That drew a few laughs.
“This looks like just a backdoor way of getting the Tigershark into the budget,” said Admiral Chafetz.
“It is one argument for it,” admitted Breanna. “No one has ruled out the plane. They just weren’t ready to fund it.”
“I’d like to see it make headway in this Congress,” said Wallace with disgust. Then he glanced at Breanna. “Present company and their relatives excepted.”
“I haven’t spoken to Senator Stockard at all about this,” said Breanna hastily.
“Well you should,” said Admiral Garvey. “Because it’s a hell of an idea. When is the demonstration again?”
6
During his relatively short career with the CIA, Nuri Lupo had worked with a variety of foreign agencies, sometimes officially, sometimes unofficially. He’d had varying degrees of success and cooperation, but by far his worst experiences had come when working with the FBI, which he’d had to do three times.
The Berlin assignment made four. The Bureau could not be bypassed for a number of reasons, all of them political.
Actually the most important wasn’t political at alclass="underline" Reid had told him to work with the Bureau. Period.
“To the extent possible,” said Reid. “Which means you will, at a minimum, make contact. Before you arrive. If not sooner.”
FBI agents were, in Nuri’s experience, among the most uncooperative species on the planet, at least when it came to dealing with the CIA. The two agencies were natural rivals, partly because of their overlapping missions in national security and espionage. But sibling rivalry wasn’t the only cause of conflict. G-men — and — women — regarded “spy” as an occupation somewhere lower than journalist and politician. From the Bureau’s perspective, the CIA sullied every American by its mere existence.
It was also no doubt galling that Agency field officers had expense accounts several times larger than FBI agents.
Nuri tried to use the expense account to his advantage, but had to use all of his persuasive skills merely to get the FBI agent, a middle-aged woman whose gray pantsuit matched her demeanor, to have breakfast with him as soon as he arrived in the city.
“I’ve already had breakfast,” insisted Elise Gregor as they sat down in the small café a short distance from the airport. “And I don’t want any more coffee.”
“Have a decaf,” said Nuri, trying his best to be affable.
“Just tell me what you want.”
“I just need background,” said Nuri. He stopped speaking as the waiter came over, switching to German to order.
“Eggs with toast, American style,” said the waiter in English far superior to Nuri’s German.
“That’s it,” said Nuri.
The putdown was regarded as some sort of triumph by Gregor, who practically beamed as she told the waiter in German that she would have a small orange juice. Nuri considered whether he ought just to leave, but the FBI might be of some use at some point in the investigation, and closing the door now didn’t make sense.
Well, maybe it did. How much help could they possibly be?
“German’s not one of your languages, is it?” Gregor asked as the waiter left.
“I can speak a little.”
“Very little.”
I’d like to see you handle Arabic, thought Nuri. Or Farsi. Or maybe a subdialect of Swahili.
“So what do you want?” said Gregor. “Why are you here?”
“I want to talk to the investigator on the Helmut Dalitz murder case.”
“Dalitz? The banker?”
“Businessman. Do you have any information?”
She made a face. “That’s too local for us to get involved in.”
“You have nothing?” asked Nuri, surprised. The FBI had been briefed, to some degree at least, on the Wolves and the suspected connection to the murder. Was Gregor out of the loop? Or playing coy?
Coy. The word evoked images of sex kittens… a nauseating concept when connected with the woman sitting across from him.
“Why is the Agency interested?” Gregor asked.
“They don’t tell me everything,” said Nuri, deciding he could be just as hard to deal with as Gregor. “They sent me here to see what was going on.”
“They didn’t tell you why?”
“I think it has to do with money laundering,” said Nuri.
“That’s an FBI area of interest.” Gregor’s eyes narrowed. “Nothing like that has come up.”
“So you are following the case?”
“From a distance,” she said. “We’re somewhat interested — not involved.”
The orange juice and coffee arrived. Nuri took a sip of the coffee. It was surprisingly weak.
“I don’t see where he could have been laundering money,” said Gregor. “He was a respected businessman.”
“Yeah, it’s probably a total waste of time. That’s the sort of crap they send me on these days,” said Nuri.
Gregor frowned. “This is because of the connection to the Wolves, right?”
“Well, I—”
“All right. Let’s go,” she said, rising.
“But—”
“I have other things to do today,” she told him. “If you’re coming, come. And you better leave the waiter a good tip. They really like me here.”
The Berlin detective heading the investigation into Dalitz’s murder was a thirty-something woman who spoke English with a pronounced British accent. She was also among the most beautiful women Nuri had ever met.
She was so pretty, in fact, that if she and Gregor were combined and averaged out, the result would still be among the top ten or so models in the world. Nuri felt his head flush just meeting her; her handshake — firm, not too eager but not unfriendly — weakened his knees.
“I will be very happy to tell you what we know,” Frau Gerste said, leading them to her office in the upstairs of the municipal building. She worked for the national police even though her office was in the local police station; Nuri couldn’t quite grasp the relationship between the local, state, and national police agencies but decided it was irrelevant for now.
“I am afraid that it is not much,” Gerste continued, taking a seat behind her desk. This was unfortunate; it removed half of her body from view. “What we have does not seem to lead to much that is usable.”
Frau Gerste recounted the details of the crime, which had happened in a relatively popular part of Berlin, in an area that had been under communist control before the Wall came down. There had been few people on the street at the time, however, and apparently the assassin and any assistants had gotten away without being seen.
“We would believe he was waiting somewhere outside,” said Frau Gerste. “There are video cameras, but several blind spots. So he must have studied the area.”
“It was a professional job,” said Nuri.
“Very. The bullet was significant — undetectable by metal detectors,” said Gerste. “We imagine this was because the killer was in the music hall with him, or thought he might be. There were detectors at the door. His weapon, I assume, would have been undetectable as well. Very unusual.”
“Yes.”
“From what I understand,” she said, “the bullet is similar to one used in another murder, this one political. Do you have details on that?”
Nuri shook his head, trying not to make it too obvious that he was lying. It was terrible to lie to beautiful women.
“I have heard that there was an organization responsible for the political murder.” Frau Gerste smiled — it was as if the sun had come out after a winter’s worth of cloudy days. “Interpol’s information is very limited. A code name, the Wolves. That is why your interest, perhaps?”