In 1998, Dieter Reich had ended up under her microscope, and now, ten years later, she pulled up that file-or the copy she had kept for her personal records-and refreshed her memory.
BND minders had noticed weekend purchases on Reich’s credit card in Aalsmeer, just south of Amsterdam. There were dinners and clothes and, most importantly, hotel rooms with double beds. Reich had been married for fifteen years, and during those weekends his wife, a Czech named Dana, had remained at home.
That he was having an affair was not the issue. The issue was that he had not reported his mistress’s name for vetting. So Erika took care of it herself.
Haqikah Badawi was a thirty-year-old Egyptian graduate student of economics at the University of Amsterdam. She had met Reich during one of his trips to Brussels in 1996, when she was interning with the EU public affairs office, and by the next year he was visiting her whenever he could come up with a work-related cover to fool his wife.
Badawi came from a respectable and progressive Cairo family that had made its money in that indefinable industry called import/export. Her student friends, though politically active, showed no real sign of radicalism, and she wrote occasional articles for the weekly European Voice, where a friend was associate editor. Bright, erudite, and attractive-the only question, which Reich himself was psychologically unable to ask, was why she opened her legs to an unexceptional German bureaucrat who was twenty-five years her senior.
It took three weeks and a hated trip into the field for Erika to realize that the impossible had happened: This Egyptian girl was in love with Dieter Reich. Though no real explanations could answer this paradox, from their conversation she inferred that Reich reminded her of a beloved uncle back in Cairo. Erika returned to Pullach bewildered but satisfied that while Reich should be reprimanded for his secrecy, nothing should be done to get in the way of his liaisons.
However, the damage had been done. Two weeks later Badawi herself broke off the affair, explaining that she’d realized (Erika got this from an intercepted e-mail) that there was something infantilizing about her role in the relationship, and she didn’t want to live through her thirties pining over a father figure. It was time for her to grow up.
Erika didn’t know if Reich knew about her visit, or suspected (as she did) that her conversation with Badawi was the catalyst for her to reconsider their relationship. Reich showed no sign of animosity in the office, even as his life shrank suddenly, his international affair dead. As far as she knew, he and his wife were getting along wonderfully.
There was no joy in this, but in the present situation it felt necessary. The Americans had suggested Reich because they knew he would cut off his own hand before doing anything to risk his pension. Berlin also knew this but was too scared to dispute the suggestion. So she would have a talk with Dieter Reich. He would continue to head the case-she didn’t care who got credit-but he would allow her to assist. If he refused…
It was all here in the Badawi file, because what Reich could never have predicted was that on September 11, 2001, the world would change, dragging a variety of ambivalent people into the extremes. Badawi had been one such convert who, like Erika, felt the Americans had too much of a hand in things that didn’t concern them. Badawi, however, lacking any real power to effect change, returned to Cairo just after the 2003 invasion of Iraq and became a member of al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, considered a terrorist group by the Egyptian government, the European Union, and the United States-which since 1993 had held its blind leader, Omar Abdel-Rahman, in a federal prison. There was no telling what pieces of German intelligence had crossed their pillow and made it eventually to ears in Egypt.
By one, when Oskar returned from the basement, she had settled on her plan of attack. He closed the door behind himself, and she noticed a folded sheet of paper in his hand, and that, below his puffy eye, his cheeks were very red. “Did one of the secretaries slap you again?”
Oskar leaned so that the edge of the desk cut into the meat of his palms, the paper held tight between two fingers. “Three things. One: Milo Weaver-or, at least, his passport-wasn’t in Europe when Adriana was kidnapped. As far as we can tell, his passport hasn’t left America since last summer.”
It wasn’t entirely unexpected, but it was still disappointing. “What about Budapest?”
“No record of it,” he said with a dismissive wave of his free hand. Then he grinned the way he did when he hoped he might shatter Erika’s cool exterior. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I can see you’re burning to put me in my place. Number two?”
“Milo Weaver hasn’t been in Europe recently. But Sebastian Hall-he’s been around for months.”
“Who?”
He unfolded the page to display a police sketch of a man who looked for all the world like Milo Weaver.
“That’s…?”
“Exactly. As Sebastian Hall, Milo Weaver robbed the Bührle Museum a few weeks ago.”
“The Bührle? How did this come in?”
“Face popped up on the Interpol list fifteen minutes ago, and I was downstairs to see it. Sebastian Hall, American. Seems he made the mistake of adding a Serb to his crew.”
“No need to be racist, Oskar.”
“Sorry,” he said through a smile. “But I thought you might like to know the third thing.”
“I think I would.”
“Mr. Hall just arrived in Warsaw, from London, an hour ago. Another couple hours, and we’ll have the hotel and room number.”
Erika blinked at him. It was excellent work, but Oskar was too easily charmed by his successes. “You’re going there, of course.”
“Of course,” he said. “As soon as my boss is put back on the case.”
“Right.” She groaned to her feet. “Give me a minute.”
Once she reached Dieter Reich’s dusty basement office, it only took seven minutes-more time had been spent getting there. She made her case concisely. All it took was a suspicion of helping the enemy for not only this case but his career to slip from his hands. An early dismissal, and then his entire pension would be called into question. “It would certainly be hard on Dana. The loss of money, of course, but the details of the affair-it would crush her, I imagine.”
By the time she returned to her office, she desired nothing more than a long bath to wash off the dirt, and Oskar misinterpreted her expression as failure. “Ask the motor pool for something reliable,” she told him. “Dieter will okay it.”
“How did you do it?”
She took a long time to settle back into her chair. “I put on the clothes of the kind of people we hate.” She stared a moment at her desk, then peered up at him. “The trouble is, they fit rather well.”
9
Despite the fact that, at thirty-two now, Oskar Leintz had been only fourteen when the German Democratic Republic ceased to exist, he would remain, for the rest of his life, an Ossi living in the West. It was a fact he was never able to forget, particularly when he traveled back to Leipzig for family gatherings. His parents still considered Munich a foreign city.
He sometimes wondered if this in-betweenness, or this lingering outsider status, was why Erika Schwartz had plucked him out of the training center in 2000 as her personal assistant. When he asked, she joked, “You looked like you could lift things, which is really all I need. Someone who can lift things.”
Things like you? he’d wanted to ask, but at that point he still had no idea how good she was. Her name had come up among the other students, no more than rumors about an obese, caustic woman who could take a stack of files and ferret out a mole and turn him into a triple agent, all without leaving her desk. It took a while before he finally believed the rumors.
At various points during their eight years, he had wondered if accepting the position had been career suicide. Others even mentioned it to him. Franz Teufel, probably acting for Wartmüller, approached him after the CIA heroin scandal-a liaison position had opened up in Berlin, and perhaps Oskar was interested? When he said
he wasn’t, Franz gave him an opaque lesson on the biorhythms of bureaucratic careers. “They max out, lose their internal drive, and after a while simply collapse. Schwartz has had her time, Oskar. There’s no need to be on hand to witness the collapse.”
Was it loyalty, misplaced or not, that compelled him to remain Erika Schwartz’s manservant?
Perhaps, but more than that Oskar tended to believe that he had chosen the right side, and that in the end, despite evidence to the contrary, Erika’s camp would be victorious. Whatever that meant.
He signed out a gray Mercedes and was on the road by three. Though the drive would take as much as twelve hours, flying was impossible, both because of what would be done with Milo Weaver and because Weaver’s fate had to be kept from their superiors. As he drove, he made two calls. Following Erika’s suggestion, he contacted Heinrich and Gustav, two Leipzigers he’d known from the BND academy, both of whom had been useful for other under-the-radar operations. They promised to meet him at an OMV station along the E51, and when he arrived they were waiting with thick jackets, sunglasses, and cheerful smiles.
The first leg took five hours, heading north toward Potsdam, then turning east. After nine, they stopped in Frankfurt an der Oder and ate rushed meals of ready-made sandwiches and jogged around a bit to stretch their legs, then continued into Poland, taking turns at the wheel so everyone could nap in the back. That last dismal stretch after ŁódŹ was the worst, and just before Warsaw they topped off the gas tank and verified that all the lights were working-a Polish cop pulling them over for a broken blinker would have been a disaster. Then they continued into town and parked as close to the Marriott as possible.
As they took the stairs up to Weaver’s room, Oskar had to talk himself down. Over the last hour his adrenaline had begun to kick at him as he remembered that video clip. This man, the girl, and the report of a professionally broken neck. Then the footage he’d seen over the previous week of the miserable parents making their inept televised plea, and later seeing them in the flesh outside the Bulgarian church. These memories coalesced into a hatred that surprised him, and he had to whisper to himself to make sure he didn’t kill this CIA man.
Before entering, he measured 30 mg of liquid flurazepam hydrochloride into a syringe. Gustav found the switch to turn off the hall lamps, while Heinrich used a homemade skeleton keycard on the lock. They entered slowly, and in the light from the television the two helpers nearly laughed at the sound of Weaver’s snoring, but Oskar didn’t. He took in the form on the bed, half dressed, stinking of alcohol and cigarettes, his nose swollen from what must have been a fist. Then he noticed the soft-core pornography. He shut the door.
When they struggled with him, Oskar considered making a mistake. It was a thought that came and left quickly, but while it remained he felt some comfort in it. Pull the plunger on the syringe to add a little air, and then let God decide whether or not the bubble should kill this killer of children. When Erika cornered him about it later, he could admit his mistake and point out that it had been dark in the room.
Afterward, as the American weakened and the agents began to wrap him in his sheets, Oskar settled beside him on the bed. “Don’t worry. We’re not going to kill you yet.”
“You’re German?” Weaver muttered, his voice slurred.
“Yes, I am.”
Weaver said something short and utterly indecipherable before losing consciousness completely.
As the men finished their job, Oskar collected the items on the bedside table. A keyless ring, sunglasses, a wallet and passport full of the name Sebastian Hall, an iPod, and a cheap-looking Nokia, which he was careful to disassemble before they went anywhere.
10
When Milo woke hours later, the world would not remain still long enough for him to focus in the darkness. A high whining noise enveloped him. He was folded up in a cramped fetal position, arms behind him, and in pain from some ungodly mix of hangover and whatever he’d been injected with. No matter what he did he couldn’t stretch out, the world wouldn’t stop shaking, and that high whine wouldn’t stop. That’s when he knew: He was in the trunk of a car.
He choked for breath as it all came back, that brief consciousness and the three Germans, lit by a television with naked women rolling across the screen.
Panic is best dealt with by locating yourself, with as much specificity as possible, in both geography and time. It was at least morning, he knew, because dim light bled through the seams of the trunk. Though he stank of other things, there was no urine smell-his bladder hadn’t yet emptied. So he doubted it was afternoon.
Geography: He was on a highway, and, given the number of times the car shifted, changing lanes, it was a busy enough road. He guessed that he was on the E30, the highway leading westward from Warsaw.
When had he been taken? Bed by eleven, and then-how long did Polish television play porn? Until three or four, he guessed. He’d been taken at the latest by four. Sunrise was around six thirty, so they’d been traveling for at least two and a half hours, probably more. They were in Germany or the Czech Republic by now.
He could be wrong-they might have driven east-but the man with the bruised eye and the mustache had admitted to being German, and so he supposed they were taking him to Germany. If he was wrong, it didn’t matter. All he wanted was to control the panic.
Yet even though he’d given himself a place in time and space, his blood-sapped, frigid hands still twitched, because he couldn’t shake the thought from his head: This is how she felt. This is how she felt when I kidnapped her.
Later, when the trunk opened, gray light and cold air spilled in. It was an overcast day, the sky visible only straight up; to the left and right were the sides of big rigs the car had parked between. He was in his coat-someone had dressed him-and around the coat was a white sheet. He blinked up at the mustached man looking down at him, chewing gum, and felt an urge for some Nicorette. Or Dexedrine.
“I’m an American citizen,” he said in his most American voice. “You can’t just push me around.”
“Of course not,” said the German. He peered over the top of the car and behind himself, then settled on the bumper. Milo, folded into the trunk, considered ways he might kick the man, but none would work. “You want water?”
“I want some answers.”
“And water?”
He was cool, this German, so Milo nodded. “I’m parched. Some aspirin, too, if you’ve got it.”
He did. One of his partners, a huge man, appeared and held Milo’s head at an angle so he could swallow some bottled water; then the mustached one slipped two paracetamol between his lips. More water. When it was done, Milo’s chin was drenched and cold.
It was a roadside stop, and they were hidden between trucks to avoid easy detection. The one who’d lifted his head lit a cigarette, and in the distance Milo saw the third one-a small, wiry guy-standing at the end of the trucks watching the road. They were waiting for something.
“Food?” asked the mustached one.
“I’ll just throw it up.”
“Probably right.”
“You want to tell me why I’m here?”
“I don’t think so,” he said, then stood but didn’t walk away.
“I’ve got to pee.”
“You are a big boy. You can hold it.”
“Any Nicorette?”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve been using nicotine gum, but I’m out. Any chance you have any?”
The man frowned, thinking this over, then shook his head. “We’ll get you some cigarettes.”
“I’d prefer not to start again.”
“You think that matters at a moment like this?” he asked, his expression suggesting he was truly curious about it.
“Forget it,” said Milo. “Why don’t you shut the door and let me get some sleep?”
The man smiled at that, then closed the trunk. Milo regretted his joke.
Less than five minutes later it opened again, and behind the musta
ched man, between the trucks, a small van had pulled in backward, its rear doors open to reveal a wheeled hospital cot locked into place. The EU license was German-he’d been right about their direction. “Time to get up, Mr. Weaver.”
“Mr. What?”
The man stared at him, and Milo grinned.
“Now I get it-you’ve got the wrong guy! My name is Hall. Sebastian Hall. Listen,” he said, not really believing this would work, “I don’t know who you are. Just cut me loose. I won’t say a thing, and you can go find this Weaver character. I mean, you don’t want the wrong person, do you?”
The man’s morose expression didn’t change. “Milo Weaver, Sebastian Hall-it’s all the same to me.”
His two friends helped Milo sit up, then lifted and moved him to the cot. There was nothing smooth about the transfer-this wasn’t their regular occupation-and Milo’s head bumped against the door frame as they tried to climb inside with him. He said, “Slowly now, fellas.” Neither answered.
Now that they were taking them off, he could see that his ankles had been bound by PlastiCuffs, which they cut with Swiss Army knives as they strapped his legs into the cot. Then they pushed him into a sitting position and undid his hands, the blood rushing coldly back into them. They tingled and hurt. The men pushed him flat again and stretched more straps tightly across his chest and around his wrists.
The whole process took about three minutes, and the mustached man joined him in the back of the van as the others closed and locked the windowless doors from the outside. There wasn’t much space, so the man settled on the floor beside Milo as the van started up and began to roll. Soon they were back on the highway.
“You going to tell me anything?” asked Milo.
“No. And I’ve got another syringe in my pocket in case you insist on talking the whole way.”
The Nearest Exit Page 17