“And you?”
“I’m going to go in through the back and hopefully take them by surprise. If we’re lucky, the two you followed will be the only ones inside and they’ll be fast asleep by now. If we’re really lucky, this whole thing will be over in a matter of minutes. We secure the bad guys—whoever they are—take the Amber Room key and disappear. In and out.”
“What if there’s no back entrance?”
“A safe house with only one escape route? Not likely. I’m more concerned that there will be a third exit, one we don’t know about and can’t cover.” Tracie’s adrenaline continued to pound, but she was feeling a little better about Gruber. He wasn’t acting like a man with anything to hide, although it was always possible he was just a good actor.
“How much farther?” she said.
“We’re almost there.”
They sat in silence inside the Opel and moments later, Gruber pulled off the main road and onto a side street. He took a right and then a left, then he killed the headlights and cruised to a stop on the side of the road. They were in a cluster of small, working-class houses carved into the thick German forest.
The homes were located relatively far apart, with groves of ancient trees between each, offering owners the illusion of isolation. Tracie could see why the killers had chosen this neighborhood as the location for their safe house. It was close to Wuppertal, convenient by car, and there was little likelihood of interference from nosy neighbors.
Gruber had parked as far from any homes as he could manage, and now they climbed out of the Opel and closed their doors quietly. The houses she could see were darkened and the neighborhood was still and quiet.
“Follow me,” Gruber said, and set off through the trees. They skirted one small back yard and then found themselves crossing a road that looked remarkably similar to the one they had parked on.
“That’s it,” he whispered, gesturing toward what looked like a two-bedroom bungalow set back from the road. The front yard was weedy and the lawn sparse but overgrown, badly in need of a mowing. The blinds were all drawn, exactly as Gruber had said, but it was easy to see no lights were burning behind the shades.
A vehicle was parked in the gravel driveway and Tracie whispered, “Is that the car you followed?”
Gruber nodded, and Tracie said, “Okay, remember the plan. Stay here and cover the front. Give me time to break in through the rear entrance and secure the occupants. I’ll come get you when we’re ready to start searching or interrogating. Got it?”
“I got it,” he said.
Tracie looked him up and down and prayed she hadn’t been wrong about him.
Then she said, “Good luck, Gruber,” and began circling the house before he could answer.
12
November 15, 1987
1:55 a.m.
Outside Wuppertal, Federal Republic of Germany
The yard that had been hacked out of the forest behind the house was tiny and badly in need of care: overgrown, choked with weeds and obviously neglected. Its poor condition was further verification to Tracie that this home was being utilized solely as a safe house. It would be hard to imagine even the laziest of homeowners neglecting his yard this badly.
A three-quarter moon provided just enough light to allow Tracie to navigate the unfamiliar terrain with a reasonable degree of confidence. She hugged the rear wall of the building, ducking under a window—blinds drawn, exactly as they had been in the front of the house—before reaching the rear entrance. Three steps up and she found herself atop the concrete-block landing.
From her jacket pocket Tracie removed her lock picking tools and a pair of surgical gloves. Pulled on the gloves and got down to work, squinting in the moonlight.
The rear door was secured with nothing more than a basic lock built into the tarnished brass knob, a fact that surprised Tracie. She had expected a safe house run by any self-respecting intelligence organization to be more difficult to access.
It shouldn’t be this easy, she thought. I’m missing something.
She inserted her pick into the lock and felt gingerly for the tumblers. Lock picking had never been her greatest talent, and her skills were more than a little rusty—she tried to recall the last time she had picked a lock and couldn’t—but even under these circumstances, this common hardware store door lock should provide little challenge.
What concerned her more than picking the lock was the possibility of tripping an alarm. It wouldn’t be an aural alarm like the typical house might have, designed to make a lot of noise and frighten away the prospective burglar. Rather, it would be silent, alerting the occupants to their intruder’s presence without disturbing the quiet of the neighborhood and drawing unnecessary attention to the home.
And instead of triggering a phone call to the local police, the alarm would dial the operatives’ home base. Depending on how close to Wuppertal their handlers were located, reinforcements might arrive quickly once the alarm was activated.
It was an element of uncertainty that made Tracie uncomfortable. She was used to working alone in a foreign country, had been doing it for more than seven years. But in virtually every previous instance, her ops were based on solid intel and had taken place only after extensive planning and reconnaissance.
Wuppertal was very different. Intel was sketchy, planning had been minimal, and reconnaissance nonexistent. Adding into the mix a potential showdown with the killers’ organization—whoever they were—was an uncertainty she wanted very much to avoid.
Which meant they would have to work fast.
She concentrated hard on picking the lock, aware of the time ticking away, aware that by all rights she should already be inside the safe house. This was the most basic of locks, and she was fumbling around with it like a high school kid in the back seat of his parents’ car on prom night.
She knew why she was struggling to pick the lock. Her personality was straightforward. No bullshit. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. Lock picking required subtlety, feel, the kind of laid-back approach she could never quite master, no matter how hard she tried.
The very traits that made her such an effective asset in the field—her instructors at The Farm had nicknamed her “Bulldog” years before, a moniker she wore with pride even after graduating to field work—worked against her in any scenario that involved a more nuanced approach.
Still, she had managed to master the basics of lock picking, and there was no reason for her to fail here, despite the darkness and the stress. She stepped back and took her fingers off the tool. It stuck out of the lock, taunting her.
Deep breath. In and out.
After taking a moment to clear her mind, Tracie leaned back down over the knob. She rested her fingers lightly on the lock picking tools and visualized The Farm, the humid summer afternoon she had demonstrated her proficiency to a hard-ass instructor who struck her as more drill sergeant than civilian teacher. The man had fired round after round of live 9mm ammunition over her head while she worked, ears ringing, clock counting down.
She had done it then, she could do it now.
Her fingers began moving slowly, almost imperceptibly, easing the tiny tumblers around the inside of the lock. Seconds later they fell into place.
Tracie breathed a sigh of relief and only now realized she had begun to sweat even in the cool November nighttime air. A sheen of perspiration coated her face, a drip rolling down her forehead. It fell into her eye, blurring her vision, and she blinked.
She packed her lock picking tools away in their pouch and secured the pouch in her pocket.
Then she reached down and turned the knob.
She opened the door, moving slowly, worried about a squeaky hinge alerting the sleeping occupants to her presence. The general condition of the home’s exterior was poor, and there was no reason to believe the door would be any better maintained.
To her surprise, though, it swung open quietly.
Tracie stepped into the darkened house, wishing she had acces
s to night vision equipment. With every one of the shades drawn and all the lights off, an inky blackness blanketed the home’s interior, turning even a single step forward into a dangerous proposition.
She held her ground, unmoving, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the murk, unsure if they would. She didn’t want to use her flashlight yet if she could avoid it, preferring to wait until she had located the sleeping occupants. She would then use it to disorient them.
A minute went by, and then two, and she began to wonder how long it had been since she left Gruber alone in front of the house. Probably no more than seven or eight minutes. Not much time at all. A seasoned operative would hold his ground as instructed.
But Matthias Gruber was an unknown, an X-factor. Depending on his level of experience, it would be a simple thing to become spooked by the dead silence and the uncertainty about what may or may not be happening inside the safe house. A rash move by the man outside was not out of the question.
For that matter, it had been less than an hour since she held him at gunpoint, unsure as to where his real loyalties lay. He had shown decent instincts in following the Soviet operative’s killers, but what did she really know about him?
More things to worry about, and now was not the time. She felt her anxiety creeping upward and forced her tightening muscles to relax. Worry about the things you can control.
Closing her eyes would have been the best and fastest way to acclimate them to the near-total darkness inside the safe house, but she hadn’t dared do that. Two killers were somewhere inside this small dwelling, and they were probably sleeping, but Tracie Tanner was not about to take that leap of faith and potentially offer herself up as an easy target.
Finally the bare-bones furnishings of a small kitchen began to resolve themselves—more or less—in front of her. A kitchen table stood off to her right, its outline slightly lighter than the surrounding darkness. A pair of chairs had been snugged up against the table, and across the kitchen Tracie could see what she guessed to be a stove and maybe a dishwasher.
Two doorways stood on the far side of the kitchen. One was off to her left, adjacent to the appliances, the other ahead and to her right, on the far side of the table. It was time to choose one and start clearing the house, locating the room in which the killers were holed up.
She took a hesitant step in the direction of the door next to the appliances, making an educated guess. She thought, based on the appearance of the front of the house, that the door on the left would lead to a living area, and the one on the right would perhaps lead to a hallway, with a bathroom and a couple of bedrooms opening off it.
Her goal was to establish that the front room was empty before exposing her back to it and moving down the hallway where, presumably, her targets lay sleeping.
She took a second step and then flinched at the sound of a shouted challenge coming from the front yard.
Then a gunshot.
And then two more in quick succession.
Then silence.
13
November 15, 1987
2:05 a.m.
Outside Wuppertal, Federal Republic of Germany
Matthias Gruber’s real name was Josh Macklin, and he was no more German than was Tracie Tanner, having grown up outside Columbus, Ohio. For all his faults—and he knew he had plenty—stupidity was not among them. He was well aware he had fucked up in allowing the goddamned Russian operative to murder Klaus Newmann right under his nose and make off with the Amber Room key, and he knew also that it was only a matter of time before he faced a return to Langley in disgrace.
All of which was why he had tried to be on his best behavior with the beautiful redheaded chick, his clumsy come-on back at Hahn Air Base notwithstanding. Even that, he felt, was understandable. She was beautiful and sexy and what guy wouldn’t take a shot at getting in her pants?
But she had made it clear she was all business, and Josh felt he had done a damned good job since then of focusing on work. Under the circumstances, he thought, that was probably for the best. The key was worth hundreds of millions of dollars, after all, and this sexy redhead represented his best chance—probably his only chance—at getting it back and maybe salvaging his career.
So when she told him to cover the front of the house while she went inside and did the heavy lifting—that wasn’t how she had phrased it, but they had both known that was what she meant—he didn’t even hesitate. He swallowed his pride and nodded firmly and resolved to be the best goddamned second-fiddle-slash-useless-appendage in history.
He eased behind a tree and waited, certain “Fiona Quinn” would break into the house successfully, and equally certain she would then disarm the occupants and call him inside to initiate a search for the key. She exuded competence and seemed like the type of person who was accustomed to getting what she wanted.
The only question in his mind was how long it would take. He left his weapon holstered but accessible and concentrated his attention on the closed front door. The near-total silence of the sleeping neighborhood gave him the willies, and he almost wished a car would drive by, just to break the monotony.
He chewed on a fingernail. It was a nasty habit, and one he knew he should break, but was something he had been doing under stress since he was a boy. He would have to learn to—
The front door swung open, slowly and silently.
The motion caught him by surprise even though it was exactly what he had been watching for. He squinted, wishing for stronger moonlight, waiting to see who was going to exit the house.
It seemed too soon for Fiona to have broken in and secured the occupants, no matter how competent she was.
He nearly stepped out from behind the tree to meet her but held his position.
And it was a good thing he did. Because it wasn’t Fiona who stepped outside.
It was a man. It was almost certainly one of the assassins Josh had followed here from the Kaminecke Hotel. Both of those men had been tall, wearing overcoats and hats pulled low over their faces, so it was impossible to be sure in the darkness.
The man stepped onto the front landing and Josh slipped his weapon from its holster. The man took one step forward, still holding the door open with his left hand, and Josh eased out from behind the tree.
Raised his gun.
Said, “Stop right there,” in German. “Don’t move!”
The man moved. He released the door with his left hand. Raised his right and squeezed off a shot. The gun barked and fire belched from the end of the barrel and a slug thudded into the tree next to Josh, chipping off bark and scattering slivers and wood fragments into his face.
Josh reacted instinctively, dropping into a crouch and returning fire. He squeezed the trigger once and the man staggered backward. Twice, and the man went down, crumpling to the landing as the front door swayed in the light nighttime breeze.
Josh’s grip on his weapon had been steady and solid, but now his hands began to shake as the adrenaline—and shock—slammed through his body. He remained in his stance, waiting for the second man to come through the door, waiting for the sound of gunshots from inside the house, waiting for…whatever came next.
But nothing came next.
Silence dropped back over the West German countryside like a blanket fluttering to the ground. Josh counted to twenty and when nothing happened, he counted again to twenty. Then he began to edge forward.
He had to ensure the man on the landing was no longer a threat.
Had to check on his partner.
Had to avoid getting shot.
He angled toward the landing from the side, trying to prevent the man from getting a clear shot at him in the unlikely event he was playing possum. Josh’s gut told him it wasn’t the case, though. The guy wasn’t playing possum, probably wasn’t even breathing. The way he had dropped after being struck by the slug—silent and immediate and final—told Josh the man was already dead and would never again be a threat to anyone.
Still, he wasn’t taking any chanc
es. He eased up the steps, keeping his weapon trained on the motionless man. The man had dropped his weapon when he fell and it lay just inches from his hand, and Josh kicked it out of reach. It skittered across the landing and fell into the damp grass with a thud.
He leaned over the downed man and froze in sudden surprise. He didn’t know what he had been expecting to see, but this was not it. Covert operatives on these types of missions tended to be young, in their twenties and, occasionally, thirties. This man was not even close to the same age as Josh.
He was older. Much older. Maybe in his sixties.
Josh swallowed his surprise and knelt. Checked for a pulse with his left hand while keeping his weapon trained on the man with his right.
By now he knew it wasn’t necessary. The man was still and motionless as a stone.
And he was right. There was no pulse.
The man was dead.
14
November 15, 1987
2:05 a.m.
Wuppertal, Federal Republic of Germany
The shots rang out and Tracie froze, processing the information. The first one was loud, reverberating through the house like a thunderclap. The two answering shots were less so, and clearly came from the front yard, where she had left Gruber stationed.
Then she moved, hustling through the door on the left and into the small safe house’s living area. It was clear what must have happened: the assassins had not been asleep after all. Or maybe they had been sleeping but were awakened by exactly the kind of security system Tracie had feared might be present.
Either way, one or both of the men had moved silently and without benefit of lighting, up the hallway and to the front door even as Tracie was breaking into the house via the rear entrance. They had opened the door and been immediately challenged by Gruber, and a gun battle had broken out.
This changed everything.
Tracie had to back up Gruber, assuming he was even still alive. The silence following the first flurry of gunshots meant that in all likelihood the confrontation was over.
Tracie Tanner Thrillers Box Set Page 81