Born to Die in Berlin: A Thriller

by Alex Carlson

  They immediately knew that coordinating with Adler wasn’t possible. They heard gunshots just as they were stepping out of the car. They looked at each other and then Hernandez flew to the trunk and pulled out his M40A5 sniper rifle. He gathered what he needed and followed Colin, who had his own weapon, another Glock 17, in his hand.

  Once they had a visual, the assessment was not good. Men were fanning out with weapons drawn. In another spot, two men, undoubtedly Adler and McClellum, were surrounded. Colin pointed to a windowless trailer that probably served as a fish stand during the day and Hernandez scurried over to it. Colin hoisted him up and using the door handle as a foothold, Hernandez scampered onto the roof. By the time he was set, he saw a small group of men beating the shit out someone on the ground. He looked through the scope and confirmed that it was Adler.

  Hernandez was eager to shoot, but Colin, who took longer to get on the roof, stopped him. “He’s tough,” Colin said, breathing hard, “He can take that. Locate the ambassador. And Bashir if you can.”

  Hernandez found McClellum easy enough. He was standing apart from the scuffle trying to gather himself. Hernandez had no idea what Bashir looked like, but he told Colin of someone sitting in the van, seemingly uninterested in what was going on.

  The situation calmed down to the detriment of Adler, who lay on the ground. A couple of guys lifted him and slapped flexi cuffs around his wrists behind him. Colin watched as Petrov approached and spoke to Rhys. Hernandez followed it all through his rifle scope, his finger feathering the trigger. Silently, Colin saw motion to the side and he watched as a man pushed a motorcycle into the area. Petrov made a signal and the man pushed it past Adler and over the edge of the pier. They heard the splash from where they lay.

  “Okay, you will soon have a green light.” Colin spoke slowly and enunciated clearly to avoid miscommunication. He knew they weren’t going to let Rhys go and that calm, clear instructions were what Hernandez needed. “Do not, repeat, do NOT endanger Petrov. Wait until he is away.”

  Hernandez kept the crosshairs on one of the men holding Rhys.

  Colin watched Petrov walk to his car and then as the car disappear around the corner. “You have a green light.”

  The men moved Rhys toward the boat. Hernandez inhaled, slow and deep, and then exhaled most of his breath and then held it.

  He squeezed the trigger.

  Rhys didn’t know who was firing nor if he was also a target. As calmly as he could, he turned from the boat and walked away. He felt utterly alone, exposed, and vulnerable. Petrov and McClellum had left in the car. Mahmoud and another man had jumped in the van with Bashir and had sped off. There wasn’t a soul around. He tried to gather his thoughts, tried to appreciate that he hadn’t been killed. He wasn’t yet on that imaginary open road he had never ridden.

  He heard footsteps. He turned and saw Colin running toward him. He looked like he was dressed for a casual date in an upscale Berlin restaurant. A second man came toward him, a rifle balanced confidently in his right hand. Rhys recognized him as the Marine he had spoken to outside Stirewalt’s office.

  “Good shooting, Lance Corporal,” Rhys said to Hernandez. The compliment was spoken lifelessly.

  Colin pulled out a knife and quickly cut through the plastic digging into Rhys’s wrists. “You alright?” he asked.

  Rhys nodded, but he hadn’t yet come down from the fright. Colin was experienced enough to give him time. Rhys used the time to walk to the body of the Russian curled up on the ground a few yards away. He bent, flipped the man’s jacket to the side, and retrieved the Glock that had been taken from him.

  He slipped the gun into the large front pocket of his motorcycle jacket as he returned to Colin and Hernandez. “McClellum left with Petrov, Bashir is in the van, and so is the gas. They never got a chance to load it onto the boat. Are you tracking Bashir’s cell phone?”

  Colin checked his smart phone and saw the marker indicating Bashir’s phone. It wasn’t moving.

  “This way,” he said. The three of them ran south, away from the water. They turned down the street where the beacon indicated and Rhys feared he’d see Bashir’s body lying on the ground. But he immediately realized there was nothing to be found. The street was empty. They walked down it anyway, closing in on the spot where Bashir’s cell phone was supposed to be. Sure enough, there it was, lying on the ground. The screen had a spider web of cracks and it looked like it had skidded along the ground after being thrown from a moving vehicle.

  “Fuck,” Colin said, realizing their utter failure. “They figured out how we tracked them. Now we’re fucked. No ambassador. No cargo. And no Bashir.”

  “And no bike,” added Rhys, almost morbidly. It was the least of his problems, but it hurt.

  “Sorry about that.”

  “Yeah, well, they’ll pay.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  On the drive back to Berlin, Rhys sent Stirewalt a two-word text: “Goats. Now.” He was feeling paranoid. Anyone could hack a cell phone nowadays and he figured the less he revealed the better. He also knew she was smart enough to know that the German word for goat was Ziege and that the plural could mean five of them. 5 Ziege. He took it on faith that she’d be able to find a place that didn’t exist in any directory.

  Colin and Hernandez dropped him off at the Schönhauser Allee S-Bahn station in Prenzlauer Berg. He’d walk from there. He had left his blood and brain-splattered jacket in Colin’s trunk and felt naked as the midnight air chilled his body. Schönhauser Allee was bustling as it always was. A movie at UCI Kinowelt had just let out, which, judging by the young crowd that flowed out of the cinema’s doors, must have been some American blockbuster. Teenagers chased each other, flirted, and poured into a neighboring McDonald’s. Rhys wished they’d all just go away.

  He continued down Stargarder Strasse, which was much quieter. He looked past people as they walked by, avoiding eye contact and hoping they’d consider him another anonymous Berliner walking the streets at night. It was common to look dejected in this city.

  The cloud of smoke hit him as he opened the door. The place was mostly full, but he saw immediately that Lucinda had found the place and had commandeered a table in the corner. Sophia Venegas was with her. She was out of her element in this place, looking posh and proper. She had clearly tried to dress down, but her idea of casual was straight out of a Land’s End catalogue. She looked genuinely disgusted by the glass of wine in front of her. It didn’t matter though, not with this crowd. Her confidence was so absolute that no one would notice how poorly she fit in.

  He nodded to them, but walked past the table on his way to the bar. He came back carrying two bottles of pilsner, which he placed in front of him as he sat down. He took a long drink from one and then leaned over to the next table and bummed a cigarette. Then he bummed a light. He hadn’t smoked in years, but if there ever was a night for a cigarette, this was it.

  They didn’t talk until he had drained most of his first beer. Sophia nursed her wine and Lucinda stared at her soda water.

  “They know by now that I’m not dead.”

  “Get out of the country,” said Lucinda. “Tonight if possible. Just go. Petrov will tip off the police and they’ll show up before you have a chance to pack your bags.”

  “He wants me dead. He doesn’t want me talking to the police.” Rhys took another pull from his bottle. “What bothers me is that we know nothing. We lost Bashir. We don’t really know what they are trying to move, and we don’t even know what McClellum’s role in this is.”

  “Any word from the ambassador yet?” Lucinda asked Sophia.

  “No. He’s not answering his phone and he hasn’t returned home.

  “He’s gotta be recalled, Sophia,” said Rhys.

  Lucinda answered for her. “If this is an SVR thing, his involvement is out of stupidity, not treason. Look at his background. He’s a suck-up real estate mogul with a fetish for hookers and espionage. He hasn’t a clue what he’s involved in.”

/>   Rhys sulked behind his second beer, unable to hide his feelings of utter failure. At some level, he didn’t care what Petrov and the SVR were planning, and he certainly didn’t give a damn about McClellum. But he failed Bashir. That’s what hurt.

  “Are you going to keep drinking?” Stirewalt asked.

  “Maybe.”

  Rhys got the message. He wouldn’t be any use if he kept drinking. It was time to shit or get off the pot. That was his mistake, wasn’t it? He thought he could put one foot in this world and leave the other outside, keeping some semblance of independence. He had agreed to help but he hadn’t committed. And you couldn’t do this job without commitment. Karen had taught him that.

  It was time to commit. He’d die in Berlin if he had to. He pushed the beer away.

  “Let’s simplify things,” he said. “What do we know?” He paused to let them think, but both knew he was going to answer his own question. “We know that Hohlbein delivered something, a chemical, maybe weaponized, to some Muslims Bashir thought were questionable. We know SVR is involved, maybe running the operation. That means it’s bigger than Petrov, probably bigger than, or at least outside, Berlin. We also know that Petrov failed to get whatever it is out of the country. So it’s still in Germany. They know Berlin better than Rostock, so they probably brought it back here.”

  “Finding it is our top priority,” Stirewalt said.

  Rhys shot her a hard stare. “Bashir is our top priority.”

  “They go hand-in-hand,” said Venegas, trying to bridge the gap between the two. “We find one, we find the other.”

  “And if we’re lucky, we can get rid of McClellum in the process,” said Rhys.

  “Okay, how do we do it?” asked Stirewalt.

  “I know where I need to go first. I’m willing to commit,” said Rhys, looking directly at Stirewalt. “Are you?”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  For the second time in two days, Adler was at the front door of Werner Hohlbein’s building in Kreuzberg. The light hadn’t been repaired, but someone had kicked to the side the shards of glass that had rained down on him when he had smashed it.

  This time he hadn’t gone out to Berlitec first, to ensure that Hohlbein wasn’t at home. No, this time Rhys wanted him there. The commitment that Rhys had demanded of Stirewalt was a willingness to not just step over the line in terms of violating the rights of German citizens, but to jump over it with both feet. She’d be declared persona non grata, expelled, and sent on a very early retirement if Rhys were caught. But they were beyond that. They’d get the information one way or the other. Damn the consequences.

  Rhys had hurried home first, though he was careful about it, getting out of the cab a few streets from his building. He scanned the streets as he approached. The Russians probably knew where he lived, so it was just a question of how much of a priority he was. Considering Petrov left Rostock without completing their mission made Rhys confident that he was a pretty low priority on their list. He didn’t see anything out of the ordinary on the street, nor in the building’s Hinterhof where his R75 sat unmolested, the cover arranged as he had left it.

  He changed out of his blood-stained clothes and into a pair of jeans and an old sweater. He threw on a simple brown leather motorcycle jacket, which he knew went better with the R75 than the bulky Klim he had thrown in Colin’s trunk. More importantly, it provided better access to the Glock he had inserted into the shoulder holster he now wore.

  In Werner Hohlbein’s apartment, all was quiet. Hohlbein was sleeping, as Rhys expected. Rhys turned on the ceiling light in his bedroom and poked him with his gun.

  Hohlbein woke with a start, fighting through the possibility that he might be dreaming. He realized he wasn’t when he saw the gun loosely held in Rhys’ hand. He scurried back up against the head of his bed and pulled his duvet over his crouched knees and up to his shoulders as though it could protect him.

  This one was no hero, Rhys realized. He was in his forties, thin, with a mop of curly hair over a face of loose skin and wrinkles. He looked like he wore glasses. Rhys knew that all men were different, but he despised those who were devoid of any masculinity whatsoever. You don’t have to go around beating people up, but it’s hard to respect a man who couldn’t beat anyone up.

  Rhys pulled a chair next to bed and sat in it.

  “Wer sind Sie? Was machen Sie hier?”

  “You’ve been developing a chemical at work off the books,” Rhys answered, in English. He wanted to keep Hohlbein off balance. Besides, he was too tired to speak German. “You delivered it yesterday to someone from the Blue Crescent Mosque.

  Hohlbein shook his head in denial.

  Rhys leaned in and tapped the barrel of his Glock on Hohlbein’s forehead. Not hard, just enough to get his attention and to communicate that he was capable of violence.

  “This can go one of two ways. Either way, you’re going to tell me what I need to know.”

  “I, I, I...”

  Adler tapped him again, harder. “Short answers. Don’t think. Just talk.”

  “It’s legitimate.” His consonants were crisp in English.

  “Is it? Will regulators find it on Berlitec’s books? I somehow doubt it. Delivering chemicals, any chemical, to a mosque raises questions.”

  “Not everyone from the Middle East is a terrorist. They need help, not prejudice.”

  “Just tell me about it. And save the P.C. bullshit.”

  “It’s an insecticide, modified to aggressively promote crop protection in dry climates. German law prevents us from exporting it, but the war has caught innocent people in the middle. They are starving. Food can’t get in. Local crops are their only hope.”

  Rhys was inclined to believe him if for no other reason than the fact that Hohlbein so poorly fit any profile of anyone who would be involved with chemical weapons. But he also knew the Russians had no interest in covert humanitarian operations.

  “Can it be weaponized?” Rhys asked.

  “If it remained concentrated it would make people sick, maybe kill a few people, but in order for it to be a real weapon against humans, a carbon would need to be added.”

  “Is that difficult?”

  “No. Not if you know what you are doing. But they aren’t like that. They just want people to eat.”

  Rhys thought for a moment. Is it possible the men from the mosque were just trying to help the people caught in the middle of the war? Of course it is. Rhys knew the vast, overwhelming majority of Muslims were peaceful, even those listening to intense imams in shoddy mosques located next to train stations. Bashir had even said that the imam had never preached violence. Rhys was starting to think that the Russians played the mosque and the mosque played Hohlbein.

  “Tell me exactly what the chemical is,” Rhys said at last. “How much of it did you manufacture and how is it packaged?”

  “It’s basically an organophosphate. It’s relatively safe as it is. In order to weaponize it, you’d have to deliberately add dimethyl cyanamide. Then exposure to additional oxygen—basically, releasing it—would allow it to attack human nervous systems.”

  Rhys didn’t have a clue what he was talking about; chemistry wasn’t one of the subjects his mother had emphasized. “Write it down for me.” He handed him a pen and scrap of paper from his pocket. “How much did you produce?”

  “Five hundred liters,” Hohlbein said as he wrote a mile-long string of letters with superscripted and subscripted numbers, the formula for the compound. “That should be enough to last them through the growing season for the region where they want to use it.” He finished writing and handed the scrap of paper to Rhys. “They are good people. They wouldn’t use it as a weapon.”

  “It’s not them I’m now worried about. Tell me, are you sure it’s being exported?”

  “They provided packaging requirements that were consistent with export standards: double-sealed pressurized drums that maintain its longevity until use, despite changes in moisture, temperature, or air p
ressure. That makes it suitable for either sea or air travel.”

  Rhys realized they had been looking in the wrong direction. The mosque was probably ignorantly innocent. Bashir’s cryptic message must have been about weaponizing the insecticide, about adding the dimethyl cyanamide or whatever it was.

  “Listen to me, Dr. Hohlbein. I’m leaving now and you can go back to your life. Sleep if you want, wake up in the morning and go to work. Enjoy that new Audi of yours you bought with the money they paid you for this.” Rhys paused, letting the implied lack of altruism sink in. “But I wouldn’t if I were you. The people who suckered all of you do not leave loose ends. You are a loose end. Might be smart to get in that car as soon as I leave and drive far, far away. Find yourself a nice hut in the Tyrolean Alps and stay there until you hear on the radio that this has been brought to an end. But trust me, I will be bringing this to an end.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Rhys hustled back to his R75 but he had no idea where he was going. He felt urgency and understood that if they wanted to stop Petrov, it would have to be tonight. He looked at his bike and longed for his GS. The GS was aggressive and when he rode it he felt like he was moving toward a destination. The R75 was more about the ride than the destination. The thought was a waste of time: his GS was forever parked at the bottom of the Baltic.

  Think, Rhys. Don’t get distracted.

  He inhaled a cleansing breath, hoping to get his mind back on task. It was too easy to lose yourself in the world of motorcycles.

  So what’s the Russian plan? He knew what part of it had been, the past tense being the operative element. They had wanted to take it out by boat, probably to Kaliningrad. But there’s no way it would have stayed in the Russian oblast. It would have to have been flown out of Kaliningrad’s Khrabrovo Airport to God knows where.