The Berlin Target

by Nick Carter

  Carter left the Protec report in the SSD car and moved down the block. Dusk had settled just enough to turn on the automatic streetlights.

  Number 32 was indistinguishable from its other two-story-neighbors. Carter rang the bell and put the hardest look he could muster on his face.

  A pockmarked face under slicked-back gray hair appeared in a crack of the door. Carter wouldn't have known it was a woman if she hadn't spoken.

  "What do you want?"

  "'I'd like to speak to Peter Rohenstaffer."

  "What about?"

  "I'd like to tell him myself."

  "He isn't here."

  "Where is he?"

  "None of your business. He is out of town."

  "I see. Who are you?"

  "I am his mother."

  "Oh, well, would you tell Herr Rohenstaffer that we have a mutual friend who has just died?"

  "Who?"

  "He'll know. Tell him I have to have an accounting."

  The woman's mouth began to flap, but before any sound came out of it Carter turned and walked down the steps.

  With the departure of daylight, a light mist had settled in, blurring the illumination from the streetlights into murky shadows.

  Carter walked toward the corner where the two cars wailed, then doubled back. Near the alley, he took up his watch beneath the stoop across the street and two houses closer to the alley than Number 32.

  It was eight minutes by his watch when he saw the curtains of the front windows part slightly. Two minutes later the door of Number 32 opened, and a tall figure in a dark raincoat slipped down the steps. He carried a bulky briefcase, and from the speed of his movement and his carriage Carter put him somewhere in his mid-thirties.

  He crossed the street, passed by the stoop where Carter waited, and headed toward the alley. Carter gave him five seconds and then followed. At the alley turn, the man was about ten yards ahead.

  Carter caught up to him before the man heard his footsteps.

  "You are Herr Peter Rohenstaffer?"

  He turned to flee, but Carter tangled his own leg between the other man's and he went down. As he came up, the Killmaster grabbed his tie and put him against the wall.

  "About three weeks ago you made a gold buy in London for Oskar Hessling…"

  "Leave me alone! I don't know what you're talking about!"

  "You ferried the gold to Zurich and deposited it for Hessling."

  "Who are you?"

  "A man who wants an answer… one answer."

  "Go to hell."

  He tried to bring a knee up into Carter's crotch. The Killmaster caught it on his hip and exploded his right fist into the man's gut.

  "How did you find out Hessling was dead?"

  This time he tried a foot to the shin. It connected, and Carter bit his lip in pain.

  "Okay, mein Herr."

  Carter dropped another in his belly, and tattooed his head against the brick wall.

  "Stop! God, stop, you'll crack my skull…!"

  Carter stopped, and flexed the muscle of his right forearm. Instantly he felt Hugo's smooth hilt in the palm of his hand. He put a half inch of the blade up Rohenstaffer's right nostril and gathered a handful of the man's hair to hold his head steady.

  "I don't have time to play games, and I don't care if you live or die. Talk!"

  "Tony called me… told me Oskar was dead." The man was close to sobbing.

  "When were you supposed to pick up the second bundle?"

  "Last night. Hessling was going to call me right after the payoff was made. Tony called instead."

  "How much?"

  "Same as the other, two hundred and fifty American."

  "Why would Tony call you?"

  "He knows I'm Hessling's outside man."

  "So you know all Oskar's action?"

  Silence.

  Carter drew a little blood with Hugo.

  "Mein Gott, don't kill me!"

  "What's in the briefcase? Files? Records?"

  "Yes."

  "Anything in there about the job that paid a half mil American?"

  "No, that was a private deal. Hessling handled it all after the contact."

  "But you made the first contact?"

  "Yes. It was a woman over the phone. She left ten thousand earnest money in a drop. I figured she was serious, so I put her onto Hessling."

  "What did she want for her money?"

  "I don't know." Carter tickled the man's nose a little more. "I don't know, I swear!"

  Carter pulled the blade from his nose but left it close. "After the deal was set, you must have made some of the arrangements. Hessling wouldn't get his hands dirty."

  "I don't know if I did or not. I do a lot of things for him."

  "Like steal a BMW motorcycle… or have it stolen."

  Rohenstaffer nodded.

  "Where did you deliver it?"

  "The airport parking lot. I left it with the keys and split."

  "What else?"

  "Nothing."

  "There must be something else. You know that kind of fee calls for something big. Don't tell me you haven't guessed."

  The eyes went wild and started rolling. Carter knew he was losing him. This time Hugo's needle-sharp tip went to his neck.

  "I didn't know until I heard it on the news!" he sobbed. "I swear it! I figured it was going to be a hit, but I never guessed it would be the American!"

  "You bargained for the gun, didn't you?"

  "Yes. I only know him as the Turk. He sells out of a whorehouse in Wedding called the Nightbird Hotel."

  "I think you're telling me the truth."

  "I am, I swear."

  "What else?"

  "Uh… uh, the car. I don't know whether it had anything to do with the hit or not, but I set up Gertrude Klammer to deliver a rented Mercedes to a garage on Wiebe Strasse."

  "You're a good man, Rohenstaffer."

  Carter dropped him with a slice to the back of the neck. He knelt and went to work on the briefcase with Hugo. It opened in seconds. Beneath a couple of shirts, some socks, and underwear, he found a gold mine.

  He threw out the clothing and closed the briefcase. After stashing the heroin on Rohenstaffer, he jogged back down the block and slid into the SSD car beside Bruchner.

  "Well?"

  "Big business. He's sleeping peacefully back in the alley."

  "The junk on him?"

  Carter nodded.

  Bruchner climbed out of the car and walked back to the two policemen. He exchanged nods and words, and returned.

  "They'll handle him. Damned dope peddlers. Anything else?"

  "I'll tell you on the way. Do you know the Golden Calf on the Ku'Damm?"

  "Who doesn't" Bruchner chuckled. He whirled the car into a U-turn and headed back toward the center of the city. "What's in the briefcase?"

  The life and times of Oskar Hessling. You can make copies for your people and the locals. The originals are bait for Hans-Otto Voigt."

  "What's at the Golden Calf, besides cheap snoops and whores?"

  "A very nervous woman by the name of Gertrude Klammer."

  Eleven

  Bruchner backed him on the stairs while Carter knocked. There was no answer.

  "Fräulein Klammer?"

  The only sound was the chatter of the drinkers in the bar below and an occasional moan from one of the other rooms.

  "I'm going to pick it."

  Bruchner nodded.

  Both the bartender and the man at the desk had told them that the woman was in her apartment and had been all day.

  Carter's hands sweated as he used the two picks on the lock. He already had a pretty good idea of what he was going to find.

  He wasn't wrong.

  "Bruchner!"

  "Ja?" Carter nodded him in and closed the door. "Mein Gott."

  There were two rooms: a living room and a tiny bedroom alcove behind tattered curtains.

  Gertrude Klammer was arranged neatly on the bed, her eyes open, staring at
the maze of cracks in the ceiling plaster. The angry red gash around her neck told the tale of her last seconds.

  "Garrote?"

  Carter nodded. "Piano wire, very fast and very quiet."

  Bruchner lifted the phone while Carter went to work on the two rooms. He didn't expect to find much, but then he was only looking for one thing.

  Whoever had done the number on Gertrude Klammer hadn't been interested in looking for anything. The place was as neat as a pin.

  "They'll be here in fifteen minutes. I told them to use the back entrance and keep the excitement down."

  "Good," Carter replied. He had just about finished, and had found nothing.

  "You think it was the shooter, covering his tracks after he found out Hessling was dead?"

  "Could be." Carter moved to the corpse.

  The things one gets used to doing, he thought, gingerly pushing a finger into the fleshy part of the neck. The indentation stayed about three seconds. The woman had been dead about five hours.

  The body was fully clothed, with no bruises or any other sign of a struggle.

  Had Gertrude Klammer known her attacker? It would appear so.

  Carefully Carter undid the buttons of her blouse, took a deep breath, and ran a finger under the right cup of her bra.

  Nothing.

  The other side was more productive: a thin, folded slip of paper. Carter glanced at it and handed it to Bruchner.

  "The receipt for the Mercedes."

  "Yeah," the Killmaster said. "That means I got the truth out of Herr Peter. Get on the phone and put a team out to find this Turk."

  "Will do."

  "Mind if I take your car back to the Victoria? I've got a lot of studying to do, and I want to get the Hessling papers copied."

  "Go ahead," Bruchner said. "I'll wait here for the cleanup crew."

  There was a drizzle in the air by the time Carter nosed the car up the Ku'Damm and around the Tiergarten toward the building housing the SSD offices.

  Horst Vintner was still out of his office. Carter dropped off the briefcase, with instructions to have it delivered back to him at the Victoria the minute the contents had been copied, and then returned to the car.

  "Any messages for Carter?" he asked when he returned to the hotel.

  "Ja, mein Herr."

  Carter ripped the envelope. It was from Lisa.

  "I'm at the Company offices. You ask a lot. Do you know how many flights have to be checked? If I get done by eight… dinner?"

  Carter took the elevator to his floor. The instant he hit the room he sensed it: someone had paid a call. His extra pair of shoes were three inches off the mark at the foot of the bed. His suitcase had been moved slightly, just enough to detach the hair he had attached to one side of it with saliva.

  Cautiously he went from corner to corner, wall to wall, phone to TV set.

  Nothing.

  Next he went through the bag and his personal effects — shirts, ties, socks, underwear — inspecting each item carefully before removing it.

  In the bathroom he checked his shaving gear and smelled his aftershave and toothpaste. He even disassembled the stick deodorant. A tiny cyanide-tipped needle or pin stuck in the tube would work wonders.

  He was almost satisfied that it had only been a search, when he noticed the slight crack between the porcelain and the rubber stopper on the toilet seat lid.

  He got down on his hands and knees and used his penlight. There they were: two tiny springs set into the rubber stoppers.

  Keeping his hands as steady as possible, he lifted the lid from the top of the reservoir tank. Two wires ran up, out of the flush pipe. They were attached to an oilskin bundle submerged in the water. Gently he replaced the lid and moved into the bedroom to the telephone.

  "SSD," came a terse reply to the third ring.

  "Horst Vintner, bitte."

  The growling voice came on the line at once. "Vintner."

  "Carter. How close are my copies to being done?"

  "One moment," He was right back. "Another half hour. I've been checking them as they came off. Makes for very interesting reading."

  "Good. When you have them delivered, have it done by a bomb expert."

  "What?"

  "Yeah, I've got about six sticks of dynamite in my toilet tank."

  He hung up and dived for the Berlin directory.

  "Der Bavarian."

  "Erich Voigt, bitte."

  "Herr Voigt has not come in."

  "Yeah? Well, you tell him Carter called. The bomb didn't go boom."

  "What is this…?"

  "This is bullshit. Tell him I'm doubling the pressure."

  Carter hung up and returned to the bathroom. Gingerly he splashed water on his face and then sat down to read the rise to power of Stephan Conway.

  * * *

  Oncoming dusk and the onset of a light but warm drizzle had driven most of the bathers from the grassy banks of the Hallensee. Those that were left kept to their nude hedonism.

  The Turk lay on the grass directly below the concession stand. About fifty yards out in the lake, a raft bobbed at its moorings. Unlike the couples around him, the Turk wore a suit.

  He was where he was supposed to be. Where was the woman?

  He had checked her source out with Hamburg. She was legit. She had agreed to the price over the phone. Not so unusual. People who wanted guns in a hurry usually didn't quibble about price.

  Near the Turk's hip, wound tightly in a waterproof bag attached to a belt, was a sample of the merchandise, a silenced Walther PPK.

  She had told him on the phone that she wanted ten of them. The Turk had jacked the price up a thousand marks per unit. She had agreed, as long as the quality was good. She had also hinted that there might be a larger order to follow.

  He checked the fading light. It must be close to six o'clock. She was almost a half hour late.

  And then he saw her. She was directly in front of him, standing near the water. She looked like some kind of raven-haired goddess, with the upper half of her body silhouetted against the gray sky. Her clothing was a halter bra and a wraparound skirt.

  I will be wearing a matching black and white striped top and skirt.

  Then her hands started working, and the skirt fell to the grass.

  She stood, making sure that the Turk had spotted her, then she turned toward the water and stretched to her toes.

  The Turk's mouth watered. Maybe he could extract a little extra payment. She was beautiful, not the kind of woman with whom the Turk normally came in contact.

  The long legs seemed to quiver with strength clear up to the equally quivering, well-rounded buttocks. Her stomach was flat, indented between sharp hip bones. The breasts were large, firmly jutting from her rib cage.

  "Maybe I give you a deal on price after all, woman," the Turk muttered, moving the belt around his middle and fastening it.

  She arched her body into the water, and the Turk went in after her. The sun had beat down most of the day, until about an hour before, making the water warm.

  She crawled up onto the raft with lithe ease, and stretched out with her toes facing the grassy slope and her head toward the center of the lake. The Turk joined her in the same position, his thigh nudging hers.

  "You brought the sample?"

  Her German was accented slightly, but the Turk couldn't place her native tongue.

  "I did."

  "Let me see."

  He removed the belt and pushed the pouch in front of their heads so it couldn't be seen by anyone on the bank. He unzipped it, peeled back the inner, waterproof lining, and extracted the Walther.

  "The silencer?"

  He removed the silencer and screwed it into the snout of the Walther. "It is a prime piece, completely rebuilt. I can get you all you want."

  She had rolled to her left side and molded her body to his. It was difficult, with her soft breasts caressing his shoulder, for the Turk to keep his mind on business.

  She fumbled in the dark
ness beneath her breasts and removed a small oilskin pouch. Each movement made more sweat break out on the Turk's body.

  "I have to say, this is the strangest way I have ever made a delivery."

  She chuckled. "But you must admit it is private. No one on shore is paying any attention to us, and no one can hear us."

  "True."

  She handed him three shells from the pouch. "Load it."

  "Load it…?"

  "Of course. I don't want merchandise with faulty firing pins."

  The Turk shrugged against her, and ejected the clip. He inserted the three shells. He jammed the clip back into the butt and armed it. "Okay?"

  "Yes." She nodded, rolling her body partially over his. "Fire, once, into the water."

  He shifted the gun to his right hand and fired. Her hand was just above his, her warm breath on the back of his neck. Her bra must have slipped down. He could feel her bare nipples hardening against his back.

  "Satisfied?" he stammered.

  "Again." He fired a second shell into the water. "Now let me."

  She reached for the gun. Her whole body moved over him. The feel of her skin was intoxicating, so intoxicating that he failed to notice that on her right hand she wore a glove, a clear plastic surgeon's glove.

  She lifted the gun from his hand, but instead of firing the third and final round into the water, she turned the barrel toward his head. Before he could stop her, the blunt nose of the silencer was grinding into the soft hollow behind his right ear.

  "What the…?"

  "Shhh, be very still and very quiet."

  "What are you doing?"

  "I'm angling the barrel so if I fire, the bullet will go directly into your brain."

  "You crazy bitch…!"

  He froze. Her left hand had moved around to place a piece of paper and a small pen on the raft under his face.

  "Read that and sign it."

  The Turk had to wipe the sweat with nervous fingers from his eyes before they would focus.

  "You are a crazy bitch!"

  "Didn't you supply the F1 for Hessling?"

  Silence. She ground the silencer deeper.

  "Oow, damn you!"

  "Didn't you?"

  "I've got a lawyer! You pigs can't get away with…"

  She chuckled in his ear. "I am not SSD or the police."

  "Then why…?"

  "Blackmail. I know who hired Hessling to find Klauswitz."