by Eddy Shah
'How can you do that to your lungs? In your profession?' she said, as he inhaled deeply.
He decided to ignore her comments. 'So let's say they are Nazis. Why kill Trimmler? Why the swastika mark?'
'Israelis.'
'Could be. But why take out all those American and Russian sleepers?'
'Discount operation. Two for the price of one.'
'Very funny.'
'Maybe it really is simpler.'
‘He watched her closely. ‘Go on.’
She shook her head while she thought. He stayed silent, leaving her alone to resolve what had entered her thoughts.
‘It wasn’t Israelis. The sleepers were just decoys.’
‘Go on.’ Adam had a small smile on his face, but she didn’t notice.
‘It was someone who knew about the computer virus. It was one of The Lucy Ghosts. Or a group of them. Someone with a lot of power. They needed to wipe out the files. And the only way they could do that was by triggering off the computers. They knew about the other stuff on the database. So they went after the sleepers. Russians thought it was us, and we thought it was them. Only we didn’t fall out. Glasnost, and all that. The plan didn’t work exactly like they wanted.’ She looked at Adam. ‘Why’re you smiling?’ she said.
‘You’re right. The sleepers were all decoys. The main target to be wiped out on the data base were the Lucy Ghosts. That’s also why they arranged a fire in Moscow. To destroy the files on them.’
‘You knew, didn’t you?’
‘Only when we were talking to Goodenache. It suddenly made sense. But I wanted to see if you came up with the same conclusion.’
‘He said Mitzer was the power. Mitzer had the organization. He had full entry into all those files. He knew everything that was in them. He didn’t need to wipe them out. All he had to do was introduce the virus. It wouldn’t be activated until someone else opened those specific files.’
‘Someone who was prepared to use that information to turn the Russians against you Yanks. Someone with an organization with people who were prepared to kill.’
‘That doesn’t fit Mitzer’s profile. He was an organiser, not a cold-blooded murderer.’
‘Someone who had no link with the Lucy Ghosts. Someone who just used their money and their contacts.’
‘Goodenache knows who that is. That’s why he’s gone into hiding.’
She said nothing for a while. Then, 'There're still a lot of Nazis out there waiting to come back.'
'I agree. And it has to be stopped.'
'We can find out, but we can't stop it.'
'That's the difference between us. You're trained to get information. I'm trained to use it. No point in the information otherwise. Look, Billie, this whole thing is changing shape. We're getting close to something. I can smell it.'
'So can I. But what's that got to do with us?'
'You won't be able to cope with it. It's not in you. Power and violence go together. It's called the law. Where power is backed by violence. By people like me. Fighting for the good guys. Then you come across this. Where the violent have the power. No fucking scruples. And they chop someone's hands off because they think it's okay. That's when I go down to their level. Not pretty. And definitely not for you, Billie.'
'Time for me to get off, eh?'
He nodded.
'I can't just go back. Not without a good reason.'
'You found Goodenache. Just say that's what you set out to do, to stick with me in case I knew something, and that when the mission was accomplished, you brought him home. You can also tell them the real reason for all this.'
‘What about Goodenache?’
‘Nobody knows he’s here. He’ll keep till tomorrow. He needs to sleep off all that alcohol.’
She came towards him; in her eyes he could see the dread of what was to be. Trouble was, he didn't want to lose her either. But duty had to be the priority.
She reached up and stroked his chin. Then she leant forward - they were almost the same height - and caressed his cheek with her lips. He stood still, not daring to move, unable to break away. Damn it, they'd become too close.
'Not tonight, tough guy,' she whispered. 'No more alone.'
She put her arms round him, held the back of his neck and stroked his hair. Then she leant forward and kissed him on the mouth, brushed his lips, stroked them with hers, watched his eyes looking back at her. She knew he was hers and it thrilled her. She kissed him harder.
Moments of pleasure. Moments of joy.
Incomprehensible, the enormity of it all. Why the two of us? Of all the atoms of the world. In this tacky room. No diamonds, no chandeliers, no party frocks and silk stockings, no glitz, no strains of smooching Sinatra. Just us and a dusty bed.
He put his arms on her waist and pushed her away, held her firm.
'What's wrong?' she asked.
'I'm not used to this.'
'What do you mean ?'
'I can fuck. This I've never done before. This is more.'
'Ooh, tough guy. Just let it go. No performance. Just you.'
And she took his hand and led him to the bed.
She tugged at his sweater and he helped her take it off. She smiled. 'It's easier if we just undress ourselves.' Then she went and turned off the light.
'Why?' he asked.
'It's better. Too harsh.' She lied. She didn't tell him she was embarrassed by her forty two year old body, didn't tell him that his youth made her feel old. Breasts squashed with time, overloaded in their fullness, stomach too relaxed with middle age.
He didn't push it. He understood the real reason. He grinned in the darkness. In time, she'd learn to trust him. Then they slipped under the blanket, wrapped into each other, their eyes locked locked in wonder and anticipation. They moved little, just pressed against each other, felt the excitement of unknown flesh. He loved her skin, the smoothness of her. He'd never felt skin like that, velvet skin, warm and slippery skin that absorbed him into her.
For a moment she felt fat, hated her skin, dreaded him feeling the wrinkles. To her, his body had a firmness she had never felt before. It was a smooth body, not bumpy and muscular like Gary's, or soft like Peter's, just rounded with muscle and firm. Later in the night she would discover the scars, the knife wound across his shoulder blades where he'd been slashed in a Belfast bar, and the bullet wound above his right knee that had never healed properly, a legacy from when he was on border patrol and one of his own men had panicked and opened fire on him. All she felt now was his firmness as he pressed against her, probed gently into the dandelion fluff of her mound.
It was a desperate moment, full of emotion, urgent.
They were side by side, and she rolled onto her back, arched herself to receive him as she stretched her legs outwards and clasped them round him.
He kept still, wanting them both to crave each other beyond emotion. It was a full two minutes before he pushed firmly into her and felt her warmth envelope him, felt her bury her face in his shoulder, heard her gasp, a little pain, unused to him being there, then the gush of warmth and love and pleasure.
He felt her tears on his shoulder and looked at her, but she was showing pleasure. They groaned, their love expressed in their sounds. Suddenly she'd forgotten the darkness, suddenly she was only twenty one. They held each other tight, so tight that it took their breath away. Somehow they didn't notice and kept breathing anyway, zipped together into one being.
'I see stars,' she whispered into his ear, clutching him tightly, her eyes still half open and half shut, all seeing in the darkness, understanding earth and time and life and what it is in the moment's joy. 'I see flashes of light. God, I love you.'
It surprised him. No-one had ever said that before. He'd never allowed anyone the opportunity. 'I love you.' Strange words, but suddenly they seemed natural. He had never felt this power of emotion before.
And he pushed harder, moved himself in small circular motions to taste her wetness inside, to feel every part of he
r that she offered him and shared with him in her vulnerability.
They were like that for a long time. Sometimes moving, sometimes still, the hardness of him and the warmth and softness of her blended into one. It had to go on forever. Then, when he could take it no more, when he was on the edge of the precipice, but knew he was ready before her, he left her warmth sharply, not wanting to, desperate to continue, but knowing their love must be shared, must be, as it always was, one of union and togetherness.
He saw the sudden disappointment in her face, the flash of a scowl across her eyes. He smiled. 'It's okay,' he said. And then he kissed the rose petals, wiped the dew from her lips. He felt her soften.
He bent between her legs now. He wanted to taste her, to taste the heat that was her love, to taste the wetness. He watched her face before he entered her. He was surprised by her, there was little expectancy, just blankness. She'd turned her head away. He moved his tongue slowly inside her, felt her arch her back again, as if in some form of eager surprise. He had never done that before to anyone, had always found it beyond him. But with her it was natural. With her the body was a vessel of love and tenderness and belonging.
Her taste was new to him, and as he ran his tongue along her, curled it deep into her, it excited him. He washed his face in the perfume that was her love for him. Then he searched out the little hard protruding button that was the energy of her sex, he stabbed at it with his tongue, felt her respond quickly, then urgently.
There was no awkwardness now, no face turned away. Just the joy and exhilaration of love and flying where she hadn't been before.
He wondered if she'd still seen the stars.
'Did you come?', he asked, moving up to her once again, facing her, desperate to see her beauty and share the joy that she had just been through.
'I think so,' she said. 'I'm never sure.'
He smiled. She smiled. They both knew that she had. Different, a rare feeling as no other, but deep down they both knew something good had happened.
He kissed her once again, their tongues combining behind the dew of her lips.
He felt her lift up to him as they started the final phase of their journey. No violence, no rapid motion, just feeling and tenderness and a pressure that was beyond sex, somewhere on another plane.
When he was once again close to his own explosion, holding back for her to join him, she said 'Stay.'
He stopped moving, just pushed harder into her, held her with his love and waited for her.
'Stay,' she said again, this time more urgently.
Their bodies were joined, in the burning heat there was no heat, only the warmth of the love that wrapped them together.
She pulled harder at him, squeezed the very breath from his body.
'Stay.' Once again. The word thrilled him.
'I love you, Billie,' he said, regretted it, didn't want to break her own private intensity, but wanted to say her name.
'I love you,' she replied.
Then he heard that fluttering little gasp, the breath caught in them both, and the gasp was overtaken by a louder excitement in her voice, in her sounds of love. It was joined by another voice; he realised it was his own. The intensity was more than he had ever felt before. All that he had to give her with his mind and body was sucked out of him into her. He lay still, not wanting to break the spell, attempting to work out what was different. Before this, sex had been a temporary relief in a world of melancholy and crisis. It had been forgotten as quickly as it had begun. But this was a homecoming. Only Billie had ever done this for him.
He wrapped his arms round her, in the security of their warmth and smell and taste and foreverness, and they started to fall asleep.
'Goodnight, Princess.'
'Night, tough guy,' she replied, softly in her half sleep.
'I love you.'
'I love you, too.'
The homecoming was complete.
'Did you hear that?' he asked her.
'What?' she answered in her half sleep.
'I'll be back,' he said and climbed out of the bed. He slipped on his trousers, sweatshirt and shoes. There were no more sounds of men running, but his warning bells were ringing.
What, Marcus, what's going on?
'Where're you going?' she asked, suddenly awake and watching him take the Browning from his holdall.
'Just checking everything's okay. Be back in a minute,'
He slipped out of the door and checked the corridor. It was empty.
He climbed the emergency stairs to the next floor and crossed to Goodenache's door. It was all quiet. He could see the light under the door. They'd switched it off earlier, when they'd left Goodenache. He put his hand on the door handle and tested it. The door was unlocked and he opened it carefully, the Browning cocked and ready in his right hand.
It was a carbon copy deed, just as terrible as the first time.
A naked Goodenache was sprawled across the bed. The slash of blood across his throat and down his cheek revealed the knife wound he had died of. The blanket was thrown back and the sheet was swamped in blood, thick and red like liver. It was thickest at each side of the chest, where his arms had been.
Adam closed the door. He already knew what had happened to the arms. They were on the other side of the bed, crossed over, shaped like a swastika.
He searched the room, went through Goodenache's suit pockets, his suitcase and briefcase. There was nothing of interest or value, nothing that gave any clue as to why the scientist had been killed.
Five minutes later he returned to his own room. He shook Billie awake.
'What's the matter?' she asked, seeing him fully dressed.
'We've got to get out of here.'
'Why?' Still sleepy.
'Goodenache's dead.'
'What?' she exclaimed, waking instantly and sitting up. The blanket fell away from her, revealed her nakedness.
'You're beautiful!' Adam leaned down and kissed her left breast.
'Adam!' She covered herself in her forty two year old embarrassment. 'For God's sake!'
He laughed and stood up. He'd forgotten death wasn't part of her every day vocabulary. 'I'm sorry. Come on. Get dressed.'
'You serious?'
He nodded.
'How?'
'Same way as Trimmler.'
'Oh no!' She looked shattered. Then she swung her legs out of the bed and hurriedly got dressed. Adam packed his few belongings, then went next door and did the same for Billie. When he returned with her case, she was ready and he led her down the hall, through the emergency exit, past the sleeping night porter in his little room and into the car park.
It had started to snow and the thin white covering reflected the lights of the two police cars as they swept down Yorckstrasse towards the hotel. They didn't need their sirens at this time of the night.
Adam grabbed Billie and hid her behind the Audi, glad that he'd chosen a four wheel drive Quattro. He unlocked the car, clicked off the interior light and pushed her across to the passenger seat. He threw the two bags in the back and climbed in, pulling the door shut behind him.
'Down!' he commanded as the first police car pulled up outside the Kurhotel entrance, its lights illuminating the car park. Two policeman climbed out as the second car arrived, and when the four officers had gathered, they entered the hotel.
'Why don't we just brave it out?' asked Billie.
'They'd never believe us. What with Trimmler in New Orleans and Goodenache here. Would you?' He saw it made her think for a moment, about him. 'Don't be stupid. I was with you.'
She didn't reply and Adam saw she was desperately trying to believe him.
'I didn't. And if I had, I wouldn't have called the police. Come on, love. It's called a frame up.'
'Means you're stuck with me.'
'I've worked that one out already.'
He switched the engine on and swung the Audi out of the car park, down Yorckstrasse towards the outskirts of the city. He stayed on the wrong side of the roa
d, followed the tracks recently made by the police cars as they drove through the snow. The last thing he wanted to do was leave a trail for them.
It was two in the morning.
It was a long drive to Dresden.
The snow continued to fall as the Quattro clawed its way eastward towards whatever it was that they were seeking, whatever terrible things were waiting at journey's end.
Ch. 65
66 Vauxhall Bridge Road
London
You could tell nobody was welcome just by looking at the building. The metal shutters on the windows and behind the doors of the four storey grey structure were designed to keep out unnecessary callers. There was no-one in reception, but if a stranger entered, he would soon find himself in the company of a gentleman in a blue suit with a friendly smile on his face and a bulge under his coat.
The roof bristled with antennae, of all shapes and sizes, tuned to a variety of radio signals and wavebands. This was a building of secrets, a part of British Military intelligence, but not linked to Cheltenham's GCHQ, and a place for only the most covert communications.
There had been some concern in the early Eighties, when one of the national dailies, Today, moved its headquarters into the next door building. After the initial flurry that prompted an internal memo warning staff not to fraternise with their neighbours, things soon returned to normal. The newspaper eventually followed others into the Docklands print centres that were fashionable at the time, and 66 Vauxhall Bridge Road returned to its position of anonymity.
As the black chauffeur driven Jaguar pulled up outside, Coy came into the reception area to wait for his guest. The DDI climbed out of the car and walked into the building, past the smiling man in the blue suit who held the door open for him.
Coy took the American up to a meeting room on the third floor. There was a folder on the large mahogany table in the room with the red wax seal of the United States Government.
'Would you like me to leave you for a while?' Coy asked.
'No need,' replied the DDI as he took a seat and waved Coy to the opposite side of the table. The DDI pulled the folder to him, snapped the seal and opened it. It had been delivered from the American Embassy for his attention twenty minutes earlier. He wasn't worried about security, the seal ensured that.