The Target
Page 15
“Sir,” Kirov said. “It is my duty to inform you…”.
“Don’t hide behind that language, Mikhail. This is game over. You know that, don’t you? This whore is going to blow up the whole fucking operation.”
“I’ve got multiple assets scouring Berlin, sir. If she’s there, we’ll find her.”
“You had her, you half-wit.”
“I was informed she was an ordinary policewoman, sir. I allocated the best resources…”.
“Resources Kirov? Really? You sound like a fucking functionary from the ministry of coal.”
“She…,” Kirov stammered, “I don’t know what to say, sir.”
“She slipped through your fingers, that’s what.”
“Yes, she did, sir.”
“And now, for all we know, she’s in the chancellor’s office, spelling out our entire fucking plan.”
“My most valuable asset…”.
“I don’t give a fuck who’s looking for her. What do you expect to happen? That she’ll just happen to cross paths with them in the street?”
Kirov said nothing. Mass must have just ended. People were streaming out of the cathedral.
“If the Americans find out about this,” the president said.
“The Americans are in disarray, sir.”
“Don’t underestimate them, Kirov.”
“The Special Operations Group has practically been wiped out.”
“As long as Roth is in charge,” the president said, “we can’t let our guard down.”
“We killed all but one of their assets,” Kirov said.
He knew he was clutching at straws. Under ordinary circumstances, he wouldn’t have allowed himself to go out on such a limb.
“You sound like a fool, Kirov. A fool trying to save his own skin.”
“Maybe she’ll go to the Latvian embassy, sir. If she does, our people will get to her before she does any more damage.”
“She’s not going to the Latvian embassy, Kirov. That’s not why she fled all the way to Berlin. And she’s not going to the Germans either.”
“No, sir,” Kirov said.
“I want your assets on the Unter den Linden immediately,” the president said. “If she goes anywhere near the US embassy, I want them waiting for her.”
22
Maksim’s phone buzzed, and he looked at the screen. When he saw the call was directly from the Prime Directorate, he answered immediately.
“Sir,” he said.
“Maksim, you need to find this bitch,” Kirov spat. “Find her, or it’s your neck.”
“Of course, sir,” Maksim stammered.
“This is coming from the very top, you hear me? The very top.”
Maksim had no doubts who that referred to.
“We were told she was on the train, sir.”
“How many of you are there.”
“How many, sir?”
“Assets?”
“Two of us, sir. Me and the German.”
“If you don’t stop her, you might as well pack your bags.”
“Sir?”
“You heard me. Now listen closely. She needs to make contact with the Americans. We think she’ll try the embassy.”
“In person, sir?”
“You better hope so.”
“I understand, sir.”
“And if you fuck this up, don’t report back to me, Maksim. Tell that to your German friend too.”
“Sir?”
Kirov hung up.
Maksim looked at the phone, stunned.
“Who was it?” Prochnow said.
“That was the Prime Directorate.”
“This has gone over Zhukovsky’s pay grade.”
Maksim nodded. “They think she’s going to the American Embassy.”
“That’s right across the river. How much time do we have?”
Maksim shook his head.
“You look pale, Maksim,” Prochnow said.
There was a smugness about him, as if they weren’t both in the shit together.
“Fuck you, Prochnow. If we don’t get her before she gets to the Americans, they’re going to cut us both loose.”
The men split up, each running in a different direction. Prochnow went for Wilhelmstraße so that he could approach the embassy from behind, and Maksim crossed the Moltkebrücke over the river, past the German Chancellery and the Platz der Republik. From there, it was a short distance through the park before he emerged at the Brandenburg Gate.
The embassy was directly in front of him, an ultra-modern building that looked more like it housed a pricey law firm or tech company than anything related to a government.
It had multiple service entrances, but the main consulate was accessed through a single glass lobby facing the Pariser Platz.
There were security barriers in front of it, but because the area was pedestrianized, the concrete barriers that would usually be present weren’t necessary.
Twenty yards from the front steps, metal crowd-control gates funneled visitors to the consulate section and split them into orderly lines depending on which department they needed to access. It was the part of the embassy where ordinary citizens could get help with passports, visa applications, and similar issues.
Right before the glass entrance, a dozen marines armed with pistols in holsters screened the visitors and shepherded them through metal detectors and a futuristic x-ray scanner. Inside, there were more marines, armed with M27 automatic rifles.
Maksim walked up to the crowd-control gates and pulled out his phone. It was a pleasant enough morning, a little cold, but there was no shortage of tourists in the square.
He leaned on the gate and lit a cigarette with his back to the embassy.
He scanned the faces of the people in the square, paying particular attention to anyone approaching the embassy.
The target was smart. She was cautious. She’d made it this far.
He removed his earpiece and began taking photos of the Brandenburg Gate on his phone. He acted preoccupied while continuing to scan anyone who approached the embassy. When an attractive woman in a long black coat and dark hair approached from the direction of the Reichstag, he recognized her from a hundred yards out.
There was no doubt it was her.
She’d made some attempt at disguise, with a scarf on her hair and some oversized sunglasses.
In one hand, she carried a newspaper and in the other, a cigarette, which she seemed in a hurry to finish before reaching the entrance to the embassy.
Maksim pulled a cigarette from his pack and walked toward her.
“Excuse me, miss,” he said in Russian. “Do you have a light?”
She stopped dead.
“Don’t run,” he said. “There are snipers watching.”
She glanced around the square. There was no shortage of buildings for them to be watching from.
“You’re going to need to come with me,” Maksim said.
She looked uncertain, as if she still might bolt. She glanced toward the marines at the embassy, then down at the newspaper in her hand.
“Don’t run,” he said, as if doing her a favor. “Please.”
He nodded at the nearest rooftop, as if warning her where the bullet would come from.
“GRU?” she said.
He nodded. There was no use denying that.
“Then I’m as good as dead already.”
“Not if you can be of use to them.”
“I’m not going to switch allegiances.”
Maksim shrugged. “Well, we can’t stay here,” he said, showing her the barrel of an OTs-38 Stechkin silent revolver.
It was a small gun with a long list of shortcomings.
Chambered for the silent 7.62 x 42mm SP-4, it had an extremely short effective range. Thirty feet, maybe.
But that was more than enough to kill Agata where she stood. She would fall to her knees, and the passersby would think she’d stooped to pick something up. By the time they realized she was hurt, Maksim would be half-way across
the square.
He preferred, however, to get her out of view of the marines in front of the embassy.
His training taught him not to allow time for a target to think, and he said, “Come on, speak to my commanding officer. His offer might not be as unpalatable as you fear.”
His words weren’t meant to convince her, but she allowed him to take her arm and lead her toward the Brandenburg Gate. Just beyond it was the Tiergarten, and its manicured lawns and pruned trees would provide ample cover for what Maksim needed to do. He clutched her arm tightly as they crossed the street. As soon as they entered the park, he would pull the trigger.
There would be witnesses, sure, but at least they wouldn’t be armed marines.
He was about to pull the gun from his coat when Agata dropped the newspaper she’d been carrying into a trash can.
He stopped, he knew the paper was important, and in that split second of indecision, she reached into her coat and pulled a gun of her own.
He grabbed her arm as she pulled the trigger and her shot missed him by an inch. At the same time, her knee rose up and caught him in the groin.
He doubled over, and Agata was off like a rabbit, sprinting back into the traffic of Ebertstraße.
She narrowly avoided being hit by a city bus, and Maksim ran after her, moving to cut her off from the Pariser Platz and the safety of the embassy.
He fired two shots, both of which struck the windshields of oncoming cars, and she darted and dodged along the median of the street, ducking every time he fired a shot.
She was running in the direction of the Holocaust Memorial, an enormous maze of thousands of concrete slabs, and Maksim dropped his gun and pulled out a far more capable Star Firestar, single-action, semi-automatic pistol.
He stopped running and raised it up, taking aim.
He pulled the trigger, and the bullet struck her in her back. She stumbled and struggled to continue running for a few more steps, then fell to the ground.
23
Agata felt as if something jumped up from the ground and bit her. The bullet hit her in the back, but the pain came in her gut. She stumbled and fell, reaching out to break her fall. She hit the ground so hard the flesh on her palms ripped open, and she lost hold of her gun. It slid into a traffic lane, and without thinking, she rolled into the traffic and grabbed it.
Cars slammed on their brakes, horns blaring and tires screeching, and narrowly avoided hitting her. She raised her gun and fired two shots directly at the Russian.
By some miracle, both hit their mark, the first in his left shoulder and the other in his arm. He dropped his gun and fell to one knee, a strange look of surprise on his face.
Agata could feel the blood warming her back, soaking her coat.
She didn’t have much time.
She turned and pushed herself up from the ground with all her strength. Traffic in the street had come to a standstill, and the pedestrians stopped in their tracks and stared at her as she ran past.
She stumbled onto the sidewalk and grabbed onto a lamp post for support.
She looked back at the street, and to her horror, the man she’d shot was struggling to get back to his feet. She pointed her gun at him, but there were too many cars in the way.
Half-stumbling, she ran further down the street while the windows of the building behind her shattered and crashed in sheets. She thought of commandeering a vehicle, but the man was too close, the traffic too tightly woven.
She kept running, and when she came to the Holocaust Memorial, she scrambled into it. The memorial consisted of over twenty-seven-hundred concrete slabs, each approximately the size of a grave. Some of them rose only a few inches from the ground, but others were fifteen feet high. The narrow passageways between them created a maze where she might be able to lose her pursuer.
She wanted to lie down, but she forced herself to keep moving.
She felt faint.
Somewhere beneath the memorial, three million names had been inscribed. In a daze, she wondered if hers would be added to the list.
The Russian fired another shot, and it hit one of the slabs, sending chips of concrete flying. She somehow kept moving, ducking behind the taller slabs and weaving among the horizontal and vertical passageways, trying to lose the Russian. She was about to stop behind one of the larger slabs and return fire when she felt the sting of a second bullet biting into her elbow.
She cried out as she fell to the ground, and from around the corner, she could hear his footsteps on the cobbles as he approached.
“You can’t escape,” he cried out, his voice faltering.
Agata dragged herself around the slab and crossed to the next.
“Once the Kremlin gets you in its sights,” he said, “neither God nor man can stop what’s coming.”
Agata struggled along a few more slabs and waited for him to speak again. He couldn’t be more than twenty feet away.
She listened for his feet, and when she heard the scuff of his limp, she rose up and took aim. He must have been waiting for her because without turning his head, he fired a shot in her direction. The bullet struck the slab about six inches in front of her face.
She fired back. Her shots rang out in the air like two sharp cracks of a whip. He looked at her, his skin the pallid color of death, then ducked away behind the concrete.
Police sirens were approaching from all directions. It sounded like dozens of cars. Overhead, two police helicopters were honing in on their position, hovering low.
If she could hold off the man for a few more minutes, the police would arrive.
She listened for his feet, moved two slabs over, then rose up and fired. Her bullet missed his head by an inch, and he turned toward her.
She crouched, and then, instead of moving as she’d done before, rose back up from the same position and fired.
He wasn’t there.
She’d made a mistake.
She never heard his gun, but she felt it. She spun around and tried to dive for cover, but her body failed her. Her muscles could no longer obey her commands.
She fell to the ground hard, unable to break her fall.
The man fired again, and his bullet hit the ground just inches from her head. Chips of stone flew at her painfully, and she shut her eyes.
Without looking where she was shooting, she reached out and fired. The bullet hit home, landing in his chest. She fired again, and this time hit his shoulder. Her third shot hit him in the belly.
“Drop the gun,” someone yelled from behind her.
It was the Berlin city police.
“Please,” she cried. “I need to get to the embassy.”
“Drop the gun,” they yelled again.
Why were they yelling at her? She didn’t understand.
She’d been shot three times and was close to losing consciousness.
“I need to get to the embassy,” she cried out again before realizing she was speaking Latvian and not German.
Her vision blurred. She’d dropped her gun.
The policemen were crouching over her in an instant, examining her wounds, trying to keep her from losing consciousness. She could feel the blood flowing from her body, soaking into the ground beneath her, and looking up at the sky, the concrete slabs of the monument appeared to close in around her, as if she was descending into the ground, deeper and deeper.
Her vision began to dim.
Their voices faded away.
Everything grew darker.
And she realized, as if remembering something from a long time ago, that she was dying.
One of the policemen was pumping her chest. The other was doing something with her arm. They didn’t know she’d been hit in the back.
“She’s not breathing,” one of them said.
“I had a message,” she said.
“What’s she talking about?”
“I think she’s Russian.”
“The newspaper,” she said. “The note is in the paper. He put it in his pocket.”
Then bang.
Bang again.
The sound of fresh gunfire.
24
Christoph Prochnow was a child of Berlin. Not the Berlin of his father’s time. Not the conquered, vanquished city that had been divided by the Allies and brutally repressed by the Soviets.
That city was gone by the time of Prochnow’s birth.
Consigned to the ash heap of history, as Ronald Reagan put it.
That was a world that, apart from the traces it left on the landscape, the deep lines on the faces of the elderly, the industrial detritus of half a century of toil, might never have existed at all.
The children of Prochnow’s generation grew up watching Superman, drinking Coca-Cola, listening to Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jackson.
They lived in a twilight world.
An aftermath.
A war had been lost.
And another.
And another.
A century of disgrace, of humiliation, of loss.
He was like a child in a bunker after a holocaust.
Every picture in every book he read, every story he heard, every hero, every artifact, came from a world that had been lost. That had been destroyed.
The political climate may not have affected everyone the way it affected him. For Prochnow, it came to define every facet of his personality.
His father had been a hardliner, a supporter of the GDR, of the Warsaw Pact, of Moscow. He worked for the Stasi.
The Staatssicherheitsdienst.
State Security Service.
He fought tooth and nail against the forces of reform and democratization. Where others saw freedom fighters, he saw terrorists who threatened to tear down the entire world.
When the Wall came down, he joked that if the new German government sought to replicate the Nuremburg trials, he would be the first to hang.
Prochnow didn’t get the joke, but he laughed. And then he read about the trials. The Allied trial of the Nazi leadership.
The judges were British, French, American, and Russian.
The defendants were German.
They included some of the most evil men known to history.