Golovkin had urged Orlov along the path to war, a war that could turn into a disaster. Perhaps he should take a closer look at him.
For a moment Alexei felt a twinge of unease. Why rock the boat? Why risk his newfound power and position? If Golovkin turned Orlov against him, the president could remove him as easily as swatting a fly.
The thought gave him no comfort.
Something was rotten, somewhere. Alexei was determined to find out what it was.
He looked at his empty glass and reached for the bottle.
CHAPTER 31
Hamburg's location on the Elbe gave it access to the Baltic and the North Sea a hundred kilometers away. Always a center of banking and commerce, the city had been governed by a hereditary class of merchants until early in the twentieth century. During the Nazi era it had been a launching port for Hitler's U-boats and a major shipyard of the Third Reich. Hamburg was one of the busiest ports in Europe. It even had an aerospace industry on a par with Seattle.
Business was good in Hamburg.
The buildings that had survived the Allied bombings were picturesque, many dating back to the Middle Ages. Canals cut everywhere through the city, highways of commerce that led to the river. Hamburg wasn't Venice but it was still an interesting tourist destination.
The drive from Vienna had been uneventful. The team stopped at the consulate and picked up an aluminum case containing four pistols and the ammo to go with them before heading for their hotel. Their hotel was in the Hafen district near the harbor. Their rooms were in the back, overlooking one of the canals. Nick set the case with the guns down in Ronnie and Lamont's room.
"I wonder if this town is where hamburgers come from?" Lamont asked.
"As a matter of fact, it is," Selena said. "The hamburger was invented here."
"That wall paper is going to drive me nuts," Ronnie said.
The hotel had a postmodern industrial theme that was vaguely nautical. A fake ladder made of wood and rope hung on one wall. The wallpaper featured sailors and boats, whiskey bottles and women in a chaotic jumble.
"I don't see how wallpaper is gonna make you any more nuts than you already are," Lamont said. "I kind of like it."
"That figures," Ronnie said.
"With any luck we won't be here long enough for it to bug you," Nick said.
"It's a very odd hotel," Selena said. "It's as though someone took Andy Warhol and Alexander Calder as their inspiration and mixed them all together with pieces of industrial equipment for decoration. Did you see the bar that looked like a shipping container downstairs?"
"I thought it was a bar but I wasn't sure," Nick said.
"Look at this," Ronnie said.
He held up a stuffed animal that had been propped on a shelf in the corner. It looked like a cross between a goat and a teddy bear. It had a heart-shaped red bib on it.
"There you go," Lamont said. "Something to keep you company tonight."
"Might be better if you slept with it," Ronnie said. "Keep you from snoring so much."
"I don't snore."
Nick interrupted. "It's too late to do anything today. There's a restaurant downstairs. How about we meet there in ten minutes?"
"You think they've got hamburgers?" Lamont asked.
"I think you can bet on it," Nick said.
Later, Nick was in bed looking at the laptop and reading the file Stephanie had sent about Helmut Schmidt. Selena came out of the bathroom wearing a white robe, drying her hair with a towel.
"Did you see the painting on the wall in there?" she asked.
"Hard to miss."
The drawing was a life-sized illustration done in bold black strokes of a naked woman, her breasts thrust forward and her hands behind her head.
"It's like something out of a bad male fantasy," Selena said.
"The one painted on the wall in Ronnie and Lamont's bathroom is some guy in bulging jockey shorts with stars over his head."
"You really have to wonder what they were thinking when they decorated this place. Cutesy touches like the stuffed animal and then drawings on the wall like that. I guess it's supposed to be modern."
"Your age is showing," Nick said.
"Smartass. Are you done looking at that computer?"
"You have a better idea?"
Selena let the robe fall onto the floor.
"I guess you do," Nick said.
CHAPTER 32
Early the next day Nick and the others were parked two blocks away from Schmidt's walled property in a Mercedes GL SUV they'd rented in Vienna. The car had enough space for all of them to sit in total luxury and five hundred and fifty horses under the hood to make Selena smile. Nick hoped they wouldn't need all that power. If they did it would mean they were in trouble.
Nick studied the compound through his binoculars. It hadn't changed since the last time he'd looked.
"Still looks like a bad idea for us," Ronnie said.
"Yeah." Nick handed the binoculars to him. "I read through the file Stephanie sent. Schmidt has a regular routine. He usually leaves here about now. His shipping business is managed out of a building he owns in the new part of the city but he doesn't always go there. There's another office in the old warehouse district. He runs the syndicate out of there."
"I wonder how he manages to get away with it?" Ronnie said.
"Money buys a lot of privacy. Besides, he's Hamburg aristocracy. His family has been here since the fifteenth century. They've built ships for hundreds of years. His father was one of Hitler's early supporters, a dyed in the wool Nazi. Speer provided him with plenty of slave labor to construct ships for the Third Reich."
"A war criminal."
"Yes. But after the war all he got was a slap on the wrist. The allies needed him to rebuild the industry."
"That kind of thing happened a lot," Selena said.
"Once the shooting stopped, everyone went back to business as usual. The old man is dead. Helmut took over years ago."
Lamont shook his head. "Doesn't seem right, letting hard-core Nazis go free."
"No, it doesn't. All those people should have been locked up."
"Or worse."
"The gate's opening," Ronnie said.
The elaborate iron gate that blocked entrance to the property was sliding open. A silver Mercedes AMG GT came through the opening, a sleek creation of the German carmaker's art.
"Nice car," Lamont said. "It looks fast."
"That's an understatement," Selena said. "That car has a turbocharged V-8 that'll do zero to sixty in a little over three and a half seconds."
"How do you know things like that?"
"I thought about buying one a while back. You know I like Mercedes."
"That has to be Schmidt," Nick said.
Selena was driving. Much as he hated to admit it, Nick knew her driving skills in a crunch situation were better than his. Besides, she spoke the language. It would come in handy if they had to deal with the police. She started the engine and waited until the silver car was a few blocks away before pulling out to follow.
They left Schmidt's exclusive suburb and in a short time entered the city. The Mercedes headed for the old part of town.
"He's going to his warehouse," Nick said.
They entered the Speicherstadt, the old warehouse district. Rows of red brick buildings lined canals feeding into the river. They might as well have stepped back into the nineteenth century, when steam was king and most of the world was ruled by a few royal families.
Ahead, Schmidt's car turned off into a narrow street between buildings. At the end of the street was a high metal fence with a gate and a warehouse beyond. As they drove past they saw the gate closing behind Schmidt's car. There was a guard shack by the fence and a large man standing outside. He was armed.
Nick said, "We're not getting in that way."