The Fallen Guy: A Spy Thriller

PrologueBerlin – 1997

The letters shimmered on the plain of the yellowed paper, the moisture in his eyes fogging the squiggles into botches. Letters birthed by an ancient East German typewriter, standard issue.

David Ward coughed. The dust in these old East German Stasi — State Security Police — files penetrated his lungs. He was alone in the basement room eight years after the fall of the Berlin Wall had brought down the Stasi.

He had taken precautions not to be recognized.

A black trim wig enclosed his blond longish hair. One of those ridiculous German hats with the little feathers, as if he were about to climb the Zugspitze, held itself up next to the file. A cheap “East German” polyester suit hung loosely on his muscled body. He had even padded his flat midriff with a cushion of cloth — the typical beer belly. He could be mistaken for a gastarbeiter — foreign worker — or one of those worker drones of the former German Democratic Republic. His clothes concealed his weapons.

He pushed his disguise glasses farther up the bridge of his nose, then rose to return the file. He had people to see.

                                       DAY 1

Berlin 1997 —

Hans Wermer hunkered in a disintegrating armchair in the reception room of the CIA’s office in Berlin.

The Library.

At least that’s what his contact had called it more than 20 years ago — when he had a contact. Then he passed reports of economic progress in the workers’ paradise across the Iron Curtain. Before his fall from grace. Did they still call it the Library?

He shifted his beer-fed figure in the chair — one seam had sprung a leak, the padding sprouting whiskers. He was not good at waiting. No, not good at all.

Three days ago he’d been informed by the liaison officer at the CIA reception center in Berlin, a young man speaking in school-learned German, that Hans’ case would take some time. “Ist das klar?” the young man had asked.

It was not so simple. No, not so simple as the other refugees:

A short interview at the reception center, perhaps a few days, even a month, at a “hotel” the army maintained, then some marks and a “good luck and aufweidersehen.”

Sometimes there could be more, if the story were interesting enough. He’d talked to old acquaintances so he understood this.

It was not gemutlich — cheerful — sitting around the army’s transit housing for foreigners waiting to talk to someone who would remember his past importance. At last he had been invited here.

The inner door opened and a young woman approached. “Herr Smith will see you now,” she said in English.

Although his mother had been British, he hadn’t spoken English in years. All English-speaking in his Dresden home had stopped when Hitler marched into Poland on September 1, 1939. “Englisch ist verboten,” his mother had said. It was for his safety, she’d explained. And although he was five at the time, he had understood what she meant.

After the war and her death he had found hidden in a schrank her old English poetry books — poems of Shelley, Keats, Browning, the ones she couldn’t bear to burn, the ones she risked their lives to keep. He had struggled to read the poems, sounding out the words the way he’d been taught by his mother. Later he’d studied English at the university. Still he wasn’t comfortable in her language, would never be truly comfortable. He was too old now.

He rose and grabbed his hat from the seat, using his other hand to slick back his grey hair cut close to his head. The woman led him through the door and down a narrow hallway. She paused outside a closed door, opened it without knocking, and motioned him inside.

Herr Smith unfolded his tall body from his desk chair to shake hands in the proper German manner. He appeared to be in his mid forties, his pin-striped suit jacket and pants tailored to his thin frame. Hans was aware of the contrast with his own stocky figure, his shiny suit pulled across his stomach. Herr Smith’s face could be German, round like his own. Herr Smith’s accent, when he opened his mouth to say “Guten tag,” was definitely a foreigner’s. Hans answered in his British-accented English, “Good day.”

Herr Smith’s face relaxed at the English reply. “Please have a seat,” he said in English.

What did the man want from him? Would he demand a lengthy recitation of the case history? Or had he read the case beforehand?

Herr Smith peered at the papers in front of him. “We’ve reviewed your file. Washington has reviewed your file.” He paused.

“Yes?”

“I don’t believe a word of it.”

Hans Wermer’s breath caught in his chest. He had failed.

Herr Smith’s eyes pierced his own.

“They do. We’ve booked you on an early plane to Washington tomorrow morning. The people in Langley want to talk to you.”

Gut. Sehr gut. Hans’ caged breath hissed from his mouth. He would be meeting with important people. Much more important than Herr Smith in Berlin.

Herr Smith stood. “Here are your tickets and a German government-issued passport. That’s all you’ll need.”

Hans stood too and took the documents. He shook hands and inclined his head, then walked out of the office.

In the hall he smiled. He had passed the first test.

**

Langley, Virginia, 1997 —

“We have no choice,” George MacIntosh said, eyeing the authorization lying on his desk top. “He’s coming from Berlin tomorrow and she’s the only one alive who can possibly identify him.” He fingered his CIA-issue pen.

“Why do we need to identify him? Just tell him no, we’re not interested. Send him a check if you want,” Kathleen Walters said.

She directed her words to Charles Trenchant seated on her left, but George knew he was her focus. After almost forty years in this business George understood that Kathleen, the newest member of the team and a black woman, wouldn’t risk voicing her objections to him. No, better to speak to another junior member of the team.

“He knows a lot — if he’s telling the truth. We’ve got to be sure,” George said.

“She’s a civilian!” Kathleen said.

“He’s asking for a great deal of compensation. We have to check out his story as well as we can. Believe you me, if there were anyone else left to identify him, we’d use that person.”

George had been stationed at CIA headquarters for the last several years, since before the rumblings that brought the Wall down. If nothing untoward happened, he would retire from here in another two years after a competent if not spectacular career.

This case had been passed on to him by his colleagues in Germany and he would handle it as he saw best.

Charles fingered his Yale blazer buttons, then crossed his legs. “We have to contact her immediately. Give her time to get down here.”

Kathleen’s eyes bored the middle of George’s tie before she raised her eyes to his face. “How can she possibly identify someone she saw only briefly over 20 years ago?”

George glanced across the room at the American flag hanging from an upright flag pole in a corner of his office. He’d had this same flag in every office he’d had around the world; it had seemed only appropriate in those cities where his cover had been political officer for the American embassy. In other places, when his cover had been cultural attache to the American consulate, he’d told visitors it was a little piece of the United States to keep him from being homesick. Now it was a reminder of his past, the places he’d been, the places he wouldn’t go after his retirement from Langley.

He flourished the signed authorization at Kathleen. “If she can’t, we’re out of luck.”

**

Kathleen locked her files before leaving for the day. Tomorrow she would wear a two-piece navy blue size 6 suit that added years to her actual late twenties. Her very short haircut ensured a “business” look. At 5’8” several of her shorter male colleagues were on a par with her, satisfying her and discomforting them.

Tomorrow something was going on, something bigger than George had let on. George had spoken of this as a routine matter of identification, just something “to help out the boys in compensation.”

She knew differently.

George didn’t realize he had a giveaway. Whenever he dissembled his eyes slid to his flag, as if apologizing to it for lying in the line of duty. After Charles had left the room, George had briefed her on her assignment, including having the woman stay overnight at Kathleen’s apartment if they needed her to stay in town. As he spoke George’s eyes had found his touchstone. Kathleen’s protests about the overnight arrangements had died before she voiced them.

Usually when something was happening she wasn’t allowed to know and she certainly wasn’t allowed to sit in on a visit from a non-agency person. This time she’d been asked to be Beth Parsons’ escort. Ferry her around Langley. Apparently it had been decreed that a woman’s presence would help this operation. “Make her feel relaxed,” George had said. “She’s not used to our kind of work anymore. She’ll have misconceptions, concerns. You can handle them.”

George had finally handed her an opportunity to get close to a real operation. If she only knew what that operation was.

**

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1997 —

Beth Parsons glanced in the mirror covering the entire end wall of the narrow room. Her chin-length red hair hadn’t fizzed much. On the other hand, her white gi — uniform — tied with her green belt looked like it could use a wash, thanks to the sweat of exertion and the humidity of May. She hated the way the bulk of the gi was around her waist. She worked out daily on an ab machine and her gi didn’t showcase her efforts.

The late afternoon sunlight slid across the wood floor, culminating at the bare feet of the shotokan karate sensei — instructor — Eitan, an Israeli who at 3rd dan black belt level was better than Beth could hope to be in three lifetimes. He also had the cutest smile wrinkles around his eyes — unfortunately he was a good 10 years younger than Beth’s 49 years.

The perennial tinge of guilt pinged. Beth shook her head. Noticing a man’s smile wrinkles was not betraying Stephen’s memory — noticing a man’s age in comparison to hers was.

Actually, Beth had more important things to worry about at the moment. The green belts testing for the highest level of that color belt, the level she had already achieved, were almost done. In a few minutes she and two others would be called up to test for the lowest level of brown belt.

From the corner of her eye where she sat on the mat waiting her turn she saw the dojo door open. Two men in dark suits with briefcases entered. It wasn’t unusual for people interested in starting karate to come by and check out the place. Yet the suits and the briefcases seemed incongruous. Maybe Eitan hadn’t paid the rent.

Now at a nod from Eitan she stood and took her place. She tried to block from her consciousness the smirk on the face of Shmuel, a 1st dan black belt Israeli who rumor said had once been the leader of an Israeli commando unit and still had ties to Israeli intelligence. To Beth all Shmuel represented was the black belt who most got on her nerves during training. Once, after she had managed to bungle a particularly difficult maneuver, he had said to her, “On the street you’d be dead.”

Eitan nodded for the test to begin. She blocked Shmuel from her mind and concentrated on her performance.

At the end of her test minutes later, she returned to her place on the mat. As she passed Shmuel he had murmured, “Better luck next time.” The shit!

Finally the testing of all levels was over. The sensei indicated they should line up for the closing ceremony.

Starting with the head-of-the-line black belt, the students kneeled singly as in one of those old Busby Berkeley movies where the dancers create an undulating wave. At the head of the line, Shmuel honked the command to breathe deeply for several seconds. Beth stared straight ahead into the middle distance, her hands on her thighs, trying not to shift on her knees — Shmuel always stretched out the seconds to demonstrate how macho he was, how long he could remain kneeling in the uncomfortable position.

After forever Shmuel barked the commands to bow to the wall portrait of the current grandmaster of their system, then bow to their own sensei. Eitan motioned for them to stand singly, starting with Shmuel, the line undulating upwards this time.

Beth stepped off the official dojo floor and onto the carpet where they left their shoes and socks. She reached down for her Reeboks.

“Beth Parsons?” a man behind her said.

Beth looked up, one shoe dangling from her right hand.

“Yes,” she said to one of the suited men.

“We need to speak to you.”

“Who are you?”

The man glanced around the small space, crammed with karate students gathering up their gear. “Could you step outside a moment? We’ll show you our IDs.”

“Show them to me now.”

“Outside would be better.”

She shook her head.

Both men palmed small ID cards encased in plastic and swiped the cards under her eyes. Tompkinson and Hemmings, both CIA. CIA?

“Wait a minute, what’s going on here?” she asked.

“Now will you come outside,” the one with the Tompkinson badge said. “We can’t speak in here.”

Outside the humidity pushed against them. Beth’s nose wrinkled, protesting the stench of garbage and dog leavings that perfumed the streets of Center City Philadelphia whenever the thermostat rose. She checked where she placed her barefoot feet. Was she in some doo-doo she didn’t know about?

“Langley needs to speak to you,” the one identified as Hemmings said.

“About what?”

“We weren’t given that information,” Tompkinson said. “Langley just notified the local office to deliver this message.”

“IDs can be faked. How do I know you’re for real?”

Hemmings snapped open his briefcase, extracted a single sheet. Beth could see it was old, not a computer-generated document.

He held it under her nose. “Look familiar?”

She recognized the type of form, but without her glasses she couldn’t read the type. “Hold on.” Her hand went to the purse she had grabbed as they exited the <i>dojo</i>. She slipped on her glasses.

“For heavens sake! This is the first page of my application for a security clearance. It’s almost 25 years old. Where did you unearth this?”

The men smiled.

“I still don’t get it.”

“We have no comment,” Tompkinson said. “Only to notify you.”

“When will Langley call?”

“No call. A man will come for you tomorrow at 7 a.m. He’ll drive you down to Langley,” Hemmings said. “And bring a suitcase for a few nights.”

Tompkinson now snapped open his briefcase. He pulled out a black-and-white photo and handed it to her.

Her face burned. “How did you get this? It’s personal.”

She and Stephen stood with their arms around each other, her red hair long and straight instead of short and permed. Snow-covered peaks filled the background.

“This was taken in Bavaria, wasn’t it?” Tompkinson said.

“Yes, at Linderhof, one of Mad King Ludwig’s castles.”

“It was taken, no doubt, when you lived in Munich?”

An eternity ago. “Yes, why?”

“As I’ve already said, Langley needs to speak to you.”

“And if I can’t arrange to come?”

“You will. This is important.”

Hemmings nodded. “You will be reimbursed for any out-of-pocket expenses.”

Two of her classmates exited the dojo, waved to her as they headed down the block. What would they think if they knew who she was talking to? They’d want to know what she wanted to know — what could this possibly be about? Unless, unless, the CIA had finally learned who was responsible for Stephen’s death?

She pushed her breath down into her diaphragm, the way the students breathed in karate class. She couldn’t get her hopes up. This would probably be about something silly, but what silly thing would be worth bringing up so many years later?

“How’s the weather down there?”

“If I were you, I’d bring an assortment of clothes — and your passport. You never know where you may end up.”

End up? What was going on here? And how did they know she had a current passport? Oh, duh. They could easily check that.

“Anything else I’ll need?”

“Just your memory.”

Terrific. “What’s the name of the person coming for me?”

“Ralph. He’ll have a grey Chevy sedan.”

A green belt waved to her as he left the dojo, then she nodded to the two men.

“And tell no one where you’re going. Just say you’re going out of town.”

The men didn’t say good-bye; they just turned away.

Beth walked back into the dojo to put on her Reeboks. Several students still milled around, jawing with each other.

Shmuel leaned forward, his open gi top framing a hairy chest. Macho. “What did the spooks want?”

“What?”

“Don’t bullshit me. I can spot one a mile away.”

Beth stared into Shmuel’s eyes. Stephen always said “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter.”

“Me.”

Shmuel laughed. “What would they want with you?”

Beth jammed her feet into her shoes. “That’s for me to know and for you to find out.”

Shmuel’s eyes blazed. Would she regret her words?

Outside again on Walnut Street she turned towards her Pine Street townhouse. At the northeast corner of Walnut and 18th she entered Rittenhouse Square. Halfway through the park she collapsed onto a bench, leaned her head against the wood slats.

She closed her eyes and was back at the 66th Military Intelligence Group, sitting at her secretary’s desk on the second floor of the enormous stone building — former Luftwaffe headquarters — as traffic raced alongside the building to exit the eastern edge of Munich and headed toward the lake at Chiemsee where Mad King Ludwig had another one of his castles, Herrenchiemsee, or the mountains in Berchtesgarden where Hitler had his aviary hideaway, Eagle’s Nest.

Around her at their desks sat the U.S. army civilians, the captains, the infantry major who thought the military intelligence unit’s security measures lax — all scribbling or telephoning. Or reminiscing with each other. Did civilians wear uniforms in Taiwan in ’54 or Hong Kong in ’56?

The highest-ranking civilian in the room, a GS-13, had caused trouble for her. Had actually gotten her fired without ever telling her he could or would. Her own boss had been a GS-12, unable to reverse the firing. The infantry major had patched things up. And she had played the power game from then on, once she had known that a game had been in progress.

All that was years ago. What could it have to do with her now?

                                         DAY 2

Langley, Virginia —

In a few minutes Kathleen had to meet with George. She twirled an enameled pen — her farewell gift from Rodney. His field reports lit up dots all across the map of Europe. Prague, Paris, Padua. Out in the field. Where the action is.

Being an African-American didn’t hinder her as much as being a woman. Even though almost all the old-timers had worked with women in the field or at their cover assignments, they thought of women as order-followers, not order-givers.

It was damn hard to find just the right tone, just the right words, whenever she wanted to get a point across. She had to remind herself not to speak too often, too forcefully, too whatever.

She was determined to make herself an integral part of this operation going down today. Prove that she could handle sensitive situations.

She had to — if she ever wanted to get a field assignment.

**

George signaled for Charles to take a seat, watching as Charles unbuttoned his navy blazer before sitting. Ah, yes, the blazer with the Yale sculling team buttons. Beth Parsons had gone to Penn. Had Charles chosen this outfit to silently cue her in to his superiority?

“What time will she be here?” Charles asked.

“Between ten-thirty and eleven. We’ll be notified when the car is 10 minutes away.”

George opened the operation folder lying on his desk. He glanced at the top page. “We’ll have plenty of time. He’s not arriving until this afternoon.”

“Where are you going to put her tonight if she has to stay over?”

He wouldn’t tell Charles that this simple question had given him much anxiety. A safe house wasn’t necessary; a hotel was too open.

“With Kathleen.” He had given Kathleen the assignment without asking her permission.

“Ah,” Charles said. “Yes, that’s a good idea.”

George appreciated that Charles had learned, perhaps at Yale, always to agree with your superiors. This was one of Charles’ qualifications that George found most useful. There were a few others. Charles could speak passable German and decent French. He knew which wine to order with which food. And with his blond WASP looks he could look bland and inconspicuous at will, which was practically all the time.

Kathleen, on the other hand, stood out. A young black woman whose body language said “I’m a professional,” she confounded the men at department meetings. Instructed by George to say nothing unless spoken to, she was invariably asked a question by someone — often to put her on the spot — and she always managed to answer succinctly and intelligently.

With Kathleen, George had to be extremely cautious.

**

Charles strolled back across the hall to his own, smaller, office. He shut the door after telling the young male secretary he shared with Kathleen that he did not wish to be disturbed.

Then he dropped into his desk chair and smiled. Yes, things were going very well, very well indeed.

He removed his tortoise-shell-frame glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. It certainly helped to be able to play Lord Peter Wimsey, to act the role of a none-too-bright but harmless aristocrat. It was amazing what George would say when Charles was around, things George would never say in front of Kathleen.

No, old George was wary around Kathleen. Thought she was too bright and eager to be trusted. But Charles was such a good boy, such a faithful attendant, that lips could be quite loose around him.

And did that ever give Charles an advantage. Poor Kathleen. She wouldn’t know what hit her.

**

Beth fidgeted in the back seat of the car as much as her shoulder belt would allow. She had offered to sit up front with Ralph, had hoped for some conversation that would speed the time. He had said no to the first and not responded to any of her conversational gambits.

They had already skirted Washington and now they arrived at their destination, the guard at the gate checking them, then motioning them forward.

Beth followed Ralph through the building until they reached the 4th floor, where he handed her and her suitcase over to a young woman who kept the suitcase and motioned for Beth to enter a door at the far end of the reception room. Needless to say, Ralph didn’t say good-bye.

Inside the room an older man, probably in his sixties, occupied a standard-issue desk. A young woman and a young man faced the desk. The third guest chair was empty.

“Welcome, welcome,” the older man said. “I’m George MacIntosh and this is Kathleen Walters and Charles Trenchant. Have a seat.”

Beth slid into the third chair, equidistant between Charles on her left and Kathleen on her right.

George smiled. “First off, we want to thank you for coming down on such short notice. We really appreciate it.”

“What is this about?” she said.

“Yes, this must seem strange,” George said. “I can understand you would have been surprised to hear from us.”

She glanced at Kathleen, then at Charles. Neither one showed any expression.

Beth had typed enough reports in Munich to know that people often rattled on when faced with ambiguity and pauses in an interrogation. They’d begin to talk, to fill in the silences. A big mistake. She said nothing, just turned her head to study the rest of the room.

The American flag in the far corner looked old, but it did seem to have pride of place.

George coughed. She looked at him again. George nodded at Charles.

Charles said, “I don’t know how much you’ve followed the last few years in Europe since the Berlin Wall fell?”

“Some.”

“Perhaps you’ve read there has been a steady stream of humint — human intelligence — coming across the former borders?”

She nodded.

“Some of these people worked for us in former times. On occasion there are some who feel they’re owed for past services rendered.”

“Owed a great deal,” George said.

“And sometimes after all these years it’s a problem to determine whether they really are owed.” Charles brushed a blond forelock out of his eyes. “And we have to do the best we can to figure out who’s owed what.”

“It’s very simple really,” George said. “We need you to identify someone.”

“Identify someone? Who could I possibly identify?”

George nodded at Kathleen, who passed a folder over to Beth. “Open it,” Kathleen said.

So the woman speaks. Beth had wondered if Kathleen were here for window dressing, to show how progressive the CIA now was, with this twofer — a woman and a black.

Inside the folder was a report typed in the format Beth had used for reports of meetings between “sources” (never referred to as spies or informants) and their contacts. The analyzing officer’s name she recognized — that of her civilian boss in Munich, Jack Lockheim.

“Read it,” George said. “Take your time.”

It began: “Source confirms that there has been a doubling of guards outside the factory for the last week. Source offers the opinion that the factory has received a shipment of strategic materiel that may be utilized for the manufacture of long-range missiles to be aimed at the most densely populated cities of Western Europe.”

Missiles aimed at the most densely populated cities of Western Europe. Beth flashed to the memory of waiting for a ski lift on the top of Germany’s tallest mountain, the Zugspitze. The army man next to her in line is explaining his job. “I check on the nuclear arms hidden all over Germany in case the Soviets start a war.” He leans closer. “Believe me,” he says, “you don’t even want to consider living through the devastation if we set those weapons off.”

The soldier had told her this only a week before she typed the report of the possible manufacture of missiles aimed at Western Europe. Which is why she remembered this particular report. Because she had thought then — even if those weapons didn’t have nuclear heads — if they were fired the Americans would probably retaliate with nuclear weapons, so they’d all be killed anyway.

“Is the question do I remember this report? Because I do.”

“Good,” George said. “Do you remember anything else about this report?”

“No, should I?”

George flipped open a folder on his desk and pushed a photo towards her. “This was your boss, was it not, when you worked in Munich?”

Jack Lockheim, a short, kind man in his forties at the time. He had collected European stamps and liked good German restaurants. He had been nice to her when some of the other men who shared their office space had not.

“Yes, I worked for Jack Lockheim.”

“And when you gave notice of quitting your job so that you could travel on your husband’s leave, what did Jack do?”

“Do? He took me out to lunch to celebrate my European travels.”

“Do you remember where you went for lunch?”

Beth smiled. “We went to a Russian restaurant that Jack liked. There was a bottle of vodka on every table. You just poured as much as you wanted and the waiter charged you by how much the bottle had gone down. And we had caviar.”

“Yes,” George said. “And what else happened?”

“Nothing. Why?”

“Just take a couple more minutes and think about that lunch.”

The vodka bottle in the middle of the white tablecloth, the group of British officers seated next to them celebrating someone’s promotion to captain. A short stocky man stumbling over her feet and offering in German to buy them a drink. She’d understood his offer more from his actions, swinging his bottle in their faces, than from his slurred words. She had thought nothing of him after his companion pulled him away.

“You mean the drunken man who offered us a drink? His friend pulled him away from our table.”

“He wasn’t drunk and that wasn’t his friend.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s like this,” George said. “A man named Hans Wermer was at that time passing us information about the economic progress of the workers’ paradise in East Germany. He came with some colleagues to Munich to speak at an economics conference on the two Germanys. His family remained in East Germany so he was allowed to come.

“The day you ate in that restaurant he was there with some of his East German colleagues. Of course the political officer was with to keep them in line. In contradiction of all security procedures, somehow Hans knew that Jack Lockheim received his reports from Hans’ case officer. And apparently Hans knew what Jack looked like.”

Perspiration bathed Beth’s palms. Where was this all leading?

George looked across his office, then back to her. “Hans was somewhat arrogant, pleased as punch to be in the West for the first time. He got up from his table and came over to your table, carrying his table’s vodka bottle. He offered to buy you drinks to show you the hospitality of the East. He spoke in German and said something to Jack to let him know who he was. Before Jack could reply, the political officer arrived at your table and pulled Hans away.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Because Jack wrote a report of an attempted contact by a foreign national at that meal.”

“An attempted contact?”

“Surely you remember that much when you got your job with military intelligence? You were required to report any overtures made to you by foreign governments or any other contacts.”

Had she broken the pledge she’d signed? If she hadn’t known it was an attempted contact, wasn’t that okay not to have reported it?

“I didn’t know it was an attempted contact -- I didn’t really understand what was said in German. And one drunk German looked like any other drunk German to me.”

George waved a hand. “No, no, it’s okay. You couldn’t have known. But Jack did. And he filed a report of the incident and stated that you were with him at lunch. That report went into Hans’ folder, which was reviewed when he came forward to make his claim.”

“But why am I here?”

George spread his hands on his desk. “You see, Jack Lockheim died a couple of years ago, and Hans’ case officer is also dead. We don’t have anyone else who could possibly identify Hans. We think he might not be who he says he is. After the Wall fell, lots of identity papers got lost or switched. This might just be an opportunist trying to cash in on the confusion. We need you to try to identify him.”

The laugh escaped her mouth. “That’s over twenty years ago. I saw him for a few seconds. How could I possible recognize him?”

Charles rustled in his seat. “We know. We have to try.”

Something didn’t compute. Beth didn’t believe they thought she could recognize this guy Hans. He must be asking for a lot of money so someone was covering his or her ass, going through the motions, making a check next to everything on a “to do” list, proving everything had been covered by the book, before authorizing or not authorizing this claim.

This was a time waster like the enormous amounts of time spent in her day on conversations and telexes by civilians at headquarters in Munich, the people engaged in the “life-and-death” decisions of the Christmas gifts of liquor and perfume for the German nationals and for the others who helped the Americans. Who deserved a $10 bottle of whiskey and who a $20 bottle — bought at the American kaserne’s liquor store for which military personnel had ration cards and headquarters had a budget.

“Why not just show me recent photos when those guys visited me in Philadelphia? Why bring me all the way down here?”

“Because we realize it’s been a long time,” George said. “Body language may be able to help you identify him.”

“Body language? Are you going to have him hold a vodka bottle in one hand and stumble over me in a pretend drunken stupor?” She laughed again.

“It’s not a funny matter,” Charles said. “You’re our only hope.”

God help the country if she were the CIA’s only hope.

**

Charles was back in his own office, having begged off lunch with Kathleen and their guest. He did not want to discuss women’s things.

He didn’t like women much. Preferred the company of men. Not sexually — he thought of himself as asexual, above the pull of those entrapping emotions. Men offered companionship, good conversation, and they knew how to play the game.

He’d told George he had a squash game with someone in another department. Just the type of silly-horse thing George expected him to say. If George were to find out Charles hadn’t in fact played squash, Charles could always say the game had been canceled at the last minute and he didn’t want to intrude on lunch late. Not good manners that, he would add.

Good manners. Such a useful affectation. Got one past potentially inquisitive minds.

Charles picked up his telephone and punched numbers. “It’s me,” he said into the receiver. “Calling from the office. I wanted to check on our meeting time tonight.”

He listened, said “Fine” and hung up.

Had he done right to call now? The phones here were supposed to be secure, but he never said anything on them he couldn’t explain to any official “eavesdropper.” And he tried to avoid calling from his office all together. Sometimes, like today, when things were happening, he’d call using the code of “check on our meeting time tonight.” It really meant he wanted a meeting tonight.

And tonight it was imperative to meet.

**

“Choose anything you like,” Kathleen told Beth as they walked down the cafeteria line. “The food is decent.”

Kathleen slung a plate of salisbury steak onto her tray. Beth’s stomach flipflopped from the pungent odor of the gravy-drowned steak. She was certainly not going to follow suit.

Beth chose a tuna fish salad and a glass of orange juice. Her hand wavered over and then passed up a chocolate brownie. She let Kathleen pay — the CIA could afford it — and followed her outside to a picnic table.

Kathleen doused her steak with ketchup. “After lunch we’ll be leaving here.”

“Where are we going?”

“Just for a drive. We’ll be heading out toward Dulles.”

“Why is that?”

Kathleen smiled. “We’ll be meeting the subject at a federal park. George thinks the hugeness of Langley would overwhelm the subject. Better to meet him in a less intimidating place.”

Beth nodded, then asked, “Why didn’t this guy make his claim earlier? Why wait several years after the Wall came down?”

“Lots of people are still coming across. Some have been cautious, waiting to see what happens to the first waves. Others have personal reasons. I believe the wife of our guy just died. Maybe she wouldn’t leave her home. Now he’s free to come West.”

“How did you get in this business?” Beth paused as the orange juice puckered her mouth. “I mean, were you always interested in working for the ... government?”

Kathleen laughed. “My parents are still asking me this. They can’t understand why I’d spend two years getting an M.B.A. degree and then settle for a low-paying civil service job.”

Just what any normal parents would wonder.

Kathleen waved her fork in front of her cafe au lait complexion – she obviously wanted to change the subject. She asked Beth, “How did you end up working for military intelligence in Munich?”

Beth smiled. “I needed a job to make money for my husband and me to travel around Europe on his leave. Even with an apartment provided by the army and access to the PX and commissary, a lieutenant’s salary doesn’t go far. The headquarters of the PX paid so little an hour it wasn’t worth working. For almost an entire year I fought with the civil service bureaucracy back in the States to get a job. First I worked at the Army Air Force Motion Picture Service.”

“What did you do there?”

“I typed lists all day long of 16mm movies being sent to a few guys on top of various mountains in Italy. Finally my security clearance came through and I moved up from a GS-2 there to a GS-3 at group headquarters.”

“That must have been more interesting.”

“Not necessarily. Just what I typed was more important.”

Now Kathleen smiled. “Have you been back to Europe since then?”

Beth shook her head because she didn’t trust her voice. How could she return to Europe without Stephen?

Beth was grateful that Kathleen’s attention was focused on her watch. “We still have some time,” Kathleen said. “He’ll be picked up at Dulles right about now. There’s no need to rush.”

**

Outskirts of Washington D.C. —

David Ward parked his car a mile from the entrance to the park. The few minutes he needed to sprint the distance was no sweat — his daily workout was at least triple this.

High overhead cumulus clouds lazed along. He would have preferred rain. For camouflage.

Yes, the chess pieces were moving into place rather nicely. This next turn wouldn’t produce checkmate, but it would up the stakes.

He just had to be patient.

**

Kathleen led the way to her own Honda in the parking lot. George had been explicit that she was to drive her own car. Nothing extraneous to spook the spook.

A driver would bring the subject to the rendezvous and wait for the meet. Whether Beth recognized him made no difference to Kathleen’s instructions, which were to bring Beth back to Langley afterwards.

“Here we are. Hop in,” Kathleen said. She and Beth fastened their safety belts and Kathleen drove off the grounds of the CIA.

Kathleen glanced at Beth. Obviously Beth had brought a suitcase for no reason. She’d be back in Philadelphia in time for a late dinner. And Kathleen would be no closer to the kind of assignment she wanted than she’d been before Beth’s visit.

“How long will it take us?” Beth said.

“It’s not far.”

At the entrance to the federal park Kathleen drove down an interior road until she reached the spot chosen by George. Where was the other vehicle? Was this the right place?

“Come on,” Kathleen said. “There’s supposed to be a shed where we’re to meet.”

Beth followed Kathleen out of the car and down a path. About a hundred yards away a wooden shed stood at the end of the path. They were in the right place, Kathleen thought. She didn’t think she’d memorized the instructions incorrectly.

The door of the shed was closed and there were no signs of anyone.

Kathleen pushed open the door. It sure was dark inside. She fished her pocket flashlight out of her purse and shone it around the interior while Beth stood behind her.

The scream — had she or Beth or both of them screamed? — caused her to tighten her grasp on the flashlight. Then Kathleen held the light steady on the man who lay sprawled on the dirt floor, stomach down, his face turned to one side, a small dark hole in his forehead.

“Do you recognize him?” she asked Beth.

Kathleen moved to one side so Beth could see the lighted face.

“Yes,” Beth said, her breath sounding as if it were being squeezed out of a grape press.

“You do? How can you be so sure after all these years?”

“What?” Beth stumbled against her. “I saw him this morning. This is Ralph.”

“Ralph? Who’s Ralph?”

“He’s the guy who drove me here from Philly today.”

Not the subject? Then where was the subject? Had Ralph been the driver assigned to pick up the subject at the airport?

“Shit! Nobody tells me anything,” Kathleen said. And presumably nobody would — even when she was the one to stumble over a body. For now she and Beth should get out of here quick. Call Langley. Let them handle it.

Kathleen turned the flashlight beam on Beth. “You’re sure about the identity.”

Beth’s color didn’t look too good. “How many men do you want me to identify? First you bring me down here to look at some man I met for one second years ago, now you’re questioning me about a man whose back of the head I stared at for several hours. But, I’m sure. He’s wearing the same clothes and his neck has the same little Band-Aid probably protecting a shaving cut. It’s Ralph. And he’s as talkative now as he was on the drive down from Philly.” Kathleen pulled Beth towards the door. Sick jokes were probably Beth’s way of dealing with crisis. “Come on,” Kathleen said. “We have to get out of here.”

Kathleen stumbled over Beth’s feet, then righted herself and tugged on the other woman to hurry. Kathleen slammed the door of the shed and, with one arm around Beth’s waist, led her back down the path.

She pushed Beth into the car and backed out before punching in George’s number. Cell phones were incapable of being secure because anyone could pick up radio signals, but she could use a little double talk.

“George, it’s Kathleen. We found a little surprise waiting for us. You’d better send a cleanup team immediately.” She listened to his sputtering on the other end. “I’ll explain when I get there.”

Beth had said nothing since they’d left the shed. Maybe she was in shock. Kathleen leaned over and shook Beth slightly. “Are you okay?”

Beth turned towards her. “What’s going on? Is this a setup or what?”

I wish I knew, Kathleen thought. I wish I knew.

**

Jawohl, Hans thought, then reminded himself he must not only speak English, but try to think only in English. Okay, he said. And he must not drive so fast. He raised his foot a little off the gas pedal. Above everything he must not attract attention to himself in any way.

He was driving on some kind of highway headed toward Washington, he thought, but he couldn’t be sure.

When he’d checked in the car he found no maps. He could have asked the driver which way to go, but unfortunately the driver wasn’t here any longer.

No maps, a little bit of money, a passport not in his own name, half a tank of gas, and no plan. He needed to stop somewhere and think. But where?

Into the crowds. He’d do what every visitor to Washington did. He’d tour the monuments.

Up ahead a road sign indicated how many miles to downtown Washington. Relief swept through him. He was going in the right direction!

Ist das klar? he had been asked in Berlin. He had said yes then, but nothing was clear now. He had a plan, back in Germany, but now the plan had to be changed. Now he must think quickly, or he’d be caught before he fulfilled his mission.

His mission.

He spotted the Potomac River and, as he came closer, the signs directed him onto the bridge that crossed it. Although he had never been in Washington before, he had read up in preparation for his trip. But he had brought no material with him, no maps or guidebooks, because he didn’t want to alarm his contacts. They must not guess at anything.

He drove south along the shore of the Potomac and followed the sign to the Jefferson Memorial. As he came alongside the monument he pulled in and parked his car among the others. Adults and children moved toward the open rotunda. He fell into step behind a group of Japanese tourists climbing down from an immense tour bus, their cameras already cocked ready to aim.

In front of the monument he stopped, standing a few feet away from the tour guide talking in rapid Japanese, and stared across at the Lincoln and Washington monuments.

“Excuse me, what time is it?” a young woman holding a baby asked him.

He opened his mouth to speak, stopping the German words just in time. In English he said, “It is 3:30.”

“Thank you,” she said and turned towards the huge statue of Thomas Jefferson.

The sweat pooled under his armpits. He had almost slipped. He had to be more careful. Yes, that’s what Frederick used to say to him all the time, he had to be more careful. Frederick. His comrade who had defected while on an economic mission to the United States. Had left his wife and children back in Dresden. Frederick hadn’t give a damn what the secret police might do to them; he’d wanted his freedom, wanted to stop having to be so careful all the time.

Frederick lived in Baltimore now. He worked for a messenger service. Had his own car and could drive all over with it.

Hans knew just what to do! He’d call the messenger service asking for Frederick — he remembered the name was Speedy Delivery — and ask for help. Frederick would help him. It was the American way.

**

Langley, Virginia —

“I don’t understand,” George said. Kathleen watched him tap his pen against his blotter and shift his weight in his desk chair.

“How could the driver be shot with no sign of the subject? Are you saying the subject shot the driver?”

His eyes bored into Kathleen’s. She tugged her hem over her knees, glad that Charles and Beth weren’t in the room. She slowed her breathing to avoid a high pitch, then answered.

“I’m saying I don’t know. I’m saying this whole thing is too weird.”

The door squeaked behind Kathleen. Charles strolled into the office and dropped into a chair.

“Howdy,” he said. “I hear not everything’s well on the western front.”

George swiveled his head to Charles. “No, things aren’t going well. Kathleen appears to have misplaced the subject.”

How dare he blame this on her! He never allowed her to be involved in any operations. Then when one of his went wrong, he dumped it on her. She opened her mouth to protest, then closed it. One thing she had learned from day one at the CIA — protesting only made you look more suspect. Best to keep one’s mouth shut. Charles knew the score anyway. Let George vent.

“What’s the deal?” Charles asked.

“The deal is we don’t know what the deal is,” George said.

“And where’s our ace-in-the-hole, Beth Parsons?”

Kathleen turned to Charles. “She’s in the cafeteria having coffee.”

“Not tea? A cup of tea is always so restorative,” Charles said.

“Funny, very funny,” Kathleen said.

“Kathleen!” George thrashed his hands at her. “Quiet. I have to think what to do.”

“Let me go look for him,” Kathleen said. “There was no car, so we can assume the subject is driving the CIA’s car. I can put out a discreet bulletin.”

“No,” George said. “How many times do I have to tell you that you are not to be involved in operations? This is a job for professionals.”

Kathleen dug her nails into her palms. No use in pointing out that she was a professional, trained by the CIA in numerous clandestine procedures. George only thought of men his age, who had been in the field for centuries, as capable of undertaking operations, even if these same men couldn’t run a mile or do a computer search to save their lives.

“I’ll help,” Charles said.

Of course Mr. Goody Two Shoes was always ready to help, always prepared to show up Kathleen. And for some reason George’s distrust of everyone under 50 didn’t extend to Charles, the golden-haired boy.

“Good.” George studied his blotter, then looked up at Kathleen. “Take Beth to your apartment now. I want her nearby in case we find the suspect quickly.”

“Come on, George, she’s not going to be able to ID him. This is a big waste of time.”

“Kathleen, I decide who does what. Now get her out of here.”

George flapped his hands at Kathleen and she stood. At her side Charles grinned.

He thought he had won again. They would just see about that.

**

Kathleen sniffed as she entered the cafeteria. The smells didn’t exactly identify the menu, yet the tang of cooking grease was discernible.

Beth sat at a table halfway across the room, her back to the door. You could see she hadn’t had any clandestine training. Always sit where you can survey the room was practically rule number one. You didn’t want anyone to get the jump on you without your knowing what was coming.

“Beth,” Kathleen called from a few steps away. Better not to wait until she was upon Beth and perhaps make her jump and perhaps causing her to spill hot coffee on herself or create some other equally unfortunate consequence.

“Yes?” Beth turned to face Kathleen.

“We have to go now.”

“Where?”

“To my apartment. Let’s go retrieve your suitcase and I’ll explain in the car.”

**

Baltimore, Maryland —

“SPEEDY DELIVERY” announced the sign outside the red-brick building. Frederick’s directions to Hans had been quite clear. Hans had without difficulty driven the car to Baltimore and found his friend’s place of business.

He walked inside. A woman with clown’s red hair sat at a counter, speaking into a phone headset.

She looked up at him. “You must be Frederick’s friend. He told me to look out for you.”

Hans smiled. “I am an old friend of his.”

“That’s nice.” She motioned to a door behind her. “Just go on back and you’ll find Frederick in his office.”

From a distance Hans could tell Frederick had changed much and had not changed much. Frederick was dressed as an American, in casual khaki pants and a checked shirt. Yet his posture and bearing as he walked towards Hans with an outstretched hand said German.

They clasped hands and shook. “Welcome,” Frederick said. “I am delighted to see you again.”

“It has been a long time, my old friend, has it not?”

“Yes, a long time. Come into my office and we will talk.”

Hans sat in the chair indicated by Frederick. The office was plain, just the one guest chair besides Frederick’s desk and chair. No pictures on the wall. A hot plate on the edge of the desk.

Hans gestured at the hot plate. “Is this where you live?”

Frederick laughed. “Oh, no, this is just for quick meals when business is bustling. I have a house nearby.”

“And a family? Did you marry again?”

“No, no. My family is still in the Fatherland.”

Hans forced himself to look Frederick in the eyes. “You did well for yourself. Your flight to the West was worth the sacrifice of leaving your family.”

Frederick smiled. “My family understood — they knew the truth.”

“What truth? That you couldn’t resist freedom when you participated in the soccer match in West Berlin?”

“Hans, Hans. I do not believe you are so naive after all these years. Just as you had some ‘activity’ on the side, I did too.”

“What are you saying?”

“Will you take an oath? Swear never to reveal what I am about to tell you?”

“Jawohl, I will swear.”

Frederick leaned closer; Hans could smell beer on his breath. “I knew what you were doing back home. I knew your arrangements with the West.”

“How could you know?” Hans asked.

“Because I was working for the East. And that’s why I’m here. My defection was part of the plan.”

“Part of the plan?”

“My assignment was to come out, give the Americans enough information that they would set me up in America, then use my new life to continue working for the East.”

“What did the East want you to spy on? And surely you’re not still in business?”

“Oh, but I am. And perhaps I can convince you to join our little group.”

Hans smiled. This was all quite interesting, quite interesting indeed.

**

“This looks familiar, the way we went to the park for the meet,” Beth said, watching Kathleen’s face for clues as Kathleen drove.

“Hey, good observation, you’re right.”

“What’s going on?”

“Look, I couldn’t say anything at headquarters. You never know who — or what — is listening. But I just wanted to check out the scene again for myself. See what we might have missed in our rush to leave.”

Whose rush to leave? Kathleen had dragged Beth back down the path from the hut. Beth had wanted to check around, see if they could spot any footprints, wait until the people from headquarters arrived. Beth read enough mysteries and thrillers to know not to leave a murder site unguarded. Evidence could be ruined, clues trampled. What did the CIA teach its operatives, for heaven’s sake?

Kathleen drove into the park along the route they’d taken earlier that day. After Kathleen parked the car, Beth followed her along the path. The shed stood a few yards in front of them.

Twigs crackled behind the women. “Who’s there?” Kathleen said as both of them whirled to face their rear.

The man was a foot away from her when Beth twisted to her right and stretched out her leg, trying to use the karate technique of break balance. It didn’t work. The man sidestepped her attempt and she skidded towards him. He yanked her up a nanosecond before she nosedived into the dirt.

“Mark Haskell!” Kathleen said.

Beth tugged away from the man. “You know this asshole?”

“He’s from the Company.”

What a shit! A guy — a well-built guy — supposedly from your own team crashes out of the woods and scares you almost to death.

Mark turned from Beth and smiled at Kathleen. “Who’s your quick-trigger friend?”

“No one you know.”

Mark’s grin stretched from ear to ear. Beth wanted to puke.

“Does she think she’s in tryouts for the Company?”

Kathleen shook her head. “Listen, Mark, what’s the story? You posted here?”

“Naw. I’m just giving the site another once over.”

“Find anything?”

“Nope. The clean-up team didn’t find the murder weapon or any footprints except those of the victim and what they assumed to be those of the subject.”

Kathleen gazed at the trees that encompassed the hut. “Figure a sniper?”

“Could be. No telling for sure.”

“Okay, we’re out of here,” Kathleen said. She motioned for Beth to walk down the path.

“Nice meeting you,” Mark said to Beth. “Better luck next time getting your man.”

**

Kathleen unlocked the door to her third floor apartment. She was proud of the cocoon she had created for herself. Book-crammed shelves lined two parallel walls of her living room and a walnut-colored leather chesterfield sofa, guarded by a goose-necked reading lamp, bridged the two book depositories. On the far wall a sliding glass door led to a balcony filled with a wrought-iron table and two matching chairs.

A decorator friend had helped with the furnishings. Kathleen had paid the decorator for her time — that was the decorator’s job, after all — friend or no friend. And the results were worth the investment: two taupe arm chairs faced the couch, a maple clutter column held Kathleen’s current magazine reading, a glass display case abutted the front door — showcasing Kathleen’s collection of paperweights, the domed kind with the miniature scenes inside them.

She’d started the collection when she was 10. At first she had the usual cheap ones that most people had, like the ones with the snow scenes where the snowflakes float down when you shake the paperweight. She had graduated to more expensive ones, including one of Murano glass bought in Venice last summer when she had met Rodney for a brief vacation.

“Are you hungry?” Kathleen asked Beth. “I don’t keep a lot of food in the refrigerator, but I can dig up some cheese and crackers.”

“No, thanks. I had a cinnamon roll with my coffee.”

“Then make yourself at home. Use the bathroom if you want to freshen up; read any of my books. I have to go back to the office for a while.”

“What for?”

“I didn’t have a chance to lock everything up for the day. I also have to answer my voice mail messages. Can’t do that from here — this phone is not secure.”

Beth dropped onto the chesterfield. “I just sit and wait?”

“I won’t be that long. I’ll be back in no time.”

“That’s what they all say.”

Kathleen laughed. “I mean it. You’ll hardly notice I was gone.”

**

Beth stood at the bookshelves checking out Kathleen’s collection. Books always told a lot about their owners, unless the books were sets of leather-bound classics bought only for show. And then these, too, were a clue to the owner’s personality.

Kathleen had a large collection of military history books, including several on the CIA. In fiction her taste ran to thrillers, including Tom Clancy and Ken Follett. She had a minimum number of self-help books, mostly on good nutrition and energy dieting. There was one book on guns and ammunition, another one on surveillance tradecraft. No CIA-issue manuals. They were probably classified, destined to be kept only in the office, perhaps under lock and key.

Beth checked out the bathroom, then peeked into the one bedroom. Kathleen favored shades of rust and beige. No blue, rose or green shades anywhere. Keeping a low profile even in her domestic life?

Back in the living room, Beth ran her fingers over Kathleen’s collection of John LeCarre espionage novels. Kathleen had almost as many as Beth herself did. Because in spite of what happened to Stephen, in spite of everything, Beth was still drawn to tales of espionage. Perhaps the tales compensated for the thrill of excitement lacking in her pedestrian life.

Romance. You could have romance she reminded herself. She shook her head. No, not really. She wasn’t ever going to open herself up again for the devastation of betrayal and abandonment following Stephen’s death. She could tell herself from here to kingdom come that Stephen’s death was a freak accident and it wouldn’t happen if she risked marrying again. But every time a man she was dating got too close, mentioned marriage too many times, Beth found a reason or reasons to call their relationship off — he wasn’t smart enough, he didn’t treat women with enough respect, he wasn’t stable. Whatever it took to convince herself that the man wasn’t for her.

And so here she sat, in some stranger’s apartment, waiting to do — what? Why was she here? None of this made any sense.

Beth’s palms itched. Nerves. Sitting here waiting for whatever made her nervous.

You’re a fool she told herself. How can you trust the CIA? If they’re so hotshot, how come they never solved what happened to Stephen? Or did they solve it and keep it secret? Was she brought down to Langley to identify someone she saw for a moment so many years ago or was there a more sinister reason?

Maybe someone was trying to set her up after all these years. Make her the fall guy for something, perhaps something whose head had reared itself after 25 years?

Calm down. You read too many spy novels.

Yet good spy novels have verisimilitude — they seem accurate because similar things do happen. Why after all these years would the CIA contact her?

Beth walked into the kitchen and checked out the cupboards. Whenever she was nervous she craved chocolate. A quick inspection of the contents revealed that the closest Kathleen kept to sweets was reduced-fat peanut butter. No wonder she was so thin.

Back in the living room Beth paced between the bookshelves. What was she doing staying around here? Waiting for the other shoe to drop? Shouldn’t she get out of here while the getting was good?

But this was the CIA we’re talking about. Where could she go that they couldn’t find her?

Maybe they could find her, but how about a respite for a few days? Let whatever was going down happen, perhaps dissipate the need for her.

Beth strode to the door and turned the knob. It didn’t open. Had Kathleen locked the door from the outside? How dare she! Maybe there was another door. Beth checked the kitchen. No back door. She plunged her hands deep into the canisters, pawed through the silverware drawers, cased the bedroom, checking everywhere she could think of for a spare door key. Nothing.

Why am I locked in? What’s going on?

Beth slid the balcony glass door open. She gulped, then forced herself to look over the balcony edge — heights were something Beth didn’t do well. The drop of three floors wasn’t bad — if you had wings. There wasn’t any way she could get down.

Back in the living room. Check the clock. How long would she be locked in here? She could call 911, ask for help. And say what? “I’m being held by the CIA against my will?” The 911 operator would probably laugh. Another loony. Must get calls like that all the time.

Back out on the balcony. Wait, there was a trellis at the far end. Beth shook the top rung. Seemed sturdy enough. But she couldn’t climb down it. Not only did she have a fear of heights, she had a fear of falling. Or maybe it was the same fear all rolled into one.

When she and Stephen toured Europe, she had freaked standing at the top of the Tower of Pisa, not to mention the tower in London built by Christopher Wren that marked the start of the Great Fire, or the top of the Eiffel Tower. At each tourist spot she had tried to be a good sport, to go to the top with Stephen, only to be terrified by the fear of falling.

It had been getting worse for years, was one of the reasons she had such a hard time in karate being at the receiving end of the break-balance maneuvers. Even the prospect of landing on the mats padding the dojo floor scared her. She tensed up in class, unable to relax enough to execute the maneuvers.

What was she going to do here? Was she more afraid of falling or more afraid of being lost permanently in the bowels of CIA headquarters? No one knew she was here. She had followed instructions and told no one where she was going. See, hadn’t they planned ahead of time to disappear her?

But why her? She knew nothing, nothing at all. Had never really known anything. Only remembered some vague things about a potential source in Ridayh, Saudi Arabia, and a Christmas card and vacation postcard from a known KGB operative.

All this worry effected her bladder. She ran into the bathroom and peed. Then checked herself in the mirror as she washed her hands.

Get a grip. You can’t allow yourself to be a victim. Action. You must take action.

Beth raced into the living room where Kathleen had left Beth’s suitcase. She tore open the case and grabbed a pair of jeans, t-shirt, hooded sweatshirt, socks and Reeboks. She peeled off her heels, nylons and summer dress and dumped these in the case. Then she pulled on the other clothes. She grabbed her brush, toothbrush, extra sox and underclothes and stuffed them in her leather backpack purse. Her passport, money, and reading glasses were already there.

Damn it! Beth regretted her insistence on not having a cell phone. She didn’t want to be at the beck and call of her clients. By not having a cell phone she could truthfully say they had to call her office phone number. Too late to do anything about this now.

She reached into the suitcase once more. She had brought a cotton scarf to wear with another dress. Scarfs could come in handy.

She dashed back into Kathleen’s bathroom and extracted some bandaids, gauze and adhesive tape from the medicine cabinet. If she were going to climb down that trellis, she might cut herself. At least she could bandage up any cuts and make a sling with the scarf. As the Girl Scouts said, it was best to be prepared.

It was too hot for a sweatshirt. Beth had only brought it in case of air conditioning. Now she wanted it in case she had to spend the night outdoors. She couldn’t climb down with the thing tied around her waist. She’d wear it now, then remove it once she was on the ground. Oh, yes, don’t forget tissues. She had some in her purse, but stuffed more from Kathleen’s bathroom into her jean pockets.

Okay, she couldn’t stall any longer if she were going to go. What about food and drink? She wasn’t going on safari in deepest Africa. She had money; she could buy food. Still, she found an individual-sized bottle of Perrier in Kathleen’s refrigerator and added it to her backpack purse.

Now. She inhaled and walked out onto the balcony. She closed the sliding door behind her. It wouldn’t take Kathleen long to figure out how Beth had gotten out, but Beth didn’t have to facilitate Kathleen’s investigation. Let her take at least five minutes to notice the glass door was no longer locked from the inside. That’s why Beth had also taken the time to reclose her suitcase and place it back where Kathleen had put it. No immediate red flags for Kathleen to find.

Don’t look down. Just sit on the edge, grasp the trellis, swing your leg around, and climb down. Simple as — her whole body trembled, she mumbled her mantra when she was scared, the opening lines of the prologue of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales that she had to memorize when she was in college and had never forgotten: “Whan that April with his shores soote...”

She climbed, foot after foot, hand after hand. When her feet hit the ground, she resisted the urge to throw herself down and offer a thanksgiving prayer for safe passage to the New World.

Now all she had to do was evade the CIA. If she had climbed down a trellis, how hard could that be?

**

Bethesda, Maryland —

George unlocked the steel front door of his Bethesda apartment with his customary caution. He no longer put a strand of hair wedged in the doorframe to check for intruders. His years of field operations were behind him. Yet he would never be liberated from his uneasiness at entering his own quarters — someone could be lurking inside. Someone with a gun or knife, someone with a new grievance or an old score to settle.

The coast appeared clear. George strode into the foyer, double locked the door and inserted a wedge bar, and charged into the living room.

Pristine clean. He liked order. He’d been a military man in those faraway days of World War II. One of the original members of the OSS, the fledgling U.S. intelligence unit that survived to become the CIA. He liked everything in its place, whether it be his food in separate garrisons on his plate or his clothes in individually labeled compartments. When he died it would be a snap for the Company to clear his possessions. Everything labeled, corresponding to directions in his will, already on file in the personnel office.

In the living room he swept the cloth off the bird cage, and Jasper greeted him with loud caws. George leaned closer to the parrot’s cage. “Jasper want some yum-yums?”

“Yum-yums. Yum-yums,” Jasper cawed.

George scooped a handful of birdseed into the feeder, then tapped his hand on the cage.

“Now be a good boy and be quiet. I’ve had a hard day — things are not going well. Not well at all.”

George eyed the sideboard with its array of liquor. Not yet. He had to think clearly, couldn’t risk befuddlement.

He loosened his tie, considered changing. But he might have to go out again. Better to stay in uniform. At least for the next hour or two. They weren’t crucial hours. He didn’t expect anything more to happen today. Still, one never knew. No, one never knew.

**

Georgetown —

Charles parked his Lexus — comfortable but not flashy — around the corner from the restaurant. It wasn’t so easy to find a parking spot in Georgetown so he had allowed himself extra time. Now he was early.

He stood a few doors down from the restaurant, apparently engrossed in contemplation of the antique clocks displayed in the shop window. In actually he was using the window glass as a mirror, watching the other people who walked or drove past him, sensitive to the nuances of their body or driving language.

He’d had a teacher once who’d said you could practically complete a psychological profile about people just by watching their body language. Over the years he’d found this advice invaluable. Take that woman walking her dog across the street, the one holding her pooper scooper as far away from her body as her arm would allow. She obviously wasn’t enthralled with the bodily functions of her dog. Maybe it wasn’t even her dog. Perhaps she was unwillingly dog walking for a friend or relative. Yes, that would explain her obvious reluctance. Or she may just be a clean freak, uncomfortable with any messes. In either case, not someone he would trust to remain inconspicuous, such an important asset in his business.

“Excuse me,” a voice behind him said as the voice’s owner bumped into him. “I didn’t see you standing there.”

Ah, but Charles had seen the man — his contact — coming from a block away. Just one of the small payoffs for being willing to pause, to study the surrounding environment, to observe the little things.

The man, good-looking in that nondescript way that fitted their business, continued towards the restaurant. Yes, best to let him enter first. Charles would wait another five minutes — so many clocks to admire — and follow the man in.

The diners’ chatter rolled over Charles as he entered the fern-filled foyer. Good. He appreciated a noisy place. All the better to camouflage his conversation.

He refused the maitre d’s offer of a table. “I just want to have a drink at the bar.” Then walked in the direction the maitre d’ indicated.

The man was seated, engaged with his glass of red wine.

“Is that the house wine?” Charles asked him.

“Yes, but it’s actually quite good.”

Charles turned towards the bartender. “I’ll have the same.”

The peanut bowl was positioned close to Charles’ right hand. He slid it towards the other man. “Would you like some peanuts?”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

The man’s hand received the bowl, then closed quickly over the little slip of paper protruding from it. Charles smiled; the message was delivered.

**

Kathleen worked quietly inside George’s office. There were no sounds outside George’s office and the cleaning crew wasn’t due for another hour. She’d had the standard training in breaking and entering, but since she was not allowed to participate in operations, she hadn’t any practical experience. George had locked his files, but as she was frequently the one who co-signed his locking, she’d had ample opportunity to watch the movements of his hand. And she had watched, because she’d known that someday she’d need this information. It had taken her seven-and-a-half minutes to open his file safe.

Of course, she could have tried for access to his computer files. But she hadn’t been able to observe his fingerstrokes for his password enough times to even guess, unless it was something easy like the name of his silly parrot Jasper. And George was of the old school, still more comfortable with paper files than he would ever be with computer ones.

She didn’t know what she was looking for, but there had to be something. This whole thing with Hans Wermer just didn’t make sense. It was almost as if someone was deliberately trying to set up someone else as a fall guy. But why?

George always played his cards close to his chest, sometimes letting Charles in on parts of the game. Besides confiding in Charles, George had several old buddies in different parts of headquarters. They often had dinner together, probably discussing whether something trivial had happened in Taiwan in ‘46 or Singapore in ‘52. But George was close to retirement, practically a short-timer. What could he possibly have up his sleeve that could account for this cockamamie story with Hans Wermer? And where did Beth Parsons fit in?

**

Beth brushed the dirt off her hands, readjusted her leather backpack straps across her shoulders, and checked the area. No guys in trenchcoats leaning against a lamppost pretending to read the newspaper. Kathleen obviously trusted Beth not to take off.

Better luck next time, Beth mouthed as she angled across the parking lot. The street was on the other side of the lot and she’d noticed a Metro stop only two blocks away. Who said amateurs didn’t notice things?

During her time in Munich working for the 66th she had only typed secret reports, not participated in any clandestine activities. She had no tradecraft training, but she wouldn’t need any. All she wanted to do was get away, away from whatever was going down.

The answer was to lay low, to stay hidden until the CIA figured out where Hans Wermer had gone and what he was up to. George must have had suspected problems when he set up the meet away from headquarters. He was covering his behind, a common government employee procedure. But what had he expected to happen? A murder?

Rustling behind Beth! She swirled, mentally reviewing karate self-defense maneuvers.

No one behind her, the street deserted.

She’d have been worried if it were dark. Given May’s hours of daylight, she had ample time to find an inconspicuous motel away from here. First, though, she’d take the Metro to the airport. Rent a car and go from there.

**

Hans settled himself in one of the wooden kitchen chairs in the hut as Frederick reached inside a refrigerator for two beers. They had driven south from Baltimore, almost to D.C., when Frederick pulled the car into a rutted lane that looked like it led nowhere.

Inside the hut German flags, slogans and pictures covered the walls. Hans recognized many of the people, famous Germans dating back over several decades, but there were others he did not recognize. Maybe Frederick’s American friends.

“What do you think? Makes you feel like home, nicht wahr?” Frederick said.

“English, Frederick. I am practicing English only.”

“Okay, as the Americans say. We will speak only English. And now you must listen carefully.”

Frederick raised his glass to the German flag. “Ach, the Fatherland. United again. Now there is even more work to do.”

Frederick gulped his beer, then stared at Hans. “The Americans beat us — twice. Two World Wars. But we can still win. Like the Japanese, we can beat the Americans where it hurts — in the pocketbook as they say.”

“What do you mean?”

“Economic superiority. We can control the world economy — if we have the information.”

“And how will you get the information?”

“That is my mission. I am the founder of the group Deutsches Uber Alles — we are engaged in economic spying on the United States. And we can use your help.”

**

Kathleen punched the elevator button in the lobby of her apartment building. She wanted to take the stairs, get a little exercise, but her building was one of those security-conscious ones where you could only enter the stairwell to go down, not up.

She made circles with her right wrist while the elevator door creaked open. She’d pawed through so many of George’s yellowing files that her wrist felt strained. Yet, for all her hard work, she’d come up with — exactly nothing. Which didn’t mean there was nothing to come up with. Just that old George was as crafty as she suspected. Better luck next time, he’d say if she were working on a research assignment for him. Yes, she would need better luck. The question was, where was next?

She locked her apartment door behind her. Beth wasn’t in the living room, although her suitcase was where it had been left. Maybe she was taking a nap or using the facilities.

Kathleen kicked off her shoes, flipped through the collection of junk mail retrieved from the lobby mail box, and sank onto the couch. “Beth, I’m back.”

Silence. Kathleen hoisted herself up from the couch. Would she have to play nursemaid, helping Beth recover from a traumatic experience?

The bed hadn’t been slept in. The open bathroom door revealed an empty room. The kitchen was uninhabited.

The balcony? It was still hot outside, yet pleasant enough to watch the sun set. The blinds were drawn against the heat of the day’s sun, so Kathleen couldn’t see out the window.

Kathleen reached for the balcony glass door latch. Unlocked. Good, Beth must be sitting outside, maybe reading a book from Kathleen’s collection.

But there was no Beth as Kathleen stepped through the opened glass door.

Impossible! Where could she be? The woman didn’t look capable of picking a front door open. And she couldn’t just vanish into thin air.

Thin air? Kathleen strode to the side of the balcony with the trellis. She grabbed at the broken leaves crushed around the trellis rungs. Shit!

What to do? What to do? There would be hell to pay for this. George would never trust her with an operation if she couldn’t even keep track of one untrained civilian.

Kathleen sat straight up. Okay, there was only one thing to do. Find Beth before George knew she’d gone missing. It wouldn’t be like looking for a needle in a haystack — Kathleen could use the Company’s connections, get a lead from the credit card trail Beth would undoubtedly leave. Surely she wouldn’t be carrying that much cash — Americans believed in their credit lines.

All Kathleen had to do was dash back to headquarters and crank up the search — without George being the wiser.

Easy as pie.

**

The motel clerk slept upright with his head nosedived into the counter. His long hair, pulled into a ponytail, flopped over his face. Beth hated to wake him.

“Excuse me, excuse me, please.”

The clerk, really no more than a kid, jerked awake. “Yes?”

“I need a room for tonight. The sign out front said vacancy.”

“That’s right. Room 6, around the corner on the first floor, is available. How are you paying for your room?”

“Credit card. Do you want it now?”

The clerk nodded, took the card from her, swiped it through the automatic authorization machine, and handed it back to her with the slip for her signature.

He handed her the room key and was asleep again before she got out the door.

**

In his rented car outside the motel David Ward adjusted his backpack behind his head. He could expect several hours of sleep — she wouldn’t be going anywhere until morning.

He’d give her this much. She’d been plucky to climb over the trellis at Kathleen’s apartment. He had expected her to be docile, to accept waiting for whatever came next. Maybe something Kathleen said freaked her.

It was a good thing that he believed in always being prepared for any eventuality. There was too much riding on this to let her out of his sight. He’d waited years for this — he couldn’t chance anything messing it up now.

Anything.

Including the tail, presumably from headquarters, who was following Beth. The guy had stayed in the shadows as Beth dusted herself off from her trellis escape and took off across the parking lot. David had spotted him and kept far enough back not to reveal himself, just as his car now was parked far enough away from Beth’s tail.

It was almost ludicrous, the three cars in parade on the way to a budget motel near the airport. Of course, he was the only one of the three who knew that the parade had three cars. And he would keep it that way.

**

The phone ringing woke Charles at 11. He’d gone to bed a half hour before, confident there was nothing more he could do tonight. Apparently that wasn’t true.

“Charles, did I wake you?”

“No, George, I was just reading in bed.”

“Good, good.”

“Has something happened?”

“That woman Beth Parsons has taken off, fled.”

“When?”

“Several hours ago. I’ve been sitting in my living room pondering what to do. Thought I’d give you a ring.”

“Very nice of you, George. What’s going on?”

“I only know that she and Kathleen visited the murder site before going to Kathleen’s apartment.”

“How do you know that?”

“I asked Mark Haskell to keep an eye on the women when they left headquarters. Thought it best to be prepared.”

“He followed them there?”

“Yes, and he actually talked to them at the site, pretended he was there already, rechecking the grounds. He couldn’t tell what they were up to, other than morbid curiosity.”

“Then what?”

“They went to Kathleen’s apartment. A few minutes later Kathleen left. I’ve checked with headquarters and she returned to work in her office. A while later Beth appeared on the balcony and climbed down the trellis.”

“Why?”

“Who knows? Maybe she got spooked by something Kathleen said.”

“Where’s Beth now? Have you had her picked up?”

“Not yet. I want to see how this plays out. Mark followed her on the Metro to the airport, where she rented a car, then to a cheap motel nearby. We’ll just watch her for now, see what happens. Meanwhile, I haven’t said a thing to Kathleen. I’m waiting to see how long before she tells me she’s misplaced Beth.”

“Oh, goody, this should be something to see.”

“I thought you’d say that. Anyway, I just wanted to fill you in on the latest. Good night, Charles, sleep tight.”

What the hell was going on here? Charles wrapped the belt of his monogrammed robe around his waist and headed for the kitchen. He needed to think, to sort out the possibilities.

The phone rang again. He reached for the kitchen wall phone with one hand while opening the refrigerator with the other.

“We need to meet” the voice on the other end said.

                                          DAY 3

The clock at the diner wall said 3:00. That is, 3 a.m. Charles hid a yawn behind his hand. The sugar he’d added to his coffee punctured the surface in clumps, mountain tops reappearing as the biblical great flood waters receded.

Charles smiled. He often waxed poetic in the wee hours of the morning. Anything to keep awake. And it was important to be alert. As Sherlock Holmes said, “The game’s afoot.”

The outside door slammed. Charles glanced at the man who entered. At the bar in Georgetown hours earlier the man had worn urban casual to fit in with the trendy Georgetown professionals. Now the man, dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, could pass as a trucker.

“For Christ sake, Charles,” the man said as he slid into the booth, “can’t you look a little more like a trucker than that?”

“What’s wrong with my outfit, Matthew?”

“It looks like it came from L.L. Bean instead of Sears. You’re supposed to be inconspicuous.”

Charles waved his hand around the room. “There’s almost nobody here. And the people who are here are too tired to notice that my trucker clothes are somewhat off.”

Matthew shrugged, then signaled the waitress for coffee.

“Why’d you call?” Charles said.

“It’s a surprise. We’re being joined by two others.”

Charles’ expression didn’t change, but his mind raced. Who would Matthew have summoned in the middle of the night to meet with them? None of their current projects was far enough along to warrant such precipitous action. What was going on here?

The waitress slopped another coffee cup onto the table. Charles pushed the sugar bowl towards Matthew. “Would you like the sugar?”

Matthew laughed. “I love your manners. It’s so nice to have an aristocrat on our team.”

“I can’t help who I am.”

Matthew dumped two teaspoons into his coffee. “It’s partly why you’re so useful to us.”

Behind Matthew the door slammed again. Frederick Schmidt, also wearing a flannel shirt and jeans, strode toward them, followed by a foreigner in a cheap suit.

“Frederick’s guest looks more out of place than I do,” Charles said.

“There wasn’t time to get him the right clothes.”

Frederick and the guest came up to the booth.

“Charles and Matthew,” Frederick said, “may I present Hans Wermer — the man you planned to kill.”

Charles’ stomach flip flopped. “How is this possible?”

Frederick smiled and motioned for Hans to sit. “A natural mistake. When you told us a German agent for the Americans was arriving, we told you we wanted to take the traitor out. Who knew it was my old friend?”

Charles’ stomach executed another series of acrobatic maneuvers.

“Yes,” Frederick said. “Hans appeared to be an American agent but he was actually a double agent — always working for the Fatherland.”

Charles studied the face across from him. German, perhaps some Slavic blood at one time, eyes hooded. The hands clasped on the table were calloused, veined. Edging on old age.

Charles spoke to Frederick. “And how did he come to survive the hit and find you?”

Frederick turned to Hans. “Please.”

“The sniper had bad aim...”

“The sun was in my eyes,” Matthew said.

“...and hit the driver first. I run into the trees. When the sniper looks for me, I circle back, take the driver’s keys from his body. Then I reach the car and drive off.”

“The undergrowth made tracking difficult,” Matthew said.

“Stop making excuses,” Frederick said. “It is well that you failed at your mission.”

Now Charles spoke to Hans. “And how did you know what Frederick has been doing? Where to find him?”

Hans nodded. “I knew where to find him — he wrote to his family back home. Until a few hours ago I did not know what he has been doing since his defection. It is amazing — his operation here in the United States.”

Matthew gulped his coffee. “Yes, it is extensive. And we can use another dedicated man. I understand you’ve agreed to join our cause?”

“I have pledged myself to help you — with the return promise that you will help me. Because I too have a plan.”

“What plan?” Charles said.

“The one I maneuvered coming to the United States in order to carry out. I must get even with the American at the CIA who — how do you say it? — did me wrong.”

“Who’s the man?” Charles said.

“George MacIntosh.”

Charles clenched his teeth. His stomach could have won the Olympic parallel bars competition. “Are you sure?”

“Jawohl.”

“English, Hans, use English,” Frederick said.

Charles thought quickly what he should say next. He said, “We have to first deal with the CIA’s search for Hans. Perhaps we can allow Hans to contact the CIA and thus meet George directly.”

Matthew shook his head at Charles. “It could be a trap. If George knows Hans has a score to settle, he may be planning to kill Hans himself.”

Charles sipped his coffee, buying time. The soggy mess was cold.

He replaced the coffee cup on its saucer. “This whole affair has gotten out of control. We have a civilian — brought in by George to identify Hans — on the run. We have my CIA colleague looking for the civilian. And we have CIA resources watching for Hans.”

“This civilian, who is she?” Matthew said.

“Beth Parsons, late 40s, widow of an Army officer working in military intelligence in Germany when he died in a bomb explosion at the Frankfurt Officers Club in 1972,” Charles said. “At the time she worked for the 66th MI Group typing field reports that were shared with the CIA.”

“What’s her connection to me?” Hans said.

“Supposedly saw you when you tried to make contact with Jack Lockheim at a restaurant in Munich. Only one alive on our side known to have seen you at least once.”

“Jack Lockheim!” Hans said.

Frederick laughed. “She is to identify someone she only saw for a moment so many years ago?”

“I know, but George insisted,” Charles said.

“Maybe she knows more than George let on to you,” Matthew said. “Maybe she’s a threat to Hans.”

Charles shook his head. “Surely not. She hasn’t had any contact with intelligence sources for 25 years.”

“Still, we can’t be too careful,” Matthew said. “She could be a threat. Better to remove her.”

The coffee sloshed in Charles’ stomach. “Remove her! What are you talking about?”

“You know,” Frederick said. “And you’ll have to help us by telling us where she is.”

**

Beth twisted in bed, angling her wrist to the light filtered through the crumbling curtains. Some day she’d get one of those neat watches with a face that could be read in the dark. That’s if she lived long enough to go shopping again.

Her back ached from the lumpy mattress, her eyes itched from the feather pillow, and her stomach sloshed acid. It was 5 a.m. and time to get going. But where?

Some remote place not connected with her where she could hang out for a few days until the CIA moved on to more important people. And left her alone.

A teensy spider crawled along the bedspread. As a teenager she’d screamed and yelled with her friends whenever they’d seen any bugs. As an adult, she’d learned there were real dangers to be frightened of while most bugs were harmless. This was not always true of most humans.

She swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Could she take a shower without alerting everyone in this wing of the motel that she was up?

This wasn’t a motel that provided amenities such as shampoo and conditioner. But her toiletry kit she’d transferred from her suitcase at Kathleen’s apartment had a small traveling bottle of shampoo. Even if she was hiding out, she didn’t want a scratchy scalp.

The hot water sloshed the shampoo suds down her body. Okay, who did she know? Or where had she been that was truly remote?

Yuk, she closed her mouth. Soap had slid down her throat — she’d been pre-occupied with the answer.

Lance’s A-frame in Cape Cod. An overpopulated area and he found the only isolated A-frame in the entire peninsula. She had freaked the time she had stayed with him — total blackness pressing in on the glass windows forming two sides of the structure with the wind and unseen animals howling for good measure. Lance’s insistence on reciting ghost stories had only worsened her fear.

Yet the CIA was nothing to sneer at. Given her choice, she’d take the unseen animals over the visible CIA representatives.

Poor Lance. He wouldn’t appreciate being awoken so early. But she had to get out of here.

**

Kathleen lifted her left hand from the steering wheel and rubbed her eyes. It had been a hellish night. She’d been leery of using CIA contacts at first, worried that someone would alert George of what she was doing.

So for several hours she’d tried using her own resources to access credit card information. No such luck. She had to call the professionals. And, bingo, Beth’s card number had surfaced at a motel near the airport.

And here was the motel itself. A nondescript clump of peeling stucco buildings with cars parked outside some of the rooms.

The lobby door slammed behind her. The clerk at the desk, a young guy with a ponytail, jerked upright.

“Hi. I’m Beth Parsons’ friend. I was supposed to meet her here. What room is she in?”

The clerk gave her the once over. No sweat. She looked presentable. And she wasn’t carrying, so no revealing waist bulge.

“Room 6 — around the corner on the first floor. But isn’t it early to meet someone?”

“Not when you have an early flight. Thanks for the help.”

Kathleen approached room 6. The curtain was closed, same as in the rooms on either side of 6. Should she knock? That would put Beth on guard and who knew what she might do then. Besides, she was probably still sleeping. Why rudely awake her?

Kathleen unzipped an inner pocket in her purse and lifted out two delicate instruments, the main tools for lock picking. Hold one to spring the lock while fiddling with the other. She began the negotiations.

Damn! The pick slipped. She gripped it as tightly as her sweaty palms would allow. Sure, she had practiced this before, but she’d never done it for real.

She pried again for an opening — and the lock clicked open. She’d done it!

She slid the door open a crack. Her luck held — no giveaway creak. In the dark she could just make out a lumpy form on the bed.

She pushed the door wider and slipped through, tiptoeing to the bed.

“Beth,” she said. “Beth, time to wake up.”

She reached for Beth’s shoulder, but the bedspread came away in Kathleen’s hand, flopping onto her feet. Shit! Shit! Shit!

Kathleen spun back to the door, fumbling for the light switch.

The ceiling fixture revealed — no Beth in the bed!

A quick check of the bathroom revealed no Beth there either.

Kathleen sank onto the bed. She felt nauseous, the same as when she suffered her annual winter bout of the flu, complete with a pounding head.

It was so early in the morning. How could Beth be gone?

Kathleen grabbed the phone, calling a number that was answered on the first ring.

“Doug, it’s Kathleen. I need a favor. Can you tell me if any calls were made from this number I’m on within the last few hours? I’ll hold.”

Kathleen yanked open the drawer in the nightstand table. Nada. Not even a Gideon Bible. She stood up, cradled the phone against her shoulder, and felt under the bedframe. Her right hand came up with a condom in a foil package.

Shit again!

Doug was talking. “Repeat it once more.” Kathleen was good at remembering numbers; if she heard a phone number once or twice, it was usually hers for life.

“Registered to a Lance Edwards? Thanks. I owe you.”

She dialed again, first the calling card number, then the number Doug had given her.

It was now 6 a.m. on the East Coast. People should still be safely home in bed. Come on, come on, answer the phone.

On the third ring a male voice, befuddled with sleep, mumbled hello.

**

George ran his fingers over the edge of his desk. Solid. He liked solid things. Gave him a good feeling, a foundation on which to depend.

This current situation, with everything going to hell in a handbasket, was not solid. It was slippery, as slippery as any situation he’d worked on over his long career. In fact, in some ways this was slippery. They were on U.S. soil, an area where the CIA was legally not supposed to run operations. CIA was to leave U.S. operations to the FBI boys. But this was not something he could trust to the FBI. They were too narrow-minded, too sure of themselves. He needed creative thinking here — plus a little help from others.

Mark had reported that Beth was traveling north; she’d left her motel before six this morning. He’d stay with her, see what was going on.

Maybe Kathleen would report in later. George had been notified that she’d used the agency’s resources to locate Beth, but Mark had seen no sign of Kathleen. Presumably she’d gotten to the motel too late.

George opened a desk drawer and removed his bottle of Maalox chewable tablets. He liked the lemon ones — the cherry ones were chalky. He took four, the maximum suggested dosage. It was going to be that kind of a day.

A knock on his office door. Charles, summoned for a planning meeting.

“Enter.”

Charles took his usual chair, swinging his right leg across his left knee. George had secretly practiced the maneuver at home, but he couldn’t achieve the same fluid movement Charles did. Maybe George was too old to learn new tricks. Or maybe you had to be born to that graciousness.

“What do you hear?” Charles said.

“No more than what I told you before. But while we wait to see where Beth’s going and what Kathleen’s doing, we need to concentrate on finding Hans Wermer.”

Charles smiled. “He’s the needle in the haystack.”

“You can say that again.”

Charles coughed, his hand covering his mouth. “George?”

“Yes?”

“You did say that Mark Haskell was keeping an eye on Beth, didn’t you?”

George nodded. What was Charles getting at?

“He would be prepared to protect her if ... the elements that took out Ralph try to take her out?”

“Of course,” George said. “But do you seriously think she’s in any danger?”

Charles gave an elegant shrug of his shoulders. How did he do that?

“We have no idea what’s going on here,” Charles said. “Just wanted to make sure we’re prepared for any contingency.”

“That’s what the CIA is for, to protect American interests.” George glanced at his flag.

Then he stared across his desk at Charles. Perhaps ol’ Charles seemed a little unruffled? Not his usual unflappable self?

George rubbed his brow. Maybe he was seeing bogeymen. He hadn’t had much sleep last night. Sleep deprivation could do funny things to one’s mind.

He smiled at Charles. Best to change the subject. “Did I ever tell you the time, I think it was ‘54 in Taiwan, when the army decided civilian employees should have uniforms and asked us what we thought?”

**

Charles drove the back way, staying off the main roads. He had told the secretary he had a meeting at the Pentagon, would be back before lunch. He did have a meeting, agreed upon in the early hours at the trucker’s roadside stop, but not at the Pentagon.

George had seemed a bit off this morning. Of course, Beth Parsons was missing, Hans Wermer was missing, and Kathleen was pretending she was in operations, not to mention Ralph had been killed. Still, their business was the unexpected. George shouldn’t be riled by this.

Charles checked the rearview mirror. No one was following. Good, because he was in a tricky spot, yes indeed. He had to think carefully before committing to any action.

Yet this meeting now couldn’t be avoided. Matthew expected him. And expected the information he could provide — where Beth Parsons was at this exact moment.

**

An hour north of New York City David considered his options. He needed gas. If he did, didn’t the woman? And a bathroom pit stop would be welcome. Could he risk pulling off now and catching up with her in 10 minutes?

The sensation in his groin decided him. He exited the highway, filled the car and emptied himself.

When he got back on, he calculated how long at a slightly increased speed he would need to go to catch up with Beth and her tail. He couldn’t increase his speed too much or risk drawing the attention of the highway patrol.

The radio sputtered, the signal weaving in and out. He flipped to a new channel. It was a mistake. He flipped it off, but not before hearing a few bars of the oldie but goodie song “Soldier Boy.”

Jenny was driving her ‘63 Corvair up Highway 1. They were only a few miles south of San Francisco. “I can’t talk about it anymore,” she’d said, then turned the radio on for distraction. “Soldier Boy” filled the car while Jenny said, her eyes on the road ahead, “I won’t marry you now, but I promise” — and she sang along with the song — “I’ll be true to you.”

Promises are made to be broken, isn’t that what his mother had always warned him?

Jenny hadn’t even waited until his R and R in Hawaii. Just written him a Dear John letter after he’d been in-country only four months that she’d met someone new. Hoped he was keeping his head down in Saigon.

His first reaction had been to volunteer for an assignment smack dab in the action, some small firebase upriver. His superior officer had convinced him to continue with his current assignment. The work in the Phoenix program was too important to hand off to someone else.

The Phoenix program. Assassination of targeted Vietcong officials.

But it had brought him to the attention of the CIA boys. And when his two years of ROTC active duty commitment were ending, they had approached him, convinced him to sign on for life. He had nothing to go home for.

But Jenny, oh Jenny. With her long brown hair and love beads. How he had loved her. And how, after her betrayal, he had never trusted another woman.

Of course, that didn’t mean he’d been celibate. Far from it. But a CIA field operative moved around a lot, had a lot of masters to answer to, could not be expected to forge a long-term relationship.

David checked the speedometer. Only 10 miles over the speed limit. Not too bad. But where was that woman? He should have seen her by now.

Above him a helicopter buzzed the road, swooping so low that David could make out three people — a pilot and two passengers — wearing dark baseball caps. Was the pilot showing off his skill or were they looking for someone?

David increased his speed another five miles. He had to do something to find that woman.

There! Up ahead was the tail. She couldn’t be far ahead.

David just hoped the tail hadn’t pulled off the road too, then also lost Beth. David’s palms itched, a sure indication he was nervous.

Not to worry. He’d find his target. He always did.

**

Beth pulled off the road. She needed gas and a restroom stop. And a late breakfast would be great. The gas station attendant recommended a restaurant a mile down the road — “best pancakes in five counties.” Beth doubted he knew that for a fact, but she was hungry enough to eat any pancakes.

She drove out of the station. The April showers had brought May flowers, and Beth wished she wasn’t such an urban dweller that she didn’t even know the names of the color-spangled blooms bordering the road.

Up ahead she could see the restaurant, the only building on this stretch of country road.

The whirring of the helicopter’s blades slammed against her ears. What the hell?

She peered upwards through the windshield. She could see nothing. Yet the noise screamed directly above her.

She twisted her head an inch or two out the side window. It was above her — a little off to the right — and coming towards her!

Without conscious thought, reacting with her body the way she’d been taught in karate, she yanked the wheel towards the right, meeting the attack and sliding under the helicopter’s skids off into the trees edging the road. Thank heavens she’d rented a Jeep. She switched to four-wheel drive and kept going.

Branches slapped against the car, the vehicle went up and down over debris. The tree trunks were far enough apart for her car to pass through yet the foliage was dense enough to from a canopy above her.

When she could no longer hear the whir of the blades she stopped the car.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit! Had the CIA found her? Were they only trying to get her to stop, or were they trying to rub her out too? What the hell was going on?

She stumbled from the car, pulling her backpack with her. She crouched on the ground, pawing through the backpack, then extracted a silver-plated hand mirror. It had been a gift from Stephen. She kept it as polished as the day he had given it to her, saying “So you can see the face I love so much.” Now the mirror showed her sweat on her forehead and fear in her eyes.

Twigs crackled behind her. A spurt of adrenalin leaped inside her. The mirror fell from her hands as she jumped up and twirled towards the sounds.

A man strode towards her. She pushed her breath down into her diaphragm, thinking of direction, thinking of her focus. He was a foot away, the perfect distance. She swiveled her body to her right, stretched her left leg to his left leg and snapped at his ankle, breaking his balance and toppling him to the ground. She squatted next to him and jabbed her elbow in his back, the vulnerable part where his spleen was. “Yes!”

In the next instant she was yanked forward and rolled backward onto the ground, then pinned under the man’s body. She struggled to get away, trying to remember self-defense moves she’d learned, but all she could think of was how heavy he was pressed against her chest.

“Give up?” the man said. “I’ll let you up if you promise not to attack me again.”

“Who are you?” she said, her words muffled in his chest.

He rolled off her, but kept her pinned down. “Promise? And don’t cross your fingers.”

“I promise,” she said. He rolled off her.

Instantly she was on her feet, swinging her leg up to smash his knee.

He caught her leg midair and yanked her towards him, breaking her fall by bearhugging her.

“You promised!”

“I lied. Besides, promises are made to be broken.”

He yanked her arm behind her. “Now stop it. I’m a friend.”

“Some friend.”

“If I let go this time, will you not attack?”

She nodded and the man released her arm. She stood inches from him; his body heat fanning towards her.

She stuck her tongue out. “I didn’t say ‘cross my heart and hope to die.’”

“You may get that wish if you don’t stop attacking me.”

“Who the hell are you?” she asked.

“I’m with the Company.”

“The what?”

“Company. The CIA.”

Oh, right. “That’s what they all say.”

“Would you like to see my ID?”

Beth nodded, then read the ID card he held out. “IDs can be faked. What do you want? And where’s the helicopter you tried to kill me with?”

He picked up her backpack from the ground and thrust it at her hand. “We have to get out of here and you have to trust me.”

She glared at him. “Not bloody likely.”

“Shut up and listen. We’ll take the Jeep over land, avoiding the highways. I’ve got a plane waiting.”

“A plane?”

“It’s faster than a helicopter.”

When she didn’t move towards the Jeep he pulled at her arm, propelling her forward.

She tried to grab hold of a tree branch. “I have to get something I dropped.”

He didn’t let go of her arm, so she pulled against him, dragging him with her to the spot where she’d let go of Stephen’s mirror. She swooped up the mirror with the hand whose arm he held.

The man yanked her back towards the car, holding her far enough away from him that she couldn’t try any grip-loosening karate moves.

“Hey, where’s your car?” she said.

“It’s hidden in the woods. Someone will retrieve it.” He shoved her into the Jeep’s passenger side and slammed the passenger door shut.

Beth pushed open her door — he was so quick he was in the driver’s seat and reaching over her to re-slam the door before she could get out.

“Buckle your safety belt,” he said.

She glared at him. “Nothing better happen to this car — it’s charged to my credit card.”

“That was your first mistake.”

Shit, shit, shit.

**

David turned the car into a cart track overhung with oak trees. They were only a couple of miles from the plane.

He glanced over at the woman slumped against the passenger window, asleep or pretending to be.

It had been a lucky hunch when, looking for her car, he had turned off at the faded road exit sign announcing “last gas for 30 miles.” He knew her tank had to be low; he suspected that warning would have rattled her. The tail had sailed right by the exit.

He’d chatted up the gas station attendant. David had asked if he had just missed his wife, who was driving their other car to their new home on Cape Cod. “Yeah,” the guy had said, “but I think she went down the road to get a bite to eat.”

David had followed the man’s outstretched arm.

Ahead down the road he could see no Jeep in front of the restaurant. What there had been were swerving tire tracks a half block before the restaurant, tracks that led right off the road and didn’t reappear.

He’d followed in his rental car, which didn’t take kindly to the terrain, but the Company would pay the damage charges.

After a short distance the car refused to budge another inch. He’d abandoned it and walked along the Jeep’s trail. Luckily she hadn’t driven much further before stopping.

“Wake up, we’re here,” he said now, turning the engine off.

The woman jerked awake. “There’s not even a terminal.”

“This is what’s called a stripped-down runway. Just enough length to take off in a hurry.”

David tossed her backpack at her. She followed him out of the Jeep.

“What do we do with this car?” she said.

“Someone will get it and return it to the rental agency.”

“Remember to have the tank filled.”

David motioned her towards the waiting plane. “You’re unbelievable. Now move quickly. We’re vulnerable.”

“Vulnerable to what?”

David didn’t bother to answer, simply leading the way to the plane’s door. Beth was behind him, but suddenly she switched directions and ran back towards her car. Shit! She still hadn’t learned she couldn’t get away from him.

He turned to go back for her. Shots whistled past his ears.

“Get down, get down!” He raced towards the car, dragging her down with him, using the car as a shield. He yanked his gun from a waist holster and returned fire.

The shots were coming from the periphery, he thought, probably only one shooter. The shooter was far away but with rather good aim, keeping them down but not shooting to kill.

David chanced jumping up for an instant and waved the plane towards them, then ducked down again.

The plane taxied towards them with the cargo bay door open. David, crouched over Beth, leaned down and said in her ear, “On the count of three, jump into the plane.”

“Are you crazy?”

“You want to stay here and get killed?”

“This is all your fault. I was doing fine before you ...”

David stood, yanked her up, and said, “1, 2, 3 — jump!”

They jumped together into the plane. The woman collapsed on the floor while David slammed the door and holstered his gun.

He yanked her off the floor and pushed her down into a jump seat. “Buckle your seat belt.”

“Are you nuts? We were just almost killed and you’re worried about wearing our seat belts on takeoff.”

David leaned over and snapped her belt closed. “Listen, you idiot, we wouldn’t have almost gotten killed if you hadn’t tried to play hide-and-seek. What the hell is the matter with you?”

“I don’t trust you. Why should I? You turned up in the middle of nowhere and attacked me.”

“I didn’t attack you. You attacked me. And trust is not an issue here. Survival is.”

Her face flushed, accentuating her brown eyes. “Yeah, sure. Which of your good ‘friends’ was shooting at us? I can understand that they find you maddening enough to want to kill you.”

David checked out the window. The plane had cleared the tree tops, they were circling out to sea. Good, very good.

“I have no idea,” he said. “I thought you might know.”

“Me? Let’s hear what you’ve got to say.”

“Ladies first.”

Beth twisted away from him. “I’m not talking. Anything I say can — and probably will — be used against me. You’re probably wearing a wire right now.”

That comment didn’t merit a response. He smiled. “I hope you didn’t take the collision waiver for your car. It’s going to be a little worse for wear.”

The woman glared at him. He stared out the window.

The intercom overhead cackled: “David, we’re coming up on the Maine coast. Do we continue as planned?”

“Yes,” he said, raising his voice to be heard through the cloth partition separating them from the cockpit. “All the way to Munich.”

“Munich?” Beth said.

Her face had changed – something about her eyes. “You lived there, didn’t you?” he said.

He saw her hands tremble. She clasped them together. “I was there from September ‘70 to May ‘72. I missed the Olympic massacre.”

“And the bomb at the Frankfurt Officers Club.”

Tears caught in the creases of her eyelids. “I did. My husband Stephen didn’t.”

**

Lunch eaten at a hot dog stand on Capitol Mall. Charles splashed mustard on his all-beef hot dog and seated himself on a bench facing the oldest building of the Smithsonian. He munched to the oom-pah-pah of the miniature merry-go-round nearby, only one facet of the carnival atmosphere on the Mall from April to October, when Washington D.C. was overrun by tourists.

As a teenager growing up in a privileged home in Boston, he’d been an avid reader of the memoirs of the early presidents and other statesmen. Whenever his family would visit Washington — his father, a patent attorney, often had cause to come — he and his younger sister, Allison, would dash to the red-brick Smithsonian building and its surrounding museums. Charles would vary the order of his visits, soaking up Americana as well as the natural history displays. Allison would dash to her all-time favorite, the First Ladies’ hall, where mannequins of the presidents’ wives and official hostesses modeled their inaugural gowns. Her second stop would be the gem collection, oohing and aahing at the Hope Diamond and the other magnificent precious stones. It had been a precious stone, housed in a private collection, that had cost Allison her life.

A jogger slid to a halt in front of Charles. “Can you tell me where ...?”

“What is it, Matthew? Why did you signal again? I’ve been gone from the office so much today ...”

“We lost her. She got away and we couldn’t pick up her trail.”

Had they lost her due to Mark Haskell’s efforts? Charles couldn’t risk asking George. Nor could he warn Matthew about Mark. If Matthew took Mark out, George would know that Charles was the leak.

“Look, why not leave her out of it and concentrate on Hans’ objective?” Charles said.

Matthew glanced over Charles’ shoulder. What did he see there? Was Frederick nearby with a long-range listening device, checking out this conversation?

“No can do. Can’t afford any loose ends. So where is she?”

“Over the Atlantic Ocean.”

“How is it that you’ve been able to give me such exact locations each time I’ve asked?”

“We have a tracking device inside her backpack. Its signal is picked up by satellite and transmitted back to Langley.”

Of course, since the signal was transmitted through Langley, Mark Haskell could only follow Beth Parsons by getting updates from Langley. While the delay was not that long, it could interfere with his babysitting mission.

“How’d you do that?”

“George never leaves anything to chance. Had Mark insert it when Kathleen and Beth were eating in the cafeteria.”

Matthew bent down to retie his shoe laces. “George suspected she’d take a powder?”

“If he did, he’s not saying.”

“Where’s the plane heading?”

“Flight plan is for Munich. My guess is the plane will land at a small field southeast of the city.”

“How’d she get hold of a plane?”

“George says he has no idea.” Charles hesitated. He was about to add that Mark had reported she was now with an unidentified man. On second thought, Charles wanted to know who this man was before he revealed the info to Matthew. Nor did Charles want to volunteer that Mark had tried to stop Beth and the man from boarding the plane, had fired at them to force them to stop.

“Appreciate your help, Charles. You’ll hear from us later.”

Charles waited until Matthew had jogged farther down the Mall, then stood up and brushed the hot dog bun crumbs from his pants.

He glanced again at the Smithsonian. He would take a few minutes to visit the First Ladies’ hall — for Allison.

**

The greenery of May in Cape Cod camouflaged the A-frame. Following Lance Edward’s instructions, Kathleen pulled off the road at the indicated mailbox — handcarved with a duck waddling across the top.

Shit! No car here. Lance said you couldn’t drive any closer to the A-frame. Either Beth was down the road buying groceries or she wasn’t here.

Kathleen’s hands trembled. This was definitely deja vu. Should she park her car back down the road or risk taking a quick look at the A-frame for signs of habitation?

A quick look. She wanted her car available for a fast getaway.

She climbed out of the car and strode down the path that wound around the trees. Just no dead body, please.

The ground in front of the door had no footprints. Lance had said he hadn’t been up here since last September. There was no neighbor who looked in on things for him. “I don’t keep anything of value up there; no reason to have anyone take a look-see.”

The key — under the planter on the front steps. She’d smiled when Lance had said it would be easy for her to check the A-frame. She hadn’t mentioned her delicate tools.

No one had been here. The dust on the floor and table lay undisturbed, except where Kathleen had stepped over the threshold.

Kathleen slammed one fist into another. Shit! Had she been duped? Had Beth been smart enough to lay a false trail, or had she changed her plans?

Wait! Maybe Beth was behind Kathleen. If she had pulled off the highway for a leisurely breakfast and lunch, maybe she’d been here in the next hour or so.

Kathleen backed out of the A-frame and jogged to her car. Okay, she’d park her car down the road. Then walk back here to keep watch. But if Beth didn’t show in a couple of hours, Kathleen would have to bite the bullet and take the dreaded next step — call George and ask for help.

**

Two hours later Kathleen couldn’t postpone the phone call any longer. She’d staked out the A-frame and seen no one. Beth must have somehow sent Kathleen on a wild goose chase. Kathleen would never live this down.

She dialed George’s number. Maybe he’d already be gone for the day. Or at a meeting. Or anywhere.

He answered on the second ring.

“George, this is Kathleen.”

“Where have you been all day? I’ve been trying to reach you to see how our guest is doing. Figured you were showing her the sights of DC.”

“Our guest? She’s not doing so well. I mean, maybe she is, I just don’t know.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You see ... I mean ...”

“Spit it out.”

“Beth ... Beth has gone missing.”

“Missing?”

“I left her locked in my apartment when I went to the office to ... get something I’d forgotten. She ... she climbed down a trellis while I was gone. I traced her to a motel outside DC and then to her supposed destination at a friend’s cottage on Cape Cod. That’s where I am now. But she hasn’t shown up. I don’t know where she is.”

Silence at the other end.

“George, George?”

Then he said, “We can’t have a civilian running around the country — she’s likely to talk to anyone. I’ll start a search. You come back here immediately.”

“Yes, sir.”

**

George smiled as he put the receiver down. Kathleen had finally decided to tell him she’d lost Beth.

Of course, Beth wasn’t really lost. George knew exactly where she was. But he wasn’t going to tell Kathleen that. He and Charles were having an extended laugh at her expense. Show her she wasn’t good enough for operations if she couldn’t even keep track of one harmless civilian.

George’s eyes found his flag. It stood for the United States, which had sent him overseas as a young enlisted man, just out of high school, to a military intelligence unit in Frankfurt a few years after the end of World War II.

The army had not been for him. He didn’t like having to share his living quarters, bathroom, meals with all the others. He was a solitary man, happiest with his own individual pursuits. But Germany had gotten to him, and he quickly learned German. He loved the chalets sprinkled like confetti across snow-covered fields perched among the army’s Bavarian recreation resorts, the opera houses, the theaters and the museums. It was a more cultured country than his own. The beer halls didn’t attract him, but the quiet German restaurants, those with the single waitress collecting the meal’s price in her leather purse fixed at her waist, offered him a solitary comfort that he craved.

When his two-year enlistment was up, he signed on to work as a civilian, taking college courses at the army’s overseas university to climb up the civil service ladder. The CIA had come knocking on his door one day, guaranteed him to stay on in Germany for several more years before a possible transfer elsewhere, which only now, at the end of his career, had become Langley.

He’d liked the possibilities the CIA offered. These fit in with the George MacIntosh he was becoming. Not the product of a Scottish father who spoke always of the beauty of the old country, but the son of a mother whose family had left their native Germany in the wake of the upheaval after World War I. They had never forgotten their homeland.

He reached for his phone again. He had to check on Mark, who should be arriving in Munich to catch up with Beth and identify her knight-in-shining-armor. George didn’t want to let her out of his sight until Hans Wermer was found.

And where the hell was Hans? The team assigned to search for him had reported to Charles that they had no leads although they’d alerted all the appropriate authorities. To the best of their knowledge he hadn’t flown back to Germany.

Where was he?

**

The reflection staring back at Hans from the mirror was rather frightening. The Speedy Messenger uniform looked silly on his beer-fed figure, the cap too small for his squarish head.

Yet Frederick had not wanted him to assist in the pursuit of the woman. “It is best that we stay here. Matthew will be going to Germany. With Charles’ help he’ll be able to locate Beth and deal with that threat.”

Could Hans start on his own plan then? He wanted to go back to DC, get close to George’s movements outside headquarters at Langley. See where he was vulnerable in his routine.

Frederick had said not yet, cautioned Hans against doing anything until they heard from Matthew. Hans had insisted; he could not stand to remain inactive so close to his goal. Frederick had then agreed, even offering to exchange Hans’ U.S. government vehicle for one of the messenger service’s cars “because they’ll be looking for that vehicle.”

Hans tipped his cap to the mirror. He’d been truthful with Frederick, but he had not shared all his plans. He had been better trained than that by the Americans, back when he had been given a short course in tradecraft.

Now, in a public restroom near the Lincoln Memorial, Hans watched his own face in the mirror, the grey eyebrows bunching together over his dark eyes, eyes that had learned to give nothing away, to be as empty as the store shelves had been in East Germany. Yes, an old man, perhaps a defeated man, but a man who had been given one last chance.

The uniform would protect him, Frederick had said. “It’s easy to hide behind a uniform.”

“Old men are messengers?” Hans had asked.

“Who else will hire them?”

Then Frederick had clapped his hand on Hans’ back. “But you must be careful not to jeopardize our mission. Look but don’t touch. When we’re ready, we’ll strike.”

                                         DAY 4

Bavaria, Germany —

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Beth said. She pushed her arms against the waves of white clouds, sticky like shaving cream foam. She tried moving her feet, but they too were suctioned by the white clouds.

“Hey you, wake up!”

What? Beth’s eyes flew open.

“I said wake up!”

She pushed at his hands.

“I’m awake; let go of me.” He dropped his hands.

She looked out the window – early dawn she thought. Then she turned back to the man.

“And I have a name — Beth Parsons. Do you?”

“David Ward, at your service.”

She sat up, reached for her backpack to get out her mirror, then stopped. She wasn’t going to let this man witness her vanity.

“Now will you please tell me what’s going on?”

“No.”

“You bastard.”

“I’m not sure myself.”

David unbuckled his seatbelt and stood up. “Get up. It’s time to go.”

Beth didn’t move. “Go where?”

David unsnapped her seatbelt and shoved her backpack into her hands. “Follow me.”

She stood. If they were about to land, why hadn’t they stayed seated? What was going on?

David opened a compartment and removed a wrapped package. He strapped it on his back.

“That’s a parachute.”

David nodded. He was busy adjusting straps.

“What are you doing with it?”

David reached for a second one. “We’re going to jump.”

The weakness coursed down her legs. “Oh, no, I’m not. I have a fear of falling.”

“You don’t have any choice.”

No, no, no, no, no. She would rather face the entire CIA — on the ground — than jump from a perfectly good airplane. She turned towards her seat.

David caught her from behind. She tried a back kick, aimed at his groin, but he must know that trick because he held her at an angle where she couldn’t reach him.

“Let me go!”

“After we jump.” He smashed the parachute onto her back with one hand while he immobilized both her arms with his other hand. Then, so quickly she couldn’t believe it, he dropped her hands for the one instant it took to use both his hands to buckle the chute on her.

She clawed at the buckle, but he anticipated her, grabbing her hands again with one arm.

“Count 10 after you jump. Then pull this cord.” He nodded at the cord. “If it doesn’t work ...”

“What!”

“... pull this one for the backup chute.”

Beth tried to drop into a low karate stance, to push all her weight down, so she would be too heavy for David to move. She would not jump.

David yanked her up, then yelled towards the front, “We’re ready. Tell me when we’re in position.”

Eternity. A snatch of a song from the musical “They’re Playing Our Song” drifted through her mind: “Maybe someone didn’t catch me when I was small.”

“Now!” the loudspeaker cackled.

David pushed open the plane’s door and shoved her out into — nothingness.

She couldn’t count. She’d be squashed like a bug in Germany. Germany! She would die where Stephen had. Who would bury her?

“Pull your cord! Pull your cord!”

What cord? She was about to die!

A hand not her own tugged at the cord.

Her descent slowed, the man now a few feet away from her.

“Bend your knees and roll to your side when you hit the ground. Keep your chin tucked.” She could hear his words above the wind.

Oh, shit! The ground was just below her. She yanked her knees up, hit the ground, rolled and rolled. When she stopped, she was smothered, the folds of the parachute cocooning her. The white sticky clouds from her dream.

The man was there. Clearing the chute from her face. Pulling her to her feet. Hugging her.

“You’re fine. You were terrific!” His face inches from hers.

Had she really survived?

Beth squeezed the pinpricks of tears back behind her eyelids and stooped to look at the spread of the chute.

“What do I do with this?”

“Here I’ll get it.” The American accent belonged to a young black man striding towards her across the open field. He was dressed casually, as if prepared to take a stroll in Munich’s Perlacher Forst, which abutted the American army housing area in which she and Stephen had lived.

“More friends?” Beth said.

This new man gathered up the chute from the ground. “I’m Rodney. Willkommen in Deutschland.”

Now with Rodney added to the mix Beth realized she’d have to start thinking of David Ward as David instead of “the man.”

“Where’s the car?” David said. “Open spaces make me nervous.”

“Relax,” Rodney said. “You’re expected to land at the field you designated on your flight plan. You’re fine.”

“Still, let’s get going.”

“Spoken like a true ops man. Okay, the car’s over there.”

Beth’s eyes followed Rodney’s arm. A sleek metallic BMW peeked out of a clump of trees at the edge of the field.

“A little ostentatious?” she said.

“Not in Germany,” David said, grabbing her arm and pushing her forward.

She pulled her arm out of his grasp. “Thank you very much — I can walk on my own.”

“And who might you be, Rodney?” she asked from the safety of the back seat as he started the car.

“Kathleen didn’t mention me?”

“Not by name. Are you the boyfriend?”

Rodney laughed. From the front seat David said, without turning around, “They’re a couple. Or as much of a couple as two CIA employees stationed in different hemispheres can be.”

Rodney laughed again. “Well said.”

“Does this mean Rodney has alerted Kathleen to where we are?”

Rodney shook his head. “Not yet. I’ve followed David’s instructions to tell no one — and he meant no one — about you until he arrived.”

Beth watched out the window as Rodney turned the car out of the lane and onto a road where cars whizzed by as if they were competing at the Indy 500.

“I thought only on the autobahn there was no speed limit,” Beth said. “Why is everyone going so fast here?”

“Practicing,” Rodney said. Then to David, “Where to? I’m at your service.”

“Your office. I need to do some research, talk to a couple of the old-timers.”

So much for keeping her presence quiet. “Won’t everyone know who I am?” she asked.

David turned to Rodney. “Has an alert been put out for her?”

“Not in Germany. I can’t say for anywhere else.”

“Then we just won’t say who you are.”

Beth talked to the back of Rodney’s head. “Now are you going to tell Kathleen where I am?”

Before Rodney could answer David said, “I don’t think it’s wise to let Langley know yet. There are still some things I don’t understand.”

“That makes two of us. Except I don’t understand anything,” Beth said. “So now that I’ve survived jumping out of a perfectly good plane, are you going to tell me at least something of what’s going on?”

Instead of answering her David spoke to Rodney. “I’ve changed my mind. Take us to the Stachus first.”

“I didn’t think we had time for touring,” Beth said.

“We don’t. I’ll be scoping out the area — checking to see if we’re being followed.”

“What are you looking for?” Rodney said.

“Better not to say. Need to know principle.”

Rodney nodded.

“Especially with Kathleen as his girlfriend,” Beth said.

Rodney glanced at her through the rearview mirror. “No fear there. The Company always comes before personal ...”

“... entanglements,” David said.

“Is that what women are?” Beth said.

“Yes.”

This guy was just too much. She shoved her fist into the back of his seat, but he ignored her. He was talking to Rodney. “Who could have known where Hans Wermer was meeting Beth?”

“Besides the obvious people? Depends on how tight security is at Langley. Or maybe he was tailed from Germany. You’ve got a wide open field.”

**

Shoppers, both native and tourists, pushed by David and Beth as they walked down the Stachus, closed to vehicle traffic since the early 70s. David could see their reflections in the stores’ glass windows as he checked for a tail.

While he was always prepared for the unexpected, this time he was concerned how many unexpecteds there might be. In other words, how many different players? He thought he knew when he started, but now he wasn’t so sure. A wild card might have joined the game.

Hence his decision to postpone a visit to the local CIA shop. Best to get a feel for the situation; see if any of the outlying pieces moved into play.

Beth walked by his side, saying nothing.

“Does it look much different?” David said.

“I’m not sure. I didn’t come shopping here that often.”

Her hands hung at her side, her gait neither purposeful nor relaxed.

“You seem nervous,” David said.

She whirled on him. “How observant you are! Given the series of events for the last couple of days, I can’t imagine why.”

“More than that.”

Beth glanced around then looked at David. “Stephen. Stephen and I spent his last days here in Munich. Everything reminds me of ...”

David raised his arm to her shoulders, but the ice in her eyes froze his arm in mid-air.

“The people who did the bombing were never found, were they?” he asked.

“Supposedly it was a group that wanted the American army to leave Germany.”

“Is that who you think set off the bomb?”

Beth shook her head. “I’ve always wondered if there wasn’t a specific target in the club that day.”

David’s stomach did a three-point dive. “Any candidate that day for being the target?”

“No, no,” Beth said. “It’s just my feeling — the anti-American answer was too easy.”

David checked the store windows. In this crowd it would be hard to spot anyone tailing them. “There were protests of the American army ‘occupation’ at that time.”

“I know. I ... I just can’t explain.”

At the top of the street David led Beth into the town hall square. High above them on the town hall building the famed Glockenspiel perched. The chimes began, the door opened, and out pranced the wooden figures.

**

Beth’s eyes followed David’s hand pointing to the figures. She had, of course, seen the Glockenspiel perform before. Back when Stephen had been alive and everything all right in her world.

The figures rolled along to the ...

What?

She was grabbed from behind — someone used one arm to pull her backwards behind David, the other arm clamped around her mouth. She dropped low, bending at her knees, and stepped out behind the attacker under the arm that had held her mouth, breaking his hold. In karate class they had practiced this maneuver over and over. “You may need it someday,” Eitan had said.

Then she turned around to face the attacker. But the someone was gone in the crush of Glockenspiel-oogling tourists.

She gasped for breath, her arms clutched around her body. David stood in front of her, oblivious to the attack.

The chimes ended. The wooden figures retreated behind the closed doors. David turned around.

“What’s wrong?”

“While you were admiring the view, I was attacked.”

His eyes flicked for the briefest of moments. “You were just accidentally shoved in this crowd.”

“I’m positive I was attacked. I used a karate technique for breaking a grab hold from behind.”

Beth watched David keep his face expressionless while his eyes scanned the nearby people.

“Did you see what the attacker looked like?” he said.

“Now you believe me?”

He grabbed her forearm. “Answer the question.”

“No. He — or she — got away in this crowd.”

She tried to shrug off his arm, but he kept his hand tightly clamped and steered her away from the center of the square. “It’s time to check some things.”

**

Kathleen stared at herself in her bathroom mirror. It was after midnight in DC. Earlier at headquarters she had survived the humiliation of George berating her in front of Charles. She could imagine the note that would go into her personnel file.

What could she do to make amends? To prove she was not, as George had said, “a worthless bureaucrat.”

She thought of Rodney. He wouldn’t have gotten himself into such a mess. Coolness was his watchword.

Of course, he had a background in coolness. He’d been an army brat, his father shipping the family all over the world. Rodney had learned to endure the taunts of his classmates, both on the post and off the post in those assignments where they’d had to live “on the economy.” Considering all the possibilities before he made any move came natural to him. He, undoubtedly, would have considered Beth doing a bolt. Would have checked the premises to eliminate all means of escape, even if it meant breaking a beloved trellis.

Her own upbringing had been much more conventional. Public school in an integrated neighborhood in New Jersey, no moving around, not even to a different house. Both parents schoolteachers priding themselves on giving their three children the best education they could. Kathleen, as the oldest, encouraged to do whatever she wanted. When she’d gotten into Wharton graduate school, then gotten a partial scholarship, they’d been so proud. Not that they weren’t proud of her career decision. It just seemed to them, if you had a prestigious graduate degree that could snag a high-paying position, why settle for low-paying government work?

Kathleen tossed the toothpaste tube back onto the sink counter.

Think, Kathleen, think. Don’t let your mind stray. What are you going to do about the Beth Parsons problem? To get George and the smirker Charles off your back?

Obviously, what Kathleen must do was simple. Find Beth before the big boys did.

**

Beth shifted in the chair, her face swiveling back and forth between Rodney and David. All three were sitting at a table in the center of a large office space. Through a glass partition the inevitable bank of computers was visible. CIA Munich station. A destination of those military intelligence reports stamped SECRET or CONFIDENTIAL that she had typed long ago. Of course she had no idea whether this was the same office site.

In the old days she had banged out the reports on a manual typewriter, six copies — an original and five carbons. Correcting all those copies was a nightmare. And did anyone bother to read them she had often wondered, even when the reports sounded reasonably important. The reports concerned clandestine meetings with potential sources on “the other side” or sightings of potential sources in unexpected places. The week she’d started working a GI had done a bunker, defected to the East from one of the border listening posts. He’d gone down to the local pub and disappeared. What had he known worth telling? And how had they turned him?

Blackmail. Get some information or photos on someone. Had the GI been photographed sleeping around? Or taking money from the wrong person? She’d never learned the whole story, just remembered her boss, Jack Lockheim, jingling coins in his pocket, waiting for the signal that never came: Person found lost while hiking. Everything well.

At least she had taken a shower in the sleazy motel back in the States. Who knew when she’d get to take another shower? When they had first arrived at this office she had gone into the bathroom to brush her teeth and put on fresh deodorant as well as fresh underpants.

“Look, enough is enough,” David now said, his voice’s more urgent pitch catching Beth’s attention. “We aren’t getting anywhere. If Beth was attacked, it could be a pickpocket attack on a tourist — the Glockenspiel performance is always a good location — or a planned attack connected to whatever’s going on. Let’s assume the worst — our opposition knows we’re here.”

Rodney shifted his body in his chair. “Exactly who is the opposition?”

David shook his head, then eyed an employee standing within hearing range.

“Surely you must have some idea,” Rodney said.

“I’d rather not say yet. For now we need to keep moving. See if we can pick up a tail; then see where the tail leads us.”

Beth said, “David, could we visit the English Gardens? They were always so lovely.”

Rodney glared at her. “You’re not here to sight-see.”

She smiled. “It might be a good place to check out whether we’re being followed.”

Now David stood. “Pretty good idea for a civilian, huh, Rodney?”

Rodney stood too. “Okay. I have my own work to care of. Keep me informed of where you are. And I’ll meet you at the safe house in Berchtesgaden tonight.”

David took her right arm and lifted her onto her feet. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

**

From the back of the taxi David kept a check on the rearview mirror. He’d been careful when they’d left the office, guiding Beth down twisting side streets until they’d come to a solitary cab waiting in front of a hotel. David had reminded Beth that they couldn’t assume the driver didn’t speak English. He had received a stony look for a reply and then radio silence had been maintained by Beth.

The taxi turned into the gardens and stopped. David paid the driver and offered Beth a hand out. She brushed his arm aside and climbed out herself.

“I apologize,” David said. “I’m not used to dealing with civilians who have had intelligence training.”

“I haven’t had intelligence training. I have common sense.”

“You’ve worked for army intelligence. You know the score.”

“I certainly do, so you can stop treating me as a child.”

“Truce? I promise not to insult you if you promise not to be insulted.”

Beth nodded, then said, “Let’s walk to the Chinesischen Turm. I remember it, as well as the Hellabrunn Tierpark.”

David reached for her arm to guide her and this time she didn’t brush him off. As they walked toward the Chinese Tower and then the zoo, he barely noted the flower beds in full bloom, the grass cut, the paths not overcrowded with others. Instead his eyes swept their surroundings, looking for suspicious activity directed at them.

Within minutes they were in front of a monkey cage, the animals swinging from branch to branch, babies clasped to their mothers. No one except David and Beth stood before the cage admiring the monkeys.

Beth turned towards him. “David, I understand the ‘need to know’ principle. But couldn’t you please tell me something of what’s going on?”

David shook his head. “It’s trite to say, but ignorance is protection for you.”

“Why come to Munich? Couldn’t you have done all your research online via computer?”

Her backpack shifted against his arm. With his elbow he shoved it back in position, unwilling to release her arm.

“No, I couldn’t. Much of our material from pre-computer days has not yet been inputted. And the East German material in Berlin is not computerized either. Also, there are a couple of people I want to check with.”

A whistling noise skittered past his ear. David’s right hand stretched for his gun while his left hand, the one holding Beth’s arm, shoved her behind the monkey cage. The monkeys jumped in agitation, yelping in their high-pitched voices.

“Stay down.” With no one else around, David had a clear target field towards the direction the shots were coming from. He squatted in front of Beth and squeezed off a couple of rounds, more a warning than actually an attempt to hit something he couldn’t see. A few answering shots, then silence.

He holstered his gun and pulled Beth farther behind the cage and held her body to his. He could feel her trembling.

“Everything’s fine,” he said.

“Being shot at AGAIN is fine!”

Beth pulled slightly away from him to look into his eyes. “David, can you teach me to shoot right now? I want to know how to shoot.”

David stood up, pulling Beth with him.

“Why?”

“I want to feel I have some control. I hate feeling so dependent.”

David nodded. “Let’s go rest somewhere first. The Hofbrauhaus.”

“I hate beer.”

“It’s a safe place to rest — crowds of people.”

**

Germans wearing work smocks and Japanese tourists wearing cameras occupied the lanes of tables. Oversized steins of beer cluttered the wooden table tops. Beth eyed the beer-fed waitresses hefting the steins. How much money did they earn an hour? Were drunks good tippers?

“Do you want a beer?” David said.

Beth shook her head. “Always tasted like soap suds to me.”

David waved down a waitress, told her one beer.

“What’s going on?” Beth said. “I think you know and won’t tell me.”

David laughed. “You have too high an opinion of my crystal ball abilities.”

The waitress slapped David’s beer down in front of him. She asked for payment and David fished out the required German marks. She didn’t say danke.

Beth tapped David’s hand. “I’m tired of being shot at. I want to learn how to shoot back.”

David’s eyes studied hers. Was he considering if she were serious? “Amateurs with guns are dangerous.”

Beth glanced at her hands clasped in her lap. “Amateurs without guns can be in danger if someone’s shooting at them.”

A swell of singing washed over the room. A German drinking song, the words unintelligible to Beth, roared from a nearby table. Conversation was hopeless. David drank his beer in large gulps, then signaled for her to rise.

The respite was over.

**

The taxi dropped them off in front of the massive limestone structure that was the Haus der Kunst — the House of Art museum. The 20 columns of the verandah rose above them.

“The thing is to keep ourselves among people so the opposition can’t take potshots at us, but not so many people that they can use the crowd as cover.”

Beth nodded. This was basic tradecraft that even she knew.

“So we’re going to look at paintings.”

“Yes. Did you know that after World War II the Haus der Kunst ...”

“... was used as the American Army Officers Club? Yes, I did. Stephen told me.”

David nodded. “I’m sorry. I keep forgetting you lived here.”

“A long time ago, a very long time ago.”

David took her hand, propelling her up the steps. After paying for their admission tickets, he led her into the west wing where the Neue Pinakothek and the Neue Staatsgalerie works were permanently displayed.

“The Neue Pinakothek has pictures and sculptures from the late 18th and the 19th centuries by more than 500 artists,” David said.

“What are you, a museum docent?”

“Just getting into the act.” He turned her into another gallery.

“Now the Neue Staatsgalerie has pictures and sculptures of later periods.”

“Thank you very much. I can recognize Impressionist paintings all by myself. In fact, that’s one of my favorite Cezanne ...”

David grabbed her hand with such force that the word paintings strangled in her throat. He yanked her against his chest and leaned his head close to her ear.

“I’m checking out the terrain,” he said.

“You’re standing on my foot!”

David removed his foot. “Stay right here and don’t wander off. I have to see a man about a dog.”

“You’re going to leave me? Leave me vulnerable to being shot or abducted or killed? Or am I being set up as a pigeon?”

“No to all of the above. I’m just going over there to check out another picture. And the man standing there is going to tell me something I need to know.”

Beth checked the direction David indicated. An older German man appeared absorbed in the study of a Gauguin.

David released her and walked over to the Gauguin. She whirled back to admire the Cezanne. Two could play at this game.

Within moments David returned. “I knew I recognized that painting. It was one of my mother’s favorites.”

“You had a mother?”

**

Beth checked out the trendy merchandise in the store windows as they walked down Leopoldstrasse, the main thoroughfare of the artists and nightlife district called Schwabing. It had been here that Beth had studied German for foreigners at Ludwig-Maximilian University. She’d had eclectic classmates, including one refugee from the spontaneous closings of universities in chaotic Italy, an Israeli couple fresh from military service, a Turkish woman whose husband worked at the American army kaserne garage, and a young man who appeared to be from Communist China (although Beth was never quite sure if that were possible). She had actually learned basic German because she had to — no English was spoken in the class although it was beginning German.

On the sidewalk a clump of people passed them. David took her elbow. “How come you never remarried after your husband’s death?”

“How do you know I never remarried?”

He hesitated. “You have that look about you — unloved.”

“Unloved! I have lots of friends, besides relatives, who care for me.”

“You’re missing that glow.”

“Are you talking about sex?”

He didn’t answer.

“Where are your wife and kids?”

“I’ve never found the time. The needs of the service come first.” David steered her around a runaway cafe chair plunked in their path.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” he said. “Why didn’t you remarry?”

Beth hesitated, then decided it was best to get this over with quickly. “I ... I couldn’t. I was afraid to love someone that much and risk losing him again. Every time I started getting close to someone I was dating, I found a reason to break it off.”

David propelled her forward, a submarine forging a path through rough seas. “You were right,” he said. “That bomb in the Frankfurt Officers Club was meant for someone specific.”

Her scalp’s beating escalated. “How do you know?”

“It was meant for me.”

Beth’s feet stopped. She was a statue, Lot’s wife turned to stone. Someone shoved her from behind, yelled something nasty in German. David drew her off to one side, out of the pedestrian stream.

Her mouth unglued. “What do you mean?”

“I was investigating an agent of ours suspected of being a double agent for the East Germans. I was getting close. I got a warning note, but it was a riddle.”

He took her arm, pulling her with him to start walking again. “I was never very good at riddles. I didn’t figure it out until it was too late.”

“Why weren’t you killed?”

“Timing. Probably the one time in German history that a German train was late. I got to the club moments after the bomb went off.”

Beth’s entire head pounded, the anger flashing rainbow lines through her vision. “You’re responsible for my husband’s death! You’re responsible for my miserable life!”

She exploded, swinging her right arm in a punch to David’s face. He blocked her punch and grabbed both her arms, pinning them to her sides.

“Look, I’m sorry. I was sent underground after that and the trail got cold. I never found the guys I was after — the guys who killed your husband.”

Tears welled in her eyes. David let go of her arms and hugged her to him. She pulled back and slapped him across the face.

“You son of a bitch! Is this your idea of a joke?”

David grabbed her arms again. Pedestrians streamed around their island, yelling at them to get of the way.

“I swear it’s true. And I swear I’ve never stopped looking for those guys. That’s why I met up with you. I’m on to something — and that something seems to have you in the middle of it.”

Beth shook her head, her arms still imprisoned. “After all these years you think you’ll find the killers?”

“You don’t know the East Germans — former East Germans. They have long memories — and long agendas. Some of them are still around — and I think they’re up to some of their old tricks.”

Beth’s knees buckled. David’s grip prevented her from collapsing. This was too much. All too much.

“Come on,” he said. “If you promise not to hit me again, I’ll buy you a coffee.”

**

Beth gulped her coffee. A mistake. The liquid burned the back of her throat. She chocked back a cough, not anxious to draw attention to their table.

“Did you like working for Jack Lockheim at the 66th?” David said.

“I liked Jack. The work was boring, just typing secret reports that were sent on to you guys. At least Stephen got to analyze the humint his office received.”

“You remember the word humint?”

“Actually George or Charles mentioned it at Langley. I’m not sure I would have remembered it otherwise.”

Beth took a cautious sip. Much better. “You know, I always thought Jack Lockheim looked as German as the native Muencheners. That man over there reminds me of an older version of Jack.”

David twisted to glance over his shoulder. “Jack died a couple of years ago.”

“That’s what George told me.” Although anything that George, David, Kathleen or the rest of the CIA spooks said to her was suspect.

David flashed her a smile. “Feeling better?’

Beth smiled back. “Practice on a 9mm would do a lot to brighten my day.”

**

Beth smiled again when David pulled off the autobahn. He had somehow conjured up a car a block from where they had coffee. He had just walked up to the car, put the key in the lock, and they had a car.

She guessed that this was probably why in the first place they had coffee at that particular café. But she didn’t ask David. She didn’t want to hear again that it was strictly a “need to know” operation.

David had chosen a field of clover with a solitary tree. When they stopped several feet from the tree, he pulled out his gun.

“Stand like this,” he said as he demonstrated, “and aim at the tree and pull the trigger.”

He handed her the gun and she tried to emulate how he had stood.

“Release the safety,” he said, indicating where it was. “Now shoot.”

She aimed and pulled the trigger twice.

She watched both shots go wide of the tree, but not so very wide.

David laughed. “You’re pretty good for a beginner.”

“Maybe all that focusing I do in karate is paying off.”

“Put the safety back on and hand me the gun,” he said. Then he demonstrated how to aim along the sight.

Beth took back the gun, released the safety once more, and tried two more shots.

“Better,” he said. “Keep going.”

The sudden click on an empty chamber reminded Beth that the supply of ammunition was not infinite. She looked at David.

“That’s enough for the first time. I want to get to the safe house before dark.”

David took the empty gun from here, reloaded it, and put it back in his shoulder holster.

Beth tried to keep up with his long strides back to the car. “Where’s my gun?” she asked.

David twisted his head to look at her as she lagged behind. “I said you were pretty good for a beginner. You’re not good enough to have a gun yet.”

Beth thought of all the retorts she could make. But what would even the best retort get her?

**

The fading light prevented Beth from a clear view of the road winding up a steep incline. Only when David drove around the last curve could she see the ski chalet.

David stopped but didn’t get out of the car. Beth watched him sit silently as if waiting for instructions from above.

“Did our diversion work? We haven’t been attacked or shot since the English Gardens,” she said.

David shrugged in response and motioned her to get out of the car. She grabbed her backpack as he unlocked the door.

Once inside, she opened each inner door until she found the bathroom. She used the facilities and then returned to the living room, where she found David lighting wood in the fireplace.

“What is this place?” Beth asked.

David turned around to look at her. “It was an intimate getaway for a Nazi general and his mistress. After the war the American army used it as part of the recreational hotel accommodations for army personnel. We recently took it over.”

Beth nodded. “As long as the shower works I’ll be happy.”

Without replying David walked towards the bathroom.

The moment he was out of sight Beth picked up the backpack David had acquired at CIA headquarters in Munich. This was the first time she had been alone with it and she wanted to make good use of this time.

After unzipping the main section, Beth stuck her right hand inside. The first thing she felt appeared to be a flashlight, so she dug deeper. Her hands closed around foil packages. What could these be?

She pulled them out of the bag – individually packaged condoms! – just as David walked back into the room.

She spun around to face him. “Condoms? You have condoms in your backpack?”

David flung himself onto the sofa. “Do you have a problem with that? I like to be prepared.”

Beth thrust them back into the backpack and, unzipped, flung it at David.

“Prepared? You think you can drop in anywhere and get lucky – or do you have a girlfriend – everywhere?”

David smiled. “Depends on the time of year.”

How infuriating! “It amazes me how all men are the same. Their minds get stuck below their belts.”

David motioned her to sit down on the sofa next to him. “Give up your martyrdom. Live a little.”

Beth remained standing. “You’re probably planning your next conquest right now. What’s her name?”

David’s eyes bored into her. “If I said you, what would you say?”

Beth flopped down on the armchair furthest from the sofa. “I’ll never sleep with you.”

David didn’t answer at first – he appeared to be concentrating on something else.

“You may have to eat your words sooner than you think,” he said.

“What are you talking about?”

David stood up, strode over to her and jerked her up.

“Hear that car noise outside? We have visitors.”

“Isn’t it Rodney?”

David shook his head. “He’s supposed to signal first with his headlights. So this means we have uninvited guests.”

Beth grabbed her own backpack as David glanced around the room, then reached into his backpack.

“We need to create a little illusion – romantic illusion. I’ll just open these condoms – leave the empty packages on the floor. Our uninvited guests will think we’re taking a walk – afterwards.”

“What a terrible plan!” she said.

“Have a better one?”

David dropped the condom packages in front of the fireplace, then slung his backpack on and with one hand propelled Beth towards a large wooden armoire – what the Germans called a schrank she knew.

David yanked open the double doors and pushed Beth into the schrank, shining his flashlight towards the back of the schrank.

“Can you feel rungs of a ladder there?” he asked.

Beth nodded – her voice had vanished.

“Climb down.”

As she put one step below the other, she felt David crushed behind her as he closed the schrank doors.

She climbed down as quickly as she could with David right behind her. At the foot of the ladder he shined his flashlight down what appeared to be a tunnel and motioned for her to now follow him.

“What is this?” Beth whispered, thankful her voice had at least somewhat returned.

David leaned closer to her. “The system of tunnels connecting Hitler’s underground bunkers. Berchtesgaden was his favorite retreat.”

Beth knew about Eagle’s Nest high above Berchtesgaden, a gift from one of Hitler’s top henchmen. She and Stephen had visited Eagle’s Nest when they were stationed in Munich. Perhaps she had even known about the tunnels, although she couldn’t remember now.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“To one of those bunkers.”

Beth stumbled over something and David pulled up on her arm to keep her from falling.

When she had recovered her balance she asked, “Don’t the bad guys know the same places?”

“Maybe, maybe not. We left a misleading trail, remember?”

Beth clamped down on her lips to keep from shouting. When she had control of her voice level she said, “If this wasn’t so ridiculous, I’d be laughing.”

Moments later she followed David into what was presumably a bunker. His flashlight showed bare walls and a dirt floor.

He landed her the flashlight and told her to shine it on his backpack, from which he took a miniature portable lantern and set it up on the floor of the bunker. He took back the flashlight and turned it off.

“We’ll have to spend the night here. In the morning I should be able to find our way out.”

Beth opened her mouth, closed her mouth, then finally said, “Sleep here?”

David opened two packets he had removed from his backpack. As he removed the contents she could tell at least they weren’t more condoms.

“These emergency blankets are nifty. But we only have two. We can each curl up in one. Or we can place on the ground and share the other one as a blanket. It will be more comfortable the second way.”

Beth nodded her okay to the second choice, but a suspicion crossed her mind.

“Did you really hear a noise?”

David didn’t answer he; he simply spread the first blanket on the ground. “After you,” he said.

Beth was at least thankful she had used the toilet facilities right before playing this hide-and-seek game. She stretched out on the blanket but kept her shoes on.

David stretched out next to her and spread the other blanket on top of them. He bunched up her backpack and put it under her head. Then he did the same with his backpack under his head.

“Wait a minute,” Beth said. “You don’t have dinner in your survival kit?”

“Sorry,” he said. “Only room for the most essential equipment.”

Beth rolled onto her side facing away from David. She hoped her stomach wouldn’t growl.

The lantern flickered off.

For a moment she felt something brush her check. Was it a bug? Or had David brushed his hand against her?

Beth closed her eyes but she didn’t expect to drop off to sleep. Regardless of what she thought of David Ward, this was the first time she’d been in bed with a man since …

Yes, she realized she wasn’t really in bed with someone. It was simply that … simply that she was in Germany. And Germany was the last place she had ever …

“Are you cold?” he asked.

“What?” It took a second for Beth to realize who was speaking. She had been thinking … thinking about something that could never again be.

“Are you cold?” David repeated.

For answer Beth sat up and turned the lantern back on.

“Tell me a story,” she said. “About one of your operations. The unclassified bits.”

She thought he wouldn’t say anything. But after a moment, in which she noticed he didn’t look at her, he sat up and began:

“I had a Joe in Prague. He was to meet a Russian contact. A successful meet would have netted important missile strength numbers. I was to meet the Joe afterwards at midnight. He didn’t show.”

Now he looked at her. What was it he wasn’t saying?

“Not such a big deal. Happened before. I went to the fallback at 1 o’clock. Again no show. I went on to the fallback at 2.”

Beth’s stomach flipped – she knew what was coming.

“The Joe was there. Dead. His throat cut. Who could have known our fallback?”

Without meaning to Beth reached out and took David’s hands in hers. She felt responsible for asking him to relive this. He didn’t appear to notice what she had done.

“I looked around – an old people’s home was across the road. I dashed to it.”

He paused, then continued. “I ran up the stairs and along the corridor. There was no one around. The door to one room was open.”

Beth lightly squeezed his hands, encouraging him to go on.

“Inside an old man lay on a filthy sheet, groaning. I went in, sat down next to him. He reached out his hands, his eyes sightless. He said in Czech, ‘Milo, my son, is it you?’ In that instant I became Milo. I answered in Czech, “Yes, my father, I am here.’ I sat with that old man, told him I loved him, until he took his last breath. Then I fled.”

David’s eyes were on their hands. Suddenly Beth was suspicious. She pulled her hands away.

“Is this a true story? Or are you playing another part? Tender-hearted citizen of the world.”

David didn’t answer; he simply turned away from her, and lay his head down on his backpack.

But instead of turning the lantern off, he said, “Now it’s your turn to tell me a story.”

Beth shook her head. “Nothing to interest you.”

“Tell me about how you met your husband.”

How she met Stephen? What a strange request. “Why do you want to know?”

“Tell me the story,” he said.

Why not?

“My family moved to a different neighborhood in Philadelphia. Stephen and I were in the same 4th grade class. We were the best spellers. Each week we would compete to see who got the most right on the Friday spelling test. It was a big deal in our classroom – boy vs. girl. Often we tied.”

Beth paused. How silly it seemed now. But she went on, “We kept our tests in a bound spiral notebook. One week by mistake Stephen tore his test out of his notebook. The teacher gave him a 0. He was devastated.”

Fourth grade. A 0 meant so much then. “I felt so badly for him that I tore mine out too – so we would be even again. From then on we were best friends.”

“You started dating your husband at age 10?”

Beth smiled. “That came later. Much later.”

David turned off the lantern. She couldn’t see his face. What had he thought of her story? What had he …

“Come on, Beth. It’s time to get up.”

Beth sat up. The dark was as pervasive as it had been when they first got here. “What time is it?” she asked.

“5 a.m.” David turned the lantern on.

“I must have finally slept. How did you sleep?”

“I didn’t. Someone had to stand guard.”

“I should have taken my turn,” Beth said.

David folded the two emergency blankets into little squares and stuffed them in his backpack before answering. “No, you shouldn’t have. You’re the civilian.”

“The civilian. Right.”

Beth swung her backpack on her back and took the flashlight from David while he put the lantern in his backpack.

“Do you know how to get out?”

David’s only reply was to smile.

She followed him down a tunnel until suddenly there was a noise up ahead. David flicked off the flashlight and pushed her behind him before taking out his gun.

From down the tunnel came “Ist dieser platz frei?”

David answered, “Ja, dieser platz ist frei.” Then he snapped the flashlight back on.

“Rodney,” David said to her. “He has the worse German accent of anyone I know.”

Beth laughed. “You haven’t heard mine.”

Then Rodney and Kathleen entered the arc of David’s flashlight.

“Kathleen! What? How?”

                                    DAY 5

Beth sat in the back of Rodney’s BMW with Kathleen while David sat up front with Rodney.

Kathleen had promised to answer Beth’s questions once they were on the road.

“I don’t like getting left holding an empty bag,” she said. “After I went on a wild goose chase to Cape Cod, I returned to Langley and used my connections and my computer.”

Rodney spoke over his shoulder as he drove. “She contacted me for information and she detected my hesitation when she asked if I knew your location.”

Kathleen laughed. “After that it was easy to get what I wanted to know. I just threatened …”

Rodney cut in. “She promised not to reveal to George or Charles what I told her.”

“I agreed because I know they’re not keeping me in the loop.”

Beth watched Rodney glance at David. “Saw the company you had last night.”

“Could you tell who they were?”

“Only that there were two of them driving the usual BMW.”

Beth laughed. “You should talk.”

“I’ll send someone back for your car later,” Rodney said to David. “Someone who will check the car for any surprise gifts.”

“You couldn’t have shown up last night?” Beth asked.

“Sorry you had to spend the night in the bunker. But we had to stick to our fallback plan.”

Beth tapped David on the shoulder. “No wonder you weren’t worried about finding a way out. You knew the rescue dog would find us.”

An hour later Rodney pulled off the road and alongside a small airstrip. Beth followed Kathleen out of the car.

“I understand that you don’t trust me,” Kathleen said.

“Trust you? First I was told this ridiculous story of identifying someone. Then the driver of that unidentified person is shot. I thought I was being set up to be the fall guy.”

“And what do you think now?”

Beth hesitated. What did she think? She said, “Maybe the answer will be in Berlin.”

Kathleen nodded, then motioned Beth into the back seat of a small plane.

“I’m an amateur pilot – it can come in handy,” Rodney said.

David smiled at Kathleen. “Good for seeing your girlfriend on quick trips across the Atlantic.”

Rodney laughed. “Never mix business with pleasure, or almost never.”

Beth put her hand on Kathleen’s arm to stop her from following Rodney to the cockpit. “Thanks, Kathleen, for letting me see this through.”

“What goes around comes around,” Kathleen replied.

Beth tightened her seatbelt as David said, “Sorry no food service again.”

Beth looked out the window as the plane took off. Then she looked back at David.

“How did the bombers know you were going to be at the Frankfurt Officers Club that day? Why target you there?”

David hesitated, his hands drumming on the seat’s armrests. “There was a scheduled luncheon called by the commanding general of the Frankfurt kaserne – post. He wanted to discuss procedures for discovering infiltrators on his kaserne.”

Beth nodded encouragement at David to “go on.”

He was scheduled to attend as representative of the U.S. embassy’s political section – his cover at the time. “Lots of people knew I was going to attend,” he said.

Beth thought about this. It didn’t make sense. “Why kill other people simply to get at you? There must have been an easier way.”

David nodded. “I’ve gone over and over that question. Unless I wasn’t the only target that day. Maybe some of the others also got the riddle.”

Riddle. Why had Stephen died?

David touched her arm. “What were you and Stephen doing at the club that day?”

The plane’s engine rumbled as it started up and her stomach flopped. Or maybe her stomach flopped because of the memory.

“Stephen had to meet someone in Frankfurt.” She had gone up with him on the train the night before so they could spend a night in Frankfurt. And the next day she had gone to the PX while he went off to his meeting. “We were to meet up at the officers club.”

“He was waiting for you there?”

She nodded. “The funny thing is that Jack Lockheim had told me not to bother eating at the Frankfurt Officers Club. Said it had lousy food.”

David sat up straighter. “Jack Lockheim warned you off the officers club?”

Beth looked at David. “Warned me off? He just said we shouldn’t bother trying the lousy food.”

David didn’t reply so Beth spent the flight watching the landscape below, thinking about how she and Stephen had flown to Berlin together. And how scary it had been as the plane came in to land at Tempelhof, almost seeming to touch the roofs of the nearby buildings.

But this time they weren’t landing at Tempelhof. She watched as Rodney landed on yet another runway in the middle of a field. But just as the plane was about to stop, it turned and rolled back down the runway and took off again.

David and Beth tore off their seat belts and squeezed into the cockpit with Rodney and Kathleen.

“What the hell was that about?” David asked.

“A wave-off. Didn’t you see the car at the far end of the runway? Had a German flag flying from the radio antenna.”

David nodded.

“That was the wave-off signal. My guy didn’t want us to land.”

“What about radio contact?” Beth asked. “This is the modern era.”

“Didn’t want the opposition to know. Would put my guy at risk. Better to let them think we noticed something.”

“We’ll have to try our back-up plan,” David said.

“I’m not going to jump out of a plane again,” Beth said.

David grabbed her arm. “You’re an old hand at this now. And we don’t have any other options.”

Beth opened her mouth to protest. But, really, what else was there to do? She followed David back to the chutes. This time she even put on her own chute. But she did say, “Will you hold my hand again?”

David nodded, opened the rear door, checked the ground, and called to Rodney “Now!”

He took her hand and they jumped.

This time she watched David, and when he pulled his chute she pulled hers.

Even her landing was better this time.

David gathered his chute and hers. “I knew you could do it,” he said.

And he leaned down and kissed her. For a second she felt …

He pulled away. “I got carried away.”

He thrust the chutes under a large tree and led her to the road, where he waved down a farm truck.

He lifted her up onto the truck bed and followed her up. But he didn’t look at her or touch her again.

Beth counted the trees they passed as the truck drove towards the former West Berlin.

When they reached the Kudamm they got off and waved thanks to the driver. David took her arm and led her off the main boulevard and into a street of small shops.

At the entrance to a bookshop he held the door open for her. Inside an old man sat hunched over his wares.

David said, “Haben sie eine Buch en Sigmund Freud?”

The man replied, “Ja, ich habe.”

Beth remembered just enough of the German she had studied in two German for foreigners courses to know that David has asked for a book by Sigmund Freud and the old man had said he had one.

The old man punched a button partly submerged under the books on his desk, and David walked to the back of the shop and pushed open a door into a room beyond. Beth followed David through the open door, which clicked shut behind her.

The disparity between the old book shop interior and this room shocked Beth. This room was stuffed to overflowing with computers, laser printers, and other equipment.

A young man rose from his desk to greet them. David shook the young man’s hand, then said to Beth, “This is Jim. He may look young, but he is a repository of knowledge that all the old gang could give him as well as that of his beloved computers.”

Jim smiled at Beth while David bent closer to Jim to speak into his ear.

Beth asked where the restrooms were, and on her return she found David typing at a computer terminal.

David pointed to his screen. “According to official reports, Jack Lockheim died in a boating accident off the Gulf of Mexico. His body was never recovered.”

Beth nodded as David pointed at a photo on his screen. “Here’s the last official photo of him, taken 10 years ago. Now I’m going to age him 10 years.”

David tapped on some keys, then asked Beth if the photo looked familiar.

Beth studied the photo, then thought of the man in the café in Schwabing. She told David what she thought.

“His warning to you about the Frankfurt Officers Club. I think he was waving you off. You just failed to take the signal.”

Beth sank into a chair next to the computer station. How could this be? Had Stephen been killed because she didn’t pay attention to what her boss had told her?

David reached over and took her hand. “It’s not your fault.”

She looked up at David. How sensitive of him to guess what she was feeling.

She took a deep breath and said, “Why would he want to bomb his own country’s men? Whose side was he on?

Before David could answer Jim came over to them and handed a single sheet of paper to David. He read it and then fed it into the nearby shredder.

“What did it say?” she asked.

David took her hand and pulled her up. “Let’s eat,” he said.

“Now there’s food service?” Beth said.

Ten minutes later Beth and David sat at a small table at an outdoor care on the Kudamm. Beth leaned closer to David and said, “It’s about time you gave me some information.”

David shrugged. “Every time I think I’m getting close, something happens to confuse the picture. Now Jack Lockheim may have been in Schwabing yesterday watching us.”

The waiter arrived at their table and put a glass of wine in front of each of them. Beth reached for her glass.

“Did you order this wine?” Beth asked.

For answer David knocked the glass out of her hand and yanked her up with him as his glare took in the whole room.

He thrust money on the table and propelled Beth out of the café with his one hand still clamped on her arm.

Before Beth could even get out one word, David had pulled her into a dress shop. A salesclerk moved towards them as David said, “Your bag! Give me your bag.”

David released Beth and grabbed her backpack with both his hands. Beth and the salesclerk watched him searching. Then he pulled something from the lining of the backpack.

“Let’s go,” he said. “We need to lose this.”

Beth smiled at the clerk, then said to David, “I suppose we don’t have time to shop. I could use a change of clothes.”

David flipped over the price tag of the nearest displayed outfit. “Not at these prices,” he said.

**

In George’s office it was still early in Washington. But he had asked Charles to come in at this time today.

“I’m concerned that Mark hasn’t caught up with Beth yet,” George now said. “The tracking device isn’t working?”

Charles crossed one knee over the other. “Yes, but she’s moving fast. Mark is definitely dogging her; he just hasn’t made contact yet.”

George looked out the window. What should he say?

“And we have no more information on where Hans Wermer may have misplaced himself to?” George asked?

Charles smiles, his beautiful patrician smile. “He’s also vanished from sight.”

George nodded his dismissal and said as Charles crossed the room, “This is not good, not good at all.”

The moment Charles crossed the door behind himself, George picked up the phone and dialed.

“Mark, where are you?” George asked. “Berlin? Do you have them in sight now?”

George listened to Mark’s reply, then said, “Stay with them and complete your mission. Also, Charles just told me that you hadn’t sighted Beth. Interesting?”

**

The moment Charles left George’s office, he strode to his own office, dialed a number, said one sentence, and then grabbed his gym shoes from a desk drawer.

A while later he was jogging on the National Mall as Matthew, also apparently jogging, came up alongside Charles.

“We’re working on our little problem,” Matthew said. “Moving targets are not so easy to hit, especially now that she has an escort.”

“Have you IDed the escort? We haven’t.”

“Not yet. But we’re right there with them.”

Charles paused in his jogging to retie a shoelace. Matthew stopped beside Charles.

“Do you really need to derail this woman and whoever is with her?” Charles asked.

Matthew didn’t reply at first. Then he said, “When you got involved with us, you know we played hardball. Relax – and leave the doing to us.”

When Charles stood up from re-tying his shoelace, Matthew was gone.

**

In Berlin David hurried Beth down the street, causing pedestrians to get out of their way.

“Don’t you have a way to call for help?” she asked.

David didn’t answer, just led her towards the entrance to the train station and through the platforms until he found the train he wanted.

Striding down the corridor in the first-class section with Beth in tow, David found a first-class compartment occupied only by a solitary German man. David pushed Beth into the compartment. He knew she wouldn’t ask questions in front of a stranger.

But when a few minutes after the train started the man left the compartment, David knew he was in for it.

Instead Beth said, “I have to use the facilities. I’ll be right back.”

“Make sure you don’t vanish,” he said.

Beth looked at him, then watched as he wrote an unintelligible word on the steamed-up window. When she smiled, he knew she got it.

“I saw the classic film ‘The Lady Vanishes’ at the Munich city museum when I lived in Munich,” she said. “There was a Hollywood festival with English-language films.”

Then she was out the door.

David looked at his watch and looked at it again a few minutes later. What could be taking Beth so long? He looked at his watch another few minutes later.

He got up, opened the compartment door, and peered down the hall. He saw nothing but felt a loud thump on his head.

**

Beth shook her head, trying to clear the confusion she felt. She tried to raise a hand to feel why her head hurt, but she couldn’t move her hand.

She looked down to see her feet were tied and her wrists were apparently tied behind her. This was ridiculous! Did David think he had to actually enact the film “The Lady Vanishes”?

In the next moment she saw David tied up beside her and apparently still unconscious.

She looked around, saw they were in a baggage compartment and that no one else seemed to be there. Then she risked speaking. “David, David!”

No answer. She wiggled closer to him and butted her head gently into his shoulder.

“David, wake up!”

David groaned, shook his head, and looked at her.

“We vanished,” she said.

David eyed their trussed bodies. “At least we’re not mummified in bandages.”

Beth laughed, then glared at him. “Think, David. We have to get out of here before the next train stop.”

“Can you reach inside my belt with your mouth?”

“What?”

“I have a tiny but very sharp knife taped inside my belt.”

For heaven’s sake. First the underground bunkers and now playing assistant in a carnival contortion act.

“How am I going to hold a knife in my mouth to cut the ropes?”

“Just get the knife.”

“I’ll cut myself.”

“It’s snapped closed!”

Beth wiggled herself into a better position and maneuvered her mouth down to David’s waist. She bit into the belt until she got her mouth around the knife – and pulled it from the holder. Thank heavens there were no cameras to catch her doing this!

“Now put the knife in my hands,” he said.

She maneuvered behind him and brought her mouth down to his hands. Shit!

He appeared not to notice but simply wrapped his hands around the knife and flipped a tiny button that flicked the blade out.

David now wiggled behind Beth and worked on cutting the ropes off her hands. When he succeeded, she took the knife from him and cut the ropes off David’s hands.

Then he used the knife to cut the ropes from both their feet.

While he did so, Beth had a momentary memory of playing cowboys and Indians at age 10 with a neighborhood boy. He had tied her to a tree and it had been fun then. Not so much now.

David got up and pulled Beth up before returning the knife to his hiding place. He checked for his gun, which of course wasn’t there. Then he grabbed their backpacks, which Beth hadn’t noticed lay nearby, and there were no guns there either.

David opened the door of the baggage car and eyed the terrain. He turned back to Beth.

Before he said anything, she said, “We’re going to have to jump again, aren’t we?”

“Afraid so.”

“And we don’t have chutes this time.”

David put her backpack on her back and his backpack on his back.

“Roll when you hit the ground.”

She stood with him at the open door.

“Now!” he said.

She and David flew through the air — and miraculously landed in a haystack.

The next moment David pulled her out of the stack and began brushing the hay strands off her clothes.

She froze – and he moved his hands off her.

She hadn’t meant to act that way. To make up for this she said, “We have to stop meeting like this.”

David didn’t reply. He simply turned and started down the road alongside the tracks. Beth almost had to run to keep up.

When he finally slowed down, she said, “Someone hit me as I left the bathroom.”

“I didn’t see who hit me. Did you?”

She shook her head no.

“Whoever it is – they’re damn good at tracking us – even without the bug.”

Beth’s foot caught in a pothole. David jerked her up before she stumbled forwards.

When she caught her breath she said, “Maybe it’s not the same people.”

David stared at her. “Why do you say that?

“It feels as if we’re in the center of a ball of yarn. Different people are unrolling the ball from their own ends while we remain caught in the middle.”

“Interesting observation – from a civilian.”

Some time later Beth sat on a bench outside a shack at the end of a single airstrip while David negotiated with a young man who appeared to own the small prop plane on the airstrip.

David walked over to Beth and motioned her to follow up into the plane.

As they buckled up David said, “He’ll fly us to Bremerhaven. We’ll be able to find a plane there to take us back to the U.S.

“Did you ask if he has insurance – in case someone shoots at his plane?”

David laughed.

Beth looked around the interior. “There are no parachutes. I hope we get to land correctly this time.”

**

After a normal landing at Bremerhaven, she waited outside the hangar until David emerged, checking a gun he held in his hands.

“Where did you get that?” Beth asked.

“You would be amazed what you can get with a credit card. The exchange rate was so good I bought two.”

“Wait a second! You told me using my credit card was my first mistake.”

David looked at her. “It wasn’t my credit card,” he said. “I mean it wasn’t in my name or in any name associated with me.”

“Oh” was all she could manage.

David slipped the gun into a pocket, then waved her towards a plane revving up on the runway.

“I suppose no food service again,” she said. “But as long as it has a toilet.”

Hours later Beth and David both stirred from their seats. “Where are we going to land – we are going to actually land, aren’t we?” she said. “And what are we looking for?”

David gestured outside the plane window, where the setting sun streaked the horizon. “We’re going to land outside Baltimore. The information Jim located has to do with a German national group based in Baltimore.”

“Did you tell this to Rodney and Kathleen?” Beth asked.

David shook his head. “Strictly a need-to-know basis.”

Beth opened her backpack to find a comb. “What does this group have to do with us?”

“Not sure. It’s tied in with some other information I learned from the Stasi files.”

Beth checked her face in a compact mirror. “Can we at least go clothes shopping – at a reasonably priced store? I’ve worn these for days.”

David shook his head. “We’re on a tight schedule.”

Thirty minutes later Beth sat behind the wheel of a rental car while David leaned in to talk to her.

“I’ll see what I can find out and meet you in the Inner Harbor tomorrow morning at 9,” he said.

Her hands trembled slightly on the steering wheel. Was she suddenly afraid to be alone after all these years? “I want to go with you.”

“We’ve been over this.” He patted her hand. “Check into the motel I chose – use the cash I gave you – and don’t do anything until you meet me.”

“How about giving me a gun?”

David shook his head. “Do you know how many people accidentally shoot themselves?”

“Give me the second gun!”

David pulled the second gun from the ankle holster on his left leg and gave it to her. She checked that the safety was on, then shoved the gun in her backpack.

                                          DAY 6

Once again Beth found herself sitting on a bench waiting for David. Only this bench was outside the walls of Fort McHenry and he was a half hour late already.

She hadn’t slept well last night. She kept telling herself she wasn’t really alone – David did know where she was. But still the thought …

Suddenly from the corner of her eye she spotted that dandy Charles from the CIA.

She jumped up and dashed through the gate of the five-pointed fort. She galloped up narrow stone steps and along the parapet. Then she dropped down into a depression behind a 5-foot high stone wall.

Trying to quiet her breathing, she stuck her hand inside her backpack to get the gun.

“There you are, Beth,” she heard Charles say.

Damn! “Charles?”

Charles’ head appeared over the wall. “At your service.”

Beth left the gun in her backpack and came around the wall. “What are you doing here?” she said. “How did you find me?’

Charles smiled. “David sent me to get you. He couldn’t make the meet in time.”

Beth glared back at Charles. “Why not?”

Charles shrugged – just one shoulder. “He’s following some lead. Didn’t say what. Just asked me to meet you and bring you to him.”

Beth walked behind Charles down the stone steps. Nearby she spotted the public washroom facilities.

“Charles, I need to use the facilities. I’ll only be a sec.”

Charles nodded and planted himself outside the facilities.

Inside the public washroom Beth immediately walked over to the solitary window and looked out. The drop to the ground was not difficult, but from there the parapet blocked any escape path.

She walked out of the restroom and up to Charles. “I’ll follow you in my car.”

Charles put his hand on her arm. “I’ll take you. We can come back for your car later.”

Beth shook off his arm. “I like to drive myself.”

Some time later she pulled her car in besides Charles in front of a cabin. Where the hell were they?

She got out of the car and walked behind Charles. Just as they had almost reached the cabin door, she grabbed his arm and stuck her gun in his side.

“Charles, we’re going to play by ops rules. This had better not be a set-up.”

“My dear Beth, what are you talking about?”

Beth didn’t respond. She kept the gun in one hand and patted him down with the other.

Then she motioned with her head for him to walk with her around the other side of the cabin and approached it from the back.

Beth held the gun on Charles while she peered in the back window.

“No one is there,” he said. “The cabin is completely empty.”

Beth indicated with her head that Charles should walk over to a grassy area enclosed by bushes and sit down.

“Not exactly empty,” she said. “There is quite a collection of equipment. The only thing missing are the white sheets. Where’s David?”

Charles lowered himself to a sitting position on the grass. “He probably hasn’t gotten here yet. Your concerns are for nothing.”

Beth sat down across from Charles, her gun still pointed at him.

“To be on the safe side we’ll just wait here.”

What else could she do? She had no idea where David was.

Charles now decided to tell her it was going to be a long wait.

She just looked at him, her expression asking the question of how would Charles know that if he didn’t know where David was.

“I lied,” Charles finally said. “He’s taking a vacation, while visiting Colonial Williamsburg.”

What the hell?

“Okay, not a vacation. Some Langley people concerned with recent problems in united Germany are meeting at the Williamsburg Inn. David’s there. I was supposed to keep you occupied here at the cabin until he got back – he was afraid you would wander off into danger.”

Beth played this scenario in her head – and it didn’t make sense, especially as described by Charles. She would call Charles’ bluff.

“Let’s go see,” she said, gesturing Charles to get up.

She walked him to her rental car and motioned him behind the driver’s seat. Then she sat next to him with her gun in her hand.

She figured Colonial Williamsburg was about four hours away. For the first two hours she said nothing except to give Charles driving instructions as she read the highway signs. About an hour after they had skirted DC Charles announced he needed a rest stop to use the facilities.

“You can pull over and go alongside the road while I watch you,” she said.

“Watch me?”

“I’ve seen the item in question before. But I have a better idea – I’ll go too. So pull over at the next rest stop.”

Beth figured out her next actions in the 10 minutes it took for a rest stop to appear. Once Charles had turned off the car and handed her the key, she jumped out of the passenger side and came around to the driver’s side.

She put her arm around his waist and pushed the gun into his side in a way that no one could see.

“You can’t go into the men’s room,” Charles said.

“You’re going with me into the women’s. I have the perfect cover story.”

Beth entered the restroom pushing Charles in front of her. A startled woman drying her hands let out a help of surprise.

“I’m taking him home to do right by my sister,” Beth said. “What you call a shotgun wedding. Can’t let him out of my sight. Could you help me?”

The young woman nodded. “Take this gun and keep it on his door while I go too.”

Beth pushed Charles into a stall and then dashed into the next one. Moments later Beth came out of the stall, flicker her hands under the water faucet, wiped her hands on her pants and took the gun back. The door to Charles’ stall was still closed.

Beth glanced at the stall and spotted the top of a window behind the stall.

“Got to go – thanks for the help,” she said as she ran out of the rest room.

Outside Beth arrived under the rest room window just as Charles’ leg appeared slung over the windowsill.

Charles dropped down to the ground to face Beth and her gun.

“I know this trick, too,” Beth said. “You’re lucky I’m not in a shooting mood.”

Charles brushed off his pants. “You probably can’t even shoot.”

“Do you want to find out?” Beth asked.

Another two hours brought them to the parking lot of the Williamsburg Inn. Beth repeated the maneuver she’d done at the rest stop.

When she motioned Charles out of the drivers’ side, he said, “A rest stop is one thing – all kinds of weirdos there. You can’t walk into this hotel with a gun in my side.”

For answer she shoved her gun harder into his side.

Suddenly shots were fired toward Beth and Charles. She quickly changed direction and propelled Charles towards the village of Colonial Williamsburg.

Once there, she hurried Charles down Duke of Gloucester Street lined with taverns and stores.

Then she pushed him out on the green where a demonstration of the Williamsburg militia marched up and down near the Magazine and Guardhouse. The militiamen loaded their muskets and prepared to demonstrate their shooting.

As they fired, shots were fired at Beth and Charles. Beth pulled herself and Charles behind a gaggle of tourists watching the demonstration.

Suddenly off to one side Beth caught sight of David! Being force-marched by an unknown man.

She paused only for a second before bringing her right leg up and down in a kick that smashed Charles’ knee. He screamed in pain and collapsed on the ground.

She bent over him and searched him for a cell phone – he may not have been able to walk away but she didn’t want him calling anyone with a warning.

When she found his phone, she said, “You won’t be going anywhere and I’ve got something to do.” Then she took off after David as she saw him go past the courthouse.

Beth followed David and the man up the divided Palace Street leading to the Governor’s Palace, trying to keep behind tourists and trees as she followed them.

The two men entered the palace and went through the foyer and disappeared down the central hall. Beth followed them through the foyer, suppressing a shudder at the overwhelming display of muskets lining the high-ceilinged walls.

She ducked around tourists as she followed the men down the hall and outside to the gardens, where the men headed towards the maze, as she learned from a signpost.

Beth hesitated for only a second before following them into the maze. Within moments she was lost. She stopped, straining her ears to listen for others.

Then she continued on in the maze, finally stumbling out again. Either she missed David and the man in the maze, or they got out before her and she has lost them!

Beth scuttled back to the Inn, dodging more tourists walking along Duke of Gloucester Street. When she turned south towards the Inn, more shots were fired towards her.

She dropped behind a real wood pile and stuck her hand around the pile to shoot. After she shot one round, she ducked down behind the pile again. The second time she fired two shots before ducking down. She peered over the woodpile when suddenly she was grabbed from behind.

She used the same martial arts technique she had employed on the attacker who had grabbed her from behind at the Glockenspiel performance in Munich. After breaking this new attacker’s hold and sweeping him off balance, she raised her leg and slammed her foot down on his knee the same as she had smashed Charles’ knee. The attacker screamed in pain. She looked at his face – she had never before seen him.

Beth picked up the attacker’s gun from where it had fallen, snapped on the safety, and shoved the gun in her backpack. She was afraid to pull this unknown attacker behind the woodpile in case he tackled her while she was trying to move him. He’d have to remain where he was.

Beth rushed to the Inn, shoving her own gun into the backpack when she entered the foyer featuring a sign announcing the events of the day. “The League for a United Germany” was listed in one of the conference rooms. She hurried to the indicated room and marched into a gathering of 10 men sitting around a large conference table. CIA George was at the head of the table and he gasped out her name. She decided to use persuasion first, guns second.

“Get up, George,” she said. “We have business to attend to.”

George stood up, holding placating hands in front of him – “just another crazy woman to deal with” — as another man came forward. Beth shuddered when she saw it was Jack Lockheim.

“So we did see you in Munich,” she said.

Beth turned back to George. “I’ve just left Charles with a busted kneecap.”

“Charles?” George said.

“He was setting up David and me.”

George nodded as if this made perfect sense, even if it didn’t.

“I’ve also left another fellow – he was shooting at me – with a broken knee. But right now we need to rescue David Ward! He’s being shanghaied.”

Jack motioned to George, who said to Beth, “You wait here and we’ll take care of it.”

Beth started to follow the men out of the room, but George said, “This is an ops situation. You are not to leave here. That’s a direct order.”

The moment George and Jack were out of the room, Beth said to the silent remaining eight men, “I need to use the bathroom facilities.”

One of the remaining men rose. “I’ll have to come with you.”

If only this time the layout would accommodate her! Inside the bathroom Beth opened the window and looked out. Yes!

Moments later she climbed out of the first floor window and strode towards a trellised flower bower.

After only a few steps someone grabbed her, twisted her arm behind her and, without saying a word, marched her towards the Magazine.

The man marched her into the Magazine. As they passed through the narrow entrance space, Beth swung to one side and knocked the man into the walls. She took a step back as the man tried to clear his head and executed the knee-breaking technique on him – the third time is definitely the charm! – and left him screaming in pain.

David must be here. Why else would the newest attacker – again someone she had never before seen — march her here?

Beth ran up the stairs and around the inside of the Magazine. So many closed doors!

Beth opened her mouth to call David’s name, but remembered she didn’t want to alert David’s captor in case the captor was still holding David.

She pushed open doors that circled the round building. No one inside the first or second doors.

On the third try Beth opened the door — to find David sprawled on the floor unconscious. She checked for a pulse at his neck. Then pushed at his shoulders.

He groaned and opened his eyes. When he saw Beth, he smiled.

“Marry me,” he said.

“You’re delirious,” she said. “You can’t be held to anything you say.”

                                           DAY 7

Beth walked into a restaurant in Georgetown, where David sat waiting for her, his left arm in a sling due to being yanked as he was frog-marched at Colonial Williamsburg. She was enormously pleased they were both wearing clean clothes.

“Did you sleep okay at Kathleen’s last night?” David asked.

“Are you finally going to tell me what’s going on?” she asked.

“You’ve been terrific,” he said. David paused as the waiter put down two glasses of wine.

“Isn’t it a little early for wine?” she asked.

“Not after what we’ve been through,” he said.

David reached for his glass as Beth grabbed it from him. “Did you order this?”

David looked at her and threw money on the table and motioned her to get up. “We need to see a man about a dog,” he said as he hurried her out of the restaurant.

“Again?” she said.

A few minutes later Beth stood with David outside the Jefferson Memorial. “Is this one of your mother’s favourites, too?” she said.

“You have to learn patience if you want to be in operations,” he said.

“Be in operations?”

“I could use a partner.”

Beth looked around at the nearby tourists. Who could David be meeting? She said to him, “You must say that to all the women who save your measly life.”

“You did not save my life. Someone would have found me. You just saved me from temporary hunger and cold.”

At that moment a man approached the two of them. Beth gasped and grabbed David’s arm.

“That’s him. That’s Hans Wermer.”

“You recognize him after all these years?”

Beth smiled. “I cheated. I found a labelled photo of him in your backpack – along with the condoms.”

Before David can answer Hans reached them and shook David’s hand. What the hell was this?

“Guten Tag,” David said.

“English now. I am speaking only English.”

David smiled. “Good day, then. Hans, this is Beth Parsons.”

Hans nodded at her.

“I was hoping you’d show up at the appointed time,” David said.

“I’ve been here every day – I always follow operational backup plans.”

Beth stared at Hans.

“Operational backup plans?”

Hans smiled. “As I told Herr Ward, I was set up when I was terminated from working for the Americans. I think you Americans call it ‘being framed.’ I never worked for East German intelligence.”

**

George got out of his car in the visitors’ lot adjacent to the front entrance of the rehabilitation hospital and walked towards the entrance. He felt badly for Charles.

Inside the building George found Charles in bed, his broken knee in traction. A private security guard sat in the room reading a magazine.

The security guard leaped to his feet when he saw George and said, “He isn’t allowed any visitors.”

George showed him his CIA I.D. “Why don’t you wait outside?”

The guard walked toward the door, but Charles motioned to the guard. “I’d rather you stayed,” Charles said. What the hell?

“Out. I said out!” George yelled.

The guard lunged for the door, snapping it shut behind him.

“You betrayed me, Charles. I trusted you and you betrayed me.”

Charles said nothing.

“Don’t you have anything to say? Any reason for betraying your country?”

Charles shrugged.

“You will tell me your contacts right now. I will meet with them and bring them to justice.”

Charles simply returned George’s stare.

Shit! George really needed to know what Charles knew.

“Cooperation is your only hope,” George said. “You may avoid being locked up for ….”

**

George entered the diner where Matthew and Frederick, both with legs bandaged and crutches nearby, sat in a booth waiting. Frederick pulled himself up to a standing position and shook George’s hand. Then Frederick clasped George in a bear hug. George smiled, turned around and left the restaurant without saying a word.

As he walked towards his car, David and Beth walked toward him. What the hell?

When they reached him, David held up a folded American flag. “It’s time to retire your flag,” David said. “You’ve had a long career – and it’s over now.”

George forced a puzzled expression on his face while surreptitiously checking whether he had a chance of getting away. Playing the innocent seemed the better move.

“You’re under arrest,” David said.

Suddenly men and women wearing FBI jackets and caps appeared from everywhere. Two of them grabbed George – how dare they! – while the others stormed into the diner.

Moments later George saw the FBI agents exit with Matthew and Frederick limping along on their crutches.

As George was being led to a car, he saw Hans Wermer walk up to David and shake his hand just as Kathleen and Jack Lockheim joined the group. George heard Hans say, “May we have coffee now, bitte?”

**

Beth sat in the diner booth on one side of David while Kathleen sat on the other side. Jack and Hans sat facing them.

“Now you may begin, Hans,” David said.

“In 1972 I made the discovery of an American traitor in the CIA. I wanted to report the name of the traitor in person to my case officer – Stephen Parsons.”

“Stephen!” Beth burst out.

Hans nodded. “I arranged to come West for a visit to my sick aunt – leaving my wife as a hostage in the East. I was to meet Stephen in Frankfurt at the Officer's Club.”

Beth’s stomach flipped and flopped. Would she finally learn the truth?

“When I got to the Officers Club – the dining room had been bombed. Herr Parsons was dead. I didn’t trust contacting anyone else. For years I thought I would be killed.”

David put his arm around Beth.

“The traitor arranged for me to be discredited with the Americans, saying I was a double agent for the East Germans,” Hans continued. “There was no one I could tell who would believe me about the traitor.”

“Then why come forward now?” Kathleen asked.

“Herr Ward contacted me and asked me to do this.”

Beth turned to David. “Why now, David?”

“Because after the Stasi – East German intelligence – files were opened, I finally found enough evidence to set my plan in motion. I felt ever since … the bombing in Frankfurt that there was a traitor within the CIA. But I could never prove it until last month when I asked for a leave of absence from the agency to follow up my own suspicions.”

Hans said. “Herr Ward wanted to expose the traitor. George MacIntosh.”

“Why George?” Beth asked.

“Money? Ideology? The antidote to boredom?” David said.

Beth looked at Jack. “David wondered why you warned me not to eat at the Officer's Club that day.”

“Did I? If I did, it was only because the food was so lousy.”

David drank from his coffee cup. “George has been uneasy since the Stasi files have been open. A couple of years ago George asked Jack to go undercover, supposedly checking some bogus story.”

Jack said, “In reality – although I didn’t know it — George wanted to ensure there was no trace of his betrayal.”

Beth blurted out: “George found out Hans was meeting Stephen and killed Stephen!”

“Or had him killed,” David said.

Beth felt as if she were a rag doll dumped in the trash. She had her answer – but it didn’t help.

“Why not kill Hans instead of Stephen?” Beth asked.

David shook his head. “Killing Hans may have led back to George.”

Had it been her destiny to only have a short time with her husband?

Then she thought of David, her stomach doing another little flop. She asked, “David, why did someone go after you in Colonial Williamsburg?”

David hesitated. “Charles told members of the German national group that I would be attending the meeting in Williamsburg. And the group members believed I was the one interfering with their plans.”

“Charles betrayed you?”

David shook his head. “A year ago someone in the agency got a whiff of a possible traitor,” David said. “One of those people checking everyone’s finances just felt something was off. From higher up in the agency, Charles was assigned to watch George.”

“What? Charles isn’t a traitor?” Beth asked.

David shook his head. “He insinuated himself into Frederick’s group Deutsches Uber Alles to see if George was involved. Charles never discovered the answer – the cells were kept separate – until now.”

Beth glared at Kathleen, who laughed and said, “I just learned that Charles was undercover and had to play his part. The group wanted info from the guy who arranged for Hans to come here. Grabbing David as he arrived at the meeting was their opportunity.”

“How did they know David arranged for Hans to come to the U.S.? I thought Hans made a claim?”

“Hans did make a claim, but I recommended that the claim be investigated,” David said while Hans nodded his agreement.

“Then who sent Charles to meet me in Baltimore?” Beth asked.

David smiled. “George did. When I got signalled to attend the meeting in Colonial Williamsburg, I said I couldn’t — I had to meet someone. George told me to send Charles to meet whoever it was, although George probably knew it was you.”

Beth looked at David. “And when did you know that Charles was still a good guy?

David smiled. “I’ve known all along – we all had parts to play in uncovering the traitor.”

“Oh, dear,” Beth said. “I kept a gun on Charles all those hours. Why didn’t he immediately tell me where you were?”

Now Jack smiled. “Beth, I taught you about the need to know. Even when something seems innocuous to tell someone, our training automatically makes us secretive.”

Beth turned to Hans. “And why did you end up with the Germany group?”

“I needed somewhere to go after my CIA driver was shot. I didn’t know what my old friend was up to. Once I found out, I said nothing in order to see what would happen.”

Beth nodded. Then asked, “Then why was the driver shot?”

“Mistake,” Hans said. “I was the target. My old friend thought the person arriving at the CIA was a traitor to the Fatherland and wanted the traitor – how do you say it? – ‘taken out.’ But at the park, the sun shone in the eyes of the shooter. When he shot the driver, I ran!”

Now Kathleen asked, “What about Mark, who kept showing up?”

“Just doing an ops assignment for George,” David said, “but he doesn’t know anything.”

Beth felt the heat rise throughout her body. “We all were supposed to be the fall guy for George?”

“Again!” Hans said.

**

Outside the diner Beth and David stood next to Beth’s rental car, Beth leaning against the car and David facing her.

“Will you be reactivating your status with the CIA now?” she asked.

David nodded.

“And do you have a home – someplace besides planes and trains you jump out of?”

David laughed. “I have an apartment near Langley with a landlord who watches things for me.”

“Does the landlord also watch your pets and water your plants?”

David shook his head. “No pets and no plants.”

Beth stared at her shoes. This was the man who had — inadvertently — caused her husband’s death …

“I’m sorry,” David said.

She looked up. Could he read her mind?

“For the train being late that … day.”

Beth shook her head. “What difference would it have made – except you would have been killed too?”

David took her hands. “And the riddle. The one I received. I realize now it wasn’t from the bombers. It was from one of my informants, trying to warn me of what was about to happen.”

“What was the riddle?”

“Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”

“The Trojan horse? A traitor in the middle of a gathering of men,” she said.

Beth squeezed his hands. Was everything that had happened since she’d been approached at the dojo a karmic payback?

David leaned down to kiss her but she twisted away. She wasn’t ready, ready to risk love. She wheeled around, yanked open the car door, and got in. She waved through the glass as she turned on the engine.

David motioned her to roll down the window, which she did only a couple of inches.

“Go to Langley – there’s a pass for you,” he said. “Kathleen wants to tell us something.”

“Is it a riddle?” Beth asked.

Beth drove slowly to Langley with no attempts to “catch” yellow lights. She wasn’t in a hurry to face David again. She had folded into herself so many years ago. How could she unfold now?

Back at Langley Beth was met at the front by Kathleen and escorted to the cafeteria, where David waited for them at a table.

The moment they had sat down, Kathleen said, “I’m becoming co-director with Charles of our section. Thanks to Beth’s escape I finally got a chance to prove I could do operations.”

Beth and David congratulated Kathleen. Beth felt pleased that even more good had come out of all this.

“Will it be hard to return to Philadelphia?” Kathleen asked Beth.

“Go back to being a civilian?”

David and Kathleen laughed at her use of the word.

“I’ll probably still be somewhat in the loop,” Beth said.

She didn’t wait for them to ask how. Instead, she added, “I’m planning to hold David to his proposal.”

David looked up from his food, his fork half-raised to his open mind.

“My marriage proposal? What made you change your mind? A half hour ago you gave me the brushoff.”

Beth smiled. “Driving here I realized that, if I could jump out of a perfectly good plane – not once but twice …”

“… and a train,” David said.

“I could take the leap and marry again.”

David leaned toward her for the kiss she had missed out on earlier. Again she pulled back.

“Can I keep the gun?” she asked.

“Consider it an engagement gift,” he said.

And now she met him halfway – and they finally really kissed – in the cafeteria of the CIA!