Not just the State Department, Herr Roeder, she thought. Our mutual friend, Paul Houston, may be CIA.
Aloud, she said, “I gather Paul Houston has more in mind than just avenging Stepan Brodsky’s death.”
Roeder nodded. “Soviet-American negotiations are in the making as we speak. New concessions to the Soviet Union head the agenda. Paul Houston’s revelations about the sham summit in Potsdam last year will shatter them,” he said with a guarded look around. “It was Stepan Brodsky who fed him the information.”
“Is that what the microfilm in Brodsky’s lighter was all about?”
“It was a trade—or so Stepan hoped. But after the State Department balked, he made a last-ditch attempt to escape—an impossible gamble. Even so, he came close to beating the odds. Did Paul mention how he spent his last seconds on earth?”
“No,” she said gently, remembering that Ernst Roeder had been a friend of Brodsky’s.
Roeder’s eyes were moist even as his hands were clenched in anger.
“Stepan dragged himself forward, inch by excruciating inch, until with one outstretched hand, he pushed his lighter over the side of Glienicker Bridge.”
“Do you know why?” she asked.
“Only from what Paul told me afterward. Stepan wanted to keep the identity of a close friend from falling into the wrong hands.”
Wincing at the image in her mind, she asked him about the lighter.
“An ordinary American lighter—Zippos, you call them—with an emblem on one side. Black wings of some kind.”
“What happened to the friend, I wonder?”
“I have also wondered. I never knew his name. Just that he would try to buy his way out of the Soviet Union.”
“How?” she asked, intrigued.
“With the microfilm in a cigarette lighter identical to Stepan’s.”
Microfilm as good as buried in Moscow, Paul Houston had told her in a burst of frustration…
Roeder’s eyes made one last sweep of the arcade. “And now I think it the better part of wisdom to conclude our business.”
He signaled a saleswoman at the far end of the toy counter. “You will find what you expect wedged behind the left leg of one of the figures. I cannot vouch for its quality, mind you. Even with high-speed film, there were floodlights instead of a flash. I had to shoot quickly—and with a miniature camera. Come,” he said, “I will walk you out.”
He handed her the wrapped package as if it were nitroglycerine.
As if, at any moment, it might explode in his face.
Adrienne took hold of his arm protectively.
Standing at the far end of the arcade, Galya saw the prominent East German photographer hand a package to Adrienne Brenner—the signal she’d been waiting for.
If Mrs. Brenner meets with the photographer, Ernst Roeder, and if anything passes between them—anything at all—get word to me immediately.
Stepping into a phone booth, careful to avert her face as Adrienne Brenner and Ernst Roeder left the arcade together, Galya pulled the booth shut, inserted a coin, and dialed.
Adrienne was talking animatedly, half-turned in Ernst Roeder’s direction as they walked down the aisle of the arcade, when Roeder froze.
Luka Rogov stood in the doorway of the arcade, blocking their exit.
“Get the hell out of my way,” she told Rogov. “My husband and I are honored guests. You, on the other hand, are a poor excuse for a bodyguard. The man you’re supposed to be watching isn’t even here.”
Hopeless, she thought. Dr. Andreyev spoke only Russian to his “shadow.” On the few occasions she’d heard Rogov expand on his vocabulary, it was delivered in cave-man English.
“Give me toys,” Rogov demanded, reaching for the package.
“Go to hell, she hissed.”
“Give it to him, Mrs. Brenner,” Roeder urged.
Adrienne tossed the package on the floor so the goon would have to stoop to pick it up.
“You come with me.” Rogov gripped Ernst Roeder’s arm.
“Let go of him, damn you!”
“Please, Mrs. Brenner. It’s all right, I will be all right,” Roeder said.
Despite the unmistakable terror in his eyes, Adrienne knew she had no choice. She stepped aside. “I’ll see you later, Herr Roeder,” she promised, knowing damn well she might never see him again.
From the other side of the plaza, Galya watched Adrienne Brenner leave the arcade and head for the hotel while Luka Rogov hustled Ernst Roeder toward a waiting limousine.
So it was the prominent photographer they wanted, not Adrienne Brenner…
I don’t care, she told herself. If this Roeder has nothing to hide, he has nothing to worry about.
But who doesn’t have something to hide—especially from Colonel Aleksei Andreyev?
I don’t care, she repeated with uneasy defiance in a fruitless effort to convince herself.
Kiril would be alone now, she realized. For once, he was pried loose from his revolting bodyguard. She made a bee-line for the hotel.
As she stepped into the lobby, she relaxed. Kiril was right where she’d spotted him earlier—standing next to the row of telephone booths, although she couldn’t tell if he was still waiting to enter the booth or if he’d just stepped out.
“Kiril,” she called out with relief. “I must speak with you!”
“Not now, Galya, please. I have to—”
“But it’s important. It can’t wait.”
“It will have to.”
He walked out of the hotel.
She stared after him, thinking that she was nothing to him anymore. Not even someone to be courteous to.
It’s not like him to be rude or insensitive, an inner voice reminded her.
Because he has other things on his mind, she shot back. How foolish of him, how short-sighted. She had no choice now but to make a full report. For his own good, she added quickly, taking her cue from what Colonel Andreyev had told her at the outset. Men like Kiril needed to be protected from themselves.
But as usual, her inner voice had the last word.
Protected how, Galina Barkova—and from whom?
Chapter 36
The limousine was spacious enough to accommodate four passengers—six, if the jump seats were used. Luka Rogov, enjoying the novelty of sitting in back, sprawled comfortably across two seats.
Ernst Roeder sat as close as he could to a window on the opposite side of the vehicle.
Rogov had upturned his military cap and rested it on one large knee. Chuckling, he began rolling the toy figures around inside the cap, clearly enjoying the sound of wood against wood.
As Roeder stared out the window, a trapped-animal look in his eyes, he automatically dug into his pocket for a small bottle and slipped a pill under his tongue. Barely ten minutes later, no longer able to evade the knowledge that his breathing was much too labored to be normal, he went back to the well and pulled out his pill bottle.
Luka Rogov’s burly arm whiplashed across the aisle and caught Roeder’s wrist in mid-air.
Ernst Roeder recoiled as if he’d been struck by a snake.
“Medicine,” he said hoarsely in Russian. “It is only medicine.”
Luka sniffed the contents of the bottle, shrugged, then dropped the bottle into his cap with the wooden figures.
Roeder sat back and closed his eyes.
He was so ashamed. He had worked hard to prepare for this moment, to meet it without fear. He had calculated the risks well in advance, even preparing himself for the prospect of a firing squad. He could have left East Germany long ago but had chosen to remain—his way of defying his own countrymen and their obscene edicts on how he should live and what he should think!