Resnick didn’t think the same of Kivisto. The target stepped from the pharmacy, counting his change. The first officer looked both ways, then darted to the nearest phone booth and went inside.
Resnick dropped the newspaper as he got up. He removed his fountain pen from his pocket and took off the cap, revealing the razor-sharp tip, ready to write Kivisto’s epitaph with its poisonous ink. As Resnick reached for the door of the phone booth, he felt a gentle tug on his arm. He swung around, prepared to strike.
The old lady from the plane jumped back. “Oh, my goodness. I didn’t mean to startle you. While you’re waiting for the phone, would you mind taking my picture with the planes in the background so I can show my grandson? He loves airplanes.”
Resnick glanced at the phone booth. Kivisto picked up the receiver and held it against his shoulder. He dropped a coin into the slot, but the phone didn’t register any value.
“It would mean so much, young man.”
Kivisto opened the change return, took out the mark piece and tried again.
The phone call could not be allowed, but Resnick didn’t want to take out the grandma in the middle of the concourse if he didn’t have to. Thanks to Kivisto’s incompetence, he had a few moments to spare. Resnick shoved the cap back on his pen and snatched the Instamatic from the lady. “Quickly. Stand here by the booth so I can get the planes in the background.” His German was now perfect and without accent. He nearly picked up the woman and planted her at the side of the phone booth. Kivisto had now given up on the bad coin and was trying to stuff the phone with a handful of change to get his call through to Bonn.
“Smile.” Resnick framed the picture so as to cut the woman out of it so that there would be no image of Kivisto for any authorities to pore over after they found his body. The snitch was now dialing.
“Have a nice stay in Frankfurt.” Resnick shoved the camera at the woman and put his large hand on her back and pointed her down the concourse. “Now go on to your family. They’ll be worried about you.”
Kivisto dropped the mark into the phone and dreamed of buying his own plane and retiring in the Med. Art Kivisto usually had shit for luck, but today was his lucky day-the big payday he’d been waiting for. The KGB was desperate for any information about an unusual package going to Moscow. Last night was the first time his handler had ever insisted on a rendezvous in the middle of the night. Now he had information Moscow craved. He didn’t fear betraying his country or anyone else, only that he might unknowingly do it for too low a price. The mark clinked as it plopped into the coin return. Damn! Nothing’s ever easy. He scooped it from the coin return and dropped it in again. And it fell through again.
He reached in his pocket and noticed a man outside the booth taking a picture of his elderly mother. Kivisto fiddled with his coins and jammed every German coin he had into the slot, and then dialed the number.
New Life Ministries answered, and he identified himself according to established protocol. “I found the lost dog you’re looking for.” He heard a click and thought they either transferred him or put him on hold. “You still there? I said I have the information about the lost dog, but first we have to talk money.” Kivisto watched the man return the camera to the old woman.
“How much do you want?”
“I was thinking twenty-five grand, then I realized you must want this really bad to wake a little fish like me up in the middle of the night, so let’s just double that.” Kivisto smiled and leaned against the side of the booth. Art, you are the man.
“Fine.”
“That was fast. Clearly I sold myself short; let’s double down again.” Art, the man. Double-0-727. Kivisto recognized something about the man with the old lady. Maybe he’d seen him in the movies or sports pages.
Resnick squeezed the shoulder of the grandmother. “Go to your family, now!”
She didn’t budge. “I was hoping you’d have coffee and kuchen with me. You’re the sweetest person I’ve talked to in days.”
Resnick saw the meter on the phone begin to count down Kivisto’s remaining money. The rat was now connected. Resnick reached for the pen and took off the cap with the same hand. “You don’t really have a family waiting on you, do you?”
“No. I’m all alone.”
He gingerly patted her on the arm. “Well, then, I’ll have kuchen with you and I’ll be your family now.”
Her eyes widened with joy. Then Resnick poked her with his pen. The cobra-venom derivative acted with only a few seconds’ delay. He gently lowered her to the ground and shouted, “Help! Call an ambulance! My mother’s having a stroke!”
Kivisto watched the younger man take a few steps with the elderly woman as he listened for the KGB’s response to his hundred-thousand-dollar proposition. He was lousy with faces, but he definitely knew that man from somewhere. His handler came back on the line. “Agreed. But no more. Now the details.”
“It’s going in on PA1072 today.” Kivisto witnessed the man quickly stabbing the old lady’s forearm with something; then she fell to the ground. “What the hell?”
“What’s coming in? Who’s behind it?” the handler screamed into the phone.
Then Kivisto recognized him. the man he once knew as Sasha.
“You’ve double-crossed me! You bastards!” he shouted into the phone, then reached for the door.
Resnick bolted for the phone booth, shouting in German, “I need to call an ambulance. My mother’s dying!” Resnick yanked open the door just as Kivisto scrambled to get out. Resnick plunged the deadly writing tip into the first officer’s neck.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
HOTEL HUGENOTTENHOF, FRANKFURT AM MAIN AIRPORT
Major Natalia Nariskii sat crammed into an airport hotel room with two other operatives and cases of equipment, temporarily coordinating all efforts of the Bonn KGB residency at the Frankfurt airport. Despite the importance of the operation, Voronin wouldn’t spring for a suite. She looked at the digital clock. Eleven-thirty in the morning. She and twenty-six operatives and informants on the ground at the Frankfurt airport had worked through the night and into the morning. Not a single good lead had been turned up. The CIA said it was going down within the next twenty-four hours-and that was thirteen hours ago. Time was running out.
The secure line rang and the communications officer answered. He cupped his hand over the receiver. “Major, it’s General Voronin.”
Nariskii picked up the phone. “Listening.”
“We’ve got it. Pan Am 1072 today.”
Nariskii pointed at a blue flight schedule and motioned for the assistant to toss it to her. She cupped her hand over the phone. “Not that one. Pan Am. Right there. It says ‘New daily nonstops between Chicago and Frankfurt.’ ” He found it and tossed it to her. She caught it and flipped through the pages as she continued to speak with Voronin. “Anything else to work with?”
“No, the informant started shouting something about being doublecrossed. We heard a commotion, then nothing.”
She ran her polished nail down the column of the flight schedule. “Not good. PA1072 is scheduled for a noon departure. That’s in half an hour. Do you at least know what we’re looking for?”
“A nuclear suitcase is a suitcase. Figure it out.”
“There’s no time to go through all checked luggage and cargo even if I could come up with a way to do it. I suppose we could call in a bomb threat.”
“No. If the Germans are behind it, they’ll let it pass through. Even if they aren’t and they find it, the terrorists will still be out there. There’s only one way.”