned fully around.
Still no answer.
I scanned the wall, searching for any sign of movement. There was nothing—no retreating footsteps, no parting rustle of leaves. She’d vanished as quietly as she’d arrived.
“Unbelievable,” Thomas muttered. “She’s gone.”
“Just like in the shows,” I said with a grin.
Thomas shook his head, and I could feel his eyes rolling in the darkness. “She’s good.”
“Too good,” I replied, rising from the bench and stretching. “One day, she’s going to pull that vanishing act and not come back. I bet she won’t even leave us a damn note.”
I cast one last glance at the empty wall before we slipped back into the night. Visla’s instructions echoed in my mind like the steady ticking of a clock. Tomorrow was coming, and with it, another game we had to win.