The Russian Deception

CHAPTER 31

Hamburg's location on the Elbe gave it access to the Baltic and the North Sea a hundred kilometers away. Always a center of banking and commerce, the city had been governed by a hereditary class of merchants until early in the twentieth century. During the Nazi era it had been a launching port for Hitler's U-boats and a major shipyard of the Third Reich. Hamburg was one of the busiest ports in Europe. It even had an aerospace industry on a par with Seattle.

Business was good in Hamburg.

The buildings that had survived the Allied bombings were picturesque, many dating back to the Middle Ages. Canals cut everywhere through the city, highways of commerce that led to the river. Hamburg wasn't Venice but it was still an interesting tourist destination.

The drive from Vienna had been uneventful. The team stopped at the consulate and picked up an aluminum case containing four pistols and the ammo to go with them before heading for their hotel. Their hotel was in the Hafen district near the harbor. Their rooms were in the back, overlooking one of the canals. Nick set the case with the guns down in Ronnie and Lamont's room.

"I wonder if this town is where hamburgers come from?" Lamont asked.

"As a matter of fact, it is," Selena said. "The hamburger was invented here."

"That wall paper is going to drive me nuts," Ronnie said.

The hotel had a postmodern industrial theme that was vaguely nautical. A fake ladder made of wood and rope hung on one wall. The wallpaper featured sailors and boats, whiskey bottles and women in a chaotic jumble.

"I don't see how wallpaper is gonna make you any more nuts than you already are," Lamont said. "I kind of like it."

"That figures," Ronnie said.

"With any luck we won't be here long enough for it to bug you," Nick said.

"It's a very odd hotel," Selena said. "It's as though someone took Andy Warhol and Alexander Calder as their inspiration and mixed them all together with pieces of industrial equipment for decoration. Did you see the bar that looked like a shipping container downstairs?"

"I thought it was a bar but I wasn't sure," Nick said.

"Look at this," Ronnie said.

He held up a stuffed animal that had been propped on a shelf in the corner. It looked like a cross between a goat and a teddy bear. It had a heart-shaped red bib on it.

"There you go," Lamont said. "Something to keep you company tonight."

"Might be better if you slept with it," Ronnie said. "Keep you from snoring so much."

"I don't snore."

Nick interrupted. "It's too late to do anything today. There's a restaurant downstairs. How about we meet there in ten minutes?"

"You think they've got hamburgers?" Lamont asked.

"I think you can bet on it," Nick said.

Later, Nick was in bed looking at the laptop and reading the file Stephanie had sent about Helmut Schmidt. Selena came out of the bathroom wearing a white robe, drying her hair with a towel.

"Did you see the painting on the wall in there?" she asked.

"Hard to miss."

The drawing was a life-sized illustration done in bold black strokes of a naked woman, her breasts thrust forward and her hands behind her head.

"It's like something out of a bad male fantasy," Selena said.

"The one painted on the wall in Ronnie and Lamont's bathroom is some guy in bulging jockey shorts with stars over his head."

"You really have to wonder what they were thinking when they decorated this place. Cutesy touches like the stuffed animal and then drawings on the wall like that. I guess it's supposed to be modern."

"Your age is showing," Nick said.

"Smartass. Are you done looking at that computer?"

"You have a better idea?"

Selena let the robe fall onto the floor.

"I guess you do," Nick said.