Shadow Wars, page 28
“Names …” Malik demanded. “More names.”
You didn’t hear any names, Tatyana … no names at all… concentrate… no names. “Who is Paul?” she asked before he could say anything more. That one would be all right. There must be a thousand Pauls.
“Paul? What do you mean?”
“He is placing a great deal of hope in a man named Paul.” Tatyana smiled to herself. No family names, thousands of Pauls. “Paul must be a strong man also. He survived an attempt by General Raskova to kill him.” That wouldn’t hurt because Raskova had disappeared.
But Malik remembered Grigory Raskova explaining there was a man he was certain was critical to Markov who must be eliminated. Perhaps that was what had happened to Raskova—the other man had won. “Do you remember Paul’s last name?” He was sure Raskova mentioned the name. A Spetznaz, he thought. But the name wouldn’t come to him. Paul—it sounded so right!
“I don’t think he ever mentioned a last name,” she responded, pleased that she really didn’t know.
She didn’t remember the remainder of their conversation because it was a series of rapid-fire questions to which she didn’t have the answers. Again and again, Malik repeated names of men he suspected and each time Tatyana shook her head. She concentrated on her face, her mouth, her eyes, afraid a familiar name would change her expression.
She tried hard, very hard, and she knew she was succeeding until Malik grabbed her arm. He was as frustrated as she was determined, but he also appeared increasingly desperate and that frightened her even more. It was difficult to remember exactly what forced her to run. Malik had grasped her shoulders with both hands. She could feel his fingers squeezing tighter. Pressure became pain. Then he was shaking her. She knew she was pleading for him to stop but the words weren’t making sense. Her head was snapping back and forth and Malik was shouting at her …
And that’s when she ran. She went limp for an instant, just long enough to confuse him. He released his grip. And then she was running. She raced down the hallways, sliding on the polished wood floors in the bulky slippers. A group of tourists clustered by the entrance desk and the guard at the gate had no time to stop her. Then she was outside, running down the street toward the river. It was snowing lightly. A white dusting clung to the worn leather of the slippers. She was conscious of people staring at her as she raced in the direction of Gorky Park, unsure of where she intended to go.
There was no sign of Malik when Tatyana finally glanced over her shoulder. She slowed to a breathless walk in the cold air, terror gradually ebbing, and looked about her. She was by the bridge that crossed over to the inner ring road. There was a subway station on the other side of the river and it would be warm in the station.
By the time she was riding down the escalator, Tatyana had regained much of her composure. She still cared nothing about the curious stares and she had made up her mind to take the subway back to her apartment. She would warn Sergei about Malik as soon as she locked the door. There was enough change in her pocket for the fare and the building manager was a good friend. He’d let her in with no questions. As she rode the silent train back to her building, she thanked her lucky stars again and again that she’d gotten away before Malik hurt her badly. And she knew exactly what she would do—she’d call Sergei Markov and he would protect her.
Arkady Malik had not run. Though he was breathing hard, more from anger than shaking the woman, he retained enough sense to know it would not do for the commander of the Strategic Rocket Forces to be seen chasing a woman through the streets of Moscow. He wandered as calmly as he could back to the checkroom and retrieved his greatcoat and boots, still pleased there was no pain in his chest. Those pills had done their job.
Outside, he climbed into a waiting taxi and gave the address of Tatyana Belov’s apartment. He was sure that was the only place a hysterical woman would think of going. When he arrived at the front entrance, he rang the building manager. Even in civilian clothes, there was no doubting Malik’s identity. His photo had been seen everywhere. The manager recognized him immediately. The manager also swore, after letting Malik into Tatyana’s apartment and learning what would happen to him if he didn’t follow instructions, that he would say nothing. He promised he’d never seen Arkady Malik, wouldn’t recognize him if he presented himself at the entrance to the building, and certainly hadn’t talked to anyone that day who asked for Miss Belov. Fear was a powerful force when employed by a man like Malik.
After Tatyana slid the bolt into the lock inside her apartment, she headed exactly where Malik anticipated, her bathroom. Her hair was soaked, her wet dress clung to her body, she shivered from the cold. Sergei Markov coveted showers and had insisted one be installed in the apartment immediately. Tatyana enjoyed them equally as much and now a shower would calm her nerves. Then she would call Markov.
She stripped off her clothes quickly, leaving her coat on the floor, dropping her skirt in the living room, her blouse outside the bathroom, and her underthings in a damp pile as she pushed through the door into the bathroom. She was automatically sliding her hand behind the shower curtain to turn on the faucet before she became fully aware someone was there in the corner of the bathroom with her.
Arkady Malik, still in his greatcoat and fur cap, sat on the closed toilet, his service revolver pointed at her belly. She shut her eyes tightly, then opened them as if that might make him disappear. Her vision blurred but she recognized that face, the thin line of his mouth, those eyes still full of loathing.
Never for a moment did Tatyana consider her nakedness. She was unable to move, frozen with her hand not quite touching the faucet. The gun, the expression on Malik’s face, her own rigidity, each of those briefly passed through her mind before he pulled the trigger. The explosion filled the tiny room at the same time she felt the impact of the bullet just below her left breast. The sensation of intense pain was overwhelming as her body was hurtled backward into the shower curtain. The second bullet exploded that breast but there was no pain this time as the weight of her body pulled the shower curtain and rod down into the tub.
Tatyana vaguely saw Malik’s indistinct form rise from the toilet and look down at her. But her last thought before she died was of her beloved Sergei Markov.
Raskova’s people, the KGB, should have done this. Malik was irritated by that fact as he let himself out. And the bitch shouldn’t have run away. No, this wasn’t the type of thing a man of his position should have to do. Goddamn Raskova for disappearing.
But she had helped him to remember the name of the man Grigory Raskova intended to eliminate. A man named Paul, she said. Tatyana had been good for something in the end. Malik had remembered in the taxi on the way to her apartment—the name was Paul Voronov, a Spetznaz. He wouldn’t be hard to trace.
There was a trace of pain in his chest again, not much, but enough to grab his attention when it came. A few more pills would do the trick when it really got bad.
13
Elusion
Norman Smith turned off the autobahn at the Teupitz exit a little more than forty kilometers south of Berlin, positive that Halder would bring the Ellyson girl to the lake house. This was one place Wallace Ellyson had never been. It did seem the ideal solution once considered. There were almost no residents that time of year. The owners were mostly summer people, those few who’d understood the communist system well enough to make themselves comfortable with an escape from the city. But even they couldn’t afford to winterize those cottages. Only a couple, and they were Stasi, had done that, and that was because their places were also designed to accommodate private entertainment or special interrogations.
He turned on the car radio and began the painful search along the dial for news in English. That wasn’t impossible in the eastern section of Germany but it wasn’t easy. You had to find the American armed forces radio station. Then you had to have the patience to survive the country music until the news came on.
From Smith’s vantage point, the recent news had been most encouraging. Struggling, well-meaning governments seemed to be untenable in the cities of Eastern Europe. If there was an explanation for the rioting of the past weeks it was an imbalance of unkept promises against unrealistic expectations. Idealistic politicians simply couldn’t expect poor people to suffer even more than they had in the past and then tell them the change was good for them. Smith briefly wondered if all might have come apart in this manner without encouragement. Wouldn’t it have been nice if Halder and his Stasi could have been left out?
A series of minor storms had passed through the area in the past few days. Smith admired the fresh white snowbanks piled along the side of the road. Nice could be wintry at times but it was never winter-pretty, not like this. It was too bad there was hardly a soul around to appreciate it. Yes, it made sense for Halder to bring the Ellyson girl here. No one would think of this place. Would he leave her here when he went on to Fürstenwalde? Or was she considered money in the bank?
And it had been wise, wiser than Smith had realized at the time, to use Katherine Ellyson this way. If Ellyson couldn’t hold up under the pressure of the next week or so, they had a leg up on him because she was a bargaining factor—especially if he got cold feet. His special relationship with President Crandall, combined with his potential recommendation to keep the U.S. military from interfering as the eastern European nations collapsed, still meant a great deal.
Smith found himself smiling as he rounded a bend in the road where the snow had blown into a sculptured drift—Ambition, Wallace? Or is it sheer selfishness that a man like you would allow his daughter to be kidnapped? And it was all for your own personal gain. The poor girl won’t gain a thing … if she survives. If he had a daughter, Smith knew he wouldn’t have allowed her to be involved.
The lake came into view, a flat, empty expanse of white. The cottages around the lake appeared stark that time of year, nestled among the naked trees that lined the shore. Smith saw that the driveway had been plowed as he neared the turnoff. He slowed until he could see clear to the end by the building. There’d been a dusting of snow that must have fallen earlier in the day but there were no car tracks. Smith continued down the road that circled the lake. No need for a parked car to scare Halder away.
It was pretty enough outside to circle the lake and enjoy the scenery until he showed. And he decided that the new BMW he’d rented was fun on these narrow roads. It was a brand-new, dark green model with less than two thousand miles and it still smelled new.
Smith considered the men he’d joined in this scheme to alter the structure of Europe and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union … he mused … now she’s Russia and a pack of teetering republics. Why did we think she needed our help? Russia’s going to be a disaster no matter what and her old satellites will satisfy our needs. At first it had been loose, each of them involved for quite different purposes—two Americans, a retired general and a diplomat who would be secretary of state; an East German who intended that the reunification of his country would only be complete when it was aligned with his own philosophy; and two Russians, one a now-dead KGB general, the other one the general who controlled Russia’s nuclear forces and who now seemed to be a man driven to the edge when functioning outside the structure on his own.
What were their goals now? Norman Smith wasn’t quite sure. He was no longer as concerned about the outcome in Russia. The situation in Eastern Europe was much more critical. It was close … oh, so close. Just a gentle push would rearrange the power structure and that would then require the resurrection of the NATO military organization. That would be a damn good thing for America. A strong enemy demanded a strong United States, a constructive balance of power. If Moscow toppled as a result, that made it so much the better. Sure, his ideas had changed since this all began, but so had the others’. Yes, it’s so close.
Adolph Geyer had been halfway between Dresden and the exit to Fürstenwalde when a call came in on the cellular phone from one of his GSG-9 troops. A man answering Carl Halder’s description crossed the border from Czechoslovakia a couple of hours before after two gruesome murders. It may have been the same vehicle seen leaving Decin where a woman had apparently been abducted hours before. It had been tailed by plainclothes military police onto the autobahn linking Dresden to Berlin while they attempted to contact Geyer.
By the time Geyer had finally been located, it was evident that the suspect’s car was actually ahead of the car Geyer and Ryng were driving. When Halder was seen exiting at Teupitz, Ryng and Geyer were less than ten minutes from that exit. The choice was simple. Halder, and maybe Kat—Fürstenwalde could wait. They ordered the military police car to cover the entrance back onto the autobahn.
“How well do you really know the Stasi?” Adolph Geyer looked across the car seat expectantly. His broad forehead was furrowed as he awaited the answer. Geyer would have been a SEAL if he’d been born in the U.S. No doubt about that. He was built like Ryng, medium size, compact, thick neck, receding blond hairline. His blue eyes were as unpredictable as Ryng’s, often as expressionless, shifting suspiciously from one individual to another. That look came after years of living on the edge. From adolescence, Adolph Geyer knew that he wanted the military, and once in the service he’d known that only Special Forces were for him. Intelligence Chief of GSG-9 had given him everything he could aspire to.
“East German secret police,” Ryng answered. “Probably trained by the KGB originally. And if they followed the pattern that others have, pretty soon they were into everything. These guys get so paranoid after a while that they decide everyone’s an enemy, maybe even their own kind. Right?” Ryng had encountered police organizations in any number of countries around the world. Eventually they all became an end in themselves—bigger than the people they originally intended to serve, bigger than the government that lost control of them. “Ugly, too, I suppose,” he concluded when Geyer didn’t respond immediately.
“They evolved much like the KGB.” Geyer turned the car off the autobahn toward the village of Teupitz. “History’s much the same. Started as the police arm of the state. Then they became enforcers. Then murderers. You know, the KGB survived the outright murder part and have evolved back into less of a secret police. They’re no angels but you might say they’re in their mature stage. For the Stasi, murder, torture, everything ugly in human nature, became their reason for being.” He glanced at Ryng and smiled crookedly. “I think that’s why Wolf finally stepped down. I’m willing to bet his underlings even made him sick.”
“I’ve been told they weren’t your favorite people,” Ryng answered with a friendly grin, trying to change the subject.
“They will be when they’re all dead,” Geyer answered vehemently. “With luck, I’ll be able to help them.” As an afterthought, he added, “May they die slowly.”
Ryng didn’t respond. Geyer had been preoccupied with the Stasi the past few days, especially the idea of catching up with Carl Halder. It was an obsession. During Geyer’s career, the Stasi’s tentacles crept like a shadow over much of Europe as they grew more powerful. National boundaries were of little concern. They even came close with all their maneuverings to toppling the government in Bonn near the end. And they were elusive, frustrating the people who made a career of ferreting them out. But no others were as vehement in their hatred as Geyer. His dedication to Germany, even more pronounced after reunification, compounded his hatred of the Stasi.
“I know you don’t believe they could have created so much chaos in the last six months, especially since they supposedly no longer exist. But the reports that have come into me … I should have brought copies …” His mind was racing now. “… Henryk Luden really broke it wide open when those narcotics agents killed Konrad Braun in the Netherlands. After that, the trail kept expanding. Do you know how many of those assholes are operating again?”
Ryng stretched, straining against his seat belt. “Adolph, there are a couple of more important things to me.” He folded his arms across his chest. “I want Kat first. Saving a life is more important than taking one. If it was the Stasi who grabbed her, I want to find out why, and then I want to find out who the leaders are. Knocking off any of the little guys who happen to pop up won’t do half as much good as nabbing the leaders.” He nodded when Geyer glanced at him. “If we nail the big boys—if this really is Halder—you’ll be able to take the others one by one.”
Geyer licked his lips. “You’re right, Bernie.” He paused momentarily and pointed through the windshield. “Will you look at that? Another car. But it’s not the one we’re looking for. We could have a traffic jam out here. This place is supposed to be so goddamn dead this time of year, or that’s what my local man said.”
