While they sat, Dom kept an eye out through the doors to the compartment containing Morozov and the young brunette female he seemed to be chaperoning into Germany. She’d made one run to the bathroom and Caruso had taken a picture of her. He’d sent it to The Campus so the analysts could run it through facial recognition, but she didn’t turn up in any of the criminal databases.
Caruso and Chavez were talking over their surveillance options for when they arrived in Berlin when the train passed out of Poland and into Germany at the town of Frankfurt an der Oder. There was no scheduled stop here at the border; both Germany and Poland were in Europe’s Schengen Area, a collection of twenty-six nations with common visa requirements and no passport controls between the nations.
So the two Americans looked out the window in surprise when the train began to slow.
Ding went to the counter to order a coffee while a voice over the train’s PA system, broadcast in several languages, announced that German customs police would be making a quick pass through the train with dogs.
When he sat back down with his coffee, Dom said, “Must be because of the Lithuania thing.”
“Right,” agreed Chavez. “They don’t know how much C-4 those ecoterrorists used to blow up that ship. Might be enough left over to take down the Reichstag or something.”
Here in the dining car, Caruso was seated facing the first-class area, and back over Chavez’s left shoulder he had a clear view of the door to Morozov’s compartment, plus their own compartment farther on. He saw no activity from Morozov or the girl. Over Dom’s right shoulder Ding could see into the open second-class cabin. There, many members of the Ukrainian soccer team had gotten up to look out the window, and once the train came to a full stop, six officers in the Bundespolizei, the German Federal Police, entered with two Belgian Malinois on leashes. One of the dog handlers and two officers made a right, deeper into the train, and the other three turned toward the forward three cars. Quickly Chavez realized these were not customs officers, as the train conductor said; nor were they just making a simple pass down the length of the train. Instead, they were taking their time, asking to see everyone’s passport.
Chavez said, “They are doing a full immigration check.”
The train began to roll again.
Caruso chuckled. “I hope Morozov has his papers in order. It would be a shame to see him frog-marched out of here.”
Chavez smiled, too, but not for long. “Hey, are these Ukrainians starting to look a little squirrelly to you?”
Caruso turned to look back over his shoulder, and he saw what Chavez noticed. Several members of the soccer team, including one of the coaches, were constantly looking back over their shoulders at the three approaching officers. “Yeah,” he said. “These guys have something to hide.”
But when the police arrived at them, one of the coaches pulled a stack of passports out of a vinyl messenger bag and handed them over to the officers. One man looked them over quickly while the dogs sniffed around the young men. Both Dom and Ding saw continued evidence of nervousness in the players, but after matching each passport with a face, the Bundespolizei officer handed the documents back to the coach of the team, and the three moved on toward the dining car.
Caruso said, “Wonder if they have performance enhancers in their luggage in the racks above them. They were scared they’d get searched.”
Chavez said, “They are amateurs. It’s probably weed.”
The two Campus operatives produced their documents when the trio of armed officers arrived at their table. Dom noticed one of the men carried an HK MP5 submachine gun on his chest, and all three, including the female dog handler, wore big Glock 17 pistols on their belts in retention holsters.
“Gibt es ein Problem?” Chavez asked the officers. Is there a problem?
“Not at all,” the female officer replied in English, after their documents were returned to them.
Chavez had hoped for a little more information, but he wasn’t surprised the German police weren’t terribly forthcoming with an explanation about what was going on.
The three cops and their dog moved through the vestibule and into first class, and now Caruso focused on Morozov’s compartment, visible through the glass window in the vestibule doors. When the police arrived they opened the door and stood in the hall outside the compartment. The dog sniffed around inside for a moment, then returned; he seemed utterly uninterested in his work and ready to move on. Caruso could see the passports the two inside the compartment handed over to the police. They were both burgundy in color, which meant they could have been Russian, but there were also lots of other countries, even here in Europe, that used the same color.
One of the passports was returned quickly, but the other was checked for a long time. Caruso slowly got the impression that something wasn’t right. Dom could tell one of the three officers was asking a series of questions to one of the people in the compartment, presumably the Russian spy.
Chavez was facing the opposite direction, so Caruso kept him informed. “Looks like Morozov is getting the third degree.”
Chavez did not look back. “That’s weird. You’d think the FSB could at least send their man out into the field with clean papers.”
“Dumbasses,” Dom muttered with a little grin.
“Don’t get too excited, ’mano. If they take him off the train, we just wasted a trip.”
“We can follow the girl.”
Chavez shrugged. For all he knew this was Morozov’s daughter and they were on their way for a vacation in the art galleries of Berlin.
A minute later the other three police and their dog passed through the dining car, went through the vestibule to first class, and joined the others, all standing in the hall.
“Damn,” Caruso said now. “They are taking him off.” He could see the police motion for someone to come out of the compartment, and he assumed it was the Russian spy. But to his surprise he saw the brunette female escorted out of the little room.
For a moment Caruso caught a glimpse of Morozov as he leaned out of the compartment, trying to talk to the police, but they weren’t listening to him. Instead, they began walking the girl toward the exit of the first-class cabin. One of the cops pulled out his radio, presumably to order the conductor to stop at the next station.
Morozov turned and walked toward Dom and Ding, passing them in the dining car without a glance. Dom could see an intensity on the man’s face that worried him.
“Where’s he going?” Chavez asked.
He got his answer quickly. The Russian FSB man rushed into the second-class cabin, walked right up to the coach of the soccer team, and leaned in close to his ear.
Chavez said, “Oh shit. What does this mean?”
Caruso turned and his eyes went wide. “I guess it means the amateur soccer team is a professional security team, and Morozov has himself a dozen goons.”
The soccer team stood as one and began to reach for their luggage, which was all positioned on the racks high above their heads. Morozov moved back through the dining car, passed Dom and Ding again without looking at them, and continued into his compartment, where he closed the door. The six police farther down the car, standing around the woman by the exit, didn’t even notice he’d left his compartment.
Dom saw all this, but Ding wasn’t looking. Instead, he had his eyes on the Ukrainians. They’d all slung bags over their shoulders, placed their hands inside the unzipped bags, and they were flooding toward the dining car.
Chavez said, “These dudes are packing. They are going to try to get the girl back.”
Caruso said, “And we’re unarmed.”