Moving through the door, the scene out there came into focus for Jake. Two other men lay behind desks, killed by Alexandra, who still had her gun out and stood tall in the center of the room. And then Toni came from another hallway, putting her gun into the holster under her arm as she stepped over two other dead men.
“So much for diplomacy?” Toni said.
“Where’s Franz,” Jake asked her.
Toni shook her head. “Took a shot and bled out.”
Part of Jake felt good about that. It was a much better way to die than from the constant daily slow death of cancer. He considered going back now to say one last goodbye, but stopped himself from doing so. Jake wanted to remember Franz as he had been — the strong, vibrant Polizei officer he had first met when Jake worked in Austria years ago.
“He thanked you for your friendship over the years,” Toni said solemnly. “And…”
“What?”
“He said, he knew you’d get the bastards who killed Anna. He trusted you to find a way.” Toni turned away, flipped open her cell phone, and punched in a number.
Alexandra came to Jake and seemed somewhat subdued. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” Jake said.
She saw blood on Jake’s leg and she holstered her gun to take a look. “I’ll kiss it later.” Alexandra put her hand affectionately on Jake’s shoulder. “The bullet just nicked your calf.”
Moments later a man’s voice came through a bull horn at them in German, telling them to come out.
“Did you call them?” Jake asked.
“I had no choice,” Alexandra said. “This is my country. My responsibility.” She went to the front door, her hands in the air with her BND Badge in her right hand, and wandered out to talk with the Polizei.
When Alexandra was gone, Jake stared for a moment at Toni. She flipped her phone shut and shoved it into her pocket.
“Your girlfriend go talk to the Polizei so they won’t shoot us?” Toni asked derisively.
He thought about that. Girlfriend. He wasn’t sure about his relationship with Alexandra. Maybe it was too soon after the death of Anna. Sure they’d come together in more ways than one. But it was way too early to consider anything more than simple needs.
“Yeah,” Jake said, leaving it that way. “What did Kurt have to say?”
“Same old stuff. Good job. He’s still trying to convince you to come to work for him again full time. He said you could work special projects for him like I do.”
Jake laughed. “I don’t think so. I think this is my last little adventure. Maybe it’s time to go fishing.”
Toni half smiled at him. “Can you really stay away?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I’ll have to find out.”
“Where will you go from here?”
He had no idea. He’d need a new car. Maybe a new apartment. Better yet, a house. “I think it might be time to settle down, Toni. I’ve pushed my luck too much over the last couple decades. It’s gotta run out sooner or later.”
Neither said a word as they stared at each other.
“What about you?” he asked her.
“Working special projects for the director of the CIA isn’t that bad,” she explained.
“What about your husband?”
“It’s not working out.”
“Sorry to hear that?” And he was. He wished she would find someone who made her happy. Someone who respected and loved her like…
Polizei officers streamed into the front entrance. Alexandra must have explained what they would find, because none of them had guns drawn.
“You take care,” she said to him, moisture forming in each eye. “Let me know where you end up.”
“I will.”
She turned and showed her credentials to the Polizei officers.
Jake wandered out the door to find Alexandra. Maybe he knew this was the way it would end up for him. He’d always thought, though, that he’d go down like Franz, instead of simply retiring to a mountain home in the Alps. With no foresight of thought, he went right to Alexandra, who was talking with the Polizei officer in charge of Berlin. As she turned to him, Jake planted a heavy kiss on her lips and she responded passionately to his gesture.
When they finally pulled away, she led Jake a few feet from the Polizei man and said, “What does this mean, Jake?”
“I don’t know. I think it means we should spend more time together. You never really took that vacation. Maybe we should go together.”
She kissed him quickly and said, “I agree.”
Jake looked back at her smashed car and then laughed and said to her, “Looks like we both need a new car.”
She wrapped her arms around him, her head against his shoulder. He held her there like that for a long time.
Toni Contardo sat back in her chair, exhausted physically and emotionally after the long trip back from Europe. For the last half hour she had briefed her boss, CIA Director Kurt Jenkins, on the basics of the mission to Berlin. He sat behind his desk in deep thought, his eyes staring at a point on the wall across the room.
“If there’s nothing else, sir,” she said, “I’d like to get home and take a shower. Maybe sleep for a couple of days.”
Jenkins shifted his gaze to her. “Do you think the Russians in Berlin acted alone?”
Truthfully, she had no idea. “These thing are almost always more complex than they first seem.” But she knew he knew this already.
“I understand. But what’s your gut tell you?”
She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “Opinions and supposition are for politicians.”
“A guess,” he probed.
“I don’t think much happens without the SVR in Moscow knowing about it,” she said. “Zukov was a sick bastard who probably came up with the million Euro scheme and sold the idea to Pushkin. And, of course, Pushkin had it in for Jake, thinking he’d killed his brother years ago. The others simply followed their lead.”
The CIA director’s forehead scrunched in consternation. “What was the point?”
Toni had already gone over her theory with him about Russia flexing its muscles again, trying to find some relevance in the world. But she knew that’s not what Kurt meant. “It was a test, sir. To see how we would react. I think it was just the beginning of a larger plot.”
“Really?”
“Yes, sir. First they kill a bunch of old agents from their own side, which they run up the chain to the Kremlin, who order retaliation.”
“But then why hit Jake Adams so soon?”
He had a good point, and it had bothered her on the flight back from Europe. “Like I said, that was personal on the part of Pushkin. He slipped Jake in with the others. And they only hit former officers. They knew that if they hit our current assets, they’d start a war.”
He brought his hands to his lips as if praying. “Something’s bothering you,” he said.
“This whole case bothers me,” she said. “The Russians have had some grand schemes in the past, but this seems different. Something new.”
“How far up the chain does it go?” he asked her.
That was the problem. There was no way to know for sure. But she had an idea. “If you put a gun to my head, I’d have to say to the deputy director of external counter-intelligence.”
“Tatyana Petrova?”
“General of the Army Tatyana Petrova. Yes, sir. Rumor has it she could be next in line for the director’s job. She’d be the first woman in Russia to ever rise that high.”
Kurt Jenkins grunted and swiveled in his chair. “Thanks, Toni. Now get out of here and get some sleep. Take some time off.”
She barely had enough strength to rise from her chair. She thought about her current life and how she had nowhere to go. Her marriage, such as it had been, was over now. And Jake Adams had moved on again without her. She had no one. A woman in her forties with no one was pathetic, she thought. How had her life come to this point? The job had been everything to her. Still was. But it was hollow. A forgettable life. She tiredly shuffled to the door.