Rift Zone

CHAPTER ONE

OLD JEWISH QUARTER, EAST BERLIN

TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 1989

The face of Stalin smirked at her from the bottom of a porcelain soup tureen as she bargained with an aging East German couple in the musty storage room of the Patschkes’ millinery shop. A dozen mannequins peered from the shadows like faceless skinheads. She picked up a teacup by its awkward hammer-and-sickle-shaped handle. Before the communists, Dresden’s master craftsmen had designed the world’s finest china for European imperial courts. She cradled the cup and touched their humiliation. But it was a vintage piece, a testament to the pain of modern Germany and extremely marketable.

And Faith Whitney wanted it.

“You’re a good customer, Frau Professor, so we’ll make you a special offer. One thousand West mark. It’s a complete service, immaculate condition, genuine Meissen.” Herr Patschke’s tiny round glasses slid to a stop on the hook of his nose.

Faith had only twenty-three minutes until a rendezvous, but reminded herself of Hakan’s rule of negotiations: Slow business is good business. The Patschkes admired efficiency almost as much as she did, so she forced herself to lean back in the wobbly chair and sip gritty East German coffee.

“Only two sets were commissioned for Marshal Stalin’s seventieth birthday.” Frau Patschke took the teacup from Faith and wiped her fingerprints from it. “It is pristine.”

“And this is the only complete set in existence. One night at his dacha, Stalin hurled the other at his Politburo,” Herr Patschke said without a smile and then leaned over and whispered, “Rumor has it this marked the beginning of more purges.”

Herr Patschke nodded to his wife, his double chin swelling like a pigeon puffing its neck. Frau Patschke pulled a skeleton key from the pocket of her housedress and waddled to a chest. She removed a mahogany box and set it on the table. An eagle was carved into the lid; the bird of prey’s talons clutched a swastika. Frau Patschke flicked open the gold latch. Inside the silk-lined box, crystal goblets sparkled even in the light of the single bare bulb.

A sudden chill was all Faith needed to authenticate the Nazi stemware as she picked one up with a tissue. A frosted engraving was identical to the emblem on the box. She hated contaminating her apartment with fascist trash, but this set merited sealed bids. “As usual, your taste is exquisite, but I’m in Leipzig soon and I have luck finding merchandise there more within my budget. If there’s nothing more, I’ll have to excuse myself.” She spoke in unaccented German and stood, compelling herself to look away.

“Bohemian crystal, very lovely, very special. They were a gift to the Führer for the liberation of the Czech lands.” Frau Patschke held a goblet in front of Faith’s face and flicked her middle finger against it.

Nothing with a swastika should ring so clear.

“Tell you what. I’ll give you one thousand for both the plates and the glasses.”

The Patschkes squinted at each other while Faith rummaged through her oversized purse. She removed a camera and stole a glance at her watch.

Frau Patschke raised an eyebrow. “Is that one of those American models that make the instant photos?” Herr Patschke slipped his arm around his wife’s sizeable waist, pressed his cheek against hers and grinned.

“A real Polaroid.” Faith snapped the picture and the camera spit out the photo.

The Patschkes huddled together spellbound as the image materialized. He pointed to the snapshot. “Look, Hilda! Amazing. Simply amazing. Do you realize the private photos we could make with this?”

“Fritz!”

“If you include this camera-” Herr Patschke began.

“And plenty of film,” Frau Patschke said.

“Ja, ja. Both for one thousand, five hundred West,” Herr Patschke said.

Faith pursed her lips. “One thousand, three hundred.”

“Wonderful.” Herr Patschke shook her hand and snatched the Polaroid. “Smile, Liebchen.”

“I’d like you to use some special packing materials. Plus I need this to fit into three separate packages so it seems like I’ve got books. Bubble wrap, cardboard, then standard pink paper on the outside would be best.” Faith placed a roll of imported bubble wrap onto the table.

Frau Patschke divided the Stalin service into two parcels while Herr Patschke measured a length of the coarse pink paper used in East German bookstores, but it ran out before he could finish the Nazi crystal. Frau Patschke handed him some newsprint with line drawings of vacuum tubes and slogans praising East German scientific advancements.

“Don’t you have any more of the pink? I was counting on it.” Faith fidgeted in her seat.

“I’m sorry. We are short right now.”

Herr Patschke bound the two pink-wrapped boxes together and loaded all three onto a suitcase trolley Faith had brought with her. Like a child playing with a retractable tape measure, Herr Patschke stretched the bungee strap as far as he could, let go of it and then snickered as it snapped back.

He insisted on helping Faith with the packages. He pulled the cart through the labyrinth of their storerooms and removed the CLOSED sign from the front window. He paused with his hand on the doorknob and glanced back over his shoulder. “She didn’t want me to say anything, but I believe you should know. Two men stopped by last week and inquired after you. They had no interest in what you buy-only in how you move things. Naturally, we told them nothing. Be cautious, Frau Doktor.”

Privately run shops with brightly painted façades dotted the streets of the old Jewish quarter. A hunched woman with church-lady blue hair examined books in a display window of a Christian bookstore, one of the handful tolerated by the state. Her head moved as she watched Faith’s reflection in the plate-glass window. Faith hurried away, invigorated by the sense of threat that permeated East Berlin like a foggy mist. Her blouse was damp from sweat and nerves.

She waited alongside two East German punks staring at the red pedestrian light and ignoring the empty street. Their purple hair stood straight up from their heads as though the hair itself were trying to escape their gaunt bodies. When she stepped from the sidewalk before the light turned green, they scowled at her. Not wanting to call attention to herself, she stepped back up and reassured herself she had three minutes before the window closed.

She dragged the heavy cart along the irregular cobblestones. The packages shifted off-center as it bounced along, making it difficult to maneuver, but she had no time to stop. She rushed past a long line of parked cars where a dirty Mercedes with red diplomatic plates stuck out among the tiny fiber-glass Trabants.

One minute. Faith was watching the broken sidewalk ahead when she noticed a pair of legs. On cue, she stumbled. An African man tried to catch her, but she fell, raking her hand across the rough stones. She intentionally tipped the cart until the packages tumbled to the ground.

The man reached under her arm to steady her. The diamonds in his gold rings glistened. “So sorry, sister,” he said in African-accented English. “You all right?”

“No major damage. Bruises add character.”

“Let me have a look.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She pulled her hand back. It burned so badly she hoped the muscle wasn’t exposed, but only three scrapes crossed her palm.

In the commotion, another black man had climbed from the backseat of the Mercedes and stacked three pink packages back onto her cart.

“Hey, careful with those. They’re extremely fragile.”

“No worry. I do the job right.” He winked at her.

Faith rolled her eyes.

Faith dashed into the Ministry of Education, worried her tardiness had blown her lunch engagement. She almost had the Assistant Minister of Education sold on sponsoring her as a visiting professor at Berlin’s Humboldt University. The professorship came with a coveted multiple-entry visa that would allow her free passage between Berlins and throughout the GDR. Free of the restrictions of one-day visas that confined her within city limits, the entire country would be hers to plunder at will. She had worked on a scheme for months, creating a fictitious Ozark University and even getting it listed in a college guide. The time had now come to close the deal before Neumann upped his price or talked too much.

The porter called Neumann on the house phone and within a few minutes he arrived to escort her inside. The last time she saw him, Neumann had been balding. Now he sported a mane of jet-black hair that looked as if a mangy animal were humping his head. The way it was sewn gave it an almost avian quality she couldn’t quite pin down. She couldn’t keep her eyes off it as she tried to figure out the species.

Their footsteps echoed in the corridor as they passed red bulletin boards filled with the latest Party directives. Faith expected an elaborate dining hall for the government elite, but the canteen was humid and cramped. Neumann handed her a metal tray dripping with water and they waited in line. Steam gusted from the kitchen, depositing a sheen of grease on Faith’s favorite silk blazer. Definitely a schnitzel day.

He led her to a corner table away from the other patrons where an orange salt and pepper set complemented the brown synthetic tablecloth. She cringed at the sight of reusable plastic toothpicks.

Neumann straightened the aluminum fork. “I’m impressed that you speak Russian, Frau Professor. Seldom for an American.”

“How do you know I speak Russian?” Faith sought eye contact, but he looked away.

“Cabbage is tasty today,” he said, his mouth full of red kraut.

“That’s nice, but how do you know about my Russian?”

“I assumed. You’re a professor and…”

“And I looked the type.”

“Yes, yes. You do look brilliant. You’re probably interested in Gorbachev’s reforms and why our government has been so resistant to them. Wait until the old man Honecker’s gone and you’ll see change. I can introduce you to some others who feel this way, Party members who talk about social-” He interrupted himself and shielded his lips with his hand and whispered, “democracy.”

She glanced at the oval Party pin on his lapel. That particular model dated his membership to the Stalinist period. Faith didn’t believe in born-again anything, particularly communists and Nazis. “Herr Neumann, your dissidents don’t interest me any more than your Party does. It’s your household arts that intrigue me, which brings me to the topic of the professorship.” She rustled through her purse without looking down and handed him a small paper bag under the table. Neumann peeped inside and then shoved it into his vinyl briefcase.

“Sponsor me for the visa and I’ll be able to bring over fruit like that. It’s almost kiwi season and I bet you’d love them. They taste a lot like strawberries, only better.”

“Strawberries are my favorite.”

The way he eyed Faith as if she were a juicy berry herself made her want to pummel him with rotten fruit, but she smiled instead. “If I get a chance, I’ll bring you some.”

“Only once is a tease.”

“With the visa I could drop by every now and then with a few vegetables as a gesture of my gratitude for pushing the paperwork through within the week.”

“You do know we have plenty of apples, onions, potatoes. And do not bring cabbage-we need no more cabbage here.” He picked up the bowl and slurped lentil soup.

“So am I going to be a visiting art professor or not?”

“The outlook’s improving.”

“But I see we’re not there yet. Did you get a chance to look over the Ozark U. literature I gave you last time?”

“Such a clean campus. I’d love to visit there sometime-maybe for a semester.”

“And we’d love to have you. If this year goes well for me, I’m sure we can work something out. So what is the status of my visa?”

“Undecided, but there is one small thing. Our computer is broken. It’s a Western model and no one here can repair it. You could transport it to the West for service. It would speed our work along. We can be of mutual assistance to one another.”

“Sorry, but I’m already schlepping around too much today.” She patted her packages as she eyed the exit.

“If it’s not fixed soon, our visa backlog will continue to grow.”

“I understand. Sometimes it can take Ozark U. forever to process paperwork for foreign exchange scholars.”

“We can arrange for someone to help you carry it and your packages to the checkpoint. You could take a taxi once you’re over there. We have West marks to reimburse you.”

Red flag.

“I’m afraid I’d have problems on the border.” Like being arrested and coerced into spying. She stood, debating with herself whether to abort or play things out as far as she dared. “I didn’t declare a computer on my way in.”

“I’ll write a letter with an explanation of everything.”

She stepped away, but her investment in the project stopped her and she paused. “I know a few things about computers. Let me have a look inside.”

Neumann whisked Faith past his secretary. His private office was a memorial to all things Soviet. Framed posters exalted the Soviet chemical industry. On his desk was a stack of recent issues of Izvestia, Pravda and other Soviet newspapers she didn’t recognize. Neumann hurried to plug in a model Sputnik rocket with blinking lights trailing behind it.

“Frau Muster mixes herself into everything. She doesn’t approve of women, let alone foreign ones, in my office,” Neumann said in a low voice. “She’s an old-timer. When I tell her about some of the things that come out about Stalin, she warns me to burn the Russian papers before it’s too late.”

“Maybe she knows something you don’t.”

“She’s seen a lot. Her husband was a prisoner of war who never came home from the SU. Her kids weren’t allowed into the university. But she’s right that Gorbachev threatens a lot of powerful people.”

“Let me have a look at the computer.” Faith knelt in front of the metal case and flipped it on its side. “You have a screwdriver?”

“I don’t. You might as well go ahead and take it as is.” He moved closer to her while she fished a Polish Army knife from her purse. “I love women with wide cheekbones. You look so Slavic.” He brushed the back of his hand against her face.

She slid away from the touch. He acted as if nothing had happened and left the room. She sighed as she wondered if anything was worth putting up with such awkward passes. She popped open the antique computer and stared inside.

No dust.

She wiggled the cables to test if they were seated on the motherboard. They weren’t. The floppy drive wasn’t even connected to the power supply. It wasn’t a computer, but a jumble of broken parts. Faith fumed at the insult of such an amateurish setup, but she wasn’t sure whether to direct her anger toward Neumann or the Stasi. He deserved it, but her gut nagged her. The Association’s fingerprints were all over the machine.

Neumann returned, carrying a letter. “What are you doing?”

“This appears to be your problem.” Faith picked a card at random and pivoted it until it released from its slot.

“Put it back and take the whole machine.”

“The info I need is right here.” She scrawled down numbers onto the back of a used U-Bahn ticket.

“Take it. I’ll personally see your visa receives top priority.”

“You have to work with me. I take the card or nothing. Your choice.” She reached toward the desk to set down the part.

He grabbed her wrist. “The card. But the visa might be delayed.”

Outside the air was stained from soft brown coal and it filtered all warmth from the sun’s rays. A few blocks from the ministry, Faith boarded a streetcar. The filthy orange tram jerked into motion and her parcels slid a few inches, but she steadied them against her leg. She looked around for a place to sit. A mesh bag with shriveled carrots poking through it occupied the only empty seat. Its owner faced the window, but something about her seemed familiar.

The hair. The chemical-blue hair.

Faith tore off a ticket and stuck it in the machine and slammed the button with her fist. The teeth of the primitive contraption pressed holes into the ticket like a medieval torture instrument shoving spears into a heretic. The streetcar lurched forward. She grabbed a pole to steady herself. Her sweaty palm smeared the grime. Maybe she was being paranoid thinking the card was a setup for the Stasi to nail her on the border. Neumann could’ve insisted upon it only to save face after the failed pass. After all, the man was desperate.

The streetcar carried her past blackened façades cratered with bullet holes from the Second World War. Almost forty-five years later, the East Germans still couldn’t afford to repair their capital. Aesthetics were not a communist priority. She looked away from the window and decided it was time to lure the Stasi out into the open. She aligned the wheels of her cart with the exit. At the next tram stop a man hobbled down the steep steps. Seconds before the automatic doors slammed shut, she bounded from the car.

The blue-haired woman forced the doors open and jumped to the street.

Faith walked down the avenue and the woman paced her along the other side. Faith stopped at a kiosk to buy a newspaper. The woman paused to look into a toystore window. Faith shoved the thin Junge Welt under her arm and continued down the sidewalk. The woman followed her. Faith had found a single tick crawling up her leg; now every little itch felt like the Stasi.

Abort.

Fifteen minutes later, Faith crossed under the railway trestle at Friedrichstrasse. Leaded exhaust fumes clouded the entrance. Each breath scorched her lungs and she tasted metal. She slipped the computer card and Neumann’s letter into the newspaper and dropped it into the rubbish. In front of a bookstore a wizened man was hunched over a dented pail of mums. She dug into her pocket for the last remaining East German coins and selected a prop. Flowers add innocence.

The first wave of Western day tourists was pouring into the customs hall, returning from their own stale taste of the communist world. With each tourist, the odds tipped a little more in her favor. Faith adored Checkpoint Charlie’s Cold War glamour, but no real professional would choose it over the crowds of the Friedrichstrasse. She plunged herself into the comforting masses. Her muscles struggled to compact her body into invisibility. She concentrated upon her breath and almost convinced herself her body was under her control. But she knew better.

“Good evening, Frau Whitney,” the guard at the checkpoint entrance said before she could show him her passport. Protruding ears prevented his flat green hat from swallowing his head. He nodded for her to enter the restricted zone and then spoke her name into a microphone.

They were waiting.

She pressed her fingernails through the soggy newspaper and into the flower stems. It was too late to turn back, so she trudged ahead. Body odors wafted from the overheated crowd as she was herded down the steps past a monstrous X-ray machine with a small metal plaque, MADE IN BULGARIA. She could feel her cells mutate.

She flashed her American passport’s blue cover to the customs inspector and turned it to the open page with her photo.

“Place the bag on the counter, please.” The young man pointed to the stainless-steel table as he took her documents. He glanced into a security camera and nodded.

She set her purse on the counter. When she placed her hand back on the cart, a rush of terror coursed through her, a narcotic flooding her veins. Her body relaxed for a moment until she sensed someone approaching her from behind. She froze. The weight of the communist state closed in upon her.

CHAPTER TWO

NAGORNO-KARABAKH AUTONOMOUS OBLAST, AZERBAIJANI SSR

Children raced across the dirt yard of the orphanage to the dilapidated flatbed truck, frightening the herd of longhaired goats. That the Lend-Lease-era Studebaker had survived four days bouncing its way across high mountain passes from her Moscow orphanage was itself divine proof that Margaret Whitney was in God’s will. The driver honked the horn and inched ahead, but the children encircled the vehicle, forcing it to a halt. Their plump expectant faces made Margaret forget her body’s complaints. She was tickled with herself that she had once again hoodwinked the communists and she was about to deliver the contraband.

The orphanage director greeted her with a kiss on the cheek and walked with her arm-in-arm to an arbor of grapevines. A childcare worker in a clinical white uniform set dishes of roasted seeds and dried apricots onto linoleum nailed to a tabletop. A boy dressed in rags ran to bring bottles of carbonated water to the guest.

Margaret downed an entire glass of water and let out a long sigh. “We almost didn’t make it this time,” she said in English, then turned her head away, using her hand to shield a belch. “I can handle inspections from the Soviet militia, but I wasn’t ready for the Azerbaijani checkpoints. It took a whole pallet to convince them to let us pass into the enclave. They nearly tore the entire shipment to pieces looking for something.”

“Weapons. They don’t want us to defend ourselves,” Yeva said, her English more fluent with each visit.

“I’ve ministered to this country nigh onto forty years, but I’ve never known locals to get away with setting up their own blockades. The communists don’t usually play well with others.”

“I always thought I’d be happy when the day came that Moscow lost its hold on us.” Yeva shook her head and offered pumpkin and squash seeds to Margaret.

Margaret took a handful even though she believed they should’ve been planted in the ground where they belonged.

Oblivious to their patron, the children played, chasing goats. They laughed when the kids sprang straight up into the air. But one boy stood alone under a fig tree, his hands stuck in the pockets of his oversized breeches. He stared at the ground.

“That boy tugs at my heart.” Yeva turned toward him, patted the bench beside her and shouted something in Armenian. He didn’t move. Yeva walked over to him and put her arm around his slumped shoulders. She led him to the bench beside her. “They say he was like every other seven-year-old until the Azerbaijani tied up his family and slit their throats. His parents, grandmother, seven brothers and sisters-all dead. He was in the foothills with their herd at the time. He found them when he came back two days later.” Yeva stroked his back. “Every day I pray for a miracle.”

“I’ll add mine.” Margaret widened her eyes, raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips into a goofy face. The boy didn’t respond.

“Three days ago in Askeran they massacred another family. They’re now demanding all Armenians leave the territory. They’re Turks-no one would put another genocide past them.”

“I brought you Bibles and Sunday-school books in Armenian. You’ll find them tucked between diapers.”

“Maggie, your generosity’s transformed this place, but we don’t need any more Bibles. We need guns.”

“Sister, trust in the Lord and He’ll protect you.” Margaret chomped on an apricot to get the seed taste out of her mouth.

“The Lord helps those who help themselves. And maybe that’s why He sent you to us. You know how to move things like no one else can.”

“Child, I’m a missionary, not an arms dealer.”

“Look around and see the changes for yourself. We have no problem buying Bibles, Christian books-anything. Since Gorbachev, no one cares. Do not misunderstand. I admire your ministry and without you we’d never be able to take in so many, but the world doesn’t need Bible smugglers anymore-neither does God.”

“You’re starting to sound just like my daughter.” Margaret put her hands on her hips.

“We’re not persecuted because we’re Christians, but because we’re Armenian Christians.”

“My girl Faith turned her back on God. Don’t you go and make the same mistake. God gave you both special gifts to use for His Glory, so don’t you blaspheme Him by abusing your gifts to serve man. Jesus said, ’Blessed be the peacemakers for-’ “

A military truck barreled down the drive of the orphanage like a tempest across the plains. Yeva sprang to her feet and shouted in Armenian, then Azeri. The children scrambled into the building as if it were a storm cellar. The truck screeched to a halt and six hooded men in Army fatigues jumped out and rushed toward them. The devil was in their eyes.

They waved old shotguns and shouted in heavily accented Russian, “Hands up. No moves.”

Yeva wagged a defiant finger. “There are children here. Put those away.”

“Bring me the Armenian bastards,” the headman said, pointing his weapon at Yeva.

“Leave!” she said with the fervor of the pharaoh expelling the Israelites.

The man shrugged his shoulders and then strutted around the two women toward the children. Yeva sprinted past him and planted herself on the orphanage stoop.

“You will not take my children.”

The man laughed as he knocked her aside. The others swarmed into the building and turned over tables. Dishes and bottles crashed to the floor. The children cried as they huddled together. The boy stood in the middle of the room, lost in the chaos. The leader fired his gun at a statue of Christ on the cross that hung on the wall. Fragments of Jesus pelted the hysterical children.

The man shouted, “You should’ve left Azerbaijan when you had the chance. Line them up against the wall.”

“I take in all God’s children-Azerbaijani and Armenian. You’ll be killing your own babies,” Yeva said.

“Line up the Armenians.”

“No.”

“You.” He pointed with the butt of the shotgun to the boy whose parents had been murdered. “You look Armenian. Over there.”

The child crossed his arms and rocked himself, but didn’t move.

“Now!”

The child shuffled toward the wall. Yeva bolted toward him, but one of the gunmen grabbed her and threw her to the floor. She shouted to him in Azeri and Margaret prayed that the little Armenian would understand. The hand of God reached down and touched that boy’s shoulder. He stopped and then turned back.

“Thank You, Jesus,” Margaret said.

“Will you be such a hero with your people when they find out you massacred your own because you can’t tell them apart?” Yeva pulled herself to her feet and placed her hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“Don’t move.” The leader exchanged something in Azeri with the others and turned his gun toward Yeva. “We might not be able to pick out the Armenian children, but we know who you are.”

Just as he pulled the trigger, the boy shouted and jumped in front of Yeva. In an instant, the child’s face exploded into raw flesh and blood. Yeva opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She caught his small body and held him against her chest. Blood soaked her blouse. The leader nodded to a compatriot. He struck her with his elbow, pulled the child away and dropped the body onto the ground.

“Armenian harlot.” He unzipped his trousers.

Beside the dying boy the men took turns with Yeva while the leader paced between the windows and the door. Margaret begged with the Lord for mercy, but He had none that day. The leader rushed back from peeking outside and shouted at the one having his way with Yeva. He kicked his hindquarters, but the Sodomite wouldn’t get off her. He then motioned to others. They wrestled him off and then the headman aimed his gun at Yeva.

He shot her in the chest.

They ran away, vowing to return.

Margaret fell to her knees, the odor of sulfur, seed and blood sickening her. She ripped open Yeva’s blouse and pressed against the torn flesh. With each heartbeat, warm blood pooled under her palms. She pushed until she thought her fingertips touched Yeva’s heart. It beat twice and stopped.

Margaret scooped Yeva into her arms and bawled as if she had again lost her own daughter. Why, Lord, why? When the tears slowed, she beheld a picture of Jesus and ruminated. Then she made a promise to Him-one she knew He wouldn’t like.

CHAPTER THREE

FRIEDRICHSTRASSE CHECKPOINT, EAST BERLIN

Faith listened to the crowd wedged into the customs hall and heard staccato whispers, shuffling feet and rapid breathing-the sound of fear. It echoed against the dingy yellow tile walls. The East German authorities carried no weapons. Like prison guards, they didn’t have to. Every soul at the border was under their absolute control. They could confiscate anything, strip-search anyone or make anybody disappear. They allowed most to pass with a friendly smile.

But not Faith.

The officer stopped directly behind Faith, violating her zone. His silence crowded against her. She twitched and then tensed the wayward muscle into submission. Western tourists gawked at her as they shuffled by, but the occasional Easterners averted their eyes as if they might be implicated.

“Frau Whitney, come with me,” the official said.

“I have nothing private with me. I’ve no problem with you inspecting my bags right here,” Faith said without turning around.

“But I do. Come.”

The officer took her passport and guided her into a restricted area. He helped her with her cart and she followed, staring at the three pink boxes loaded onto it. She knew she had left the Patschkes’ with one gray and two pink packages, but it was too late to do anything about it right now. She felt as powerless as she had as a child, squeezing her violated toy with the contraband her mother had stashed inside. They could detain her for hours, even days, but no one would ever know. She longed for someone at home to worry about her, but she had only a roommate who probably wouldn’t think much of her absence until weeks after the rent was due.

She remembered the subway ticket with the random numbers scrawled on it and feared it could be used to delay her. She slipped her fingers into the side pocket of her purse, her fingers bumping against keys as they searched for the U-Bahn ticket with the part numbers. Grit lodged under a fingernail, but she found the ticket, palmed it, then shoved it into her pocket.

They entered an overheated room where another officer and a female customs official awaited her. The woman’s thin hair and frail frame indicated the poor nutrition she’d received growing up under the communists in the lean 1950s.

“Please.” The woman reached out for her purse.

Faith handed her the purse, parked her trolley and sat down. The woman opened the handbag and spilled the contents onto the scarred table. She examined Faith’s wallet, carefully removed the currency and fanned it out. Faith rested her hands on the table. The inspector paused and glared at Faith. “Hands away from the table.”

“Sorry. I thought you would want them visible.”

“Hands away from the table.” The woman flicked the credit cards onto the tabletop as if dealing blackjack. She returned to the wallet and removed a yellowed piece of paper. The crease in it was almost torn through.

Faith moved forward in her seat. No. Not that. She had carried the note in her wallet most of her life and she read it religiously every day in memory of her father. It was the only thing she had from him, a few cryptic words written in old German script. Please don’t take it.

The woman unfolded it.

“Careful. The paper’s fragile.”

“What does it mean?” The woman held it at arm’s length and read, “We had no chance, but we made ourselves one.”

“I have no idea. Just a piece of poetry my father read to me as a kid.” She wished she had known her father so he could’ve read it to her. As a teenager she’d immersed herself in Goethe and Schiller, searching for those lines, for the message from her father. She never found it.

The woman carefully set aside the note and Faith let out a sigh of relief. She resumed her search. She examined the last fuzzy breath mint and patted the empty bag. “Please stand and hold out your arms.” She frisked Faith, slowing down as she probed her breasts. She reached inside of Faith’s pockets and found the U-Bahn ticket. Upon noticing the numbers scrawled on it, she presented the ticket to the officer.

“Would you like me to undertake a more intimate exam?” the woman said.

“That won’t be necessary.”

“The packages?”

“Not yet. You may go.”

The younger officer read the numbers and dropped the U-Bahn ticket before Faith. “What does this mean?”

“It means you can go for a ride on the U-Bahn with one of these.”

“The numbers.”

“No idea. Looks like it’s been living in the underworld of my purse forever.”

“But we found it in your pocket. Maybe the number’s a code.”

“Maybe a direct number to the White House or a secret Swiss account at the Deutsche Bank? Or a-”

“Enough.” The ranking officer held up his hand. “Frau Whitney, I have no interest in your purse trash. What you did today interests me.”

“I had lunch with the Assistant Minister of Education.” The air seemed thinner as she struggled to maintain the rhythm of her breath.

“You were in his office.”

“He needed help with his computer. I opened it, tried to repair it, but couldn’t. A part is broken.”

“Where is the part?”

“I don’t know. I showed him the one that was bad. Maybe he threw it away.”

“You agreed to take it to the West for repair.”

“I refuse to take state property of the GDR out of the country. I’m a law-abiding guest of the GDR. I’d never-”

“Frau Doktor Whitney, we know who you are and what you do.”

“Apparently not,” Faith said.

The officer snorted and turned to the younger man. “Get Frau Simmel back. We do have grounds for a body search, including all cavities. When Simmel is finished with her, I want to take a look in those packages.”

Faith slumped over the table in the interrogation room, the now-wilted mums in front of her. She had been through several full physical searches before and had accepted them as an occupational hazard. Tonight was different because they weren’t looking for anything; they knew her person was clean. They wanted to humiliate her.

They did.

The officers returned and Frau Simmel smiled at her, but Faith looked away.

“It’s time to inspect those packages. Place them on the table and untie the bundles,” the ranking officer said. “Frau Whitney, is there anything you would like to confess to first?”

Faith ignored him, unfastened the bungee cords and heaved the packages one by one onto the table. As she picked at the tight knot, the slick synthetic twine shredded into dozens of thin strands. She broke a fingernail and ripped off the jagged fragment. She finished and stepped aside.

The gangly officer folded back the wrapping paper. He opened a book and a cardboard bear sprang up. The corrupt Nigerian diplomats charged her a fortune to rent the diplomatic immunity of their Mercedes’ trunk, but any price seemed worth it at the moment. The new method of hand-off needed some refinement, she thought, as she ran her finger over her scraped hand.

“What is that?” the officer said.

“Goldilocks and the Three Bears.”

The senior officer pushed the other man aside and picked up a gray clothbound history of the Socialist Unity Party and flipped through the pages. “You expect me to believe you intend to read this, too?”

“I’ve had insomnia lately. Keep having nightmares the Stasi is out to get me.”

He hissed. “Repack the bags and go.” The officer looked her in the eyes. “Pleasant dreams, Frau Doktor.”

The bastard could have released her beyond the final border control, but he didn’t, so she still had to pass the final passport check. More than once she’d seen them release someone here only to return for them within minutes. Four of the fourteen Formica passport-control chutes were open. White metal signs designated lanes for different nationals, separating East from West, West Berliners from West Germans and GDR citizens from everyone else. Faith watched her arm tremble as she handed over her passport. The guard’s head was motionless, but his eyes dashed between the photo and her face.

“Take off your glasses. Push your hair behind your left ear,” he said in a monotone.

A purple light flashed from the computer scanning her passport. He straightened his tie as he waited for her file. He glanced into an angled mirror high on the booth opposite him as if it enabled him to read her thoughts. She emptied her exhausted mind. He turned page after page, studying her movements. He stamped it and then the lock on the door clicked.

She was almost in the West. Almost.

Faith dragged herself down the long corridor and up the concrete stairs on shaky legs, heaving the damn cart up one step at a time. The tourist rush was long past and only a handful of people waited for the train to the West. Sentries toting machine guns paced back and forth on the catwalk above the platform. Their wide, baggy pants were gathered into high black leather boots, casting an ominous shadow of an earlier Germany. She bought Swiss chocolate from a state-run kiosk peddling communist propaganda and duty-free Western luxuries. She devoured the candy, her excitement rising. She had almost beaten them again.

A commuter train rolled into the S-Bahn station. The blond wooden paneling and slatted seats had survived one, maybe two wars. She grabbed both metal handles and pulled open the heavy doors of the first car. Several minutes later, they crept from the station. High fences topped with barbed wire escorted the train the short distance through East German territory. Floodlights bathed the crumbling buildings, their windows bricked over to prevent their occupants from joining the handful of East Berliners who somehow scaled the Wall every month. She prayed tonight wouldn’t be the night for another attempt.

Bright lights cast tall shadows from the dead strip between Berlins. Searchlights scratched the surface of the murky Spree. Spiked grates were invisible underneath the river’s polluted waters, but visible in the mind of every Berliner.

Faith looked, just in case.

After the train rumbled across the bridge into the safety of the West, she smiled; a more buoyant celebration of her little victory went on in her mind. At the first station, flashy Joe Camel and Marlboro man ads greeted her to the West. Her brain needed a few seconds to adjust to the color onslaught.

A West Berlin engineer relieved his Eastern counterpart. The man glanced at Faith a little too long. When would these guys roll over and admit defeat? They couldn’t do anything to her in the West, so she slumped in her seat, closed her eyes and promised herself a shower within the hour.

She couldn’t drag the books another inch, so she decided to leave them on the train and take only the trolley and flowers. At the Tiergarten station she climbed off, anticipating the solitary walk along the Spree canal, gas lamps casting romantic shadows on the cobblestones. Tonight especially she needed the walk.

The stationmaster and two men in formalwear were the only ones on the platform. Faith quickly catalogued the young man’s appearance: tall, blond, blue eyes, athletic-a Nazi dreamboat. The older gentleman seemed familiar, but she couldn’t place him. His high forehead made his face long and kept his wide cheekbones from making it seem round. His silver-gray hair and goatee were meticulously trimmed, as if someone touched them up every day. He was striking now in his early sixties and Faith had the impression he’d been quite a ladies’ man in his youth. Maybe she knew him from the movies.

The men did not board the train. They watched Faith.

Faith swung around toward the back exit, but it was cordoned off for repairs. The stationmaster blew her whistle. The draft of the train rustled the newspapers wrapped around Faith’s flowers. She picked up her pace and veered behind the occupied bench. The men stood.

She walked faster, but they followed her.

“Frau Doktor Whitney. May I have a word with you?” The man with the goatee squeezed her arm. “Walk with me as if nothing’s unexpected.”

“Let me go!” Faith jerked away, dropping her mums, scattering them across stained concrete. “How do you know who I am?”

“You know.” He held her firmly and forced her to walk with him. The Aryan squatted and gathered the flowers while the older one spoke. “We have a proposition for you, Frau Doktor.”

“Sorry, I just got off work for the day. Feier Abend. We can talk tomorrow.” How dare they violate the rules and come after her in the West. They’d played the game fairly for years, each time leaving off when she managed to get to West Berlin and resuming when she returned East. The Cold War depended upon honoring such clear rules of engagement. She sensed her commuter pass had just expired.

“I think these are yours.” The younger man presented Faith with her mums.

The man with the goatee continued to hold her with one arm. “Be calm, Frau Doktor. We’re here to apologize for our associates tonight. The cavity search was unauthorized. Henker is a crude man, usually effective, but crude. When I heard about it, I left my dinner to find you, but you’d already left pass control.”

“I’ve never heard of anyone authorized to go West on a whim. Who the hell are you?”

“Someone in a position to assist you with a visa, among other things. You see, it seems you just paid your last visit to the GDR, unless we can come up with a mutually satisfying agreement, but I’m sure we can.”

“What do you want?”

The older man looked at his watch before descending the stairs. It was Russian-made. “The cabaret hasn’t begun yet. There’s no reason for the entire evening to be ruined. Come along and we can discuss matters.”

“Why should I?”

“You will enjoy it,” he said as if issuing a command.

“I’ve been followed, set up, strip-searched and now you want to take me to dinner and a show? The Stasi has a lot to learn about dating.”

“Actually only a show. We’ve missed dinner.” A shiny Mercedes with West Berlin plates pulled up at the base of the stairs. “And you have no choice but to come as our guest.”

CHAPTER FOUR

WILDFANG RESTRICTED WILDERNESS AREA,

GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC

ONE DAY EARLIER, MONDAY, APRIL 17

Minister for State Security Erich Mielke aimed his shotgun at a quail. He wanted only one thing more than to blast the bird, but he knew he’d never get it if he violated the strict etiquette of a hunt with Erich Honecker and bagged more birds than the Party boss. His finger was on the trigger and he had a clear shot at the plump bird, but he still had to convince Honecker of his plan. Mielke bit his lip, shifted his aim slightly and fired. Leaves rustled as a covey of tasty quail fluttered away.

The day seemed unending as they walked from the meadow back into the forest of the private nature reserve. Hunting there was strictly forbidden, but rules never applied to the Party elite. The elderly leader Honecker stopped and raised his shotgun. Shaking, he followed a pheasant. It didn’t matter that the bird wasn’t in season, only that it was within his sights. He struggled to steady the firearm, but trembled even harder when he pulled the trigger. The recoil knocked him off balance and he stumbled. With a few frantic flaps of its large wings, the golden bird disappeared into the woods.

Honecker caught his balance and stomped the ground, smashing rotting leaves into the mud. “Drat! I should have had that one.”

“Next time, Erich. You’ve already shot more than I have.” Mielke patted his lifelong colleague on the back, disgusted that Honecker left him little choice but to leave their prey behind where they’d killed it. Just once he would like to eat their quarry, but Honecker couldn’t be cajoled to sample anything that came from the woods or water. Mielke hoped he could be persuaded into far more. Everything depended on it. “What do you say that we head back to the lodge for a nice thick Kassler?”

“Sorry, can’t hear you. Turned the thing down so I wouldn’t blast my eardrums.” Fumbling with his West German hearing aid, Honecker led his companion down the wood-chip-covered path. “I can’t get this morning’s briefing out of my head. What are the Hungarians thinking? Opening their border to the West is madness. They’re playing right into imperialist hands. Don’t they get what that’ll do to the socialist brotherhood? To us?”

Mielke said mildly, “My old friend, times have changed. I’m telling you, the day the Hungarians open their frontier to Austria, you’ll see our young people rush out of here faster than the Tsar left Petrograd.”

“You can’t know that for sure.” Honecker shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Our citizens love the GDR and they worship the Party.” His voice trailed off as he added, “And they adore me.”

“If there’s one thing my shop’s good at, it’s knowing what’s in the head of the GDR citizen. When someone takes a leak, we know. And I can tell you for certain that they’re pissing on us right now. You’ve trusted me for years, so trust me now: We’re looking at the end.”

Honecker stopped and held Mielke’s gaze for several seconds. He turned away and continued down the path, the butt of his favorite shotgun dragging along the ground behind. The younger Honecker wouldn’t have tolerated anyone abusing a firearm like that. The man was getting too old-they all were. But everything to which they had dedicated their lives was now falling apart and they somehow had to rally themselves for one last struggle.

Mielke walked behind the Party chief, studying the man for the right moment. “Our intelligence shows that Gorbachev himself signed off on the Hungarian plan. Unless we do something fast, it’s over.”

Honecker shook his head and muttered to himself as he ambled along.

Mielke’s chest tightened. He had to get through to the man. Not only was the Marxist-Leninist world at stake, but they themselves were in danger. As head of the Ministry for State Security, the MfS, the Stasi, Mielke had seen what they had done to their own people. Without the iron grip of the state security apparatus, he doubted they could survive forty years of repressed wrath. Even if they somehow escaped the vengeance of the GDR citizens, he knew they wouldn’t make it past the West Germans. After the war, the communists had treated the former Nazis the way they deserved, but the West Germans had allowed them in their government and had promoted them within their judicial system. Mielke knew the old fascists were waiting on the benches of West German courts for their revenge. “Erich, comrade, do you hear what I’m saying? We might as well pack up right now and head down the beaten trail to South America.”

Honecker kept going.

At the Land Rover, Honecker opened his firearm, removed the unused shells and then stopped. He stared into the setting sun until it disappeared. “You know the Soviet Union is my first love. My family and I celebrate New Year’s Eve at midnight Moscow time-even though it’s only ten here in Berlin. Still, Gorbachev has to be stopped before it’s too late.”

Mielke nodded. Breakthrough at last.

Honecker strolled to the passenger side and, on his second attempt, heaved himself into the high vehicle. “Did you get the last James Bond film for me? I want to review it before the new one comes out.”

“We got it for you last month. You told me you didn’t like the new guy because he didn’t always wear a tux. You ordered the Aerobisex Girls 2 and Emmanuelle in Bangkok for this week. My boys picked them up this morning in West Berlin.”

Mielke had known Honecker most of his life and until that moment thought he could predict his every reaction. He studied his unyielding face and wondered if he really were growing senile. “Did I understand you correctly-that you want us to stop Gorbachev?”

“Jawohl. Under no circumstances are you to involve any factions of the KGB or Soviet Army. Our Russian friends are not to know. I want this to happen in two weeks-on the first of May-our gift to the workers of the world on their special day,” Honecker said as he removed his horn-rimmed glasses and wiped them with a Tempo tissue. “You up for skat tonight? It’s been a couple of weeks since we’ve had a good game of cards.”

CHAPTER FIVE

INVALIDENSTRASSE BORDER CROSSING, BERLIN

TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 1989

You are now leaving the British Sector.

The Royal Army soldier on duty in the guard shack read the Daily Mirror, oblivious to the kidnapping taking place during his watch. The Mercedes rolled past the Allied checkpoint into the Soviet sector and then serpentined through concrete barriers. Crossing into the East was like moving into a black and white movie. The bright colors of the West yielded to shades of gray and time seemed to shift backwards thirty years.

Faith pulled out her passport.

“Not necessary.” The man with the goatee waved his hand.

“Last time I checked, you guys considered an American in East Berlin without an entry visa to be a capitalist spy,” Faith said. “Gorbachev is bringing about a lot of-”

“Times are changing, but not here.”

“Then for old time’s sake, get me the proper visa.” Her voice betrayed her unease.

“Don’t worry, Frau Doktor. Everything’s in order. Tonight you’re a guest of the German Democratic Republic.”

Faith hoped the GDR treated its guests well.

The driver handed the customs official four green West Berlin identity cards. He held out a five-mark piece and opened it, flashing a secret Stasi service badge. The guard returned the papers without peering into the car. She guessed the border routine was for anyone watching, but doubted the British soldier had exchanged his tabloid for a pair of binoculars.

The car approached the customs area, now out of sight of the Western guardpost. An official wheeled an angled mirror under a waiting car. The Mercedes driver pulled ahead of the others, again showed his service badge, and the customs official waved them through.

“Who are you, anyway?” Faith said.

“You can call me Schmidt.”

She told herself it was Schmidt’s poor choice in cologne that was making her queasy, but she knew otherwise. All her life she had dreaded this day. She knew she couldn’t freelance forever, skirting union rules; the Cold War was a closed shop and it was time to pay the dues. So it was going to be the East Germans. They weren’t a bad bunch to run errands for; the Stasi was efficient, professional and many considered it the best in the business. Not that the competition was fierce, save from the Czechs and Soviets. She could have done worse; she comforted herself as they drove through the last barrier. The bizarre blood rituals vowing allegiance to Ceausescu put the Romanian Securitate in the realm of the mystics rather than intelligence. The Bulgarians had proven they couldn’t pluck the pope out of a crowd-even with his funky hat. And the Poles-one word: Solidarity.

But the Stasi didn’t have Faith Whitney-not yet.

In the People’s Own Cabaret, the black and gold compass-and-sickle state symbol of the GDR seemed to have been sewn onto the faded red stage curtain as an afterthought. Dressed in their Sunday best, middle-aged couples crowded around an arc of tables, each decorated with a solid plastic vase with a wilting carnation. A sign on an easel welcomed the MfS brigade to the cabaret; Faith was taken aback that the Stasi was so flagrant, but she assumed even repressive organizations had their own internal social functions. She rolled the admission ticket into a tiny cone, the cheap paper disintegrating in her sweaty hands.

Schmidt ushered her to a reserved table occupied by a plump woman in her late fifties.

“Where have you been? I had to finish dinner by myself. You missed the entire first half,” the woman said.

“I think you’d like a drink at the bar now,” Schmidt said.

“But you promised me the evening-”

“The bar. Now.” Schmidt pointed to a bar that could have been a remnant from the original Star Trek set. Shiny chrome tubes connected a dozen spherical light fixtures with colored bulbs blinking in sequence. The woman gathered her purse and stomped away. Faith smiled with amusement, but stopped as soon as Schmidt glared at her. He summoned the waiter and ordered vodka for Faith and tonic water for himself. The waiter turned with military precision and left.

“You’ll like cucumber after the vodka. Russian style,” Schmidt said.

“I didn’t think the Russians were in vogue around here anymore.”

“There are always exceptions.”

Faith looked her host over and tried to figure out who he was. He appeared to be someone who had once been in peak physical condition, but had since been softened by fatty German cuisine and a desk job. He was probably a former athlete, but something about him made her doubt he had ever played team sports.

“What does the Stasi want with me?” Faith said.

“Don’t insult us with that Western designation. We’re the Ministry for State Security-MfS.”

“No offense intended. What does the MfS want with me?”

“Enjoy yourself tonight. The People’s Own Cabaret is a special treat.”

“I’m honored. But don’t you think you’ve gone to too much trouble? Wouldn’t a simple phone call and coffee and kuchen at the Grand Hotel have been easier?” She didn’t want to admit it, but part of her relished the extravagance.

“From what I’ve read about you, you seem to like the world of cloak-and-dagger, but can’t quite figure out how to get into the game. I understand you tried to enlist with the CIA once.”

“Before I decided what to do with my life, I had a weak moment when I almost forgot my heritage of neutrality. And they didn’t want me because of my mother and her escapades.”

“That’s what they told you? Their own records say your own extensive ties in the East made you too great a security risk.”

“I liked it better when I could blame my mother.”

The waiter arrived with their drinks. Faith threw back the shot of vodka in a single gulp and bit into the cucumber. The vodka sent a warm wave through her body, but she didn’t dare relax. “I’m assuming you know what you’re doing meeting me in public like this. I prefer it not to get around town I’ve ever spoken with you.”

“Let’s say I have a special working relationship with the management and the guests. Think of this place as a little Switzerland in downtown Berlin.”

“A clean place for dirty business,” Faith said. “Switzerland always gives me the willies.”

“What would Europe be without Switzerland?”

“Flatter.”

“Yes, I suppose it would be.” Schmidt sipped his tonic water. “Suffice it to say, you’ve impressed some people. We’ve watched you for a long time. Some of us watched you grow up. As a matter of fact, as a young lieutenant, I used to be the case officer for your family.”

“I didn’t know we had a case manager.”

“Case officer. You have your mother’s radiant eyes, you know.”

For a moment, Faith thought she saw his face soften. “Did you know my father?”

He nodded. Schmidt had her full attention and he seemed to know it. He paused for a painfully long time and then said, “A brilliant man.”

“I never knew him. Do you know how he died? All she’d ever tell me was that he was following his calling when Jesus took him away from us.”

“I can’t help you.” He motioned to the waiter for another round. “Back to the business at hand. We know what you’re moving right now, but we have yet to ascertain how you’re doing it. Impressive. My boys thought they had you nailed several times.”

From the stage, the microphone squeaked as a small man with the stiff gestures of a marionette slurred his words. “Meine Damen und Herren. My ladies and gentlemen. Please welcome back the loveliest girls in our republic.” The crowd clapped on command and a piano player’s tired fingers tapped a staccato rendition of “Tea for Two.” A buxom woman with legs covered by fishnet stockings pranced onto the stage twirling a cane, the tails of her tuxedo jacket flapping behind her. Her glittery red top hat emphasized high rouge-smeared cheekbones.

“You’ve done some impressive jobs. The KGB has yet to figure out how you moved that kidney for the Circassian millionaire from his brother in Abkhazia to Vienna in time for a successful transplant.”

“There is a short window for transplants, isn’t there? But who said that was my work?” Faith smiled, proud of her accomplishments. “And it was Kabardino-Balkaria. An extraction from Abkhazia would be something for amateurs-it’s a straight shot across the Black Sea to Turkey. Not quite like crossing the Caucasus.”

“You’re considered among the best in your line of work,” Schmidt said, ignoring the spectacle onstage.

“Should I be flattered?” She was, but she wanted more and she wanted to know the extent of the Stasi’s knowledge of her dealings.

“Very well. You have a choice. You can assist us with a special project or you will never live or work or even think about traveling in this country again. Let’s say it wouldn’t be a safe place.”

“No offense, but a lot of people live quite happily without the GDR.” Faith glanced at the stage. A trombone belched “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” while a chorus line of drag queens kicked their way into the Stasi’s icy heart.

“I said in this country. I picked you up in West Berlin tonight, didn’t I? You know, you could easily have gone into the boot of the car.”

She looked into his eyes and knew he meant it. A chill raced through her body. The game was over and she was entering into the unknown.

He removed a cigarette case engraved with a rifle and flag commemorating twenty years of the Ministry for State Security. “Cigarette?”

“I hate smoke.”

Schmidt lit his cigarette anyway. “We’ll provide you with the necessary details on a need-to-know basis. This is neither the time nor the place.”

“I’m not working for the Stasi.” Faith pushed herself back from the table and stood. “It’s been interesting, Herr Schmidt. We’ll have to do this again sometime.”

He took a long drag from the cigarette and paused to hold the fumes in his lungs. He looked at her as if appraising the market value of her soul. “Need I remind you, you are in the GDR without a visa? You are aware of what we do with imperialist spies. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly.”

“You’re making a scene. Sit.” Schmidt smashed his cigarette into the ashtray. He stared at Faith.

She sat.

Outside, Herr Schmidt held the Mercedes’ door open for Faith, leaving Frau Schmidt standing in the drizzle. “After you.”

“I need a ride to West Berlin.” Her voice was flat.

“Not possible. Most of the border crossings are closed, anyway.”

“But some are open. You can rouse someone to open the others. And I suspect it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve dragged someone out of bed in the middle of the night.” And then made them disappear.

“I can take you anywhere you’d like here in democratic Berlin. I understand you keep your own safe houses.”

“Obviously not anymore. And they’re for storage.”

“Agree to work for me and I can arrange for you to get back to the West tonight. You can even have the multiple-entry visa.”

“Fuck you,” she said in English. She turned and walked away, pulling her silk jacket tightly around her.

“You have my card. Call me in the morning with your decision. You know, Frau Doktor, I almost think you could get to the West on your own. But remember…” Schmidt’s voice faded into the night.

Her jacket was useless against the heavy mist that seeped through her clothes. The colder she became, the less certain she was she had made the wiser choice.

The Mercedes pulled up beside her and paced her. She turned her head toward a shop window and hastened her tread. Heavy footsteps approached from behind as the mist thickened into rain.

“At least take my umbrella.” Schmidt trotted alongside, getting drenched as he held his umbrella over her head. “Frau Doktor, it’s one in the morning and I’m off work. Feier Abend. No more recruiting you tonight. Let me drive you home-to the flat in the Voigtstrasse. The rain’s cold and our streets aren’t as safe as they should be.”

Faith slowed her gait and paused for a moment, looking straight ahead. “That’s decent of you.”

The blackened façade of her East Berlin flat was a leper, slowly shedding essential body parts. She had never imagined sleeping here even one night; the apartment was intended as a secret warehouse. She hesitated before walking in, but then decided the day the Stasi had cornered her would be an appropriate one for the balcony to crash down upon her-most everything else had.

Peeling plaster and a few broken ceramic tile fragments desperately clung to the walls of the front corridor. Many had already been pried off and found their way to West Berlin flea markets. Faith hurried through the first building and into the courtyard, where a few blades of grass struggled up through the broken concrete. She recalled how, during the day, the wings of the building eclipsed the right side of the house, condemning all but the top floors to perpetual shadows.

Her flat was one of the damned.

For a moment she wondered if she could outlast Schmidt, living as his hostage in the dark apartment, waiting for him to issue her an exit visa or escort her to the West. She entered her wing of the building and punched the glowing light switch with her elbow. The stairs creaked, threatening to drop her into the coal bin. She wiggled the flimsy aluminum key in the lock to her flat and dared it to bend. The lights went out. She grappled for the automatic timer, and grime embedded itself deep under her fingernails. If the last try didn’t succeed, she would sprint down the road after Schmidt. The lock turned, but still she wanted to run after him. Stockholm syndrome so soon?

Years of cabbage soup had been steamed into the wallpaper. Her wet shoes nearly froze to the apartment’s icy floor. When she had first struck the bargain with Dieter to sublease his studio apartment while he was away in Mongolia, she had been excited about the place’s quaint tiled coal oven as a memorial to simpler days. Now she wished the coal bucket were sitting in a museum instead of her new bedroom. At the time she had ignored most of Dieter’s meticulous instructions because a warehouse didn’t require heat. Now his warning that the room would fill with black soot if she turned the damper the wrong direction haunted her.

Why didn’t she just go along with Schmidt? She could be at home in West Berlin right now, eating cold leftovers. Her desperate stomach growled as she unwrapped the electric space heater that was her rental payment for the flat. She plugged it in. A burlap curtain partitioned off the closet where Dieter had squeezed in a mattress, converting it into his sleeping hutch. Unable to bring herself to stick her head inside, she shoved the heater’s cardboard box into his chamber.

The tarnished mirror above the washbasin swallowed her reflection. How could Dieter live here without an indoor toilet, bathtub or shower? Who was she fooling? Outlast Schmidt? She’d never last a week bathing herself in a miniature basin like a condor in a birdbath.

The cold reached deeper and deeper into her body as she sat on the scratchy couch. Everything in this state was as stale as the air in the apartment. What did she need commie crap for anyway? There had to be a better way to make a living. Just as easily gone into the boot of the car?

Faith walked into the dark stairwell and felt her way down a half-flight of stairs to the communal water closet. Sitting on the toilet, she couldn’t concentrate enough to read the cartoons about bodily functions plastered on the walls. A few moments later, she yanked on the chain, but the commode didn’t stop running. The odor of overheated wiring wafted through the air. She rushed back into the apartment, jerked the heater’s plug from the wall and crept back down to the toilet. With one last tug, the water stopped.

She returned to the apartment. She had been a conscripted pawn in the Cold War with her mother for far too long to enlist on one side or the other. Her life was about beating the system, not becoming a part of it. Boot of the car? The walls came nearer and nearer until the dank wallpaper stuck to her skin. She cocooned herself in a musty sheet, put her arm over her eyes and fell into a restless sleep.

In the morning, Faith stared at Alexanderplatz. A concrete tower skewering a colossal silver ball sprouted from the surreal landscape and a metal clock also defied the cobblestone desert. Although it displayed the time in Addis Ababa, Hanoi and Ulan Bator, the exact minute on Venus or on Alpha Centuri seemed more fitting here, less than a kilometer east of the Berlin Wall. Faith usually adored how East Germany managed to embody all of the tawdry grandiosity of old low-budget sci-fi movies. Today she’d give anything for stale popcorn and Scotty to beam her up out of this hellhole.

After a frustrating hour scrounging for breakfast, she resigned herself to queuing up for limp fries. Rancid grease coated the crisp spring air as she edged forward in line. When it was her turn, she bounced an aluminum coin across the counter. She stood at an outdoor table and tried not to think about the fries she was force-feeding herself.

Everything around her was gray-the high-rises, people’s clothes, the sky-as if color had been banished as another capitalist decadence. She would never let herself blend in. Not in the East. Not in the West. She needed them both. She couldn’t outlast Schmidt. She could probably get herself to West Berlin in the diplomatic immunity of the Nigerians’ trunk, but she couldn’t spend her life running from the Stasi. They had her trapped. They knew it. She knew it. The paprika-coated fries slid down her throat while the low Berlin sky pressed down upon her.

After throwing away half the potatoes, Faith called Schmidt to discuss the terms of her surrender. She followed his directions to a Stasi safe house in the old working-class district of Prenzlauer Berg. The door was ajar and the smell of bacon hung in the air. Before she could knock, Schmidt met her and directed her to the kitchen.

The safe house felt like a seedy motel, stained by the lowlifes who drifted through its doors. As a reminder that the building was constructed before the days of indoor plumbing, a glass shower stall was mounted in a corner near the stove. A Russian front-loading washing machine vibrated so hard that the chubby charwoman on the Fewa detergent box seemed to tremble in fear. Schmidt flipped a switch and the machine fell silent.

“The last one here left dirty towels. I’m reporting them to housekeeping.” Schmidt picked up a fork and turned bacon pieces in an aluminum skillet. “I took the liberty of making you some breakfast. You didn’t have dinner last night and I doubt you found anything proper this morning.”

“You didn’t need to.”

“I know.” Schmidt picked up a cracked ceramic bowl and whisked some eggs, using the top of a tiny refrigerator as a countertop. “Making breakfast in these places is a ritual I’ve missed ever since I left fieldwork. No matter where I was or what the situation, I tried to make myself a real American breakfast of bacon and eggs.”

Faith wondered what kind of ritual he performed before ordering an execution, but decided not to ask. “So you’ve spent time in the States, or did you pick up the taste from an American expat?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss it. Get me some spices from the basket-basil and anything that looks hot. I do miss your American pepper sauce-Tabasco, isn’t it?”

Faith selected paper packets from the People’s Own Spice Company in Gera. Schmidt poured the beaten egg onto the bacon chunks and then dumped a heap of paprika into the mixture. Faith sat and studied Schmidt, trying to remember where she’d seen him, now sure it wasn’t in the movies. He dressed more like a Western business exec going casual than someone reliant upon the dowdy clothes selections in the East. Instead of an ill-fitting polyester suit and wide tie, he wore a neat polo shirt, khakis and Italian loafers. He no longer wore the Russian watch, but a Breitling. Either he was at the pinnacle of influence, not far removed from Honecker himself, or he had something lucrative on the side. Most communist countries thrived on corruption, but the GDR was Germany and they prided themselves on running a clean shop. She concluded Schmidt had to be one of the most powerful men in Germany, and what really unnerved her was that, in this part of Germany, power was unbridled.

“So why’s an MfS general slumming with me?”

Schmidt chuckled. “Clever. What makes you think I’m a general?”

She smiled. “What do you want from me, Herr General?”

“Toast bread. Stick it in the toaster oven. There’s orange juice in the cupboard, if you wish.” Schmidt stirred the eggs. “Frau Doktor, I need you to do what you do best. Move some items for me.”

Faith retrieved a can of juice and opened it. “There’s something here I don’t quite understand. The West isn’t my turf. You have free rein in West Berlin and West Germany-and all of Western Europe, for that matter. I’m not the one to help you. My thing is Commieland. And don’t get me wrong; I do mean ’commie’ in the most affectionate, respectful sense of the term.” She smiled.

“I need you to take some items between two socialist states.”

“Come on. You know I don’t do much in Asia outside of the SU. I’d be more lost in China than Nixon was.”

“It’s not China.”

“Vietnam?”

Schmidt shook his head as he turned off the gas burner.

“Your African satellites are too corrupt for you to need me. A couple of bucks and a Pepsi can get anything in or out of those places. North Korea?”

“Europe.”

“Albania? Want me to smuggle out a goat?”

He started to laugh, but stopped himself and let out a snort instead. “The SU.” Schmidt placed two plates on the table. “Coffee?”

Faith nodded. “The Soviet Union? You’re kidding. You have far better connections there than I do. Interflug flies there several times a day. You’ve got passenger, freight and military trains, not to mention diplomatic pouches. There are a billion ways that don’t involve me.”

“We require complete discretion.”

“As in deniability? Can’t you set up the Poles or Czechs? Make it look like they’re doing something when it’s really your guys? Moscow never trusted either of them after the Prague Spring.”

“The Poles with good reason; though, I must say, the Czechs did get their house in order.” Schmidt sat down at the table and scooped up a bite of eggs. “Mahlzeit.”

“Guten Appetit. Delivery or extraction?”

“Delivery.”

Uncomfortable silence forced most people to talk more than they wanted. Faith waited for Schmidt to explain. She sipped the tart Cuban orange juice and was not comforted by the fact that Schmidt was important enough to rate such a scarce luxury item; she’d sampled it only once before, in the canteen of a cosmonaut training facility in a Soviet city closed to all foreigners. Schmidt stopped eating and stared at her. His smile told her he understood her tactic, so she broke her own silence. “I suppose you’re not going to explain why you want to use me.”

“It’s in everyone’s best interest not to question. You receive the goods in Berlin. I’ll make it easier for you and arrange the hand-off for the West.”

“Have there been any prior attempts?” She couldn’t believe she was negotiating with him, but she was relieved to be back on familiar ground. “Do you have any reason to believe that Soviet authorities are aware of your intentions?”

“No to both.”

“I need to know the contents.”

“Knowledge can shorten a life considerably.”

“It determines how I take it in.”

“By the most reliable and expeditious route.”

“What kind of weight and volume are we talking about?”

“Around five kilos and less than a tenth of a cubic meter in volume. And you have a forty-eight-hour window that begins upon receipt.” He sipped his coffee.

“Negotiable?”

“Fixed.”

“Forty-eight is tight even if everything runs perfectly.”

“I found it rather generous. If the goods have not been delivered within forty-eight hours, we must assume you have either absconded with them or gone to the other side.” Schmidt sopped up the egg remnants with a piece of toast. “Either way, we will kill you.”

Faith pushed herself away from the table, knocking over the orange juice. She had to back out while she still had a chance. Staying in Germany wasn’t worth risking her life. The time had come to move on. “Forget it. I’ll find my own way back to West Berlin.”

“Why are you making this difficult? You have the opportunity to learn much from me if you would only cooperate. I can guarantee you a magnificent career with the MfS-more exhilarating and rewarding than smuggling tchotchkes could ever be.”

“I have no desire to be the Stasi’s apprentice. Thank you for breakfast.” She left the room.

Schmidt raised his voice, but remained sitting. “Frau Doktor, I know what happened to your father. And he’s not dead.”

CHAPTER SIX

DEMOCRATIC BERLIN – MITTE

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19

MfS General Gregor Kosyk hailed a cab on the former Stalinallee. Even though the recruitment of Whitney had taken longer than he had budgeted, he was now back on schedule. Taxis were rare, but a boxy green Wartburg stopped for him within minutes. He surveyed the street and jumped into the car.

“You should’ve been here on time,” Kosyk said as he slammed the door shut. “Because of you I’ve been exposed on the street corner for two fucking minutes.”

The cabdriver turned toward his fare. A tuft of hair peaked in the middle of each bushy white eyebrow. “It’s a beautiful day for a drive to the countryside.”

“Ivashko, haven’t you known me long enough to dispense with this idiocy?”

He repeated the code phrase.

Kosyk sighed with irritation, then spoke with the mocking cadence of a schoolboy reciting a lesson. “Do you know if the Moskva restaurant serves solyanka on Wednesdays?”

“I make my own soup with ingredients from the Russian store on Andernacher Strasse.”

“Many of our friends shop there, don’t they? You feel like a real spook now, Ivashko?”

Ivashko dropped the flag on the meter and sped to the Soviet enclave in the Karlshorst district. The KGB residency there was the largest in the world, and, thanks to the Stasi’s efforts, the most productive. Ivashko took a circuitous route through Lichtenberg, constantly glancing in his rearview mirror. Neither man spoke.

As the car bumped along the cobblestones of Köpenicker Allee heading southeast, Kosyk congratulated himself for his quick thinking during his meeting with Honecker and the other naïve conspirators. Taking personal control over the MfS surveillance of the Soviets was a stroke of brilliance. As Kosyk neared Karlshorst, the units assigned to the KGB residency were across town on a futile counterespionage mission following the chief resident to lunch. No one would ever learn of his secret meeting with the Russians or suspect him of betrayal.

The car turned into Rheinstrasse and immediately pulled up to a control point at the entrance to the KGB compound. Few efforts had been made to hide the purpose of the gray multistoried building that could have passed for regular barracks if it hadn’t been for the roof: Antenna masts, cables and satellite dishes pointed to the truth.

A uniformed KGB officer waved the taxi into the residency and the driver parked in an underground garage that was large enough for only two cars. He escorted Kosyk through a private entrance to a conference room, drew hot water from an electric samovar and poured tea from a porcelain teapot into the hot water. Without querying Kosyk about his taste, he plopped two sugar cubes and a small silver spoon into each glass, both cradled by an ornate silver holder. He then slipped from the room, shutting the solid wood door.

Kosyk sipped his tea, regretting having allowed the sugar crystals to dissolve into the already-saccharine liquid. The longer he waited, the more he resented the KGB. The Stasi handed some of the best intel in the world over to the residency that it in turn transmitted to Moscow, claiming it as their own. Most of the KGB’s intelligence on NATO and Western Europe was courtesy of the Stasi. Without the Stasi and its tens of thousands of operatives in the West and its advanced signal intercepts, the KGB would be nothing. How typical of the KGB to keep him waiting just like Honecker and the other fools in the Politburo. The arrogant bastards liked to remind everyone who the real bosses were.

He would show them soon enough.

A half-hour later, Lieutenant Colonel Bogdanov entered the room wearing the KGB service uniform with its royal-blue epaulets and trim. Her curly black hair, dark brown eyes and Mediterranean complexion made her look more Italian than Slavic. Kosyk guessed she had Tartar blood mixed with the Russian, and that would explain her guile. She shook Kosyk’s hand and seated herself at the head of the conference table.

Kosyk spoke in German, although his Russian was flawless. “How’s your father? So few ever make the leap from the Foreign Service to the Politburo. The news of his early retirement was a disappointment.”

“For him, too,” Bogdanov said in Russian, despite fluency in German.

Kosyk persisted in German. “So did he really step down for health reasons?”

“Comrade Kosyk, I don’t know where you’re leading with this, but I have no doubt you know Gorbachev removed him. You didn’t request a clandestine meeting to chitchat about my pensioned father. Get on with it.”

“You’re certain this room is clean?”

“Absolutely. Only my assistant knows you’re here and I even broke protocol and didn’t inform the chief resident.” Bogdanov sipped her tea. “Now what do you want?”

“Nothing said here today leaves this room without my consent. I need your word.”

She nodded.

“In a way, I am here to talk about your father. What does he think about Gorbachev’s reforms? About his decision to allow the Hungarians to dismantle the border to the West?”

“I haven’t spoken with him about it, but it doesn’t take a Gypsy to see the future on this one.”

“True.” Kosyk stroked his goatee. “And what you see pleases you?”

“I’m a loyal Party member. I believe in the progress of history toward communism, but I must say what I see right now is not progress.”

“And I understand your career has also made little progress. Disappointing after your early meteoric rise. Your work impressed me. You had such promise.”

“Politics haven’t treated me well, but I got out of Pyongyang and back to Berlin. And I’m still in the foreign directorate.”

“You used to be posted in capitalist states. It must be hard to go from plum assignments to here.” Kosyk’s left eye twitched.

“What’s your point? I think you’re going to have to get to it or leave.” Bogdanov stood. “I’ve never liked you.”

“I’ve never liked you, either,” Kosyk said, reverting back to German. “But you’re a highly effective operative, although I question some of your unorthodox methods. I also don’t understand how anyone of your lifestyle can be tolerated in your position, especially now that your father is out of the picture.”

“I suppose there is one advantage to glasnost, isn’t there?” Colonel Bogdanov motioned toward the door.

“And because I don’t like you, I trust you-fondness compromises objectivity. I know how we can avoid the impending chaos and move in the direction of progress-for both history and your career.”

Bogdanov sat down and said in German, “Continue.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

WEST BERLIN

Her roommate’s study reeked of a photo lab, but today it was perfume to Faith. Negatives and prints cluttered a light table. Blown-up official seals from a dozen different governments were tacked to a wall above rows of homemade rubber stamps and an impressive collection of inks. When she walked in, Hakan turned down Wagner and squinted at her through the jeweler’s visor. He flipped it up for a closer look. “What happened to you? You okay?”

“How can you listen to creepy Teutonic schmaltz like ’Ride of the Valkyries’?” She dropped her purse onto the floor.

“When you didn’t come home, I thought you’d finally defected.” Hakan grinned.

“You noticed? Your date must not have gone well,” Faith said. German women seemed to adore Hakan. He had the perfectly proportioned features of an ancient Greek statue, but, because he was a Turk, Faith never dared tell him that. She picked up a piece of paper covered with round ink stamps of German eagles holding swastikas. She glanced it over and dropped it back onto the table. “I won’t bore you with the details, but I’m now a Stasi secret agent woman.”

“You’re shitting me?”

“I wish.”

“Congratulations, comrade. When’s your first Party meeting?”

“Screw you,” Faith said with a smile, content to settle into the comfort of their own faux Cold War. Over the last several hours she’d begun to harden herself to the idea of doing a Moscow run for the Stasi, but she was still stunned that her father might be alive.

“I didn’t think you’d ever work for them. Thought you always said you couldn’t bring yourself to choose sides just like you can’t commit to a relationship.” He pressed the stamp into an inkpad and firmly pushed it into the margin of that day’s Hürriyet, flown in fresh from Istanbul. “What do they want from you? The Stasi starting up its own flea market?”

“I deal in antiques, not junk. They want me to transport something into the Soviet Union without the Sovs finding out.”

“The commies always seemed weird to me, but I thought above everything else they stuck together like Jews.” He lowered his visor and studied a proof. “Look at this! Another line break.”

“Seems okay to me.” Faith tossed it onto the table after a polite glance. “Yeah, spying on the enemy is one thing. It’s embarrassing to get caught, but they have the routine down. Relations chill; the other side arrests known spooks, then they all meet on the Glienicke Bridge for a spy swap. There’s even an East Berlin lawyer who specializes in arranging spy exchanges.” Faith sipped her tea.

“I thought I caught everything when I touched up the neg. This isn’t my day. Last time I pulled a proof, all the lines were too thin from overexposure. Can you hand me that stylus by your right hand?”

“This thing? I think my dentist stuck one of these in my mouth last checkup.”

“This has to be perfect before I can do a run. You wouldn’t believe what I went through to get the right paper, and I only found a couple of sheets.”

“Give me a swatch and what you know about it-where it was produced, where it was used-and I’ll see what I can do. I know a paper collector in Karl-Marx-Stadt. If it’s old or from the East, either he’s got it or knows where to find it. I hope this means you finished the job for me.”

“Faith, I don’t know if I’m ever going to finish it. It’s not safe for you. Why don’t you sit this one out? The big boys play for higher stakes than a couple of old dishes. It’s not like you’re dealing in something really valuable like jewels that might be worth some risk.”

“Anyone can traffic stones. You have to make the documents for me in case I get trapped over there again.”

Hakan used his palms to pick up a set of newly minted papers. He compared the fresh stamp to one in a worn booklet and then motioned for her to come closer.

“This is an Aryan pass? What the hell are you doing making Nazi documents?”

“It’s a new product line. An Aryan pass can get you German citizenship. It did for me. The government accepts them as proof of enough German blood to qualify as a citizen. Fascist bastards. But I’m telling you, there’s a huge untapped market in the Turkish community alone.”

“Swell.”

He carved on a rubber stamp, a tiny curl following the stylus blade. “Don’t go back there.”

“It doesn’t matter. They’re here, too.” Faith detailed the interrogation and kidnapping.

“Faith, I don’t want anything to happen to my best customer. It’s got to stop before you get hurt. The cavalier way you were talking about it, it didn’t seem like such a big deal.”

“They said they knew what happened to my father.” She paused for a deep breath to steady her composure, but tears streamed down her face. “They claim he’s alive.”

“Come here.” Hakan helped her from the chair and into his arms. He held her tightly. She allowed her body to relax against him for an unguarded moment. She sat back down, but he remained at her side. “At least promise me you’ll go to the Americans for help.”

“Yeah, right. I’ll march into the embassy. ’Hi, the Stasi is threatening my life and they just resurrected my dead father, so I thought I’d work for them, but I was wondering, would you like me to be a double agent or something? I know you didn’t want to hire me before, but I think you can see that I’ve positioned myself well to serve your current interests.’ “

“Just promise me you’ll go to your embassy and ask for help.” He rubbed her neck. “Promise?”

“Hakan.”

“Faith, promise.”

“Understand this is under protest. I promise I’ll think about considering going.”

“That’s as good as I’m going to get, isn’t it?”

“You know me. So does this mean you’re going to do my papers?”

“I have to think about it.”

“You still a student at the TU?”

“In my thirty-fifth semester and haven’t gone to a single class yet. How else would I pay for health insurance?” He wiped fresh ink from the rubber stamp with a rag.

“Someday the Germans are going to catch on and start charging tuition. So you can still get jobs through the student employment office?”

“Haven’t done it in a while, but it’s not a bad way to pick up a few marks.”

“Does Pan Am still use day laborers from there to clean the planes?”

“You’d think after Lockerbie-”

“I do my best not to think about airline security. I’m going to need you to be prepared to get something into Tegel for me. You don’t even have to take it on the plane-just past security. Please, just do the groundwork now so we’re ready to roll whenever they notify me. I’m dead if I don’t get something to Moscow for my new friends. I also need those documents to stash away so I’m prepared for my next rainy day over there.”

“At least think about quitting. Take a little time off-go to the States and visit some friends. By the way, I almost forgot to tell you, Summer called early this morning. It must have been really late his time.”

“What did he say?”

“To tell you happy anniversary and you should give him a call sometime.”

“Oh, no. I totally spaced it with everything that went on yesterday-not that I even could’ve called. This is the first time I’ve been living in the West that I didn’t call him on our former anniversary.”

“He’ll get over it. It’s you I’m concerned about.”

“Hakan, please try to understand. I have to find out.”

“They could be making up the whole thing about your father. Why don’t you quit being so stubborn and ask your mother?”

“I don’t even know what continent she’s living on right now and she’s not going to change her story. I’ve never even seen a picture of him. The only thing I have from him is a brief note Mama used to keep in her Bible and refused to show to me. I stole it when I was eight.”

“Did it give you any kind of clue about who he was?”

“Only that he was a German with old-fashioned handwriting. I couldn’t even decipher it until I was in high school. It wasn’t signed, but the way Mama acted about it, I knew it was from him.” She reached down and gingerly removed the worn paper from her wallet. She read it again before she handed it to Hakan.

He pulled down the visor and examined it. “You’re right about the handwriting, but the note’s thirty years old and most adults would have written that way back then. The paper is interesting, though. You don’t see such coarse paper in the West except in the immediate postwar period. I’d say it’s from the East.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me. I do know they met in Berlin, but that’s about all I know. I’m going to have to go along with them. It’s the only way.”

“So you’re going back over there?”

“I finally got the multiple-entry visa and they want something from me so they’re not going to arrest me before I do their job. That means I’ve got a window of opportunity right now to clean the place out and the Stasi will stand by and watch. I can’t pass this one up-I’d never forgive myself for the missed opportunity or for letting their scare tactics get to me. The game’s still afoot.”

Hakan pulled a French passport from a drawer. “And I might not forgive myself, either, but you’ll have the new documents by morning.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

LUBYANKA (KGB HEADQUARTERS), MOSCOW

THURSDAY, APRIL 20

The director of the Counter Intelligence Service of the KGB’s First Directorate, Colonel General Vladimir Vladimirovich Stukoi, lowered his head to each of the dozen telephones lined up on the table beside his desk. He picked one up and spoke, but the ringing continued. One by one he slammed each phone into the cradle with a curse and continued his search for the ringing one. Colonel Bogdanov looked away so as not to embarrass the general. On the fourth attempt, Stukoi was united with his caller.

Tired from the flight from Berlin, Bogdanov waited in the hard red leather chair, content to stare at a painting of Lenin inciting the crowds at the Finland Station to revolution. She didn’t like how tempted she was by Kosyk’s plan, but she was even more irritated that he knew it would get to her. If she went along with him, as the organizer of the Moscow side of the conspiracy, not only could she restore her father’s honor, but she could position herself nicely in the new regime. Very nicely. She had the connections to pull it off. The future of the Soviet Union-her future-depended upon what she would report to Stukoi, if he ever got off the phone.

She absentmindedly straightened a lock of her short curly hair. She hated the curls. It was hard enough being taken seriously in the KGB as a woman without having curly hair, strikingly good looks and a taste for other women. At least she was tall, just shy of a hundred-eighty centimeters, and muscular. She trained and worked harder than any of her male colleagues because she had to be the best to have a shot at being equal. Restoring the old order would definitely assure her the respect she deserved-curls be damned.

The director slammed the receiver down. Bogdanov motioned toward his phone bank. “I’m surprised that they didn’t put in the latest telephone-switching equipment when they built this new facility.”

“My telephones are the most modern available.”

“I mean the facilities to route multiple lines and numbers into one phone. It eliminates all but one of your phones and the need for a lot of operators. That would even save us on the copper wiring used for each individual line.”

“We’re a very rich country. We have copper.” The general picked up a partially smoked cigar and champed on the end. “I must say I didn’t expect to see you in Moscow for some time. I take it you’re going to tell me who’s selling our communications algorithms to the Brits?”

“We’re narrowing it down to the residency, but we don’t know yet.”

“Then what’s so important? Let me guess: Honecker’s had an epiphany that his time is running out unless he gets with the program. The old fart’s ready to do something desperate and invade West Berlin?”

“More like Moscow.”

“Honie always was a cutup. I was at a get-together with him once out at Brezhnev’s dacha. By looking at him, you’d never know the guy would turn out to be the life of the party. Every time Leonid left the room to take a leak, Honie would go into this great Brezhnev impression. I tell you, he had him down.”

“He’s serious, sir. He’s plotting the assassination of Gorbachev.”

“How the hell do you know that? You’re supposed to be in counterespionage, chasing after our own people. You screwing his daughter or something?”

“Major General Gregor Kosyk of the MfS-”

“I know Kosyk. Shifty little prick.”

“Kosyk approached me on Honecker’s behalf. They’re convinced that the opening of the Hungarian border leads directly to the dissolution of the GDR, the Warsaw Treaty Organization and eventually the Soviet Union itself. In their scenario, not even the People’s Republic of Mongolia is left. Let’s just say, if the Germans are right, the Chinese are going to be pretty damn lonely.”

“They’ve got a point there.” Stukoi waved his cigar.

“Sir?”

“Some of our analysts would concur; that’s all I’m saying. Why did he approach you?”

“He’s known my father for years and he believes I have reasons to be dissatisfied with Gorbachev.”

“And they are…?”

“Personal, professional and ideological.”

“That about wraps it up. Are you? Are you dissatisfied with Gorbachev?”

Bogdanov shifted in her seat, searching Stukoi’s face for the right response. “I believe you know the answer to that.”

Stukoi pursed his lips and nodded his head. His large brown plastic glasses slid down his wide nose.

Bogdanov took out a cigarette and tapped the end on the table. “The bottom line is the MfS wants to lend its full support and cooperation to dissatisfied elements in the KGB to prevent the end of the Soviet era. Kosyk believes I’m cooperating with them and I’ve come to Moscow to recruit. He’s hoping I’ll even go outside the KGB and use my family’s contacts to go after key military officers.”

“Keep him thinking that. Tell him I’m in and I expect Gasporov to join us. We’re going to let this one run its course, catch them in the act and then we’ll clean house. And you’re right not to trust regular communications; assume everything between here and Berlin is compromised. I’m putting a Yak-40 at your disposal. When you have something to report, do it in person. We’ll let it leak that you’ve been reassigned to Internal Affairs. No one wants anything to do with Internal Affairs. Nothing you do will be questioned.”

“I’m sure you’re aware this jeopardizes my other investigation.” Bogdanov lit the cigarette.

“A small sacrifice. Saving the General Secretary’s life will give you your choice of postings. Who knows, your father might even get his full pension restored.”

“What about Titov? The resident isn’t going to like that I’m now reporting to you.”

“You always have, anyway.” Stukoi lit the cigar. “You afraid of Gennadi Titov?”

“All prudent officers at the residency are cautious, very cautious. Permission to speak freely, sir,” Bogdanov said, aware no conversation was ever truly off the record. “Mikhail Skorik was one of the best officers I ever served with. I witnessed how Titov fabricated reports to get his position. Misha was the one who earned the Berlin slot, but instead he was sent to chase mujahedeen in Afghanistan. At the risk of saying so, I wouldn’t be surprised if Titov would work with the Germans to eliminate Gorbachev if that would mean advancement.”

“We nicknamed that devil years ago. You don’t fuck with the Crocodile. People still call Titov that?”

“On occasion.”

“I take it the Croc doesn’t know you came to me directly. You ran a hell of a risk.”

She took a drag from the cigarette. “It was my duty.”

“You’ve got balls, Bogdanov. You did the right thing, but you’ve got balls.”

“I’m going to need more than that. Like West marks and a staff free to travel between East and West Berlin, surveillance people. I understand Kosyk is attempting to acquire an American asset, and I don’t intend to make things easy for him.”

Stukoi cleared his throat. “Do not discuss this with anyone-and I mean anyone, including your father. You report to me and only to me. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Dismissed.” The general turned toward a Robotron computer terminal on his desk.

Bogdanov noted the letters he pecked on the keyboard with his two index fingers: KUSNV and LATA33. She smiled and hurried out the door. The logon and password would grant access to the highly guarded SOUD system of joint acquisition of enemy data. Every Warsaw Treaty intelligence network fed data into the system, providing precise descriptions of enemy agents and their suspected contacts. KGB paranoia limited access to only the highest-ranking counterintelligence officers. Now Bogdanov was among the privileged.

CHAPTER NINE

GERMAN STATE LIBRARY, EAST BERLIN

FRIDAY, APRIL 21

Faith dashed into Jürgen’s office, a room the East Germans called the “medicine cabinet” because it housed what the Party believed should be kept out of reach of its children. The walls were covered with books and a mezzanine sagged with the weight of thousands of censored tomes. The air was heavy with the scent of a used bookstore; Faith could smell the pages yellowing. Jürgen closed the door and cleared a stack of books from a chair for her. His eyes were red and Faith thought she smelled whiskey on his breath. He picked up a blue and white packet of Sprachlos cigarettes and lit one before she could object. He had recently gone through a rough divorce and it seemed to Faith he wasn’t recovering very well.

“You might be interested that this morning I sent a protest letter on behalf of the library to the Party’s Central Committee. Colleagues at all major libraries are also sending their objections about the recent censorship of Soviet periodicals. Right now I’m finishing up an appeal to Moscow for assistance.”

“I thought you were the library’s chief censor. What gives?”

“Read this over and see what you think.” He pushed a piece of paper across the table. “You haven’t heard, have you? They banned the last issue of Sputnik because of an article criticizing Stalin. Sputnik-not even a solid intellectual magazine, definitely telling of the cultural level of our Politburo. I’ve heard they’ll decide day by day if they’ll allow Pravda to be sold. Imagine our Party censoring the Organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the SU. The world’s coming to an end. It can’t happen.”

She picked up the letter and read it. It reminded the Soviet government of the clause in the GDR’s constitution promising eternal friendship between the two countries and requested a symbolic intervention to pressure the East German government to follow Soviet reforms. Not once in the history of the Cold War had the East German communists defied the Soviets, and not since the worker uprising of 1953 had the passive East German public taken a stand against the government. Cold War melodrama didn’t get better than this. Faith was almost hooked. In fact, she was inspired.

She saw a way out.

Jürgen picked up a coffee pot from a hotplate where it had spent the better part of the day, judging from the burnt-coffee smell. He poured her a cup. “I’m meeting a rep from the university library in a few minutes to jointly deliver the letter to the Soviet cultural attaché.”

“Mind if I tag along? This could really turn out to be big-the beginning of a political thaw here. Besides, as a guest researcher, I have an interest in access to research materials.” And I have an interest in public contact with the Soviet government.

“I don’t know. But then, Americans don’t seem to be the class enemy anymore, do they? In fact, word has it Honecker’s doing his best to court your government for an invitation for a state visit to Washington.” He wrapped a plaid scarf around his neck and put on a brown beret.

“I’d rather not carry this package with me to the embassy. Do you mind keeping it for me?” Faith pulled a small bundle from her bag.

“No problem. Give it here.” He tossed it onto a stack of books on the floor. “I suppose this means you’re coming along and you don’t want the coffee.”

Ten minutes later, they met Jürgen’s colleague on Unter den Linden in front of the Bulgarian Cultural Center. The woman feigned interest in a display of an automated carpet loom, the Balkan state’s latest contribution to the industrial revolution. He introduced Faith to her and they marched to the embassy.

The Soviet embassy was a granite cereal box built in the heyday of Stalinist architecture. Through the spiked wrought-iron gate, a bust of an angry Lenin snarled at passersby. He was no friendlier to Faith and her friends.

A sentry radioed their arrival and let them in. Both librarians remained silent while they waited in the cavernous lobby. A photograph of Gorbachev hung on the wall across from Faith. His bright eyes stood out as welcome contrast to the usual dullness of Honecker’s. Soviet Woman, Moscow News and a pamphlet about the Autonomous Republic of Birobidzhan, the world’s first modern Jewish state, were scattered on an end table. Faith leafed through the Birobidzhani propaganda documenting Soviet generosity toward its Jews. It included rare photos from the depressed Zionist outpost beyond Siberia.

The prospect of entering Soviet territory and meddling in East German affairs was precisely what had tempted Faith to go along. If the East Germans wanted her to smuggle something into the Soviet Union, they wouldn’t tolerate any contact between her and the Soviet government. Getting caught in the middle of a petty international squabble over a youth magazine might compromise her beyond usefulness. She hoped.

A tall woman with short black hair in loose curls and wearing a smart tweed businesswoman’s suit approached them. She introduced herself as Tatyana Mikhailovna Medvedev, the cultural attaché. Her youth astonished Faith. Faith was used to the pre-Gorbachev days, when embassy officials were somewhere between their late sixties and their state burial, not in their early thirties.

The attaché ushered them up a curved staircase to her second-story office. An enormous cherry desk dominated the airy room. Its marble floors were covered with hand-knotted Bokhara carpets. On the walls, paintings of Lenin proselytizing to the masses hung near a dusty photograph of Gorbachev joking with factory workers.

The librarians sat in front of the desk and Faith took a seat behind them. She twisted a loose thread on her sweater as she wondered how cold it really got in Siberia. The librarians explained their concerns to the official and handed her their letters.

“My government regrets the censorship, but we can’t be of any assistance to you. An integral part of our new thinking is not to intervene in the domestic politics of our allies,” Medvedev said in a clipped Berlin accent, and then threw up her hands in a very male gesture.

“Your position’s clear. I suppose we shouldn’t take up any more of your time.” Jürgen’s head drooped and he stood to leave.

The attaché walked with them to the door and then paused. “I spent most of my youth in the GDR. My stepfather was a diplomat here from fifty-three to sixty-eight. Off the record, I wish I could help. The GDR’s a second home to me. In fifty-three my father sent in tanks when Ulbricht asked us to stop the workers’ strikes. If I could, I’d send in troops again to atone for his sin.”

Medvedev made direct eye contact with Faith and held her gaze.

“You’re an American, my staff informs me.”

“Professor Faith Whitney. I’m very interested in your government’s reforms and the possibility of exploring a student exchange focusing on the change.”

“Then let’s meet to discuss it.”

They made arrangements for the next afternoon. The way the attaché looked at her, Faith wasn’t sure if she had just set up a business appointment or a date.

The small group left the embassy compound in silence. A northerly wind wrestled Faith for her breath. A few blocks away from the embassy, she heard the sound of footsteps on the wet sidewalk behind her. She hastened her pace. A man in a knee-length black leather coat surged ahead.

“Identification, please,” he said.

He didn’t flash a badge, but she knew where he was from. She avoided eye contact and stared at a poster in the window of the Aeroflot office promoting the Soviet Far East city of Khabarovsk. The librarians pulled out their blue personal-identity booklets. Faith slapped her passport into the man’s stubby mitt. He motioned to his cohort and they stepped closer, a wall of leather closing in on her. She moved backward and teetered on the curb while the men examined the American passport. One spelled her name aloud into his lapel and then he pressed her passport between his fingers.

“What were you doing at the Soviet embassy, Frau Whitney?”

“I’m a professor and I’m exploring the possibility of an exchange program for my university. And, as a researcher here, I was also concerned with the availability of Soviet publications.”

“Such a fuss over a child’s reader.” He handed her back her papers. The second man shoved the librarians into an unmarked car. Jürgen’s bloodshot eyes pleaded for help, but Faith could only watch. “Frau Professor, you may go. But stay away from the Russians. We won’t warn you again.”

CHAPTER TEN

NAGORNO-KARABAKH AUTONOMOUS OBLAST, AZERBAIJANI SSR

A chunk of plaster surrendered to gravity and crashed to the floor of the earthquake-damaged Armenian church. The battle-hardened militants didn’t turn their heads and neither did the seasoned missionary. Men in tattered camouflage jackets guarded the entry to the clandestine meeting. Suspicion creased their faces as they eyed the outsider.

Margaret cleared her throat. “You Armenian Christians are Christ’s soldiers on the frontline against the Antichrist. Satan seeks to rid you from your own house because, as the world’s oldest Christian bastion, the house of Armenia has defied the Evil One for too long.” She paused for the interpreter, but before she could continue, the leader interrupted.

“We know how your own freedom was at risk to bring us God’s word when it was forbidden. For this you always have a place with us, but Bibles help us not when the Muslims drag us from our homes. You of all people should understand because you were there when they murdered Yeva and the boy.”

“Don’t dismiss me before you’ve heard me out. God’s word saves.” She patted her scuffed Bible. “It brought me here to witness the fulfillment of prophecy. We all know what the Mark of the Beast on Gorbachev’s head signals-the final struggle has begun.”

“We hear your words, but they alone won’t protect us. Yesterday was the time to be emissaries for Christ, but today we’re called to be His soldiers.” The leader patted a crude homemade rifle.

“And that’s why I came right back-not with the word of the Lord, but with His sword.” She opened her Bible. The gold-bordered pages were glued together and a cavity was carved out. Between Genesis and Revelation was nestled a landmine.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EAST BERLIN

SATURDAY, APRIL 22

A Chaika limousine with red diplomatic plates in Cyrillic lettering flaunted its diplomatic immunity in a no-parking zone at the busy intersection of Unter den Linden and Friedrichstrasse. Faith had rarely seen such an elegant Soviet-built car in East Berlin; she guessed the attaché had borrowed it from the embassy’s motor pool to impress her. Still, it was hard to be impressed by a twenty-five-year-old Buick knockoff.

Delayed by heavy border traffic, Faith crossed against the light and hurried toward the limo. She strained to see if the woman were inside, but the windows were blackened. The driver emerged from the car as she approached. The man’s eyebrows were the bushiest she’d ever seen. She hoped she wouldn’t retain the image of the white clumps of hair sticking out of his ears. He opened the rear passenger door for her.

“Dobryi den’,” Faith greeted the cultural attaché as she slid into the backseat.

“Vy tozhe govorite po-russkii!” the woman said, then switched from Russian to German and continued, “And I was already impressed that you spoke such flawless German.” The attaché said to the driver, “Ivashko, take us to Treptower Park.” She turned back to Faith, leaning her elbow against the black leather upholstery. “I thought we should be outside on such a lovely day. Yesterday I didn’t think we’d ever see the sun again. Are you up for a walk?”

“Always. So how would you like me to address you? I’m afraid I don’t know the correct title for a Soviet cultural attaché.”

“Call me Tatyana.”

Tatyana was undoubtedly from a colder climate. It was in the sixties, the first warm day of the spring, but it was too chilly for her snug sleeveless shirt. Her muscles had the definition of an athlete. The wiry woman was too fit for an embassy paper pusher. An image of Tatyana fresh after a workout popped into Faith’s mind: Sweat glistened off every curve of those taut muscles; a soaked tank top clung to her small breasts and those wet curls. Faith never wanted to compete with this woman over a man. Judging from the way Tatyana was eyeing her, Faith felt she probably would never have to worry about that.

They arrived at the sprawling urban park some twenty minutes later and walked inside. Tatyana carried two pairs of binoculars.

A Red Army truck was parked near an overgrown flowerbed and a decrepit shack. A dozen conscripts stood nearby with rusting shovels in hand while a Berlin parks official pointed with a rolled-up blueprint. Half the soldiers began digging out the flowerbed; the other half ripped boards from the structure. Faith guessed the city official had illegally cut a deal with a local garrison so he could finish a project under budget-the free market at work. The women avoided them and walked on the far side of the path.

Tatyana led the way. Faith thought she was in good shape from her frequent dashes to catch trains, but she had to hustle to keep up.

“The golden oriole is rumored to be back from Africa for the summer. We might get lucky,” Tatyana said. Suddenly she stopped and looked through her binoculars. “I think that’s it! It just flew into that tree.”

Faith watched the bird flutter into the tree and glanced at her watch. Clearly the woman has been in East Berlin too long.

“Survey the area and tell me if you notice anything unusual.” Tatyana had the instincts of a spook and Faith prayed she wasn’t one, even though she knew her prayers were never answered.

Tatyana hung a bulky pair of binoculars around Faith’s neck. The clunky things weighed her down so that she was sure if she fell into a mud puddle she would be pulled straight to the bottom. “Standard Baltic Fleet issue,” Faith said, impressed with herself.

The street noise faded as they went deeper into the park, passing a socialist-realist statue of a World War Two-era Red Army soldier with his arm around a German child, presumably protecting him from the Nazis. Faith hurried to keep up as Tatyana left the sidewalk to blaze her own trail through the urban wilderness. The attaché stopped and raised her binoculars, pointing them toward a flutter among the fresh leaves of spring.

Faith struggled to focus with the unfamiliar field glasses. Branches blurred and no bird came into sight.

Tatyana pointed. “Looks like we’ve got a Eurasian nuthatch working this linden tree. Right there, hanging upside down on the trunk. Let me help you.” Tatyana slipped behind her and put her hands on each side of Faith’s face. She pressed lightly against her cheeks, positioning her for best viewing. The softness of Tatyana’s skin and the delicateness of her touch disarmed Faith, and she lost herself in the sensation. It had been far too long since she had melted into a sensual caress, but she wasn’t sure what to think of it coming from another woman. Tatyana pulled her hands away so leisurely Faith didn’t notice when they lost contact. Faith stopped herself short of savoring the dreamy moment.

Tatyana looked through her binoculars. “The trick to finding a target is to lock on it first with your eyes, then slowly raise the glasses up. It’s tough without a good reference point when you’re searching for something in trees or at sea. There’s definitely an art to using them.”

And an art to such a seductive touch. Standard KGB training?

“Okay, I’ve established a perimeter,” Tatyana said. “The Stasi can’t get anyone with a listening device close enough to monitor us without being noticed.” Her words yanked Faith back into the Cold War. Tatyana continued, “There are a couple of trees we have to avoid. Follow my lead.”

“Any Stasi squirrels we should be on the lookout for?”

“Trust me, they’ve bugged certain trees.”

“And I swear I just saw a squirrel with an attaché case handcuffed to its paw.”

“Only the Mossad rivals the Stasi in paranoia. You wouldn’t believe the trivia they gather on people. Archival packrats, to misquote Stalin. They gather so much, they have nothing.”

“So this bird fetish is a ruse to get them to give us some privacy?”

“It’s a useful hobby. I actually love birding. I once traded in a lot of favors for a six-month stint in Cuba so I could see a hummingbird in the wild. The humidity is unbelievable, though I admit the Latins know how to enjoy life. I’ll never forget the brilliant colors. Europe seemed so dull afterward.” Tatyana began walking, her brown eyes vigilant.

Faith fell a few steps behind. Tatyana pointed out another feathered comrade, stretching her arm toward high branches. From an angle, Faith spotted a scar on her right shoulder. Definitely a scar from a bullet wound. What was she doing with this woman? Tatyana wasn’t a KGB case officer, running agents from a cushy office like Faith had assumed. She was a field operative, someone from the frontline. She was danger.

“So is this business or pleasure?” Faith said.

“Both. We get far too little pleasure in this life.”

“Thanks for not bullshitting me with the cultural attaché front.” Faith wished she had.

Tatyana stopped and looked Faith in the eyes, holding her gaze for several seconds-several seconds beyond innocence. “We both know who I am and what I want.”

Faith was sure of neither.

Tatyana stalked another spellbinding bird in the branches. “I was surprised to see you in my office yesterday. That morning I was working on how we were going to arrange a chance to chat with you. To be quite honest, I had no intention of working with you myself until I had the pleasure of meeting you in person.”

“Let me be up-front with you. I have no intention of working for the KGB, GRU, CIA, KKK or any other three-lettered band of thugs. I’m not an agent. I’m a professor and a businesswoman.”

“And one with good taste. I like some of the things I hear you’re buying. I’d never thought about the artistic merit of our applied arts before. Our museums have never taken such interest.” Tatyana noticed a large bird on the trunk of a tree and raised her binoculars.

“If you know anything about me, you know I’m fiercely neutral. I make the Swiss look partisan. As many times as you guys have approached me, I’ve never agreed to work with you, or anyone else, for that matter. Every shop in the business has come after me.”

“Except the CIA,” Tatyana said. “A typical case of them not recognizing homegrown talent.” Tatyana tracked the woodpecker as he munched insects on his way up the tree. “The Stasi has plans for you. They’ve taken a lot of precautions to limit who knows what you’re doing for them.”

“Wrong. They never made it a secret. They even took me to some cheesy Stasi cabaret the other night.”

Tatyana turned her binoculars on a man feeding pigeons, but looking away from the birds he was feeding. “They’ve given you some very public opportunities to turn them down-even in front of their own staff and a couple of our liaisons. We don’t like it when they run black ops and don’t let us in. Have you agreed to work for them yet?”

Faith remained silent. She raised her binoculars to her eyes to conceal her fear. What had she done? She had only wanted to be seen associating with the Soviets to make herself too risky for the Stasi to trust with a secret mission behind the Russians’ backs. Now it was evident it was not only a stupid idea, but a fateful one. After a meeting with the KGB, she would be too much of a liability as long as she was alive. No one could ever survive playing the Stasi off against the KGB. No one had ever dared.

Tatyana continued, “Faith, I know they either have already or soon will threaten your life-and you will agree. Everyone does. And no one will blame you. Being a Stasi agent isn’t a fate worse than death, though the career can abruptly end that way.”

“I want to be left alone!” Faith surprised herself with her vehemence.

“You need to make a good show of rejecting me in a few minutes when we get to the park bench.”

“I’m not working for you.”

“You’re trapped. I have substantial resources.” Tatyana put her hand on her arm, but Faith pulled away and walked ahead of her.

“I can take care of it myself.”

“One woman alone can’t win against the entire state security organ of the GDR-not even the great Faith Whitney.”

“At last count, I’m way ahead in the game. In Vegas, that’s time to cash out and walk away.”

“I’ve been to Vegas. High rollers like you can’t walk away. I’d hate to see something happen to you. The Germans are a tidy people. They’re not going to use an American smuggler to pull off something behind the KGB’s back and then leave her around to boast about it. They need you now, but a time will come when they won’t. Black ops agents don’t have a long shelf life.”

Faith stopped.

Tatyana didn’t give up. “After this is over, we can help you in ways you’ve never imagined. Have you ever wanted an export-import business out of Moscow? We can arrange for you to have permission to scour our countryside for your treasures. Cooperate and we can expedite export formalities.”

“You’re a temptress, but a staid Moscow storefront doesn’t sound very sporting,” Faith lied. “I need something more-some information.”

“Have you agreed to work for them?”

“They threatened my life.”

“I know.” Tatyana rested her hand on Faith’s back as she pretended to point out a bird.

The solace felt genuine and Faith needed it at that moment. She gazed through the binoculars. “I don’t know what they’re up to. That’s all the help I can give you. I don’t want to be an agent, and I sure don’t want to be a double agent.”

“My dear Faith, you knew this day would come. Accept it gracefully. What kind of information do you require?”

“Everything the KGB knows about my father.”

“That would mean going into the archives, but I’ll see what I can do. Right now we’re going to move over to that bench where our friends are listening. You’re going to follow my lead and turn me down so they have no doubt that you’re not working for me.”

They approached a park bench. A young woman pushed a baby stroller nearby and the senior citizen continued to toss seeds to the pigeons, but he now appeared to be watching the birds instead of them. Tatyana sat down. “So, how did you find your first birding experience?”

“I never realized there were so many different ones here. I never paid much attention to anything other than gulls on the bridges and pigeons everywhere.” Faith scratched a loose chip of paint from the bench. She was shaken and she hoped she was convincing enough. Everything depended upon it. If the Stasi believed she was talking to the KGB about them, they would kill her.

“Rock doves. Technically they’re not pigeons, but rock doves. I think a summer exchange program focusing on the history of Soviet-GDR cooperation is a great idea, but I would have the students spend more time in Moscow than Berlin. We’ll have to get the GDR’s Education Ministry on board, and I can line things up on the Soviet side.”

Tatyana turned her head toward Faith and lowered her voice. “You mentioned your interest in certain art objects. I have excellent connections. Is there anything special you’re searching for?”

“Anything designed by Natalia Danko or Kandinsky from the Lomonosov Porcelain Factory in Leningrad.”

“You have something particular in mind?”

“A chess set.”

“I can get you any chess set you like in exchange for the right item.”

“Probably not this one. ’The Reds and the Whites’ from the early twenties. It’s a masterpiece. The theme obviously is the Great October Revolution. The red figurines are modeled after the communists, the white the-”

“Imperialists.”

“Including the Tsar’s family. My favorites are the pawns. The reds are liberated reapers with sheathes and sickles and the whites are oppressed peasants, complete with chains.”

“I can check around for you. If I find one, maybe you could find something for us in exchange.”

“How about a Reagan coffee mug? Now the old geezer is finally out of office, they should start picking up in value. I’ll even throw in an old ’Nixon Now’ button.”

“I think you know what I’m asking for. We always need help getting items on the List-fiber optics, computer chips.”

“I can’t help you. I agreed to meet you to work out a student exchange program, and I know you’ll use it for some propaganda crap, and frankly I don’t care. I like you, Tatyana, and maybe we can be friends. But understand this: If you ever try to recruit me again, that’s the end. Basta.” Faith waved her finger in the air like a schoolteacher scolding a wayward pupil.

“I only thought it might be a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

“Save your breath.” Faith stood, raising her voice. She yanked the binoculars from around her neck and shoved them toward Tatyana. “Thank you for the interesting afternoon.”

“I’m sorry. I won’t mention it again. Allow me to take you home or wherever you want to go. It’s the least I can do.”

“For a few moments, I thought we might be friends without politics getting in the way.”

“It is possible. Let me give you a ride back into town.”

Faith crumpled into the seat, relieved the tinted windows shielded her from the Stasi’s view. She wished she could hide from the KGB as well. “I’m serious-I don’t want anything to do with this.” Tatyana turned her torso toward Faith and moved just beyond the boundary of her personal space. “I know you are, but the Stasi hasn’t given you any choice. I’m offering help and asking nothing of you. If you should need to get in touch with me, don’t call the embassy. Only contact me from the West.” Tatyana gave Faith detailed instructions on how to signal her for a rendezvous in the other Berlin.

“And if I’m trapped in the East and need to meet you over here?”

“This is the Stasi’s playground. Sorry.”

Faith turned away and watched the green fade into urban gray.

“Faith, you don’t get what I’m saying. If they saw us here together again doing anything outside of negotiating a cultural exchange with some of their officials present, they’d assume I’m running you and would liquidate you. You also can’t go home and talk about this.”

“Yeah, I know my phone’s bugged.”

“Did you know there’s a camera in your kitchen? Hakan cooks you pancakes on weekends and sneaks vanilla into the batter when you’re not looking.”

“I assumed they kept one in the flat in the East, but in West Berlin? Are there bugs?”

“Only the kitchen, but my copy of your MfS dossier predates their current interest.”

“Thanks for the heads-up. About the vanilla in the pancakes, I mean.” Faith sighed and continued looking out the window as they passed rows of prefab high-rises.

“You’re familiar with the Berolina Hotel?”

“Spooks from the Arab embassies hang out in the bar. Some real slime-bags.”

“It’s watched more than average. We’re almost there.” She tapped on the driver’s shoulder and spoke in Russian. “Ivashko, stomp on the brakes in front of the Berolina. Make a scene. Our guest is leaving us there.” She switched back to German. “Jump out of the car screaming at me like you’ve just had a really bad date.”

The Chaika drove away. Faith oriented herself by the television tower at Alexanderplatz. She headed toward the Friedrichstrasse border crossing. A Wartburg slowed and drove alongside her. Her heart raced and she quickened her pace. The car sped up. She ducked into a side street in near panic and the car screeched across several lanes of traffic to follow.

She pushed at the door of an apartment building, but it was locked. She smacked every button on the intercom. Please be home. She turned to run off just as a girl responded. She stopped.

“Post. Telegram,” Faith said.

“Come up.” The lock buzzed. Faith reached for the latch.

As she pulled, someone grabbed her from behind. She trembled and her knees started to buckle, but she caught herself.

“Frau Doktor, we must talk.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

KGB SAFE HOUSE, DEMOCRATIC BERLIN-MARZAHN

SUNDAY, APRIL 23

The communist planned community of Marzahn was an architectural eugenics experiment gone awry. Bogdanov wound along the endless Ho-Chi-Minh Strasse searching for the back entrance to the KGB safe house, driving past clone after clone of prefabricated apartment buildings, grocery stores and restaurants. The recently constructed but already-decaying buildings reminded her of the inner-city tenements she had seen while on assignment in the States. She preferred the quaint old buildings and cobblestone streets of some of the older districts, such as Karlshorst and Köpenick, but the sprawling anonymity of Marzahn made it much easier to run a safe house and conceal it-even from the Stasi. The Wartburg’s brakes squeaked as the colonel parked it in a row of Trabis, Skodas and Ladas.

Bogdanov arrived a half-hour before Kosyk was expected. She was surprised that someone had actually cared enough to add pleasant little touches to the place. Instead of the usual wilted mums in algae-filled water, fresh Gerber daisies decorated the coffee table. A dish of candy sat atop a hand-crocheted doily. She wished she could get this fussy housekeeper reassigned to her office at the embassy before her cleaning crew allowed the dust to cover her pictures entirely. She drew the living-room curtains and poured two shot glasses, one with water, the other with vodka. Kosyk never drank on duty and was known for his irritation with anyone who did. She wanted him in just the right mood.

Kosyk arrived early, even for a German. He slammed his fist onto the table directly in front of Bogdanov, knocking over a vase of flowers and sloshing liquid from the shot glasses. “Who are you to recruit my asset? You’re compromising the entire operation.”

“You’re making a mess. How un-German of you.” Bogdanov held herself back from righting the vase and sopping up the water. She instead crossed her legs, leaned back in the green plaid armchair and watched the puddle expand toward the edge. “I think you should calm down, lower your voice and tell me what you’re babbling about. You also might want to remember with whom you’re speaking. Regardless of any cooperation on this special project, the MfS does not give orders to the KGB.”

“You know what I mean-the American. Whitney.”

“The professor?”

Kosyk snorted.

“Herr Kosyk, you need to control your agents. And I’m surprised with you. The first rule in this business is never to reveal the identity of your agents-even to a friend like me. I think we’re both talking about the one I’ve designated FedEx.”

“FedEx?” Kosyk laughed. “You like the Americans, don’t you?”

“Their government’s the enemy, not the people. But I want to make it very clear I was not the one who initiated contact. FedEx approached me on an unrelated matter with two of your citizens. They were all hot and bothered because you censored one of our magazines-sort of sweet, actually. I’m surprised you didn’t know about it, because I heard you picked up the librarians.”

“Stay away from her.”

“Not an issue.”

“You met with her a second time.”

Bogdanov took a piece of Russian hard candy from a glass dish and unwrapped it. “I thought her skills might be useful in acquiring some materials we’ve been looking for. I had no idea you were interested in her.” Or how interested I would be.

“You took her to a park.”

“It’s a much more effective technique to befriend potential assets rather than to coerce them into cooperation-which I understand is your preferred style.”

“It’s a question of effectiveness.” Kosyk’s left eye jerked to the side; the right one remained fixed on Bogdanov.

“What are you planning with FedEx?”

Kosyk stood to leave. “We agreed you’d handle recruitment in Moscow and arrange on-site logistics. We handle all disinformation and we deliver you the means to strike the target. Upon receipt in Moscow, the KGB takes control. Beyond this, I see no grounds to share operational details.”

“Very well.” Bogdanov twisted the waxed candy wrapper as the water from the spilled vase dripped onto the new carpet. “Then I see no need to go into additional details unless you want to have a seat and remind yourself we’re working toward the same goal.” Bogdanov pointed to an armchair.

Kosyk continued to stand, his arms crossed. “I’m listening.”

“Suit yourself.” Arrogant little bastard. Bogdanov refused to look up to him and instead stared at him as if he were sitting down, but, unfortunately, his crotch was eye level. “Good news from Moscow. We have strong initial support from Gasporov. Our own Spetsnaz unit is with us. Let’s drink to early success.” She pushed the shot glass of vodka across the table to him and picked up the water-filled glass.

Kosyk shook his head. “Too early and I’m working.”

“You’re more German than the Germans. But you’re a Sorb, aren’t you? Your High German’s too pure, too practiced. You grew up speaking sorbski, didn’t you? Tell me, Gregor, did you grow up as Yurij?”

“That’s of no consequence,” he said with force.

“Isn’t it? The thought of native Slavs in their Deutschland never sat well with our German friends. They’ve never seemed to like the Sorb minority in their midst, have they? But then, I guess they’re not too keen on minorities in general. They’ve spent the last thousand years trying to assimilate or eliminate our little West Slavic brothers, among others. With you I’d say they succeeded.” Bogdanov drank the shot of water. “I wonder if Markus Wolf would’ve gotten such a sweet retirement deal from the MfS if he’d grown up an ethnic Sorb in Hoyerswerda.”

“Wolf deserved nothing.” Kosyk’s face turned red and his voice quivered with anger. “He was a politician, not a real spook. Good staff, a lot of politics and Der Spiegel blew his reputation out of proportion. If he were a Sorb, he never would’ve advanced beyond major.”

“But I hear he’s not really retired. He’s a major behind-the-scenes player.”

“He’s nothing. He doesn’t even know-” Kosyk interrupted himself and studied Bogdanov. “You’re not extracting information from me. Crude, Bogdanov.”

“A question of effectiveness.”

“Stay away from FedEx. Understand me: If I believe my asset is compromised, I will eliminate her.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

MFS CENTRAL DETENTION CENTER, [EAST] BERLIN-

HOHENSCHÖNHAUSEN

Chipping gray naval paint and smears of blood and feces covered the cinder-block walls of the Stasi prison. The room contained only a table and chair for the interrogator, a stool bolted to the floor, and a slop pail in the corner. Recessed fluorescent lights glowed overhead day and night in the windowless cell. Her side ached from when she fell off the stool and they’d kicked her awake. At this point she would have welcomed a smelly mattress or even a few moments of peace on the grimy floor. Her thoughts were jumbled, but she was certain of one thing: No one ever left this wretched room the same person she went in-except the Stasi interrogators. They never changed. They had no history, no future and probably no present.

The interrogator slapped her, nearly knocking her to the floor. “What does the KGB want with you?”

“I told you. I refused.” Faith ran her fingers over her stinging cheek.

“How long have you known Tatyana Medvedev?” The voice was flat, as if the interrogator were bored with the repetition.

“Since Friday.”

“Why did you go to the Soviet embassy?”

Faith closed her eyes and turned away. Her mind was numb from fear and exhaustion. She didn’t think she could hold out much longer, but she had to. If they believed she’d even talked to the Russians about them, it was over.

“Frau Whitney, answer my question.”

“Over and over, I have.” Faith sighed and glanced over toward a picture mirror. They had taken away her eyeglasses and everything was a blur, but she knew Schmidt was there, studying her. “Get Schmidt.”

“How often did you meet Frau Medvedev?”

Faith turned toward the two-way mirror. “Schmidt,” she said and paused for a breath. “Stop, please. I’m not working for them. You’ve got to believe me. It’s the truth.”

“Pay attention. How often did you meet Frau Bogdanov?”

“Twice. Wait-Bogdanov?”

“So you do know Bogdanov. When do you meet her next?”

“I don’t know Bogdanov. I’m tired. I can’t think straight.”

“You admit you met Bogdanov twice. How do you contact her?”

“I don’t know Bogdanov.”

“When did you first meet Zara Antonovna Bogdanov, lieutenant colonel in the KGB?”

“Medvedev’s Bogdanov?”

“How do you contact Bogdanov, your KGB handler?”

“I don’t know.” She pressed her cracking lips together to spread whatever moisture remained and stared at the clear bottle of seltzer water on the table four feet away. “I’m thirsty. Please.”

“How do you contact her?” The interrogator looked at Faith with the dissociated gaze of an executioner.

“I don’t know.”

“What did they offer you?”

“A chess set.”

“Why that?”

“I collect.”

“Were you interested in their offer?”

“No. May I have water?” Faith yawned. She struggled to concentrate. Small variations could mean hours more of questioning. Or worse.

“So you were interested.”

“I’ll never work for the KGB.” Her words were halting.

“And why should we believe that you would work for the MfS and not the KGB?”

“You know about my father.” She fought back tears, but they streamed down her face anyway.

“Did you tell her you’re doing a job for us?”

“Absolutely not.”

“What did they want?”

“Fiber optics.”

“Did you tell them we’ve approached you?”

“No.”

“And why would you work for us and not them?”

“I want to find Daddy.” Her voice cracked. “Water, please?”

“Very well.”

The interrogator popped the rusty cap from the bottle of seltzer water and poured it into a glass.

“Thank you.” Faith reached for the glass. The interrogator jerked it away, threw it into Faith’s face and left the room. Faith rushed to the bottle and gulped the remains. She crawled onto the filthy floor, drew her legs tightly against her body to fight away the cold. At least they hadn’t taken away her clothes. She fell asleep to the acrid odor of stale urine and dreamed of her father valiantly rescuing her.

Sharp pain awakened her. She grabbed her side just before the interrogator’s boot smacked into it again.

“On the stool. I told you never to get off that stool unless I give you permission. What does the KGB want with you?”

“Technology from the List.” She clutched her side and had no idea if she had been asleep for seconds or hours.

“Did you tell them you’re working for us?”

“No.”

“What did you agree to do?”

“Nothing.”

“When did you first meet Colonel Bogdanov?”

Faith once again gave the same answer she had every time, but this time the interrogator suddenly left the room. Faith sat on the stool, waiting, but no one came back. She wanted nothing more than to crawl onto the floor and rest. Still, she waited on the stool, wobbling from side to side as she started to fall asleep. She hoped someone knew where she was. Tatyana, or rather Colonel Bogdanov, might know, but she wouldn’t help her in East Berlin. Dean Reed. Faith’s thoughts kept returning to the American folk singer who defected to the Soviets during the Vietnam War. Soviet youth flocked to his concerts; the more savvy East Germans laughed at their Soviet counterparts, who believed Reed was an American pop icon. Dean Reed couldn’t settle into bleak Soviet conditions, so he chose the GDR as his home. He lived peacefully outside East Berlin until he fell out of favor with the regime a few years back. When his body floated face-down in an East German lake, the communists insisted it was suicide. Dean Reed. Face-down in the lonely water.

Faith had been in the cell for days, but, without any clues from the outside world, she had no idea how many. Hunger and fatigue stretched the time.

She yawned as she forced her thoughts back to the puzzle. What would happen if they found out the KGB knew the Stasi had successfully recruited her? Dean Reed. She had to keep up the lie. Whatever they wanted her for, they didn’t want the Russians to know. It made no sense. The Soviets and East Germans were on the same side. East German loyalty had never wavered. Not in fifty-three, when they ordered their own troops to shoot their own workers. Not in sixty-one, when they divided Berlin with a wall. Not in sixty-eight, when their tanks quashed the Prague Spring. The East Germans were Soviet lapdogs. Why would they suddenly want to keep their masters in the dark? Geopolitics aside, what did she have to do with a rift among communists? All Faith wanted was to find out about her father, but she knew she was caught in the rift zone.

And Faith sat on the stool, waiting.

The interrogator kicked her awake from where she had fallen to the floor. She awoke from one nightmare into another.

“What are you doing for the KGB?”

“Nothing.” Pain doubled her over as she held on to the stool and tried to pull herself up.

“On your feet. We’ve had enough.” The interrogator yanked her hair.

Her scalp burned. The interrogator pulled a blindfold from a pocket and bound it around her head. Fingers sank into her arm. The interrogator led her from the cell, deliberately running her into the hated stool.

Light seeped under her blindfold. Artificial. Night, or a windowless hallway? She sensed someone behind her. She turned her head.

“Walk.” The interrogator shoved her.

Damp cool air rose toward her. She tripped on a step, but someone caught her. She smelled the aftershave. Schmidt. The fucker was here all along.

The interrogator pushed her into a car and climbed in beside her. The other door opened and Schmidt wedged himself into the backseat. The car seemed smaller than the Mercedes that had picked her up in West Berlin. She doubted he was taking her home. They still needed her, she thought-she hoped.

The car sped down a long, straight road. Karl-Marx-Allee? Frankfurter Allee? Leipziger Strasse? She didn’t hear many other cars. The bursts of streetlight under the blindfold grew farther apart, then only darkness. The steady swish of the windshield wipers counted down the minutes of her life.

The car stopped.

“Out!” The interrogator pulled her from the car and dragged her several yards into shallow water.

Faith was shoved onto her knees and she sank into the deep cold mud.

The interrogator grabbed her hair and pushed her down. Faith inhaled just before her face smacked the water. It stung all the way up her nose and the burn radiated through her sinuses. She coughed, inhaling more. She fought, but sank deeper. Terror.

The interrogator jerked Faith’s head from the water. Faith gasped for air. She couldn’t hold on much longer, but she knew her life depended upon it.

“For the last time, when did you first meet Colonel Bogdanov?”

“Friday.” She sputtered.

“How do you contact her?”

“I don’t.”

“What did she want from you?”

“Technology.” Dean Reed.

“Did you tell her you’re working for us?”

“No! No! No!” She was falling into hysteria. “No!”

The interrogator shoved her back under the water. Faith held her breath. Her head throbbed with pressure. Suddenly her lungs contracted. She inhaled, sucking in water. She coughed. She gasped.

Then she was back to the surface.

“What did you tell them about us?”

Faith heaved, her body convulsing. She knew she was going to drown the next time. She had to give them what they wanted. She opened her mouth to tell them the KGB knew.

Before she could speak, the interrogator forced her back under the lonely water.

Dean Reed.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

PERGAMON MUSEUM, EAST BERLIN

EARLIER THAT DAY

Margaret prepared to break her vow to God for the second time in some thirty years as she rushed past the Altar of Zeus with its sinful carvings of Greeks exposing their privates to the world. She was taking a shortcut to do His will and she hoped Jesus would forgive her because she wouldn’t forgive herself if she took too long to help and more innocent folks were massacred in Armenia. Yurij had proposed the meeting place even though he knew that as a good Christian lady she’d never go near a pagan altar. He always did have a charmingly ironic sense of setting.

She slowed down as she passed under the towering Gate of Ishtar and spotted him pretending to admire the mosaics of scrawny lions on the walls of Babylon. Yurij was an agent of the devil assigned to tempt her away from the Lord and once he almost succeeded in his mission, but this time she had the wisdom of age on her side. He stole a glance and from the way he looked at her she knew he still saw her as the vibrant missionary reaching out to East Berliners before the Wall. She didn’t want to let herself see the urbane young gentleman who had duped her into believing that she had led him from Lenin to Jesus. She eyed Yurij and wished he weren’t as eye-grabbing as the first day they met.

They stood beside each other, studying some critter made out of glazed brick from the lascivious city of Babylon. Desire tugged at her to reach out and touch him, but she respected protocol. She tapped on a tape recorder borrowed from the museum for a self-guided tour and shrugged her shoulders as if she couldn’t get it to work. She pretended to ask Yurij for help.

“Maggie, too many years have wedged between us for me to believe this is a casual visit.”

“I think we share a common interest,” she said.

“We always have.” He took the recorder from her, removed the tape and tightened it. His hair had gone from blond to distinguished platinum.

“I know you people don’t like what Gorbachev is up to. And, to tell it to you outright, I don’t, either. What’s the point in being a Bible smuggler when Bibles are everywhere, but no one’s reading them? I can’t imagine the spy business is too rewarding nowadays, either. If Gorbachev keeps doing what he’s doing, we’ll both be victims of history.”

“Then there won’t be anything more to keep us apart, will there?” Yurij said with a smile.

“Only God and your wife-and I know the one you fear,” Margaret said. “But I don’t have the right connections to round up enough of what I need. I need you to bend a few rules.”

“I don’t bend rules.”

“I recollect you’re more apt to break them.” Margaret gestured toward a dragon figure, carefully watching Yurij out of the corner of her eye. He was as fit as always, though he’d added a few pounds to his butt. She still remembered what it was like to squeeze those tight buns.

He randomly pushed buttons on the recorder. “What do you want?”

“Landmines. Lots of them.”

“Impossible. What would you do with anti-personnel mines?” Yurij’s left eye twitched.

“Military types call it ’territorial denial.’ I call it protecting some innocent folks from genocide.”

“You’d be better off giving them assault rifles.”

“I’d never forgive myself for giving someone offensive weapons they could hurt someone with. I want something purely defensive so I can sleep at night.”

“What the devil are you doing?” He put on her headset as if testing the equipment. “You’re not getting mixed up with the Caucasus, are you? It’s worse there than the Balkans ever were. At least the Serbs feel some guilt when they slit your throats-the Tartars feel only pleasure.”

“I’ve got to try to save them. Children are dying and it’s not right. God had to take a very special lady from me to get me to listen to Him. Right before she died in my arms, she delivered a message from the Lord.” Tears pooled in Margaret’s eyes. “That girl was just like my daughter.”

Yurij gingerly pushed back her hair and placed the earphones on her head. “I’ve seen your daughter. She has her mother’s beauty and her wiles.”

“You stay away from my girl.”

“You two haven’t talked in years.”

“She’s still my baby. Look me in the eyes and promise me you’ll leave her be.” She faked a smile for anyone watching.

“I’ll arrange the Moscow contacts you need to acquire the mines. I don’t have the funds to underwrite you, so you’ll have to finance them yourself.”

“Promise me?” Margaret said.

He shook hands with her to maintain the façade of two strangers and slipped her a hotel key. “You know I can never resist you, Maggie. Meet me there in a half-hour. I’ve waited on you for so long.”

Jesus forgive me, but my flesh is weak. Margaret wrestled with the guilt of rapture as she formulated her prayers for forgiveness.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EAST BERLIN

1:17 A.M. TUESDAY, APRIL 25

Faith knelt in the muddy shallows, coughing and gasping for life. She ripped off the blindfold and stumbled to the riverbank. She lay on the ground, hacking, purging the water from her lungs. With each cough, white pain shot through her side.

She crossed her arms and pressed them against her shivering body to preserve heat. Wet hair clung to her face. They had her glasses, but they would have been useless in the pounding rain and darkness. She looked around, but could make out only shadows. The sky glowed in one direction. West Berlin. Thank God for capitalist decadence. She pushed herself up and dragged herself toward the light, toward the West-even though she had no way of crossing the Wall.

She wandered through the woods for what seemed like hours. She stepped into a hole, jarring her entire body. Curling up and sleeping was all she wanted to think about, but she pushed on. The rain pelted her and melted the forest floor into mud. Her foot sank several inches into the muck, but her next step met resistance. A sidewalk. She cried tears of relief as her foot tapped against the concrete. She followed it with renewed determination when she saw lights flickering through the trees.

Even without her glasses, she could recognize a familiar figure, a titanic Red Army soldier protecting the child. At that moment she wanted to take the child’s place. She told herself she’d be okay and, for the first time in days, she believed it. She knew where she was-Treptower Park. Back on familiar ground, her thoughts were free to move beyond survival. She realized she’d done it-she’d convinced them she had nothing to do with the KGB. Faith Whitney had beaten the Stasi-at least in this round. The rush energized her and she picked up her pace.

The rain slacked off as she reached the S-Bahn station. It was deserted except for several stray cats. No suspicious cars were parked nearby. She collapsed onto a bench and waited for a train. Her tormentors were probably at home, sleeping off their fun. She’d never truly desired to kill before, but she wanted them dead. Most of all, she wanted to get Schmidt. Maybe he was the one who took her father from her. He was old enough to have been there. She craved revenge for herself and for her father as she stretched out on the hard bench and quivered with rage, chill and pain.

Faith had no visa, no passport and no money, but she hoped she had a friend. She clung to the shadows as she darted into Jürgen’s apartment building. She removed her shoes so she didn’t leave a muddy trail for the Stasi to follow. She knocked on the door, too depleted to worry about his reaction. No answer. When she couldn’t wait any longer, she pounded. A light switched on.

“Faith, it’s three in the morning.” Jürgen slurred his words. A hasty knot held his bathrobe barely closed. “Come in before the neighbors-”

“Thank you.” Her voice was raspy, her throat raw. A test pattern flickered on the black and white television. Cigarette ashes floated in a glass beside an empty whiskey bottle. Jürgen rustled through a stack of old newspapers and spread a Neues Deutschland on the floor for her shoes.

“Sorry about the hour. I need help.”

“I see that. Don’t worry about it. I haven’t gone to bed yet.” He rubbed his glassy eyes.

“Hakan and I had a fight.”

“You here to talk about it? I’m the last person you want to talk about relationships with.”

“Any signs after the embassy visit that the Stasi’s been here?” Each word was an effort.

“Come to think of it, Friday, when I came home, the place didn’t feel right. I haven’t thought any more about it, but it struck me at the time that some things were a little off, a chair in the kitchen, some papers on my desk. What’s going on?”

“You checked for cameras or bugs?” She steadied herself on the back of a chair and lied to herself that she was safe. Her ribs ached with each breath.

“Faith, are you all right?” Jürgen reached out and steadied her, then helped ease her down into an armchair. “Hakan didn’t beat you up, did he?”

“Hakan, never.” Faith shook her head. “They hide them in light fixtures. Any electric plugs go bad lately?”

“Yeah, now that you mention it, one in the kitchen went out late last week. I should get you to a doctor. You look really bad.”

“Check it.”

Faith wanted to soak longer in the tub, but was afraid she’d fall asleep and slip under the warm bathwater. The bruises on her rib cage had turned a deep purple. She forced herself to palpate them. Some had to be cracked. She carefully pulled on a bathrobe and shuffled into the kitchen.

Frayed wires hung from the wall and a tiny camera and microphone were proudly displayed on the table. She sat down and Jürgen draped a wool blanket around her shoulders. She downed two spoonfuls of honey immediately in hopes of quickly raising her blood sugar. Jürgen poured coffee into a chipped mug. “You take cream, don’t you?”

Faith nodded, conscious of the weight of her head. She slopped butter onto dark whole-kernel bread, slapped a piece of cheese on top and downed it in a few hasty bites. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“Looks like you could use a friend right now. Want to tell me what’s going on? Why are they watching me?”

The food revived her. “You went to the Soviet embassy. They’re allergic to anything related to Gorbachev.” She bought herself time to think with a mouthful of cheese. She wanted to trust him, but he was a Party member and a man with problems. The Stasi specialized in people like him. “Hakan and I had it out-but he didn’t touch me. I should get my own place. It’s stupid, but it always is. I had to get away, so I came East and went for a stroll in Treptower Park. I forgot how few streetlights there are here. It got dark fast. I fell into the mud and lost my glasses. I got turned around.”

Jürgen studied her face with the care of a palmist reading every line. “You don’t act like this is the first meal you’ve missed. Your eyes are bloodshot like from lack of sleep, not swollen like you’ve been crying. When women fight, they cry. Believe me, I know. So, how badly do you want me to believe this bull?”

“Enough not to want to involve you.”

“You know I stand up for what’s right, but you have to be straight with me.”

Faith took a breath, opened her mouth, then hesitated. Jürgen once wrote a dissertation that his adviser called brilliant, but refused to accept until three politically inappropriate footnotes were removed. He refused and left the doctoral program rather than compromise his principles. Faith supposed she could trust him. She had to. She had to connect with someone and let out a little of the terror.

“I can’t go into details, but I spent time with the Association.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“What day is today?”

“Tuesday.”

“Almost three days. I thought four or five.” She devoured another slice of bread with cheese. “They thought I had something going on with the Russians. They kept asking me about our trip to the embassy, implying I was working for the KGB.”

“Are you?”

“No.” She finished the coffee and held out her cup for more. “They dumped me. It’s wretched out there tonight.” Memories of her struggle for breath were too raw to touch. She coughed and it hurt.

“Yeah, it’s been months since we’ve had so much rain.”

“They kept everything, including my passport.”

“So you refused them.”

Faith spread black currant jam on the bread. “I’m sure they’re trapping me here for another crack at me, but I’m not giving it to them. I’ll scale the Wall first.” She sipped the coffee, ignoring the grit.

Jürgen stared at her. “I saw a report on West Berlin TV the other day. A dozen people make it over every month.”

“I was joking. I’ve heard the shots at night. I am getting out of here and then I’m leaving Germany for good. The stakes are too high. Please understand that if you tell anyone I’m here, your words could translate into my death.”

“They talk to me from time to time, you know. I don’t like it, but what can you do?”

“Try not to talk to them until after I’m gone. Please.”

“You know how it is.” He bowed his head, paused and then pushed himself back from the table. “I’ll make you up a bed on the divan. Stay as long as you like. I have a friend I trust who’s a doctor. If you want-”

“Thanks. Some ribs are cracked, maybe broken, but there’s not much anyone can do for that.”

“You’re very pale.”

“I can’t risk it.”

“I’ll get you a sports bandage and something for the pain. It’ll help you sleep, too.”

“That package I left with you before we went to the embassy. I need it.”

“It’s somewhere in my office. The library’s closed at this hour, but I could get it if you really need it.”

“Get it to me right after work-five at the latest should give me enough time. I know a call to the West is out of the question, so could you send a telegram to Hakan?” She picked up a pen and scrawled on the back of an envelope.

Happy Birthday. Weather bad here. Hope your day is clear. Love MP.

She shoved it across the table to Jürgen and hoped Hakan hadn’t again disappeared on another wild date.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

LUBYANKA (KGB HEADQUARTERS), MOSCOW

Colonel Bogdanov entered the new KGB building through the main entrance on Dzerzhinsky Square, masking her true emotions as she had learned to do in Party meeting after Party meeting. The palatial entrance with its towering marble columns, crystal chandeliers, plush red oriental carpets and mahogany paneling was too reminiscent of the opulence of tsarist and Stalinist designs for her taste. The illusion of grandeur only reinforced the feelings of omnipotence among the petty bureaucrats working within those walls. And she had seen too many suffer at their hands.

A few minutes later, she entered Stukoi’s outer office. The warm greeting from his secretary indicated she was anticipating another gift from Germany. Good.

“Pyatiletka, every time I see you, you look younger,” Bogdanov said. In truth, every time she saw her, she not only had aged, but had also added to her babushka physique.

“Did you get my cheese? The one with the peppercorns?” Pyatiletka said.

Bogdanov sat in the chair beside her desk and suddenly found herself looking up at the stumpy woman. She was certain Pyatiletka had sawed off a few inches from the chair legs so that she could tower over any visitors. “Any news for me?”

Pyatiletka took a deep breath, leaned closer to Bogdanov and spoke in hushed tones. “I hear that General Titov isn’t happy about your being reassigned away from his direct command. He threw quite a fit here a few days ago. I’d watch my back around him, if you know what I mean. He has family in high places. Remember what he did to Skorik.”

“How is he?”

“He was here a few weeks ago. He left Afghanistan, but it hasn’t left him. Sometimes I wonder what the point of this place is. What is the point? Everyone’s scurrying around, recruiting agents, stealing enemy documents. We’re all up to here in information.” The fat of her upper arm sloshed back and forth when she held her hand above her head. “And despite all of it, we only write reports of what our leaders want to hear. Now I was talking to a girl in the typing pool-I can’t say who-I think you understand. She says it happens to her all the time. She types up a report from one of our boys and it goes to his supervisor. Three days later the supervisor makes her retype it, only this time, things are all rosy: Socialism is on the march and the imperialists are cowering in fear. And that’s always the report with the distribution list for people at the top. I don’t know how anyone can know what’s really going on in the world from the whitewash that comes out of here.”

“That’s why Gorbachev has been trying-”

“Don’t get me started on Gorbachev.” Pyatiletka made a spitting sound. “You can’t buy anything right now on my salary. Speculators everywhere steal goods that are supposed to go to state stores and sell them for too much. They’ve siphoned everything away from the stores. In Stalin’s day, none of this would happen.” She wagged her plump finger.

Bogdanov dropped a package wrapped in white butcher’s paper onto her desk. She motioned with her head toward Stukoi’s office. “So, what’s the big boy up to lately?”

Pyatiletka shoved the German cheese into her drawer. “Do you think you could get me some bratwurst next trip?”

Bogdanov nodded.

Pyatiletka’s eyes darted back and forth and she made an exaggerated check for eavesdroppers. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Ever since you were here last, he’s been leaving at odd times. He won’t tell me what he’s up to. At first I thought he had swapped mistresses again, but I asked the other girls. Now, you didn’t hear this from me, but Zolotov, Karlov and Gasporov have all been unaccounted for at the same times.”

“I thought Stukoi despised Karlov.”

“And Titov hasn’t spoken to Gasporov in over ten years-until this week. But remember, you didn’t hear it from me.”

When Bogdanov entered Stukoi’s office, he greeted her, ignoring the ringing bank of telephones beside his desk. He motioned toward the sofa and walked over to join her. Bogdanov was surprised at the uncharacteristic engagement of her former mentor, who was famous for endless telephone conversations in the middle of scheduled meetings. Even when he was attentive, he was skimming field reports.

He wants something.

Whatever it was, she wouldn’t give him FedEx-not yet. All assets were disposable to him, and she didn’t want him making any decisions that might put the woman at further risk. Kosyk endangered her enough.

“You’ve generated significant interest around here.” A cigar dangled from his mouth as he spoke.

“I thought we were going to keep this very quiet.” Bogdanov studied his face, but couldn’t read him. He was too professional to let any hint slip that might confirm Pyatiletka’s suspicions.

“Tell me what our Germans are up to.”

“They’re attempting to use an American agent I’ve designated FedEx to move goods from here to Moscow. My working assumption is it’s some type of weapon, most likely American-built. What I’m not so sure about is why they’re using a courier unless it’s part of a scheme to blame the Americans. I wouldn’t be surprised if they plan on burning the agent to expose CIA involvement.”

Stukoi took a long drag from the cigar. “Assumptions, speculations. What do you know?”

“The Germans are going to run into difficulties controlling FedEx. She’s got a mind of her own and knows how to use it.”

“Sounds like some of the problems we’ve had controlling our agents-don’t get me started about problems with some of our immigrants to Israel. We help the goddamn Zionists get there and then, once they’re there, they thumb their big noses at us.” He tapped the cigar on the edge of the crystal ashtray.

“Kosyk didn’t exactly approach her with a soft touch. After she met with me, he had a long talk with her-at least a day long and counting. I’m assuming they wanted to know what we wanted with her.”

“You fool! And you’re speculating again. Don’t you know anything? How could you be so sloppy as to let them know we’ve approached FedEx?” He banged his fist on the coffee table and ashes toppled from his cigar. “Why did you have to screw it up?”

“I salvaged the situation. FedEx came to me in the embassy on an unrelated matter and requested a follow-up meeting. At that point, I knew they would assume I was running her. I chose a very public place for her to refuse to cooperate with us.”

“You took a big risk. Too big.”

“I trust my judgment. And now we have them convinced we’re not a threat.”

“Or at least that you didn’t turn their stubborn agent. You idiot, Bogdanov. Stupid moves like this are why you’ll never make full colonel.”

“FedEx is mine,” she blurted out and immediately regretted it. “I turned her.”

“Interesting. Get back to Berlin immediately and find FedEx after they let her go and make damn well sure she’s cooperating with them-and us. When you meet with Kosyk, tell him General Karlov sends his greetings. His Moscow garrisons will not be coming out in defense of Mr. Gorbachev.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

EAST BERLIN

Faith slept until noon, awoke long enough to stumble into the bathroom and then went back to bed. It hurt too much to breathe deeply, so she settled for short, shallow breaths. The stabbing pain was now intermittent. Mostly she ached.

She tossed and turned for hours, worried that Jürgen had gone to the Stasi. When her fear became strong enough to force her awake, she got up and dressed in his ex-wife’s clothes. At least now she had the costume to pass for an East German while she wandered the streets trying to devise a better escape plan. Then she heard Jürgen walk into the apartment. She checked outside the window for a fire escape, but the building’s architects didn’t plan on a fire. She took a deep breath and went into the living room.

He carried flowers and an assortment of groceries she recognized from Delikat, the state-run chain selling Western and high-quality Eastern goods at inflated prices. She smiled and helped him carry the bundles into the kitchen.

Faith sat at the table and sipped a Vita-Cola. Over her years in the East, she had grown fond of the East German Coca-Cola imitation. She swished it in her mouth, savoring the full-bodied kola-nut flavor as her short fingernails plucked at the chartreuse label, working their way toward the bear logo. Jürgen tossed a parcel onto the table. She caught it before it slid into the squat bottle. Its seal was still intact.

“Thought I wasn’t going to find your stuff for a minute. I didn’t realize I collect so much in a day or two.”

“Thanks. So I take it no one came around asking about me.” Her throat had quickly recovered and it no longer hurt to talk.

“I have to disappoint.” Jürgen rifled through a cabinet, clanking pots. “Come to think of it, the cultural attaché, Medvedev, did call just as I was walking out the door. She wanted to follow up on our visit. She asked about you, if I’d seen you lately or knew how to reach you.”

She feigned indifference, although she wanted nothing more than Bogdanov’s help to get out of the East.

“I told her you always seemed to pop up at odd times.” Jürgen pulled a pot from the cabinet, reached inside and retrieved a roll of West German marks. He held his forbidden life savings in his left hand. “Maybe this can help you get out of here.”

“That’s so sweet of you, but you already brought me everything I need.” She patted the package.

Jürgen nodded and bent down to return his stash to its hiding place. “Medvedev is interested in arranging an exchange for me with my counterpart at the Lenin Library in Moscow. It’d be interesting to review how the new access criteria are formulated now under glasnost.”

“You mean how they make up new censorship guidelines? Fascinating.” Faith tuned out Jürgen’s discourse on censorship criteria while she mulled over Bogdanov’s intent. She had made it clear that she couldn’t help her in East Berlin, so why did she try to get information about her? Faith finally interrupted the monologue. “I don’t mean to be rude, but there are a few things I need to take care of before I can be on my way. I have an appointment in a couple of hours.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

“The less you know, the better off you are. Give me some time in private.”

“You need anything?”

“A flat surface, your brightest lamp and a magnifying glass, if you have one.”

“I’ve got one with my stamp collection. I’d offer you my desk, but I haven’t seen the surface in recent memory. Kitchen table okay? I’ll see what else I can find.”

Jürgen delivered a desk lamp and a scratched magnifying glass, then excused himself. She ripped into the package. It had seemed excessive when she assembled it, but now as she sat in East Berlin without her passport, it seemed minimal: a dog-eared French paperback, a plastic bag from Galeries Lafayette, an oversized European wallet, three train tickets, a blank East German transit visa and a cardboard box. She opened the wallet and counted the banknotes-five hundred dollars, fifteen hundred marks and three thousand francs. She hoped it would be enough.

She removed her new passport, République Française. Hakan had done a flawless job replacing Marie-Pièrre Charbonnier’s picture with hers. Madame Charbonnier was a few years older, but, given her recent experiences, she was certain she could pass.

The Berlin border guards would be on alert for her and several knew her by sight. It seemed ridiculous to take a roundabout route to get to the other side of town, but this was Berlin and the two parts of the city were worlds apart. She fanned out the Reichsbahn tickets purchased in the West: Hamburg, Praha and Warszawa. The frontier to West Germany was almost as tight as to West Berlin, and they would expect her to head West, so the Hanseatic city was out.

Security between Eastern Bloc countries was high, but not as severe as between East and West. She had considered Prague, then making her way to West Germany, but the Czechs were more Prussian than the East Germans and might cause trouble for her on their side.

On the Polish-German frontier, the focus was on political and economic smuggling, the emphasis shifting with the direction of the border traffic. Guards scrutinized arrivals from the East for any Solidarity or glasnost contaminants. Eastbound travelers to Poland were searched for East German consumer goods; chronic shortages of basic necessities in Poland ensured a thriving black market between the two countries. No one would expect her to head farther east to flee to the West. She selected the one-way ticket to Warsaw and shoved the rest aside for disposal.

The ticket, passport and money were useless without the appropriate East German visa and corresponding entry stamp. Hakan had already taken care of the Polish document-a business visa valid for the next three months. Faith wished he could have done the same with the East German one, but GDR transit visas were only issued on the day they were valid and they were only good for the expected length of the journey. The East Germans had high standards.

Hakan had assembled everything she needed to issue herself a visa into a cigar box. She prayed that the years of watching his meticulous work were enough. If only she had paid more attention to his tedious instructions.

She calculated her fictitious time of entry. The evening train would leave Bahnhof Zoo in West Berlin at 9:45 and in about ten minutes it would enter a secured area of the Friedrichstrasse station, where border guards processed the transit visas for travelers to Poland and beyond. Her entry time into the GDR would be twenty-two hundred hours-two hours away. She picked up the rubber stamp and studied it, admiring Hakan’s carving skill. The state seal of the GDR was in the upper left corner, an electric-train icon in the other. Faith needed to insert the date and hour into the middle of the rectangular stamp. She opened the box, unfolded a tissue paper packet marked TIME, and squinted to make out the rubber numbers he had sculpted for her.

The rubber-cement vial had glued itself shut. On the way to the sink she managed to twist it open. She scraped a toothpick against the brush to collect a small drop and dabbed it into the middle of the stamp. She turned the toothpick around and removed the excess. Pain zinged through her rib cage and she jumped. Holding her breath, she picked up the tiny number, flipped it backwards, and teased it into place. As she had seen Hakan do countless times, she held the stamp at eye level and checked the alignment. She shook each bottle of ink and twisted off the caps. She dipped a toothpick into the blue ink, smeared it on the lower third of the stamp and then repeated the process with red on the upper portion. She checked her fingers for splatters and stamped the passport, then the visa form.

With a flick of the razor blade, she scraped away the face of the rubber stamp, then dumped the shavings and the extra numbers into an ashtray. The flame of Jürgen’s lighter melted the evidence. Faith rolled it between her palms into a ball. She wished she could show it to Hakan, even though she knew her handiwork wouldn’t pass the master’s inspection. Fortunately he wasn’t a border guard working at a lonely outpost on the graveyard shift. She’d done a damn good job, under the circumstances.

The train rumbled into the East Berlin Hauptbahnhof just as Faith dashed up the concrete stairs as fast as she could, given her shooting pain. The wide green Soviet cars rolled by her, each displaying the state seal of the USSR. Destination signs hung on each one: PARIS, BERLIN, WARSZAWA, MOSKVA. Next came the Polish cars, but she waited for the more comfortable and cleaner Reichsbahn wagons. She held a second-class ticket, but would bribe her way into a first-class sleeper once in Poland. She climbed onto the train, favoring her right side, and searched for a seat.

The conductor blew his whistle and the train lurched forward. She steadied herself with the rail as she walked along. She passed by a cabin filled with Arab students. The odds were good they would be closely scrutinized and she didn’t want to risk any guilt by association. Two Polish women sat in the next cabin along with a young man reading a French travel guide to Krakow. A conversation in her weathered French was something to be avoided, so she went on until she found what she was looking for. In the next compartment a couple sat together on the side facing the direction of travel. From their clothes, hairstyles and demeanor, she knew she’d found what she was waiting for: a staid East German couple probably off to visit relatives who got stuck in Poland when the German border was shoved west after the war. She went inside and settled into the window seat, facing west as the train carried her deeper into the East.

A little before midnight, the train rolled into Frankfurt an der Oder-the other Frankfurt. Faith placed the French paperback on her lap. She took her passport from the plastic bag and crumpled the bag on the seat next to her with the French logo visible. She was Marie-Pièrre Charbonnier, a French national, on her way to see Warsaw. Nurturing her anger at the fictitious thieves who stole her purse and luggage in West Berlin, she sank further into character.

“Passport control.” A guard slid the door open. A metal case hung around his neck by a wide leather strap. A small shelf folded down from it like the display case of a 1950s cigarette girl.

“Passports, please.”

Faith handed him her documents.

He glanced at her picture and flipped through the pages until he found her handiwork. The officer pulled out his stamp, aligned it with the edge and pressed it against the passport. He unfolded the visa, stamped it and filed it in his case.

“Please.” He held the passport out to Faith.

“Merci.” She smiled but didn’t exhale. She wasn’t in Poland yet.

A second official entered the cabin. “Customs control. Your customs declaration, please.”

Merde.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

EMBASSY OF THE USSR, DEMOCRATIC BERLIN

The KGB technical support staff moved the antenna up and down along the walls of the cultural attaché’s office as if washing a window with a squeegee. Bogdanov noticed him pausing for a moment near a picture of Gorbachev joking with assembly-line workers. For months the cleaning crew had ignored the coat of filth along the frame, but in the few hours that Bogdanov was away in Moscow that morning, someone had been inspired to dust. The technician finished the wall and removed his headphones.

“The room’s clean.”

“Would you mind leaving your equipment behind? I’ll have it sent to you shortly,” Bogdanov said.

“I can’t. I’m responsible for it.”

“Since when is anyone around here responsible for anything? That’s an order.”

He set the device on the table. “I should stay in case you have any questions about how it functions.”

“Dismissed.”

The lieutenant left the room.

“What’s this all about?” Bogdanov’s assistant, Major Alexander Ivashko, tapped his pen on the cherry-wood desk.

Bogdanov held a finger in front of her lips and put on the earphones. She walked over to the print and moved the dial to the highest sensitivity setting, noting the low setting where the tech had left it. She waved the antenna over the corner of the frame. It shrieked. She yanked the earphones off and rubbed her ears. Even with the low sensitivity level the tech had used, the tone was unmistakable.

She removed the picture and found a tiny slit cut into the brown-paper backing. She ripped away the paper, furious someone was checking up on her. A transmitter was lodged in the corner of the frame. She plucked it out. Both the MfS and KGB used the Soviet-designed remote-listening device in their arsenals of tricks, but, with German perfectionism, the MfS had its own improved production line. She recognized its origins immediately.

Made in the USSR.

She dropped it into a cup, splashing stale coffee onto the desk. Without bothering to wipe up the spill, she donned the headphones again and swept the entire room. After her search yielded no additional eavesdroppers, she sat down in an armchair across from the major.

“Us or them?” Ivashko said.

“Who would ever have thought ’us or them’ would mean KGB or MfS?”

“I heard Titov was throwing bottles across the room when he found out you’re reporting directly to Moscow instead of to him. How’d you know the tech was lying?”

“Some of my dust was missing. And the tech jerked his head a little when he got the hit.”

“You think it’s Titov?”

“Probably, but I don’t want to get caught up in residency politics.” And she didn’t want to speculate with Ivashko that Stukoi might even be behind it. From now on, she’d trust no one. “Moscow wants us to find FedEx, fast. She can’t go directly to West Berlin from the East. She’s a known quantity. She’ll somehow get to West Germany and fly to West Berlin. We’ll catch up with her there. I want the officers assigned to both Tegel and Tempelhof to be on the lookout for her. Have them check the arrival manifests for the last couple days. Get them her photo, known aliases. And check with every hotel in West Berlin. Put your best surveillance team on the Turk she lives with. She’ll contact him and the Turk will take us to her.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

EAST GERMAN-POLISH BORDER

12:03 A.M., WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26

Faith sat on the bench in the stuffy train compartment staring at the seat numbers, feeling trapped. She hated herself for being so careless as to forget the customs-declaration form. The Berlin border guards never bothered with it and their complacency had lulled her into her own.

The customs official stood before her and repeated his request for her form.

Charbonnier. Je suis Madame Charbonnier. But the real Charbonnier wouldn’t understand the seriousness of her faux pas. So from that second on, neither did Faith.

“Rien à déclarer,” Faith said as she studied the hammer-and-compass state seal on his uniform’s aluminum buttons.

“This one,” the East German customs official said in heavily accented French and held up a declaration form.

“I have none.”

“You fill one out when you arrive in the GDR.”

“No, no. I have nothing like that. I filled out a card and paid five marks. The officer in Berlin gave me the visa. That was all.” She shook her head with stereotypical French indignity.

“Wait here.” The officer stepped into the hall and called his supervisor.

“So what do we have here?” the supervisor said in German.

“The Frenchwoman. She has no customs declaration.”

“What does she have with her?”

“I don’t know. She doesn’t have the form.”

“Find out what’s she’s got.”

The official turned to Faith and asked for her luggage in broken French.

“This is all.” She waved her hand over her plastic bag. “My valise and purse were stolen at Bahnhof Zoo in West Berlin. You can contact your colleagues there. I made a police report. There was no time to buy anything or I would have missed my train.”

The officer translated for the supervisor. The older man shook his head. “Tell her she should have gone shopping in the West when she had the chance.”

Exactly twenty-four hours after Faith had left Jürgen’s apartment, she arrived at the Hotel InterContinental in West Berlin-ten kilometers from where she started. She showered and crawled into bed. CNN International repeated a story about the environmental impact of last month’s Exxon Valdez oil spill, but she was too groggy to care yet too wired to sleep. Sometime the next morning, a persistent knock jarred her into consciousness. Every muscle in her body complained of its miserable existence as she jumped from the bed and fumbled with the hotel robe. She rushed across the room and pressed her ear against the door.

“Hey, it’s me. Open up,” Hakan said.

She unbolted the door and shielded herself from view behind it. Hakan squeezed through the crack in the doorway and then she locked the door. She slid her arms around him and didn’t let go even after she noticed her robe soaking up moisture from his drenched trenchcoat. She squeezed too tightly and sharp pain radiated from her ribs.

“You okay?” Hakan said.

“I’m going back to the States.” Her voice was weak.

“I’ve called the Interconti nonstop since the telegram. I haven’t been able to get any of my work done except your backlog. You know, I even considered going East to try to find you.”

“Really? You’d break your vow for me?”

“I said ’considered.’ ” He flashed a smile, but she didn’t return it.

“I would have given anything to have had you there a couple days ago. Your junior-counterfeiter’s kit was a lifesaver.”

“What can I say? You trained with the best. I do have some ideas about things I’ll add next time… if there is a next time.” Hakan placed his wet umbrella in the wastepaper basket beside the writing table and set a small suitcase on the floor. “How serious was it?”

She turned away from him and walked to the window. She pushed back the heavy drapes and peeked out. Sheets of rain nearly hid the bombed-out shell of the Gedenknis Kirche. She jerked the curtains shut before anyone could see her. “It’s over.”

“No way.”

“The goddamn Cold War’s gone hot on me, too hot. I can’t do it anymore. I’m getting out,” she said in a monotone.

“I never thought you’d come to your senses and, honestly, I don’t believe it. You can’t let go that easily. You’re an addict.”

“I just overdosed. I’m leaving Berlin and getting out of Germany and I don’t give a crap if I ever set foot on this screwed-up continent again.”

“I’ll never understand what you see in the whole communist mystique, but it’s what you do, who you are. It’s what you grew up with, for Christ’s sake-and I mean that literally and figuratively.”

“Then I’ll just have to join a twelve-step group to get over it. ’Hi. My name’s Faith. I’m a spy-a-holic. It’s been nine days since my last strip-search.’ ”

“This isn’t like you.”

“And it’s not like you to encourage me to stay in the game.”

“If I told you to get out, you’d jump right back in. I’ve had a lot of time to think since the telegram. At first I thought I should do whatever it took to get you to get out, but then I realized it would be a tragedy. You wouldn’t be you anymore. I’ve seen it before when people abandon their loves. It’s not pretty. Granted, I think it’s strange what you do, but it gives you life. Regular jobs drain it from you. You know what it’s like to have a zeal for your work and you won’t settle for less, but less is pretty much what’s out there.” He turned on a lamp beside the bed. “You also can’t stay in the dark like this.”

Faith squinted as she adjusted to the light. “I’m not as pathetic as it looks, holed up in a dark hotel room. I really was sleeping before you got here.” Faith ran her hand along the base of the desk lamp, gathering dust as her fingers searched for a switch.

Hakan disappeared into the bathroom and returned with a towel. “What would you do? You’re not the nine-to-five type.”

“I have a real doctorate from Michigan. I could become a real professor.”

“I can’t see you grading freshman papers and dreaming of the upcoming alumni tour you get to lead down the Ohio. Maybe during your lecture you’d get to drop a story or two about your last secret-police encounter-the big one that put you on the sidelines and sent you downriver with a bunch of geriatric donors.”

“The price is too high to stay in the game. They’ve threatened my life if I don’t cooperate and do a run to Moscow.”

“That’s old news.” He mopped the beads of water from the valise, turning the towel brown as he wiped through strata of dirt.

“The KGB thinks the Stasi’s likely to kill me even if I do cooperate. They offered to help, but it’s all too much.”

“Not for the Faith Whitney I know. That’s enough to pique her interest.” He leaned into the bathroom doorway and threw the soiled towel onto the floor. “What did they do to you?”

“Held me for days of questioning and dumped me in a park-without my glasses or my passport.”

“That should have been enough to get you hot and bothered. So why aren’t you plotting the overthrow of communism or some other way to pull their pants down? They did something else to you, didn’t they? Look at me and tell me nothing else happened.”

Faith returned to the window and glanced outside. She closed the dusty curtains, but held on to them in silence. After a minute she spoke. “I can’t go up against the entire Stasi alone.”

“You have before. And I thought you said it seemed like only a small group or cell or gaggle or whatever they’re called.”

“It’s a handful at best. They definitely want to keep it contained.”

“So it’s you up against a couple of secret agents and the KGB volunteered to help. If it weren’t against my religion, I’d put my money on you.”

“That’s sweet of you, but it’s time to roll up shop for a while. Set me up with American papers, someone not very well traveled, no Middle East, no communist stamps. I want to go through US customs without anyone looking at me twice. If I need to get a message to you, I’ll go through Bahadir. Just make sure he knows not to tell you anything over the phone.”

“He knows your standard procedure-gets quite a charge out of it.”

“You’re going to have to take me seriously on this one.” She peeked out the window. She didn’t recognize anyone or anything suspicious, but the rain blurred everything. “I’m not paranoid. It might interest you to know the Stasi has a camera in our kitchen. And you were almost ready to commit me when I first insisted the phone was tapped.”

“What right do they have to spy on me? I’m calling the Verfassungsschutz.”

“And tell them that the Stasi is observing you eat your Rice Krispies? Snap, crackle, pop.”

“They can’t do that. This is West Berlin-not their Berlin.”

“It’s all their Berlin. I’ve got to get out of here.”

“What the hell do they want with our kitchen?”

“Forget about the kitchen. What I’m worried about is your study. I don’t want them to see what you’re doing for me. Look around and even check the smoke detectors I brought over from the States, though I doubt the installers ever stray from their usual tricks.”

Hakan opened the suitcase. Usually he was an exacting packer, but the clothes were wadded and shoved together. Faith could tell he had left the flat immediately when he knew she was back in town. She felt his concern in every wrinkle.

“I have a new identity for you-Jutta Menning. Oh, I nearly forgot; this arrived on the doorstep for you yesterday evening.” Hakan dropped a small package onto the crumpled bedspread. The distinctive coarse gray paper bound with twine screamed “Made in the GDR.”

“They won’t leave me alone.” She tugged at the string. Hakan pulled a knife from his pocket and sliced it open. A glass case was accompanied by an envelope with her name typed on it. She flipped the case over and read the gold inscription: MADE FOR KARL-ZEISS-JENA. She slid the glasses onto her face. “The Stasi interrogates me for days, threatens my life, dumps me in a bog in the middle of the night, but goes to the trouble of finding a glass case and a nice one at that. Go figure.” She pulled her glasses off and held them up to the lamp for inspection. “They even cleaned the lenses.”

“They might be commies, but they’re still Germans.”

“After this, I’m going back to my contacts. Did you bring them?”

“In your cosmetic bag. Faith, look at me and tell me what they did to you.”

She glanced at him and then turned away, shaking her head. He put his hand on her shoulder. She slowly turned her head back to him. Dean Reed. “They held me under the Spree.”

“That could make you really ill. You didn’t swallow any, did you?”

“I never swallow.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Hakan smiled, exposing his mouth full of gold fillings.

“I didn’t think they were going to drown me at first because they need me, but when the water got into my lungs, I thought it was over.” Her affect was flat. “I just went through Warsaw and both Frankfurts to go a couple of blocks across this schizophrenic city.”

“I’m not responsible for your poor sense of direction.” Hakan paused while he studied her eyes. “Come on, laugh for me. You’re starting to scare me, and I’m not talking about the Stasi stuff.”

“Nothing like a near-wrongful-death experience to shake you up a bit,” Faith said.

“I could handle it if you were agitated, but if we hooked you up to a heart monitor right now, we’d see a flatline. When did you start feeling this way?” Hakan hoisted a suitcase onto the bed. The leather trim was worn to a slick, shiny finish.

“Don’t go crawling into my head,” Faith said, then paused to think. “I guess I kind of shut down when I made the decision to quit.”

“Think the two are related?”

“Back off, Sigmund.” She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. She looked him in the eyes for the first time that morning. “You might be on to something. Before the decision I was angry and terrified, but I felt alive, very alive. You can’t imagine the thrill of facing death and beating it, beating them. I realize it sounds warped.”

“At least you’re aware how sick it is.”

“Thanks. I was in the Lufthansa office in Warsaw when I came to terms with the fact that it was time to move on; things had become too dangerous. Since then I’ve felt as empty as the dead zone between Berlins.”

“I’m going to hate myself for pointing this out, but you’re quitting before you get your payoff. You passed their initiation test-whatever it was about.”

“They had to believe I wasn’t working for the KGB.”

“And you convinced them of that now?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Have you thought of any other way to find your father?”

“Even if I could bring myself to ask my mother and if she’d tell me everything she knows-both highly unlikely-she’d never know how to find him now, not thirty years later. Cooperating with Schmidt is the only way unless the KGB comes through for me, but they’ll only help me if I work with Schmidt.” She sighed.

“All you have to do for him is a Moscow run?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you?”

“You know I’ve done it all my life.”

“Then do it. Find out about your father and don’t ever mess with them again.” Hakan watched her and after a pause he spoke. “So, how are you going to do it?”

“I was thinking about using the Estonian mafia through the Gulf of Finland as a backup plan.”

“I thought you were retiring from the business.”

“It’s not a business-it’s a calling.” Faith smiled.

“More like an obsession. Welcome back.”

Someone knocked at the door. Faith jumped. She glanced at Hakan, who shrugged. He stood to answer it. Faith fled into the bathroom.

“For Frau Charbonnier.”

“Go ahead and put them on the desk.” A pause. “It’s okay. You can come out now.”

“What was that all about?” Faith walked over to the bundle on the desk. She folded back the paper. Roses. A dozen long-stemmed red roses. How could he have been so careless to call attention to her-especially now? Hakan had never given her flowers before, and it had been too long since someone else had sent her any. The damage was done, so she might as well feign appreciation. As she picked them up, a pink envelope fluttered to the worn carpet. Hakan sprang from the bed to retrieve it and handed it to her.

“They’re lovely. Thank you.”

“You’d kill me if I did something that reckless-not that I even thought about it.”

“Then who the hell knows Marie-Pièrre Charbonnier?” She threw the roses onto the desk and ripped open the envelope. “It’s in French.” She translated it for Hakan:

My dearest Marie-Pièrre!

Welcome home! I tried to send birds of paradise, but they only had roses.

A friend of your father.

“What’s this all about?” Hakan walked over to the desk and studied the note over Faith’s shoulder.

“If the KGB knows, the Stasi might know, too,” Faith said.

“I don’t get it.”

“Bird of paradise-birds-I went bird-watching with a KGB agent on Saturday in East Berlin. That’s what ticked off the Stasi, but I’ll spare you the long story.”

“What’s that about a friend of your father?”

“There’s got to be something else here, some kind of message. Maybe they have something for me about Daddy.” She held the note up to the light, but couldn’t see anything.

“You’re not looking for some kind of invisible ink, are you?”

“They really do that kind of stuff-microdots hidden behind stamps on letters, secret radio transmissions, dead-letter drops. The East Germans sometimes mark passports with secret stamps that you can only read under a UV light. We’ll find a message if we can get it under a blacklight. You followed all the precautions coming here?”

“I swear. I thought it was wacko at the time, but I’m sure no one knows I’m here. And with this rain you can’t see more than a couple of meters ahead, anyway.” Hakan handed her the envelope from the Stasi. “Don’t forget this.”

Faith ripped it open and shook it until her American passport fell onto the bed. “I’m not sure when it’ll be safe enough to travel on it again.” She flipped through it. “Here’s my entry stamp from the day I last went over.” Faith lowered herself onto the hard bed, staring agape at the document.

“What’s wrong?

Faith pressed the passport shut and shook her head, engaged in an internal dialogue.

“They put an exit stamp in it: Frankfurt an der Oder, 25 April. They knew. I’ve got to get out of this hotel before they find me.”

“You got through, so don’t beat yourself up.”

“Could be they didn’t realize it at the time, but did later when they reviewed the logs. I forgot the customs declaration. I’m too sloppy, Hakan.”

“Where are you going now?”

“Hotel Hamburg. And do try to extract that message for me as soon as possible.”

“Why does it matter? You’re really sure you’re not calling it quits?”

“I have to find out about my father. What if he really is still alive? I need to know what the KGB’s trying to tell me.”

“Long-stemmed red roses are a clear enough message.”

“I thought they were just a cover.”

“He could have sent up dry cleaning or something-not long-stemmed red roses. Faith, don’t go get yourself in trouble.”

“Hakan, are you jealous?”

“I’m quite happy with our friendship, as is. We both know that when it comes to relationships you’re like throwing a match into gasoline.”

“That’s not fair. I was engaged for years and I still care for him. I admit that, after him, it’s been rocky. And, for your information, the KGB agent isn’t a he. It’s a she.”

“Is that enough to stop you?”

“You are jealous.” She stepped toward him, but he held up his hand.

“It’s nothing. I’ll contact you this afternoon when I figure out the message.”

“Thanks; I couldn’t do it without you.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Hakan closed the suitcase.

Faith picked up the envelope that her glasses and passport had arrived in. She started to throw it away, but first checked inside. A small piece of paper had escaped earlier notice. It was the right size. Her heart raced. Please be the note from Daddy. She tipped the envelope toward the light and sighed. It wasn’t her note. They’d kept her wallet with it inside. The Stasi had taken her only connection to her father. She closed her eyes for a moment and remembered the bold strokes. Her father was definitely a selfassured gentleman.

She removed the piece of paper, read the message and looked up at Hakan. “The Stasi’s scheduled the hand-off for tomorrow. Says here I can cooperate or they’ll hunt me down. You know, the KGB’s notes are a lot classier.” She folded it, running her fingernail along the crease. “I think it’s time to call an old friend and ask for help.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

MFS HEADQUARTERS, DEMOCRATIC BERLIN-LICHTENBERG

THURSDAY, APRIL 27

Rather than use the cramped elevator, Kosyk climbed to the second floor of the imposing gray monolith on Normannenstrasse, preparing his progress report for Mielke. The MfS chief had initially wanted no contact except a signal before the mission went down. Now he demanded a face-to-face meeting. How typical of him to pry where he didn’t belong. He left the stairway and marched into Mielke’s office.

The secretary showed Kosyk into the MfS chief’s office suite and instructed him to wait in the trophy room. The walnut-paneled room was stuffed with the secret police chief’s treasures. Scattered throughout were dozens of figurines of Lenin in every imaginable position: Lenin shaking his fist; Lenin wagging his finger; Lenin pointing into the air. The older Karl Marx was more sedate, preferring to sit at a desk or stand with arms at his side. Kosyk knew that Mielke kept an even larger number of Stalin figurines hidden from public scrutiny. He’s a boy playing with dolls.

Overshadowing the toys in quantity and originality were scores of gifts from friendly secret-police organizations. The Jamahariya Security Organization had commissioned a portrait of Colonel Qaddafi crafted from tiles looted from a mosaic in an ancient Roman villa near Tripoli. A jeweled sword right out of the Arabian Nights hung on the wall in honor of the close ties between the MfS and Saddam’s Mukhabarat. A more modest handhammered copper plate with Arabic inscriptions from the South Yemeni Ministry for State Security thanked the MfS for its extensive technical assistance. Kosyk seethed. The plate should rightfully hang in his office. He was the one who engineered the transformation of that remote half-nation teetering on the edge of the Arabian Peninsula into the world’s foremost training ground for international terrorists.

After an indignant half-hour wait inside the manifestation of Mielke’s ego, the secretary reappeared and took him deeper into the suite. He was surprised to find not only Mielke, but Honecker and several of his most trusted allies. When he entered the room, all discussion stopped. Willi Stoph smashed his cigar into the nearest ashtray.

Kosyk knew he was superior to the most powerful men in his country, but they neglected to recognize it with a Politburo seat. If they wouldn’t reward his genius, someday they would be forced to acknowledge his power. He had access to their every dirty little secret. He knew that Honecker wore only garments from the West and had GDR seamstresses replace the imperialist tags with MADE IN GDR labels. He knew about Erika the masseuse. He knew which of Honecker’s trusted colleagues had made a secret play to oust him, but had failed to gain Soviet backing. He knew that Mielke popped amphetamines to get himself going, then barbiturates to bring himself back down. Kosyk shook each Politburo member’s hand and smiled, not out of social grace, but because he knew.

But he didn’t know enough-not yet.

Kosyk took a seat in one of the high-backed, royal-blue chairs. Honecker looked up at him. “Well, report.”

“Operation Friendship is progressing well. I’ve recruited assets trained by the American special forces. They’ll be inserted into Moscow as tourists. I’m in the process of arranging for the transfer of the armaments.”

“And our friends?”

“They suspect nothing. The bulk of the residency here is occupied with some new information I arranged to be shared with the First Chief Division about members of the Second Division clandestinely meeting with Turkish intelligence. I’ve also arranged for one of the Second Division’s informants to give them additional information about suspected ties between the Russian mafia in West Berlin and some members of the First Division. If I understand my internal KGB politics correctly, which I do, the chase after one another is now their highest priority. They’re too occupied to concern themselves with my shop.”

“Keep it that way. Is it running on time? Will we have something to celebrate on International Workers’ Day?”

“Naturally. It is my project, isn’t it?”

“Plans have developed since we last spoke. We’re undertaking an operation in Berlin designed to coincide with the Soviet leadership vacuum. The West won’t intervene because of upheaval in Moscow, since they’ll understand that the Soviets didn’t have the intent to begin the next world war the same day their leader was assassinated. They’ll perceive that the action was ours alone, but they won’t move against us because they understand an attack upon us is the same as one upon the entire Warsaw Treaty Organization. Before our friends have a chance to stop us, we will have united our capital.”

“Jawohl!” the chair of the Council of Ministers Willi Stoph said.

All heads turned to Stoph, unaccustomed to spontaneity in a group whose advanced age and boredom with running a Soviet satellite had long ago sedated their meetings. Kosyk was more astonished with Honecker’s leadership, since he usually ran meetings like a disinterested chairman of the board, counting the days until he stepped down into retirement or until senility eased the tedium.

“May I speak openly?”

“No. It has already been decided at the highest levels. In less than four days, Greater Berlin will be ours.”

And the GDR will be mine.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

WEST BERLIN

Faith emerged from the U-Bahn at Nollendorfplatz later that evening and zipped around puddles on the sidewalk, unsure that she should be accepting the woman’s invitation for a drink. Hakan had exposed the paper to ultraviolet light and extracted a message from Tatyana-Bogdanov, or whatever her name was. She warned that Faith’s cover identity had been blown and it would only be a short matter of time before the Stasi found her at the hotel. The note also included the place and time for them to rendezvous, but gave no specific directions. Hakan knew the Berlin club scene well enough to get Faith to the correct neighborhood, and a cabdriver directed her to the right doorway and buzzer. Like many chic clubs in Berlin, no sign marked Cornuta’s entrance. She doubted that would make it any harder for the Stasi to find her there in flagrante delicto with the KGB.

A bouncer cracked open the door, frisked her with her eyes and let her in. Faith’s vision slowly adjusted to the muted light in the achromatic club. Whereas East Berlin shunned color for variants of gray, West Berlin abandoned it altogether. Everyone was dressed in black. A woman in a sequined evening dress played a baby grand piano and sang classic cabaret songs from the twenties. A cloud of smoke churned, wending its way around the patrons until its fingers encircled Faith, coating her freshly bathed skin. Stares of women touched her every curve as if sketching a contour drawing. As a nonsmoker, she preferred the stares.

She needed to keep a low profile, but knew everyone was studying her, wondering why she was walking among them. They could tell she wasn’t one of them. She turned toward the exit and spotted her. The woman sat at the end of the bar, smoking a cigarillo and laughing with the bartender. With her deliberate gestures she projected a sexy air of confidence. She wore a sleek short jacket without a lapel, a silk V-neck with a plunging neckline, and tight slacks.

As Faith neared the door, the cool evening air brushed her cheeks and she remembered the fingers caressing her face when she had steadied the binoculars. Faith looked back over her shoulder at her. What if Bogdanov really did know something about her father? Faith spun around, navigated the crowd and walked up behind the KGB agent. Faith shouted a greeting over the loud music and ordered vodka, neat. Both women watched silently as the bartender poured the drink. Faith picked up the shot glass, nodded to her and mouthed, “Na zdorove.” Faith slid a five-mark coin onto the bar and they moved to a more private corner.

For several minutes the two women sat, staring at each other until Faith broke the silence. “I don’t know if I should trust you, Colonel Bogdanov.”

“Why don’t you call me Zara? Sorry about the Tatyana cover.”

“Is Zara your real name?”

“It’s as real as any.”

“It’s not a Russian name, is it?”

“Actually, it comes from the Arabic for ‘flower.’ But in my case it’s Italian. My great-grandmother was Swiss-Italian. She met my great-grandfather when he was living in exile in Zurich before the revolution.”

“Nice legend.” Faith smiled. “Back to business, Zara. I don’t know if I can trust you.”

“It seems to me that you’ve already made that decision or you wouldn’t be here. Now why did you decide to come?”

Faith held her gaze and flirted, hoping she could hide the intensity of her interest in her father. As a trader, Faith knew the price always went up when the other party sensed desire. “I followed my passion for all things unique, exceptional.”

“So you decided you do want the chess set? I have located the one you’re looking for,” Zara said.

“ ‘The Reds and the Whites?’ You really do know how to turn a girl on.”

An anorexic waitress interrupted them to take their drink orders. She sported a studded leather collar that would have made a pit bull proud. They ordered drinks.

“To be quite honest,” Faith lied, “up until some roses arrived in my hotel room, I was on my way back to the States-ready to walk away from the East.”

“You’re not now?”

“I don’t know. For the last several days, all I’ve thought about is getting away from the whole East-West mess. Do you know what I’ve been through? I’ve been kidnapped, held for days of questioning. Have you ever been tortured-held underwater and then yanked up just before you drown, only to answer the same goddamn questions they’ve been asking for days? I was dumped over there without any papers. I needed your help then.”

“No, you didn’t. You got out on your own. If they’d found out I’d helped you, they would have liquidated you.”

“Believe me, I know.” Faith stared at the steel chains around the waitress’ neck as she slid the two brandy snifters onto the small round table and placed a glass of mineral water in front of Faith.

“If it means anything to you, I didn’t sleep for days. I knew they had picked you up and I knew it was because we had been seen together. I could only guess what they were doing to you.”

“Come on. This is business for you. You don’t think twice whenever some agent you’re running gets picked up for questioning. You probably even knew they were going to do that.”

“Faith, rest assured, you’re very personal for me. Remember, I chose to work with you myself after you came to my office. I usually don’t work the field. You can’t imagine how relieved I was when our Warsaw office reported a probable sighting of you boarding a Lufthansa plane to Frankfurt.”

“So why’d you send the roses?” Faith sniffed the cognac, then took a sip and savored it in her mouth.

“To lure you here. I wanted to see you again.”

“Did you expense them?”

“That’s not a fair question.”

“Yes, it is. Who paid for the flowers-you or the KGB?” Faith set the glass down.

“I’m a Soviet official posted in East Berlin, paid in worthless rubles. How would I ever get the hard currency on my own to send someone flowers in the West? Everything I do in the West has to go on my expense account and has to be written up as if it’s official state business-regardless of whether it is or not. That’s how the system works. And I don’t think it’s all that different from capitalist businesses.”

“It wasn’t a polite question. Access to Western currency is an uncomfortable subject, but I wanted to know.”

“I want to know how you felt when you saw them.”

“Irritated. I thought they were from Hakan, and I couldn’t believe he would be so sloppy.”

“And when you realized they were from me?”

“Maybe I felt a little less perturbed.” Faith grinned and tilted her head. “Thank you. They were lovely. And the note warning me to leave the hotel was appreciated. After I got your flowers, I was suspicious they’d find me. So I moved before we deciphered the message.”

“Suspicion is one of your biggest allies right now. You’re going to have to trust your instincts.”

“If I rely on instincts around you, I’ll get myself in big trouble.” The alcohol eased Faith into the mood of the club, and she liked it more than she wanted to. She missed flirting and decided she needed to treat herself to it more often. The practice couldn’t hurt, even if it was with a woman.

“You’re in big trouble right now.”

“I know.”

They looked into each other’s eyes. Zara leaned forward, but Faith turned away at the last minute. Zara’s lips met her cheek.

“So, you want to tell me about it? What have I gotten myself into?” Faith said.

“Right now, they’re not going to do anything to you, unless they know you’re in contact with me. They’re searching for you and we believe it’s because they’re ready for you to transport.”

“It’s going down tomorrow.”

“So they do know you’re here.”

“They took a guess. They dropped off a package with my glasses and passport at the apartment in care of Hakan. The bastards kept my purse, but a note was stuck in my passport.”

“Do you know what they want?”

“More or less.”

“And you’re not going to tell me?”

Faith pushed her hair back out of her face. “I don’t know how it would help me at this point. I don’t even know if I’m going to do it. Like I said, until those roses showed up, I was on my way to the States.” Faith tinkered with the time line.

“A few flowers were enough to prevent you from leaving?”

“They were enough to get my attention. To make me think about what makes me feel alive-about where my passions lie.”

“And where is that?”

“You tell me. You’ve studied me.”

“Let me see.” Zara rested her head on her hands. Loose curls fell across her forehead, as if her hair were relaxing along with her. “Faith Whitney, the passionate smuggler. She delights in risk-that is, risk she believes she has some control over. She doesn’t like feeling out of control. But she gets an incredible high playing on the edge between control and chaos. Now, in her personal relationships, it’s a little different. As long as the risk is there, she enjoys it. When things start to settle down and become predictable, under control, she gets bored and moves on. So are you really going to abandon the one fulfilling relationship in your life?”

“Don’t you think you’re coming on a bit too strong? I hardly know you. And I don’t know what kind of intel you have on me, but I’m not a lesbian. I have impeccable heterosexual credentials. So you’re not exactly the one fulfilling relationship in my life.”

“I meant with the East, not me.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s the one fulfilling relationship in my life. I’ve had others.” Faith picked up her glass and pressed it against her lips.

“And I understand you abandoned that one.”

“We’re still close. I just couldn’t see myself trapped in a traditional marriage at the time.” Faith sipped the cognac. “I love what I do and I need my freedom. I don’t want to give it up, but I don’t want to die, either.”

“What would you do if you quit smuggling?”

“If I couldn’t play with the East, I’d find other playmates. There are a lot of markets in the world and even more governments that restrict free trade.”

Zara signaled the waitress for another drink. “Seriously, what would you do?”

“Like I said, there are a lot of opportunities for those willing to take the risk, but I wouldn’t touch most of them. What can I say? I’m too ethical for my own good. I’d never trade arms, and even so I understand it’s a tough market to break into. Drugs are out of the question. I’d probably go for antiquities. The thrill of the hunt would still be there, even if Third World governments aren’t as fun to mess around with as you guys.”

“I have a difficult time seeing you get excited over Greek vases.”

“I was thinking more like Khmer ankle bracelets, but your point’s well taken. I’d die of boredom.” Faith sipped her drink. The cognac took the edge off her surroundings. “The East is where I belong. I’ve flirted with the Stasi and KGB all my life. It’s a love-hate relationship, but, as you pointed out, it’s maybe the best relationship I’ve got.”

“So you’re telling me you’re in.”

“Depends. What have you got for me?”

“Your mother’s file covering the year and a half before your birth is sealed.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Whatever happened back then must still matter to someone with the authority to block access. I also tried to look at our copies of the MfS files from that period, but it was the same thing. I’m working back channels, but I can’t make any promises other than to do my best.”

“I think we can come to a mutually agreeable arrangement.”

“How far I can go with the Moscow storefront depends upon what you can offer. Right now we know the MfS is running a black op and taking great care to conceal it from us, but that’s about it. That’s not worth much more than assurances we’ll help you out as much as possible.”

“What happened to the import-export business in Moscow, permission to scour the countryside for antiques and all of that?”

“It’s possible, but the compensation depends upon the value of the project. And that depends upon the Germans.”

“I’m not comfortable entering into an agreement without first nailing down the terms, but I usually know what I’m peddling.”

Zara patted Faith’s hand. “You’re going to have to trust me. I promise you I’ll do my best to secure you the maximum honorarium.”

“I don’t doubt you will.” Faith rolled her hand from under Zara’s and ran her index finger along its back, exploring the ridges and valleys of her knuckles. She was aware the alcohol was helping her blunder in a dangerous direction, but permitted herself the sensuality of the moment.

“Before you distract me too much, you need to tell me everything you know about what they’re planning,” Zara said.

Faith sensed something feline about Zara. She suspected she could be purring on her lap one minute, scratching her the next. Faith prided herself on being able to pet neurotic cats, knowing just when to jerk away to avoid the claws. Faith moved her hand away from Zara, revoking her sensual liberties. “They want me to move something from Berlin to Moscow and they want it done quietly.”

“To Moscow? Your price went up.”

“Substantially.”

“Do you know what it is?”

“All I know is they want it done quickly-there’s a forty-eight-hour window before they start hunting me down if I don’t deliver. I’ll bargain for more time when I receive the item, but I don’t have the impression they’re too flexible. I also got the sense it’s an important piece of a bigger puzzle they don’t want associated with the GDR.”

“When’s the hand-off?”

“Tomorrow-somewhere between Checkpoint Charlie and the Reichstag. Now I’ve given you something. I expect something in return.” Faith forced down several gulps of water to dilute the alcohol.

“We don’t know what they’re planning, but it gets our attention anytime the man you know as Schmidt gets involved in a project. You do know who he is?”

Faith shook her head.

“Kosyk, Major General Gregor Kosyk of the MfS.”

“Sorry.”

“You know of Markus Wolf?”

“The spymaster who was behind infiltrating Willy Brandt’s cabinet and stuff like that.”

“Kosyk is more dangerous. Wolf is a traditional spy. He runs agents who use proven methods-usually sex-to place informants in high governmental positions in the West. Kosyk-your Schmidt-is from the dark side of the business. He believes the future of espionage isn’t with cloak-and-dagger, but terror. He made his name in seventy-two in Munich. He arranged contacts for Black September to get the weapons into the Olympic Village. There were two additional terrorists in that mission the West Germans never knew about, and Kosyk got them out through the GDR. He’s fostered the Red Army Faction in West Germany-sort of adopted them once Baader and Meinhof were apprehended. Remember when they blew up the Lufthansa jumbo and the other planes in the desert? He helped with the training in Yemen. He’s behind the GDR’s support for Carlos the Jackal, Abu Daoud, Abu Nidal, among others. Recently, he worked with the Libyans on the bombing of La Belle.”

“The Americans haven’t been able to definitively pin that on anyone, have they?”

“Reagan bombed Tripoli over it, but they haven’t been able to hold anyone legally responsible. Your government loves those show trials in The Hague-a legacy of Nuremberg, I suppose. Anyway, Kosyk reports directly to Mielke and has his own small group of operatives. It appears only a few in the Politburo know what’s going on.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

“It gets worse. Kosyk’s funds do come from the Stasi, and all the Stasi’s resources are at his disposal, but for practical purposes Kosyk controls his own black organization.”

“A boutique spy shop?” Faith said.

“You should feel honored.”

“I get the impression Kosyk isn’t well respected in the business.”

“I’m from the old school, where you use only as much muscle as necessary and you don’t associate with terrorists. In my book, Kosyk is a terrorist.”

“You make me feel better and better every minute, girl.”

“That’s my intention.” Zara slipped her hand behind Faith’s head and caressed her hair.

“I warned you, I’ve flirted with the KGB all my life, but I won’t go all the way.”

“You’re hardly a virgin. And I’d say you just got knocked up by the Stasi.”

“It was forced. And I’m not easy.”

“Nothing about Faith Whitney is easy.”

“Zara, I think we could be friends, but not like you want, especially not now.” Faith moved away. She threw her head back with the last gulp of cognac. “Now I’ve had a few drinks, I admit that I’m flattered, even a little turned on, and very scared-and I don’t mean scared because of the lesbian stuff. But I am disappointed in you. A honey pot to lure an agent into service is the oldest trick in the book.”

“You’re alone against the resources of the entire intelligence apparatus of the GDR. They’ll kill you unless you do what they want, and they’ll probably dispose of you even if you cooperate. The KGB has offered help and protection, and all we ask is to be kept informed about what the MfS is up to.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

STUMP NECK, MARYLAND, USA

Max Summer molded enough plastic explosive to bring down an airliner into the shell of a Sony radio. His thumb sunk a blasting cap into the doughy substance and then he twisted its wires into a receiver. He taped the receiver to the radio and then tossed it to the young Arab.

The Arab slipped it between a faded pair of jeans and a University of Oklahoma sweatshirt. Faded USDA inspection stickers and airline-security markers from international flights were the only clues to its owner’s identity. He closed the suitcase and shoved it inside a Pan Am 747 cargo container. It blended into the Samsonites and American Touristers.

The young man secured the cargo container and signaled to clear the area. They drove a short distance away. “Fire in the hole.” Summer flipped a switch on a radio transmitter.

An intense flash and the container was gone. A loud clap roared through the Maryland woods and the ground trembled. Toothbrushes, clothes and twisted metal rained down while a high-speed camera snapped pictures at five hundred frames per second. Lieutenant Commander Max Summer and Special Agent Maria Fuentes strolled toward the debris.

“C packs a wallop, doesn’t it?” Summer said. “I’d say it was enough to bring down Pan Am 103.”

“Who says these tests have anything to do with Maid of the Seas?” the FBI agent said.

“Doesn’t take a special agent to figure out what’s going on when the FBI sends me a semi with Pan Am cargo containers and wants me to blow them up.” Summer turned to the half-dozen enlisted men assisting the R & D department of the Naval Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technology Center. “I want everything picked up and put into this bin. You’ve got ten minutes. Make me happy in five. Go to it.” He turned back toward the FBI agent. “You need to keep in mind this shows how much damage a given amount of C-4 can do to a filled cargo container. My understanding is that it isn’t that easy to come by for international terrorists. If it was C-4, you should’ve picked up some microscopic markers called taggant that’ll show you what production line it came from. But I’m betting they used Semtex.”

“The New York Times ran a story that both our analysis and Scotland Yard’s came out positive for Semtex,” Fuentes said.

“Before you came down here this morning, I checked with a buddy in Defense Intelligence who knows a little more about Semtex. Both it and C are made of pretty much the same stuff-PETN and RDX-but the yield is really going to depend on the formulas. He couldn’t give me any blast-yield conversions, but he said it varies a lot with Semtex. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the usual slipshod commie quality control or because they have different types for different purposes, but-”

“They do have different types. Semtex-H is a terrorist favorite. The Libyans bought a ton and a half of it from the Czechs a couple of years ago. That story’s also been in the Times.”

“My point being, just because we’re able to demonstrate eight ounces of C-4 were enough to do the job doesn’t mean that eight ounces of Semtex-H-or whatever designation-would do the same amount of damage. Unless this is taken into account, we’ve just wasted our time. Not that blowing things up is ever really a waste of time.” He smiled, revealing his perfectly straight white teeth. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy you brought us the containers. Blowing up luggage is a nice change of pace from old ordnance.”

“I want a few more tests with four, six and ten ounces.”

“You got it.”

A Dodge Ram screeched to a halt in front of the commander and a yeoman jumped out. “Sir, I received a phone call for you about five minutes ago. It was a civilian. She said it was a family emergency. She’d call back in an hour.”

“She say who she was?”

“No, sir, we got cut off. One thing, though, the connection was bad. There was kind of a delay, the kind like I used to get when I was stationed at Subic Bay and I’d talk to my wife stateside.”

“I’ll be along shortly.”

The yeoman sped off, leaving a dust cloud behind.

“You should also note another difference that really shouldn’t have much bearing on your investigation, but it’s worth mentioning,” Summer said.

“If you have to go, I understand.”

“I will in a minute, but let’s finish up here. My chief can supervise any additional tests you need. But as I was saying, you might also note we’re using a simple radio detonation device to set it off. Unless it was some kind of a wacko suicide bomber, they wouldn’t have done that. They’d probably use a delayed arming timer and a barometric triggering device set to explode when the air pressure dropped to a designated level. That way they could’ve sent it on some other flight to London, where it was transferred onto 103.”

“We know. We think they used at least two of them and sent the bag from Malta to Frankfurt, where it was loaded onto 103.”

“I bet that was in the Times.”

“No, the Frankfurter Allgemeine.”

Chief Rashid approached them. “We’ve completed removal of the container fragments. What would you like us to do with the, uh, collateral debris? A lot of it’s not hurt. I saw a rather nice leather jacket, some Ray•Bans, Nikes. The men were asking…”

“You need this stuff for additional analysis?” Lieutenant Commander Summer said.

“The pictures are enough.”

“Anything that’s not part of the radio or container, they can dispose of at their individual discretion. I have some other matters to attend to. You’re now in charge. Assist Special Agent Fuentes with anything she needs. Tell the boys happy hunting.” He turned toward the FBI agent. “It’s been nice catching up on the papers with you. But I do want to know one thing. Where did you find all this luggage?”

“The airlines. They have tons of lost baggage. I can get you some to practice with, if you want.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHECKPOINT CHARLIE, WEST BERLIN

FRIDAY, APRIL 28

You are now leaving the American Sector. Faith read the multilingual sign at Checkpoint Charlie a couple of dozen times while waiting as the Stasi’s note had instructed. Per their request, she set a leather satchel at her feet each time she stopped for precisely seven minutes at one of the viewing platforms along the Wall. She ignored the stream of tourists climbing the wooden stand to sneak a glimpse of Berlin beyond the Wall and spent seven long minutes thinking about her father. Who would still want to cover up whatever happened to him thirty years ago?

A border guard raised the red and white striped metal barrier and allowed a tiny East German Trabant to exit to the West. The Trabi wound its way through the maze of concrete barriers. The gray hair of the driver suggested another retiree had come to enjoy his thirty allotted days in the West, but the East German guards took no chances. They followed the grandpa with their binoculars, guns at their sides.

She glanced at her watch. It was 10:15 in the morning and time to move on, as the note had instructed. Why did the Stasi want to deliver the package in one of the most highly watched areas of Berlin? They must want someone in the East to see her receive the drop in the West. Any less touristy section might have drawn attention. She climbed down the viewing platform. Each step jarred her sore rib cage. Two American soldiers sat in a white guard shack, studying her more than the Trabi as it rolled toward the West.

She intentionally walked two feet to the right of the white line painted on the cobblestones marking the beginning of GDR territory, where not too long ago President Reagan had taunted communist authorities by sticking his foot across the line and through the Iron Curtain. She strolled along the Wall, pacing herself as she pretended to admire the graffiti on the ugly cement structure. Kurdish and Albanian political slogans were scrawled beside an elaborate painting of a view into the East as if the Wall had been knocked away. She glanced back toward the checkpoint. Nothing.

A few hundred yards later, she stopped and looked down into collapsing ceramic tiled chambers dug into the ground. They were filled with water from the recent rains. When she recognized them as the recently unearthed basement of Gestapo headquarters, her breath became shallow. She felt numb with pain, but wasn’t sure if it were her own. She had read about the recent discovery, but had avoided going to see it. Even before the torture chambers were located, she had always hastened her pace along this section of the Wall. Faith had no doubt Berlin was haunted, but she refused to believe in ghosts. She zipped up her leather jacket. She blinked back tears when she peered in the torture chambers. She took a deep breath and for an instant felt water fill her lungs. She coughed. Tourists gawked at her. A camera clicked.

The rubble screamed at her. Unable to tune out the cries, she marched along the Wall two minutes ahead of schedule. With each step into the soft earth, she pushed down her fears and concentrated on the job.

An overgrown lot was fenced off from the public. Rusting signs on it warned it was GDR territory and hadn’t yet been cleared of ordnance. They needed a good explosives guy; she knew she did. She had no doubt the package would be booby trapped. She looked at her watch and adjusted her pace. When she came upon another platform a few feet from the Wall, she climbed it and set the attaché case at her feet.

Seagulls flew into the no-man’s-land of Potsdamer Platz, the former bustling downtown square, now a vacant field surrounded by the Wall and high steel fencing. The emptiness swallowed her.

A concrete East German guard tower stood within a hundred yards. She wondered how the soldiers coped, all by themselves, day after day, watching over this desolate strip of cobblestones and weeds between two worlds. Two figures stood in the tower. One looked familiar. She squinted and could make out a uniformed border guard and someone in civilian clothes. The guard slid the reflective window closed.

But she knew who was there.

As she watched doves fly about the demarcation zone, she heard a loud group of Americans approaching. She glanced around and saw a dozen college students. The platform shook from the weight as they scrambled up the stairs. A young man wearing a Drury College sweatshirt maneuvered in the crowd and pushed in beside her. He set a leather bag down onto the platform next to the one she had carried, just as the Stasi instructions had described. Faith leaned over to him and whispered the code phrase in English, “Berlin wasn’t founded by the Romans like Vienna.”

“Huh? I guess so, but do you know where Hitler’s bunker is? I heard it’s supposed to be out there somewhere,” the young man said with an upper Midwest accent, pronouncing “out” as if he were from Northern Michigan or Canada.

Faith waved her arm toward the left of the no-man’s-land. “Over there. I’ve heard it rumored there are some really creepy murals from the SS still intact down there.”

“This is going to sound weird, but a woman around the corner gave me a hundred marks to bring this bag to you. Said I’m supposed to swap it with the one you’ve got. Said I get to keep it. That okay? I’m also not supposed to talk to you except to say something corny like ’the clock’s ticking.’ And she made it really clear I shouldn’t open it.”

Faith pointed to Potsdamer Platz as if they were still discussing the bunker. “You ever hear of RIAS radio station and the announcer Jo Eager?”

The young man nodded. Faith was certain he had never heard of that American institution in Berlin.

She smiled. “I could lose because I’m telling you this, but this is part of their annual ’Spy versus Spy’ contest. I’m a finalist and I’ve got ten thousand marks riding on this. Just quietly take the bag next to my feet and walk away as if nothing unusual is going on.”

“Got it. Good luck.” He whispered from the corner of his fever-blistered mouth and picked up the empty bag.

Faith glanced at her watch and knew Schmidt was looking at his. It was 10:54 A.M. The package had to be somewhere in Moscow by Sunday morning-in forty-eight hours. Her ribs hurt with each step as she climbed from the platform.

She walked on. Small white crosses behind the Reichstag marked where East Germans had been killed while scaling the Wall. She reached into the satchel’s side pocket and removed a slip of paper with a Moscow telephone number. A few feet west of the Wall, a faded white line traced the legal East-West demarcation. She intentionally crossed the line into the East and stood on the worn cobblestones between the line and the Wall.

“Here is the Border Patrol of the German Democratic Republic!” a guard said through a megaphone. “You are trespassing on the territory of the GDR. You are ordered to leave at once.”

The guard watched her through binoculars. Faith glared at him. He watched her. So did the shadowy figure behind his left shoulder. She stared; they watched.

Then Faith waved her middle finger at Kosyk.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

DEMOCRATIC BERLIN-KARLSHORST, KGB RESIDENCY

Major General Gennadi F. Titov, the KGB’s chief resident in the GDR, slammed the solid birch office door shut and stomped to his desk, muttering obscenities to himself. Lieutenant Colonel Bogdanov breathed deeply as she walked to a corner seat. Titov stared at the colonel for several minutes, his pockmarked face reddening with each passing moment. Bogdanov struggled not to blink, hoping the general’s blood pressure would reach critical mass and he would have a heart attack before beginning the meeting. She needed to assess whether the general was a threat to the operation.

“Is there anything you want to tell me, colonel?”

Your fly’s unzipped, sir. Colonel Bogdanov decided someone else could break that news to him later in the day. “Nothing that I’m cleared to discuss, sir.”

“Don’t you ever cut me out of the loop again. I don’t care how valuable they think you are in all of this. After this is over, I know you’re counting on a cushy position in the West. Mark my words, I’ll find a way to send you to Kabul, where the mujahedeen will be constantly chasing that pretty little ass of yours.” He grinned, slipping the tip of his tongue from his mouth to slowly lick his thin upper lip.

“Sir, we pulled out of Afghanistan a couple of months ago.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t get you sent there. Bet it would be even more fun now.” Titov stuck his thumb in his ear and twisted it. He pulled it out and sniffed it. “You made a fool of me in Moscow. And I don’t forget. Friends told me someone stationed here in my very own residency was putting together a coup. It didn’t take long to find out who it was. Stukoi told me everything. Operation Druzhba, huh? You wanted me cut off from the action, didn’t you? Save it all for yourself. If you weren’t on the right side of this little event, you’d be getting it from me right now. I know it’s what you really want and we all know you need it, you pervert.”

“I report directly to Colonel General Stukoi. I suggest if you have any questions or complaints about my work, you direct them to him.”

“And I don’t like that one bit. Suddenly a group of my staff is reassigned to some ’Internal Affairs’ op reporting to Stukoi. That’s a crock of shit. So what’s your little internal-affairs group up to?”

“Contact the general. I understand that I’m supposed to be enjoying your full cooperation.”

“And you’ll have it-until the second this is over, then I’m going to fuck you, real good and hard.”

Vasily Resnick sprinted up the residency stairs to his chief’s office. Titov was not a man to be kept waiting, and Resnick wanted nothing more than to curry his patron’s favor. Before entering, he checked his posture in a mirror and admired his Olympian physique and Nordic features. He marched into the KGB general’s office and stood at attention in a manner that would’ve made a Prussian proud. “Comrade General.”

“The idiot Stukoi chose Bogdanov to do a man’s job.” Titov bit off the end of a cigar and champed down on it. He shoved a file across his desk. It was marked FEDEX-TOP SECRET. “Follow FedEx. She has a delivery to make to our friends in Moscow. Make sure Bogdanov doesn’t fuck it up and get in her way.”

“When do you expect movement?”

“Now. And whatever you do, don’t involve any of our German friends-not even Kosyk. Keep this compartmentalized. Remember Comrade Lenin’s advice.”

“Whoever is not for us, is against us.” Resnick recited his mentor’s favorite phrase from the founder of the Soviet state.

“Do not forget that it’s also true for the KGB. Anyone outside of Operation Druzhba is your enemy. Treat them accordingly.”

Titov’s secretary slinked into the office with a message and the men stopped talking. Titov rustled through the papers piled on his desk, cursing under his breath. His secretary picked up a copy of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and removed the general’s round reading glasses from the book. He snatched them away from her with a snarl. “Dismissed.” He skimmed the document. “Putin spotted FedEx in Tiergarten carrying a leather satchel. The fool lost her somewhere in Kreuzberg. She’s got the package and could leave the city anytime.”

“Do I understand correctly that I’m to escort this American to Moscow? Wouldn’t it make sense for me to dispose of her and take the item myself?”

“It must be FedEx. Everything is prepared to link her to the CIA to take the blame for the incident. Resnick, I’m counting on you to make sure FedEx makes an on-time delivery.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

WEST BERLIN

Faith waited in the borrowed apartment in Kreuzberg with the leather bag the Stasi had passed to her less than six hours before. Every creak in the hall sounded like them checking up on her even through she was certain she had ditched her shadows. Shortly after the hand-off, a dozen of Hakan’s friends had met her with similar satchels. Everyone took off at once, overwhelming the small surveillance team. By the time Faith left, no one was around to follow her. Or at least no one from the Stasi.

Heavy footsteps came up the stairs and stopped in front of the door, then a loud knock, a familiar rhythm. She opened the door and pulled Max Summer inside and into her arms. He hugged her tightly and she winced.

“Not too tight. I’m a little fragile right now,” she said.

Tears welled up as she pressed her head against his hard chest. He dropped his gear. She didn’t realize how frightened she was until she noticed herself trembling. She let him hold her for the first time since they were to have married nearly thirteen years ago. The safety of his embrace made her crave more, but she knew better than to indulge herself. She blinked as hard as she could to push the last tears from her eyes and discreetly wiped away the traces before she moved away.

“You’re favoring your side. What happened to you?”

“I fell down.”

“You sure jumped high when I squeezed you for just falling down.”

“I fell a lot.”

“Right.” The Arkansawyer shook his head and looked her in the eyes. “Show me what you’ve got, missy.”

“You know better than to call me missy,” Faith said, waving her finger at him.

“Careful where you point that thing. Liable to go off.” He wrapped his calloused hand around her finger. “And you know how I hate explosions.”

“Like a hog hates mud.” She freed her finger and slipped her arms around him again. She felt only firm muscles. The man was in incredible condition. She immediately let go of him when she caught herself wondering how that would translate into bed. “Summer, I can’t tell you how good it is to have you here. I can’t believe it was just yesterday I called you.”

“I had the time difference going for me, and I would’ve been here faster if TWA had its act together. I don’t hear from you as much as I’d like and I’ve never known the invincible Faith Whitney to ask for my help. Soon as I hung up with you, I told my CO I’m outta here.” His light Ozark twang sounded like home. Being with Summer felt like home.

“What the hell happened to your hair?” She rubbed her hand over his bald pate.

“Hair’s a hygiene issue.”

“I admit you do look sexier this way, but I’m not sure about cleaner.” She never understood why, but bald men were an incredible turn-on. Summer wasn’t making things any easier. Faith started to drag his duffel bag into the other room, but the pain in her side stopped her. She led him into the combination living room-bedroom. He followed closely, moving into her personal space, but she didn’t mind. “Now, you promise whatever you see or discuss here stays between us.”

“Faith, have I ever let you down?”

“Never. I wish I could say the same.”

“Guess you had to do what you had to do. Now show me what you’ve got.”

“Actually, I was hoping you could tell me what it is, or at least get it open for me so I can figure it out. I think we can count on it being booby trapped.”

“Sure enough. If we didn’t assume that, I think you would’ve opened it on your own and I’d still be stateside. Now you’re gonna have to tell me everything you know about it.”

“I don’t want to drag you into this.” They walked into the tight galley kitchen.

“You drag me here all the way from the States and you don’t want to drag me into something? I’d say I’ve already been dragged. Talk to me.” His green eyes invited her.

“You really don’t want to know.”

“Probably, but I have to if I’m going to help you.”

“I got it from the Stasi.”

“Holy moly. There goes my security clearance.”

“I didn’t even think of that. I never would’ve called you if I’d real-”

“I was playing with you. Don’t worry about me. You need me right now and I’m happy to help you. Always am. Now let’s get down to work.” He set a dented aluminum case on the narrow kitchen table and flipped open the locks.

“I was warned not to open it. I have a forty-eight-hour window to deliver whatever’s inside, and the clock started running about six hours ago.”

“Doubt if there’s a timer if they gave you that long, but that doesn’t mean you’re necessarily free and clear. Since the only way out of West Berlin without going through East Germany is to fly, it’s a safe guess you’ll be taking this on a plane.”

“Definitely,” Faith said as she poured two glasses of sparkling water and added shots of a Turkish fruit syrup she found in the cupboard.

“They could’ve rigged it to blow with a barometric triggering device.”

“Wouldn’t it have to be extremely sensitive, since airplanes are pressurized?” Faith said.

“Even when a plane’s pressurized, there’s a measurable pressure change. You know how when you’re flying and you open those little creamers for your coffee and they spurt all over everywhere?” Summer inspected the bubbling purple liquid and raised an eyebrow. He took a guarded sip. “I’m not making any guesses and I don’t know what’s in there or what the East Germans are up to, but I know they’ve been involved in more than one terrorist bombing. And I wouldn’t trust a commie as far as I could throw ’em. You’re the one who follows politics, so you can make more educated guesses than I can.”

“The East Germans don’t always hang out with the best crowd,” Faith said. “They have a strong relationship with the Libyans, pretty good ties with Iraq and they’ve been buddying up with North Korea lately, since they’re so pissed at the Sovs over Gorbachev’s reforms.”

“There you go. And they’re always after the West Germans. Now all I’m saying is targeting a plane is a possibility we shouldn’t rule out.”

Faith downed the soda. “All Allied flag carriers have to fly at a max of ten thousand feet through the air corridor over East Germany, and they climb as soon as they get over West German airspace. Guess it would be simple to set something to go off then.”

“Faith, blowing up anything is easy long as you know what you’re doing. Most people don’t. No sense in speculating until we know what’s inside. It’s not as easy to bring down a plane as you’d think. It’s like any demolition job. You have to know exactly where to plant it so the blast wave does optimal damage. I’ve read in the Times the FBI thinks the terrorists got lucky with 103 because the blast wasn’t that strong. The suitcase with the bomb happened to get in a container loaded at just the right point in the airframe. If a baggage handler had thrown it into a different container or had loaded the containers in a different order, it would’ve still ripped a hole in the plane, but probably wouldn’t have resulted in catastrophic structural failure. So the East Germans would be kind of stupid and careless to depend on wherever your suitcase got packed. From what you’ve told me, they have direct access to West Berlin and could mount a bomb wherever they wanted. I only brought it up to mention one of the things we’re going to look out for. We’re also going to check if there’s a light sensor or motion sensor that would set it off when we open it. So I need to know what you think we’re dealing with.”

“My best guess, some sophisticated electronic device booby trapped with plastic explosives, or it could be just Semtex booby trapped with more Semtex.”

“Faith, what the hell are you doing with that stuff? Tell me you’re not selling it.”

“Summer, you have my word.”

“If you’re not selling it-you’re not thinking about blowing something up yourself, are you?”

Faith took a drink, leaving lipstick on the glass. She would never admit it, but the makeup was for Summer’s benefit. “I want to put a hole in the Wall to get some friends out and I need your help.”

“Faith, don’t you go messing around with me. You know there’s nothing I’d like better than to go out and blow up that damn Wall, but not until I get orders to do it.” He smiled at her.

“Sorry, I was joking. I’m not about to blow anything up or help anyone blow something up, for that matter.”

“But that doesn’t tell me what you’re doing with this stuff.”

Faith shook her head. “Don’t concern yourself with that.”

“I’m here and I’m concerned. Now, if you want my help, you’re going to have to level with me. Tell me everything and I’ll be as nonjudgmental as I can.”

“Okay, but remember, you wanted to know. The Stasi kidnapped me last weekend, tortured me for several days and then nearly drowned me in a swamp early Tuesday morning. They kept my passport, but I managed to get out by sneaking across the Polish border and flying back here through West Germany. They want me to help with some kind of black op.”

“That’s a good one. So what are you really up to?”

Faith pulled up her shirt. She wasn’t wearing a bra, but Summer wasn’t looking at her breasts. Bruises covered her midriff with overlapping splotches of deep purples, browns and yellows. Her right side seemed in the worst shape.

“My God, honey.” He caressed her so lightly she felt only his affection. “Who did this to you?”

“The Stasi.”

“That’s it. You’re going back to the States with me. I won’t stand for someone beating you up like this.”

“I can’t.”

“Are you out of your frickin’ mind? I know you like to play cat-and-mouse with the commies over your toys. I don’t approve of that, but I always figured you came by it naturally, with your mama a Bible smuggler and your grandpa a bootlegger. But your genes aren’t going to help you with this one-you’re outta your league. You need professional help.”

“That’s why you’re here.”

“I mean like someone from Langley.”

“No way. They’ll kill me if I don’t cooperate.”

“Sure they won’t even if you do what they want?”

“Summer, please. It might not bother you, but we have a bomb on the kitchen table. I really think it ought to take priority. We can talk over a nice warm German beer after it’s defused.”

“Fair enough. Has it been moved?”

“It’s got a few miles on it. It’s had quite a tour over here while I ditched the Stasi. Why?”

“’Cause if it hadn’t been moved, I wouldn’t mess with it. Some bombs are rigged to blow from motion. We’d have to shoot it with a water cannon right here.”

“A water cannon? And how would you propose getting a water cannon into this apartment?”

“You told me to bring what I need.” He held his hands a couple feet apart. “It’s only yay big. I’ve got one packed with my gear. I’m pretty sure you saw one that time you visited me in Virginia Beach and I showed you how we’d handle a bomb in a suitcase.”

“Oh, yeah, that metal tube thing you put the sandbags behind because of the recoil.”

“That’s it. A high-powered burst of water disrupts the electrical circuit every time, but since you’ve lugged this all over creation, it’s safe to handle. We’re going to need to X-ray this puppy so we know if we can go in.”

“I don’t know how we’d ever get access to an X-ray machine. Maybe I could pay my dentist to let us take a couple of pictures.”

“You think I’m going to dig into a bomb using teeny-tiny dental X-rays? You always did have a good sense of humor. Now, see if you can find us some better light while I get my toys.” He sauntered over to his luggage, retrieved a metal box marked Golden Portable X-ray.

“I knew you were in a mobile EOP unit, but I guess I never really understood exactly how mobile you were.”

“EOD-Explosive Ordnance Disposal.” He opened a panel and pulled out the electric cord. He held out three electric plugs and she pointed to the one with two long round prongs set about an inch apart. “Now if we can get a good picture, we can hand-enter.”

“And if you can’t?”

“I’d be glad this isn’t my apartment.”

Faith stared at him, her eyebrows knit.

“I’m kidding. We’d use the water cannon in the woods somewhere-less problems with the neighbors if it blows.” He built a platform with the books and balanced the X-ray machine on it. He aimed the lens at the top of the case, handed a rectangular film frame to Faith, then clasped his hands over hers and repositioned her. “Find a way to get something to hold this right about here.”

Faith went into the bedroom and returned with a coat hanger. She bent it and placed the film cartridge inside.

Squinting his eyes, Summer traced the line from the lens aperture through the top of the case to the film. “Can you come down about an inch?”

“Doesn’t this thing come with a lead apron or something?”

“I forgot how cute you are when you’re all fussy. Looks good. Step out of the way.” He pressed the remote and the machine clicked and then he handed her another frame. “I want to get a couple of side shots of the locks while we’re at it. It’s harder to wire it up to detonate when you turn the lock, but the government over there gives everybody a job, so who knows what they piddle around doing.” He attached a film frame to a box and then turned a crank. Like with the first Polaroid cameras, he ran each film through the developer, waited three minutes and studied the X-rays against the light. “They definitely didn’t want you opening it up and snooping inside.”

“What’s this little thing?” Faith pointed.

“I’d say it’s a C battery-the electricity source to set off a blasting cap.” He studied the next X-ray. “And I’d say this thing with the wires running off it is an alligator clip. We’re gonna find it’s pinching a little strip of something nonconductive.”

“You’re losing me.”

He lightly pinched the tip of her index finger between his thumb and middle finger. “Now your finger is that little strip keeping my fingers from making contact. My fingers are the alligator clips. My thumb is wired to the battery and my finger to the cap. When I pull away from you and my fingers touch, it completes the circuit so electricity flows to the cap and detonates the Semtex. Now that little strip is pinched by an alligator clip and is attached to the top of the case so it’s pulled out of the clip when the lid is opened.” He pulled his fingers away from her until they made contact.

“I get it. Boom.”

He examined each X-ray. “I’m guessing they stuffed some Semtex in a can and the cap’s inside. Seems pretty straightforward. Doesn’t look like there are any extra electronics, but you’ve got a few slabs of Semtex in there, though guess it could always be a couple bricks of heroin or something.” He pointed to fuzzy white forms on the film.

“The CIA is the one who works with drug dealers. I’ve never heard of the commies getting messed up with that.”

He picked up a scalpel. “We’re going to hand-enter.”

“You’re sure it won’t explode if you puncture the Semtex?”

“Faith, I do this every day and I still have all ten fingers. Plastic explosives are so stable I’ve nailed them to a wall before. You could whomp it with a sledgehammer and it wouldn’t go off.” He plunged the scalpel into the satchel, sliced away a half-moon window and then peeled the leather back. “Holy moly. This isn’t Semtex. Where’d you say you got this stuff?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

BONN-BAD GODESBERG, KGB RESIDENCY

Even in his cover identity as Second Secretary of the Soviet embassy, the chief resident of the KGB in West Germany rarely received Western visitors, let alone American ones. The residency in the West German capital was a KGB backwater. The most important intel on NATO and the West was extracted in Bonn-not by the KGB, but by the Stasi. The Stasi had penetrated Bonn from the train station toilets to the Chancellor’s office, and it freely handed the flood of information over to the KGB. To the Berlin-Karlshorst residency. The Bonn residency was in the center of Warsaw Treaty Organization intelligence activity in Western Europe, but was cut out of the loop. At least tonight the Americans remembered that they were still in the game.

Aleksei Voronin straightened his tie, wondering why the CIA station had been so bold as to tap into his secret direct line and to demand an immediate meeting on a Friday evening. He gulped down the contents of his glass and dropped his half-empty bottle of vodka into a drawer. As he waited for his assistant to escort the American cultural attaché to his office, he began talking to himself in English: “I am very pleased to meet you. To which do I owe the honour?”

The American pranced into his office. The striking woman had fine, delicate features that were rare among the hearty Slavs. Her petite body was poured into evening attire, a French designer dress with a plunging neckline. Her supple breasts begged to be touched. Voronin was pleased they’d sent a woman, and he hoped the CIA had sent her to seduce him. He would have to play along-anything for the Motherland. He didn’t bother to force his eyes away from her chest when he took her hand and kissed it. Stumbling over the English words, he said, “It is very pleased to meet you.”

“I can see that.” She glanced down, then rolled her eyes.

“To which do I owe the honour? You like a drink with me?” Her perfume intoxicated.

“I’ve only got a minute. Obviously there’s somewhere else I’d rather be-and will you please quit staring at my boobs?”

“I was looking at your necklace. It’s charoite from Russia, is it not?” He jerked his eyes away, but stepped closer to her and fingered the deep purple beads of her necklace.

She swatted his hand. “I don’t have time for bullshit, and you sure don’t. I know who you are and you know who I am, so let’s cut the introductory crap. Your government’s in danger.”

He pulled out a chair for her. “Please sit.”

She ignored him. “We’ve picked up chatter-a lot of it. Someone is planning a terrorist attack against your government.”

“Terrorists are going to attack the embassy?”

“Are you crazy? Do you think I’d be here with you? There’s some kind of plot against Gorbachev.” She walked over to his desk and fished a piece of hard candy from a crystal bowl. “All I can tell you is that we’re reasonably confident the terrorists and their weapons are being channeled through West Germany.”

Voronin swallowed hard. “The CIA warns me that terrorists soon attack the Soviet government?” He backed toward his desk chair, staring into space as he lowered himself into his seat and reached for a drawer. Without looking at what he was doing, he pulled out a bottle of vodka and dumped it into his glass, spilling some. He downed it and poured more. “You want?” He raised his eyebrows and tipped the glass toward the American.

She shook her head as she slowly pulled on the ends of the candy wrapper.

“Who are they? Where are intercepts come from?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Even if I could tell you that, I don’t know. You know as well as I do that we can’t reveal sources.”

“We know you listen.”

“You have no idea. A drunk can’t call his mother from a pay phone in Pinsk without us on the other end.” She was careful to keep the candy from touching her ruby lipstick as she popped it into her mouth.

“Tell me more. When is it happening?”

“All we know is that a terrorist or terrorists are attempting to move some kind of weapon from here to Moscow. We don’t know what it is, but we believe it’s highly mobile-most likely no larger than a suitcase.”

“Suitcase? You saying an American suitcase atomic weapon is missing and terrorists are taking it to Moscow?”

“I honestly don’t know. But today the chatter spiked. Our analysts believe that it’s going down within the next twenty-four hours. And I’ll give you a tip, Aleksei. Don’t trust the Germans-either flavor.” She turned to leave, her stilettos clicking on the hardwood floor. She stopped and looked back at him. “And I wouldn’t be so sure about everyone in your home office either, if you get my drift.”

Major Natalia Nariskii slammed down the phone, dropped the stolen copy of The Detonator magazine onto the bed and quickly dressed. Voronin had slurred his words on the phone. He was plastered again, but he wasn’t going to get away with it this time. Just like before, it was Friday night. And, just like before, he demanded she come to his office at once without notifying anyone. She stopped to slip her prized Chechen dagger into her pocket. Fool me once, shame on you. Try to fool me twice, you lose your balls.

She dragged herself into the chief resident’s office. Voronin sat at his desk in a stupor. He looked up at her, his eyes bloodshot and glassy. She would’ve sworn he’d been up all night on a binge, but it was only ten-thirty. “Reporting to duty as ordered, sir.”

“Sit, major.”

She preferred not to restrict her movements. “I prefer to stand, sir.”

“No, you won’t.” He shoved the bottle away. “I’ve had a visit from the CIA. About half an hour ago. Sometime within the next twenty-four hours a terrorist is taking a nuclear suitcase from the FRG to Moscow. The plan is to take out our leadership. The agent wouldn’t come right out and say it, but she implied that the Germans are working with some of our people.”

Nariskii pulled out a chair and sat down. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying the CIA is telling me there’s a German-KGB conspiracy to assassinate Gorbachev.”

“Disinformation.”

“I think not.”

“Which Germans?”

“Does it matter? They’re all Nazis. I remember the day when they rolled through my village.” He poured more vodka, but only drops came out. He tossed the bottle into the wastepaper basket and glass clinked, betraying the other empty bottles. Voronin stood and stumbled over to his bookshelves and reached behind a row of the blue and red volumes of the collected works of V. I. Lenin. He pulled out a fresh bottle. It wasn’t dusty. The stash definitely had high turnover.

“Sir, with all due respect, you shouldn’t be drinking.” She walked over to him and grabbed his arm. “Not now.”

Voronin slumped over his glass. “There is no better time. I’m facing the greatest crisis of my career and I don’t know what to do or who to trust.”

“If it’s imminent, Moscow couldn’t help anyway. Cut them out. I’d like West German assistance, but I don’t trust them. I’ll leak a story to a leftist reporter for the TAZ who we use from time to time. I’ll tell him the Americans are trying to cover up the loss of a nuclear suitcase and that the Russian mafia is trying to get it out of Germany. As soon as it’s on the wires, the BKA and BND will be screening everything moving East. If it’s their op, it’s blown. I’ll activate every network we have-even sleepers-but I’ll avoid any shared assets.”

He inhaled deeply. “You’re a good officer, Nariskii.”

“I serve the Motherland.” And I regret that it sometimes means saving your ass. “I assume I’m authorized to use any force necessary.”

“Do what you must.” He shoved aside the bottle. “Nariskii, if you were tying to get a nuclear suitcase from here to Moscow, how would you do it?”

“A boat if I had no hurry. Trains cross too many frontiers.” She glanced over at the calendar hanging on Voronin’s wall. Although it was almost May, the page was still turned to March. Almost May. May Day. “Monday is the first of May-International Workers’ Day.”

“Most of the Politburo will be atop Lenin’s tomb for the parade.”

“They’re in a hurry. They have to have it in position before Monday morning.”

Voronin stood, but wobbled. “They’ll do it by air.”

“I’d go through Frankfurt. It’s the busiest airport on the continent-too busy to carefully screen anything. Aeroflot, Lufthansa and Pan Am-they all fly nonstop to Sheremetyevo.”

Voronin cleared his throat. “Concentrate your people there. Once you activate the networks, I want you in Frankfurt. Take what you need to stop them. Whatever you need.”

As soon as Nariskii left, Voronin returned the vodka to its cache behind the Lenin library. He felt a rush like back in the old days, before alcohol and the boredom of a small town in Germany had taken such a toll on his career. Voronin was now heading the effort to stop a nuclear terrorist threat to Gorbachev. For the next twenty-four hours, he would be the most important man in the KGB. But no one could be trusted with that knowledge. He swallowed the last gulp of vodka that he’d be having for a while and felt the juices of youth warming his veins. The one person to whom he’d really like to boast wasn’t even in Moscow. Voronin convinced himself his old classmate from the Dzerzhinsky Higher School had to be far enough removed from Lubyanka as not to be involved with the conspirators-if there were any KGB conspirators. What if the CIA were lying?

A call to an old rival wouldn’t hurt. He reached for the phone to dial the Berlin residency. It had been years since Aleksei Voronin had been able to gloat about his importance to his successful comrade. And working to stop a nuclear threat to Gorbachev was indeed reason to rub it in to Gennadi Titov.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

WEST BERLIN

Summer and Faith looked through the half-moon slit in the leather satchel. Four rows of white rectangular bricks stacked two high, each one wrapped in clear plastic. Summer pulled out a package of something that looked like Play-Doh. “You really got this from the East Germans?”

“What is it?” Faith said.

“C.”

“What the hell are the East Germans doing with American explosives? Are you sure that’s what it is?”

“I’ve never actually seen Semtex, but it’s supposed to look a lot like C-3, kinda yellowish, but not as brownish. More orange. But I’d recognize C-4 anywhere, and this is it. They could’ve stolen it from the military or a private firm. We use it all the time-all the EOD units do. Our allies-the Brits, Australians-they all use it. Even civilians with the proper ATF licenses can order it. I think it comes from a place in Texas.”

“And there’s a black market for everything,” Faith said.

“You oughtta know. Whatever this is about, I’d say someone wants it to look like it’s an American job.”

“Can you really tell whether it was Semtex or C-4 after something’s blown up? I thought they were chemically about the same.”

“They both use the same stuff, but lab boys can tell them apart. About ten years ago, the government started encouraging manufacturers to include something called taggant-microscopic chips coded so you can tell where and when it was manufactured. Now I think this was mainly for the stuff they sell to civilians. I’m sure it’s not in what we use in the field in SpecWar-SEALs don’t always want to leave a calling card.”

“Would the East Germans know about taggant?”

“It’s not highly classified.” He dropped the explosive onto the table. “You owe me an explanation, and I don’t think this can wait until a beer.”

“Promise me you won’t get mad and you won’t even think about trying to get involved.”

“At this point, Faith, I can’t promise you much.”

“I’m sorry, then I can’t tell you much, but I do have a craft project I need to tackle after we’re done with this. I’m going to need you to buy some Play-Doh for me in the PX or Exchange or whatever it’s called.”

Summer began packing his tools.

“What are you doing?”

“Pulling my things together because, as much as I care for you, I can’t do this for you unless you’re up-front with me. And I’m going to have to confiscate this and take it to a base to disarm and dispose of it.”

“You can’t do this to me.”

“Or you me.”

Faith sighed. “They’ll kill me if I don’t deliver it on time. I’ve been blackmailed into transporting it.”

“Where? Can’t you do better than that? I’m a naval officer, and that means I can’t stay on the sidelines if this is going to terrorists that might hit a US or allied target.”

“It’s going to an East Bloc capital.”

“Moscow? The East Germans are using you to smuggle C into Russia? You’ve gotta be kidding.”

“I didn’t say Moscow.”

“Well, hell, where else would they bother with? The Germans think they’re better than everyone else, so you don’t think they’d go to such lengths to blow up some frickin’ Romanian, do you? You’re in over your head-and I don’t mean just a couple of inches. I’ve got contacts in the DIA-”

“Don’t even think about Defense Intelligence. The Stasi would think I’d turned on them. They’d kill me if they knew I was meeting with you, personal history aside.” Faith brushed her hair from her face and felt sweat gathering on her forehead.

“So then why did you risk meeting me?”

“They wouldn’t tell me what I was dealing with, and for all I knew they could have been setting me up to carry a bomb on a plane. They made it clear it was booby trapped, but I knew nothing was tamper-proof with you-you proved that when I was sixteen.” She flashed him a smile.

“So why are you going along with them?”

“I told you, they threatened me.” She forced herself to make eye contact with him, but couldn’t; she looked away.

“That’s not good enough. You could get away from here or get help from the government. Why, Faith?”

“I didn’t want to tell you because it’s so far-fetched, but I’ve received information from the Stasi about Daddy. You know how Mama would never say anything about him or about how he passed away?” She blinked rapidly, fighting back tears.

He nodded as he turned a chair around and sat in it backward.

“They claim he’s still alive, and if I cooperate, they’ll help me find him. I’m guessing he’s been held in a gulag or in one of their special psychiatric hospitals, like the dissident physicist Sakharov.”

Summer removed a pair of scissors from the kit and snipped away the leather flap, widening the hole, gradually exposing a metal cylinder wrapped in duct tape. The end of the soup-can-sized container was recessed like the bottom of a wine bottle and its top was cut away. It was stuffed with C-4.

He set down the scissors. Four colored wires disappeared into the plastique; a third set linked everything together. His eyes followed each wire as if he were searching for hidden patterns, decrypting a secret code. “Not good.”

Faith held her breath, afraid to speak. Summer snatched up a handful of X-rays. His eyes darted between the X-ray and the case. He held up one after another to light, all the while shaking his head. He tossed them on the table with enough force that they slid off the other side. Faith crawled under the table and retrieved the film, blowing away the dust.

“Son of a buck.” He traced an ellipse on the X-ray with his index finger. “See this shadow at the bottom of the battery? It’s got to be a capacitor. I missed it before because of the angles of the pictures. Too many wires and they’re so tightly twisted together I thought they were singles.”

“I still don’t get it.”

“They really didn’t want you messing with this. If it was only single wires, it would be a matter of snipping any one of them to prevent the circuit from closing. You know how in the movies you see two wires going into the bomb and the hero has to decide which one to clip-one will stop the timer; the other will blow ’em to kingdom come?”

“I’ve seen that flick a couple times.”

“It’s a bunch of horse hockey. If you only have two wires, it doesn’t matter which one you cut because either one will keep it from getting a current and setting off the cap. But now we’re facing a different story. We don’t know which wire is which. The extra wires and the capacitor muck up everything. Let me take you for a tour.” He pointed at the small cylinder cocooned in duct tape. “This is the battery and this swatch of furnace tape-”

“I haven’t heard anyone call duct tape furnace tape since I left the Ozarks,” Faith said.

“As I was saying, this swatch of duck tape on the top hides the alligator clip with the two sides you don’t want to touch each other, like I demonstrated earlier. I’m not sure how it’s stuck under there so that the spacer would get pulled out, but it doesn’t really matter to us right now. The blasting cap is buried in the C in the can. Now the shape of the can at the bottom makes it kind of nasty. They’ve made a shaped charge to increase effectiveness. When the detonation wave hits it, basically the indented part is going to separate from the sides, collapse on itself and form a little slug that’ll come flying out the end with enough force to go through three or four inches of steel.”

“Glad I didn’t think they were bluffing and open the case.”

“Amen. I’d say it could take out a good chunk of this building if I’m not careful. But don’t worry. I’m always careful.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this.”

He grinned. “You’re not going to take this away from me now when it’s starting to get fun. Leave me be.”

“You do this for the rush, don’t you?”

“And let me tell you, it’s a damn good one-probably about like what you get from playing hide-and-seek with your KGB friends.”

“Summer, listen to me. I don’t want to blow up this apartment-it’s on loan from one of Hakan’s friends who’s visiting family in Antalya. Actually, it’s not even borrowed. Another friend is supposed to be watering the plants and he gave us the key.” Faith shuffled the X-rays as she stared at the satchel. “And there is this little matter about our own safety.”

“Let’s get one thing straight. If I thought for a second I couldn’t beat this thing, we’d be blasting it with the water cannon. I won’t do jobs if I’m not confident I’m going to win, and I sure as hell wouldn’t put you in danger.”

“Have you ever been in the middle of a job and not been so confident you were going to be able to defuse it?”

“In the middle, of course, but, like I said, I’ve never started a job I wasn’t sure I could finish safely.” He winked at Faith, then turned toward the case, reached into it and grabbed a package of C-4 with both hands. Bending it, he extracted it through the incision.

“Think fast.” He tossed the C-4 to Faith.

She dropped the X-ray and fumbled to catch the explosive and then glared at him. “Am I supposed to think that’s funny? What the hell do I do with this?”

“Whatever you want. I told you it was extremely stable.”

“You made your point. Don’t do it again.”

“If you’re going to be dealing with this stuff, you have to learn its parameters. Now calm yourself down. I’ve played with explosives every day for well over a decade, if you only credit my military time. We won’t count the times when I used to use dynamite to blow stumps out at the farm for my dad.” He pulled out another C-4 package and handed it to Faith.

“Seems like I remember you blowing up the water main to the whole river valley once.” Faith stacked the plastique on the table beside the other slab.

“If Possum had been a better water witch, I never would’ve touched that stump.”

“Yeah, yeah. And you can spare me the story of using dynamite to blast a basement under your grandma’s house.”

“Didn’t hurt that house one bit. And she loved her new basement.” He extracted another package and handed it to Faith.

“I’m assuming you’re unpacking this to minimize any possible explosions.”

“Mainly to get more room to work inside this thing. I wouldn’t expect the packages to go off even if the can high-ordered. It could blow, but I’d be surprised.”

“So I take it then it doesn’t really matter if I stack them on the table or across the room.”

“Wherever they don’t get in the way. When you’re done there, see if you can find a can opener in one of the drawers.” He turned the cylinder stuffed with plastique so that the bottom faced upright. “I need you to hold this very steady for me while I cut it open. You’ve got to be careful not to pull it too high or move it too much because we don’t want to yank any of the wires apart.”

Summer sank the blade of the can opener into the metal and turned the rusty crank, moving it around the cylinder. The metal seemed thicker than an ordinary can and Faith marveled at the strength in his fingers. She missed those fingers.

She contorted her body, ducking under his arms as the can opener worked its way around the cylinder. One small fragment of metal held the conical lid to the rest of the cylinder. Setting the opener aside, he twisted the lid until the metal snapped. He sailed the lid into the trash like a jagged metal Frisbee. He held the metal container and pressed the C-4 through the newly opened hole. It popped out like the orange ice cream push-ups they shared as kids. He held the plastique with the wires running away from him and then pushed both thumbs into the substance.

“There. I feel it.” Summer molded the C-4, kneading it and pulling it out toward the edges, as if shaping clay into a pot. It grayed with dirt as he handled it. He picked away at the C-4 until he exposed the blasting cap. A red and a yellow wire led directly into it. “A number-eight cap. They’re using all American hardware.”

Faith wished she hadn’t noticed small beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

“Hand me the small wire cutters and take a look. Which one do you think we should cut?”

“Don’t ask me. You’re the expert. I thought you’d know.”

“It’s gotta be one or the other. What do you think, red?” He slipped the blades of the wire clippers around the red wire.

Faith didn’t move. She held her breath. “No, don’t. The yellow.”

He removed the wire from the clippers and put the yellow wire between the blades.

“No, don’t listen to me. I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.” He snipped the yellow wire. “I told you, when it’s just two wires going in, you can cut either one. We’re done. The dummy wires were tucked into the C, but not wired to the cap. It’s all over.” Summer stood up, examining the explosive embedded under his nails.

Faith punched him in the stomach, doubling him over. “You son of a bitch.”

“It was a test and you didn’t do too well, honey. You’ve got a lot to learn if you think I’m going to leave you alone with explosives.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

SCHÖNEFELD AIRPORT, GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC

Colonel Bogdanov hurried through the separate Soviet-controlled terminal, fresh from her final meeting with Kosyk. She had already given her assistant instructions to signal Moscow that the countdown had begun. FedEx had made her pickup. From her discussion with Kosyk, she now knew the details of the operation and was on her way to Moscow to relay the final plans. The drab terminal was nearly empty, save for a few boisterous Soviet Army officers drinking vodka and munching on salami sandwiches at the snack bar. She carried her KGB uniform in a garment bag to change into once in the privacy of the airplane. The small three-engine Yak-40 waited for her at the gate; it sported the blue Aeroflot livery.

Just as she was about to walk out onto the tarmac to board her aircraft, someone shouted after her.

“Zara Antonovna.” General Ivanovski, Supreme Commander of Soviet Forces in Germany, called her by her patronymic. The bear of a man waddled to catch up with her, the gold stars of two Hero of the Soviet Union medals swinging back and forth on his chest. His four aides followed.

“Uncle Yuri! How are you?” She greeted him, exchanging small talk about their families. The aides stood a few respectful meters back.

“My little Zar! I have wanted to speak to you privately, and I have a few unexpected minutes now. My staff informs me a mechanical repair is needed on my personal aeroplane.”

“I’m in a bit of a hurry. And depending upon how private, that could be difficult here.”

“As the little spy of the family, you should know those things.” He laughed, swelling his already puffy double chin. “I take it you are going to Moscow. I will fly with you. My plane can follow with my staff whenever they’re finished taping it up. I only need to take along my communications officer so that I stay in touch in case… you understand why. This way we can talk under four eyes.”

Colonel Bogdanov guessed that they had crossed the Polish border about the time the plane leveled off at cruising altitude. She sat with the general in the first-class section at a table with four seats facing one another. Her back was toward the cockpit, allowing the general to sit facing the direction of travel. The uniformed Aeroflot flight attendant served the general vodka. Bogdanov chose Armenian cognac in hopes she wouldn’t be expected to keep pace with her uncle, a robust drinker even by Slavic standards.

The flight attendant covered the table with a linen cloth and fanned out a stack of napkins embossed with the signature winged hammer-and-sickle. After arranging silverware, she set a basket filled with black bread on the edge of the table along with crystal dishes mounded over with butter and caviar. She brought out a silver tray of white cheese and hard salami slices before fetching the drinks.

“Bring us the bottles and go in the back. We will call you when we need you.” He lifted his glass in a toast. “Na zdorove.” He downed the vodka.

The colonel sipped her cognac.

He splashed more vodka into his glass. “To the future, may it return past glories.” He drank it and let out a sigh. “I understand you’re the genius behind Operation Druzhba.”

Zara froze for a moment, staring at her uncle. She then threw the remaining cognac into the back of her throat. “You flatter me. I can’t take all the credit. I’m only a liaison.”

“That’s not what I’ve been told. You always were too modest.” He reached for bread and smeared it with a thick layer of butter. He dipped the same knife into the caviar, leaving butter traces in the precious roe.

“What are they saying about me and who’s saying it?”

“I thought the first rule of your trade was to protect your sources.”

“Of my trade, not yours. So what are they saying?”

“That you are working to restore order from the chaos and shame Gorbachev has leveled upon us. And that you’re doing it for the Motherland, for Marxism-Leninism and for my brother-in-law-your father.” The general popped the bread into his mouth and chewed as he spoke.

She now understood. They had used her. They had set her up. Operation Druzhba wasn’t intended to avert Gorbachev’s assassination and the overthrow of his government. It was to ensure it.

“Child, are you all right? You’re suddenly pale. I’ll have the pilot turn up the oxygen.” The general’s belly hit the table as he pulled himself to his feet. Vodka and cognac sloshed from their glasses.

High above the Polish capital, Zara Bogdanov realized she was trapped. And she had trapped Faith Whitney. She knew it was her duty to prevent the coup, but she didn’t know whom to trust. Her stomach churned as she recognized it was in her personal best interest for the putsch to succeed. If it failed, she’d be convicted before a secret military tribunal and executed within hours. If it succeeded, she’d enter the Soviet pantheon as one of its greatest heroes, the restorer of the lost order. With the elevated status, she’d enjoy all of the perks of unbridled power and her father would be rehabilitated. Either way, Faith would be killed.

Her choice was deceptively elegant in its simplicity: duty or power. She could either attempt to stop the coup single-handedly in a futile heroic effort or do her damnedest to make it succeed and save herself. Both were a gamble, but she knew the odds favored the coup-and the payoff was significantly higher. She pressed her face against the cold round window, looked down on the dying forests of the Polish countryside and hoped Faith had broken her word and was headed back to the States.