by James Bruno
The wrought-iron gate filled an imposing archway of red brick, the motif for the entire complex of twenty modern units. Fechtmann walked past the gate at a leisurely pace. Private security lights combined with light from street lamps to illuminate the high brick wall enclosing the apartments. Fechtmann turned the corner on Seventh Street, low branches of maples hovering around the city’s lamp posts rendered the area darker. Late Sunday evenings were the deadest of nights in Washington. The street was deserted.
Fechtmann reached into his tote bag and pulled out an aluminum grappling hook with a light, yet strong, black, knotted nylon rope. Quickly, he scanned the street again, then swung the hook up. It caught the inner edge of the concrete slab top of the wall. He scaled the ten-foot structure nimbly, lay for a moment on top to view the courtyard of the complex, then jumped down, landing on his feet with a light thump. Fechtmann winced as pain shot up from his left knee to his pelvis. At 47, the ex-Stasi officer just wasn’t as lithe as he used to be. He knew exactly where he had to go.
“Are we in love?”
“I don’t know. Are we?”
Gallatin propped his head on his hand and looked down on Lisa. With his free hand, he stroked Lisa’s forehead, cheeks and neck. She closed her eyes in pleasure.
“Are you afraid to be?” she whispered.
“Not any more. You?”
“Not any more either.”
A long silence passed as they took in the afterglow of lovemaking.
“Say that we were in love. Where would it lead us?” She leaned on her elbow and smiled warmly. Her eyes were at the same time affectionate and challenging.
“A thousand points of light, a shining city on a hill, to quote a couple of presidents.”
She held her smiling eyes unwaveringly on his. “Now be serious,” she said.
“A lifetime with each other, I would hope. But, Lisa…I have to tell you that I’m afraid.”
“Of what?” Lisa’s face expressed puzzlement.
“That, having been starved for love, I might rush into it, not ready, unable to leave the past behind me.”
“You mean your wife?”
Gallatin nodded.
“Oh, my darling. Take your time. Take your time.” She leaned forward and kissed him. Again they were in each other’s arms. They resumed their lovemaking. Lisa took the initiative. Her hair enshrouded Gallatin’s head as she pressed her lips hungrily against his, her arms holding her lover’s large shoulders with all their might.
A waft of cold air chilled Lisa, causing her to wrap herself and Gallatin more tightly in the blankets.
The sudden movement stopped Fechtmann in his tracks. He remained frozen until he was certain that his targets were in deep sleep. He mentally cursed himself for taking so long to slither into the apartment after picking the door lock. A cold draft risked alerting the pair. He indeed was getting too old for this line of work.
In carefully measured movements, without a sound, he laid his black tote bag on the carpet at the foot of the bed. He knelt down. Without taking his eyes off of the snoozing lovers, Fechtmann slowly reached into the bag and took out the mini-sledge. He gripped the tool firmly in his right hand.
His disciplined mind coldly calculated distance, force and timing needed to accomplish the mission. Another part of Fechtmann’s brain, however, was sending different signals. Fechtmann fought off shame and self-loathing as he stared dispassionately at the slumbering lovers. Most of his previous victims had deserved to die, having played a bad hand in the international espionage game. Fechtmann told himself that he was a highly skilled technician in the art of assassination, not a bludgeoner. He was being brought down to the level of the madman Ferret.
Fechtmann closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Just this one last mission.
He concentrated on sounds, smells, movements. Every audible traffic noise, distant radio music, overhead aircraft registered in his ears. No foot steps, no active neighbors, no police sirens, no stirring from the bed. The green light to move in for the kill blinked inside his head. He exerted every muscle to raise himself as silently and strongly as a cobra. Every movement was programmed and carried out with the utmost caution. A black-clad, golden-haired avenging angel he was.
Fechtmann neared the right side of the bed where Gallatin lay face-up, snoring. It was vital that he eliminate Gallatin first since he potentially would pose the greatest threat. A swift, powerful chop between the eyes would finish him instantly. He had envisioned that Lisa would awaken at the impact of the hammer crunching bone, would look up terrified and remain petrified long enough for him to bash her face on the upswing. It might, in fact, take two swings, or more, to finish off Lisa. Fechtmann just wanted it to be over, the best outcome for all.
It took him a full minute to reach the head of the bed, to position himself precisely where he should be for the coup de grace. The German hovered over Gallatin, breathed methodically; he raised the hammer over his head. His brain made last-minute homings and projected into his eyes the correct trajectory. He held his breath. The arteries of his right hand bulged as the fingers gripped the sledge’s handle like a vise. Down. Down. Down.
The warm, sticky spray which settled instantly on Lisa’s face felt comforting in her subconsciousness; perhaps it was prenatal memories of being in her mother’s womb. Within seconds, however, it felt cold and slimy. She opened her eyes.
The loud pop caused Gallatin to jump reflexively half out of the bed, muscles tightened even before he could consciously make out what was going on.
The lethal end of a silencer-equipped Glock 17 nine millimeter met his eyes. The muscles remained taut, but his body froze in place.
At the other end of the Glock was a tallish, unshaven white male sporting an evil grin and alert eyes.
Lisa yanked the blankets up to neck-level in a gesture of futile self-protection. She barely aborted a scream.
The man, still smiling, put a forefinger to his lips. “Shh.”
He took a step forward, still pointing the weapon alternately at Gallatin’s and Lisa’s faces. He indicated with his left hand for them to remain still.
In a quick motion, he looked downward, aimed the revolver toward the floor and squeezed off a round. Fechtmann’s body jerked. The man resumed his threatening posture toward Gallatin and Lisa.
“I do not kill you,” he said in accented English. “Him I kill.” He dipped his chin slightly. “I save your lives. You understand?”
Gallatin, eyes wide and unblinking, nodded slowly.
“From you, I want documents. You know?”
Gallatin shook his head in confusion. The man caught Lisa’s eyes steal a glance at the coffee table in the living room.
The man took a quick look behind him and shifted position. “They are in there. Yes?”
“You want the disks,” Lisa said.
“Yes. Computer disks. From White House. Yes?”
Lisa nodded. “On the coffee table.”
“Good. Now you go on floor. Both of you. Face down.” He gestured impatiently with his gun. “Now!” He pointed the barrel at Gallatin’s forehead and tightened his grip. The message was clear.
Gallatin placed his hands behind the back of his head, knelt beside the bed and cautiously lowered himself down to the floor. Lisa followed suit. Gallatin glimpsed a pool of blood emanating from the dead Fechtmann’s head at the foot of the bed. He could hear Lisa reciting the Lord’s Prayer.
“You stay like that,” the man commanded calmly. He shuffled backward toward the living room, weapon still aimed at the couple.
He snatched the freezer bag, backed up to the door, dropped his revolver, then ran into the night.
Terrified, Lisa and Gallatin remained motionless facedown on the floor. Assured that the intruder had fled, each rose slowly, amazed at still being alive.
Gallatin ran to the door and looked out into an empty, dim courtyard. He rushed back, bent over Fechtmann and took a pulse that wasn’t there. “This man’s dead,” he said
.
He took Lisa into his arms. Lisa shivered as if half-frozen. Gallatin gripped her shoulders and took a close look.
“Are you all right?”
Lisa took a quick moment for a systems check of her body. She nodded that she was okay.
“Are you sure?” Gallatin rubbed a finger down her cheek and showed the redness to her. She clutched her head.
Gallatin pointed his chin at the corpse. “That man’s blood. Shot in the back of the head. Never knew what hit him.”
Stille gleicht Tod.
Lisa leapt to the bathroom to wash her face. She coughed into the sink. She wiped herself with a towel. Quickly regaining her composure, she said, “Mike, do we run? Do we—”
“We call the police,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
One wouldn’t know by Anne Haley’s rambunctious boosterism at a daughter’s soccer match that she was a quiet, shy woman by nature.
“Go Panthers! Go! Go! Go!! Kick Leslie! Kick the goddamn ball, Leslie!!” she whooped as her 14-year old husbanded the ball uncertainly between her feet, just ten yards from the goal.
Dan Haley was proud of his wife, a rare female who juggled a career as an residential housing architect with raising three children and looking after a hard-to-please husband.
He caught her eye as she lowered her face, one hand shielding her brow, fearing the worst. For one instant the game was the furthest thing from their minds as their locked gaze crackled with the electricity of love.
A thunder of applause erupted as Leslie’s grand slam successfully made it past the opposing side’s goalie and into the net. Dan and Anne Haley jumped up and down, arms around each other’s waist, as if they were teenagers themselves again.
“God, I’m thirsty,” Anne exclaimed, out of breath.
“I’ll get a couple of Cokes,” Dan said. He negotiated his way down the bleachers in the direction of the snack stand.
As he paid for the drinks, a man sidled up next to him and smiled. Haley returned a polite grin and about-faced to return to the game.
“Colonel Haley.” The man mispronounced the title as “Co-lo-nel, in the manner many non-English speakers do.
Haley stopped and took in the slim, stubbly-faced man with a shock of dark hair over his forehead.
“I wish to talk to you please,” Mlavic said politely, yet firmly.
“Do I know you?” Haley asked.
“Not yet. But we have common acquaintances. For example, Mr. Ferret, of State Department; Miss Lisa Valko. Chaim Glassman, maybe you also know him?”
Haley stiffened.
“This is urgent matter, Co-lo-nel. I need only some minutes. But someplace private.”
Haley took careful stock of the Serbian. A twenty-three-year career specializing in dangerous situations told him that he was not likely in any peril with the stranger. The latter could have offed him easily without alerting him had that been his objective.
“The car,” Haley nodded toward the parking lot.
They climbed into the front seat of Haley’s 1999 Volvo station wagon. Haley set the icy Cokes on the dash.
“Not to waste time, Co-lo-nel. My name is Mlavic. Co-lo-nel, formerly of Special Forces of Bosnian Serbian Republic.”
“CHASM,” Haley said.
“Yes, CHASM. I come to make proposal.”
“What kind of proposal?”
“I need job.”
“Glassman will help you—”
“No!”
The unexpected outburst, thrust at Haley like a sharp knife, gave him a jolt.
“No more work in…in brewery. Or factory. Or even laboratory. No. No.” Mlavic shook his head vigorously.
“Then, what do you want?”
“I wish to work for you.”
Haley shook his head with incomprehension.
“To replace Herr Fechtmann.”
A knot tightened in Haley’s stomach.
“Oh. You did not yet hear?” Mlavic sneered with malicious glee. He is dead. I killed him. Last night.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never heard of anybody called Fechtmann.” Haley looked straight ahead through the windshield.
“I see. Perhaps you have bad memory, such a busy man in White House.” He tossed a thick manila envelope in Haley’s lap. “These will no doubt refresh your bad memory.”
Haley hesitated.
“Go ahead. Open. You must see.” Mlavic sported his trademark eerie grin.
Reluctantly, Haley tore open the envelope and pulled out a stack of documents. He scanned them, all marked TOP SECRET and compartmented through codenames, mostly CHASM. Virtually the entire history of Operation CHASM was laid out, with heavy emphasis on the Yugoslav segment. Restricted memos from Haley to Tulliver were there, as were bio sheets on some of the war criminals brought into the country. At the bottom of the pile was an extensive bio sheet, complete with a photo, of a smiling Fechtmann. The sheet merely referred to him as a “sensitive asset.”
“You are in receipt of stolen government documents. Don’t try to blackmail me, mister. You’ll be arrested and these things will be confiscated.” Haley fought to remain cool, despite a heartbeat that made the throbbing veins in his neck and face betray his anxiety. He knew that he was very close to being at the end of his rope. But maybe he could find some last trick up his sleeve.
“Oh, my dear co-lo-nel.” Mlavic shook his head. “Please do not play games with me.” He dropped another envelope into Haley’s lap.
Haley tore it open in slow motion, as if he were ripping out his own guts. He pulled out dozens of bank transactions, sums in the tens of thousands of dollars wired to an unnamed account at the Royal Grand Cayman Bank. At the bottom of that stack lay a single sheet listing codenames on the left side, assets’ real names on the right.
“Please look down to middle. You see ‘GERookie?’” Mlavic helpfully indicated the name with his forefinger. He moved the finger across the page. “See. ‘Fechtmann, Martin A.’ Now, here. These memorandums by you. ‘$45,000 paid to GERookie for completion of mission, 3/05/03.’ And this one, same date, ‘Col. Javier Gonzalez Mendoza, recalled by GERookie.’ What does this mean, ‘Recalled?’ It is on many memorandums.” Mlavic feigned the air of a curious neophyte. He waved his hand dismissively by an ear. “Oh, well, your Congress can try to piece together. Also newspapers.”
“What do you want?”
“Now you understand.”
“Cut the bullshit! What the hell do you want?”
“Like I said, I want job. I replace Herr Fechtmann. Same work. Same salary. I am good. Very discreet. I assure you. I am professional soldier. Perfect fit!”
“How do I know I can trust you?”
“You do not. But this is not important.”
“What do you mean?”
“You - have - no - choice. Co-lo-nel. I want $100,000. Now. As retainer. Each time you question my trust, I demand more money. Understand?”
A defeated Haley lowered his head. “Yes,” he whispered.
Another eruption of cheers emanated from the bleachers. Perhaps Leslie had scored another goal.
Haley gave Mlavic a steely look. “First assignment, colonel.”
Mlavic smiled expectantly.
“Lisa Valko. Recall her. And her lover.”
Chaim Glassman was as proud of his grandchildren as any grandparent. There they were, all four, captured in framed photographs, neatly lined up on his desk. But kids grow fast and Glassman went about replacing old photos with newer ones as methodically as he collected stamps. And, God willing, a new grandchild would be more welcome than a hundred Black Honduras stamps. His youngest daughter was still young enough to bear another child. He prayed that she would become pregnant just once more before…before he died.
The employees of Glassman Engraving Co. had returned home for the day. Soon Glassman would tidy up and also drive home to Greta’s Jaegerschnitzel, and Kirschstrudel for dessert, his favorites. The old man might not have many
days before him, but they were sweet days.
He turned to the bookcase behind the desk and reached to fetch a bottle of slivovitz. Just a short one, for the road.
The sweet days almost came to a premature end right then and there as he turned around to be confronted with an unexpected guest. The bottle dropped to the floor, but did not break.
“Where’s your hospitality? No Prost for old times?” the apparition said. He wore a large, dark green rain coat, Alpine hat and dapper, pleated trousers.
“You!” Glassman gasped.
“Old friend.”
Glassman remained frozen in place behind the desk, his eyes wide, futilely refusing to accept the image before him.
“May I have a seat?”
Glassman nodded uneasily.
“Please sit down. Your standing there makes me nervous.” The man reached down, picked up the bottle, and set it on the desk. “Glasses?”