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thirty-five

There was something odd about Captain Erenthaller, Samurai had decided.

It was early evening in the border town of Zittau. Snow had fallen during the day, and against the heavy sky the outlines of factories stood out starkly behind rows of drab, slate-roofed houses huddled in the pale light from the street lamps. In the yellow-painted, austere local offices of the Dresden district border police, Samurai sat making notes and watching as the staff searched records and dossiers for possible leads to the names that the taxi driver had given in Berlin. The commissioner was standing behind a clerk at a computer screen, checking the "Rovikossky" who was listed as working at the passport office in Dresden, but it appeared that he had retired some years ago. A policeman was going through one of a pile of files, while another was on the line to verify an address. They were all working methodically, if a little tensely in view of the urgency that Samurai had stressed. But the captain, Erenthaller, seemed deeply ill at ease. Samurai had been observing him surreptitiously for some time.

He was heavily built but out of shape, late thirties, with black hair cropped close above a creased bull neck, a slack but pugnacious mouth set in a blue-shadowed chin, and furtive eyes that betrayed slyness but little intelligence. For the past hour he had been in constant nervous motion about the room, unable to keep still, and had flinched visibly every time an incoming call sounded, then watched when somebody took it, as if on tenterhooks over what it might be about. And there was a pallor about his face that Samurai sensed not to be normal, and a dampness that could almost be felt, emanating from his skin.

He knew something, Samurai was certain. His reaction had started as soon as the commissioner gave them the brief on Rosky/Rosesky and introduced Samurai as a "special agent from Washington, cleared by Berlin." He knew something. At any moment the checks could turn up something that he was involved in and that would incriminate him, and he was scared. And being scared meant being vulnerable, as Samurai was well aware.

The policeman who had been on the phone cleared down, shaking his head. "Nothing there. He did have a boat, but he got rid of it six months ago and now lives with his daughter in Leipzig."

"Cross him off," the commissioner said. He looked at the policeman who was checking the files. "What about this Rossinsky?"

"Well . . . yes, he's still here in town. But at fifty-five, a night watchman at a shunting yard? What's the -connection?"

The commissioner pulled a face. "Railroads, eh? Put him down as a possible."

Across the room, Erenthaller started to move, changed his mind, then stood up. "Er, I'll be back in a minute," he muttered, and left. Samurai set down his pen and sat back in the chair. Through the doorway, which had been left slightly open, he tracked Erenthaller's footsteps and movements: away a short distance to the right along the corridor outside, a turn, several more steps, then the wary opening, as if making sure that nobody was inside, and then even more careful closing, of a door.

A tone rang for an incoming call. One of the policemen turned to a screen and activated it. The commissioner looked at a sheet of paper that he was holding and moved over to compare something written on it with an item showing on another screen. "What the hell's this name doing here, Carl?" he grumbled. "it's a woman."

"Oh, sorry. My mistake."

Samurai moved his chair and stood up. "Excuse me for a moment," he murmured softly, and vanished.

To the left, the corridor opened into a main office; there was nobody in the part of it that was visible. In the other direction it passed a wide alcove a few yards away on one side, across which two doors faced each other, and continued beyond. Samurai moved quietly to the alcove and listened at one of the doors, but could hear nothing. He tried the other. Inside, a lowered voice was speaking hurriedly, the words too indistinct to make out. He tried the handle gently. The door was locked. Drawing a long breath to concentrate his strength, he drew back a short distance, then launched himself at it, at the same time half turning his body to impact with full force focused on a line from the shoulder to the hip. The lockplate tore out of the jamb with a sharp crack; without breaking his movement, Samurai pivoted inside, wheeled to face the room, and closed the door behind him.

Erenthaller was standing beside a desk with a phone in his hand, guilt etched all over his face. Samurai took the phone from his hand before he had reacted to what was happening and hung it up.

"Okay, let's hear it," he hissed.

Erenthaller looked confused for a moment, and then took a swing. It was clumsy and inexpert. Samurai rode the blow easily with an arm and went in low and fast with a straight-hand jab to the solar plexus and punch to the kidney, following through by locking an arm across Erenthaller's throat and slamming him down into the chair. He banged the side of the German's head hard against the wall and drove a thumb into the cavity beneath his other ear. Erenthaller grimaced and writhed with the pain, but the blow to his middle had paralyzed his breathing and the arm across his throat stifled any sound.

"You know something," Samurai growled. "What have you been hiding?"

Erenthaller clutched at his chest, gasped, puffed, and shook his head. "You're mad. . . . I don't know . . . what you're talking about. Who do you think—"

Samurai palm-heeled his chin, forcing his head back over the top of the chair, and brought a knee up hard into his testicles. Erenthaller shrieked noiselessly. Samurai slapped him several times forehand and backhand across the face. "I don't have time for games. Who were you calling?" Erenthaller's head lolled drunkenly to one side in a daze. Samurai seized one of his little fingers and began forcing it back over the hand. Erenthaller could feel it on the verge of cracking.

"Okay, okay. . . . Don't."

"Talk. What's the name?"

"For God's sake ease up!" Samurai relaxed the pressure a fraction. Erenthaller licked his lips and swallowed for breath, his head still jammed against the back of the chair and his face running with perspiration. "Rostiescki. . . . We have an arrangement."

"Who is he?"

"Local undercover contact in Zittau. . . . Arranges crossings for people without papers. Pipeline uses him. . . ." Erenthaller hesitated. Samurai could see he was holding something back and began increasing the pressure on the finger again.

"Aghhh. All right! . . . But he's also a spy. I get tip-offs from him on who's due to go across. We work it between us. Know what I mean?"

Samurai released him contemptuously. Erenthaller massaged his bruised finger, wheezing erratically, then felt his throat. Samurai understood all too well. Rostiescki betrayed the people who trusted him for favors that Erenthaller could arrange, and Erenthaller took a cut of the fees that Rostiescki was paid. Erenthaller would let enough smaller fish through not to arouse suspicion, but he could make his record look good when an important catch came along. But he wouldn't be averse to looking the other way if Rostiescki could secure a further payment on top of the original deal. A shabby operation, worked by a pretty shabby pair of operators.

"What do you know about these two men I'm interested in?" Samurai demanded. "These two men coming from Berlin."

"I don't know anything about them. You must have made a mistake."

"There has been no mistake."

"If they were coming here to go across with Rostiescki, I'd know about it," Erenthaller insisted.

Samurai remained unimpressed. "Then let's ask Rostiescki, shall we? Where can he be found?"

Erenthaller stared up and seemed about to say something, then saw the look in Samurai's eyes and changed his mind. "He has a room in town, but he won't be there now. There are a couple of places that he hangs around in."

"Let's go, then," Samurai said.

Erenthaller looked startled. "But . . ." He gestured in the direction of the room they had come from.

"Never mind about them. We'll get our coats on the way out. Move."

They stopped at the cloakroom by the entrance for the coats. Samurai also took the briefcase that he carried on assignment, but left the bag with his clothes and personal effects. They slipped out of a side door into an alley and followed it to the street, with Erenthaller slithering on the snow in his attempt to keep up the pace, uncomfortably conscious of the gun that Samurai was holding in his overcoat pocket.

Minutes after they rounded the corner at the end of the street, a black Mercedes drew up at the front door from the opposite direction. Muffled figures emerged, hurried up the steps, and disappeared inside.

* * *

The third bar they tried was as drab as the others, with a low door beneath a wooden sign unreadable in the gloom, and yellow light showing through a window of small dirty panes set high in the wall. It lay between a few shops, all closed, and what looked like some kind of commercial premises, looming solid and featureless in the night. Samurai said he'd wait outside. Erenthaller ducked his head and went in. Samurai stamped his feet, then moved away a short distance along the street and back again, swinging his arms to keep up the circulation. The street remained deserted. After a minute or two, Erenthaller emerged clutching the sleeve of a weasely looking man in a flat cap and black overcoat, who was protesting vehemently, but in a low voice.

"What are you doing? I told you not to talk to me in public places. Haven't you got . . ."

His mouth closed like a trap when he saw Samurai waiting. "Who's he?"

"It's complicated," Erenthaller began. "There have been rumors of a consignment due through here tonight. It seems there's a lot of interest in high places. Do you know anything about it?"

Rostiescki shook his head violently. "Not me! No, I don't know anything." The fearful look that he shot Erenthaller in the wan light from the bar window told Samurai that he was lying. In a movement that all but lifted Rostiescki off his feet, Samurai seized his coat front and banged him back against the wall.

"Two of them, coming from Berlin," Samurai said crisply.

"I don't know anything, I swear. On my mother's holy—"

Samurai produced his automatic and thrust the barrel up under Rostiescki's chin. The click sounded of the safety catch disengaging. "You've got five seconds."

"You can't. I'm a—"

"Four."

"For God's sake, he doesn't kn—" Erenthaller pleaded.

"Three."

"All right, all right! . . . They're here. I was scared. Honest, I thought they'd kill me.

"What names were you given?"

"One was Yuri, the other Oleg."

"Their full names."

"That's all I was told, I swear—"

"Don't treat me like a fool. If you were getting them out, you'd be arranging their papers. You'd need their full names."

Rostiescki swallowed. "Yuri Baselyavin. Oleg Kubalov. Honest, I don't know any more." Samurai released him with a contemptuous shove.

Erenthaller moved forward a step, tensing. "What? Why wasn't I told about this? When was it arranged?"

"I was going to," Rostiescki whined. "I didn't know myself until this afternoon. It all happened too fast."

"They're here somewhere now—right at this moment?" Samurai checked, repocketing the gun. "You can take us to them?"

Rostiescki looked at Erenthaller. The captain nodded. "Tell him."

"They're holed up in a boardinghouse on Kelenstrasse. The sergeant on the north bridge checkpoint until midnight will pass them through if I'm with them." Rostiescki looked at Erenthaller pleadingly. "You would have got your cut, slit my throat if it isn't true. There wasn't time to tell you about it."

"We'll see about that. How many more times has this happened?"

"Save your squabbling until later," Samurai told them curtly. He gestured at Erenthaller. "I'm going there with him right now. You get some of your men and follow. Meet us at the boardinghouse."

"Which is it?" Erenthaller asked Rostiescki.

"Number nine. It has a wooden gate. They should be in the back room. I was to collect them."

"I'll see you there," Erenthaller said, and hastened away.

Samurai and Rostiescki walked in silence through narrow, ill-lit streets, passing only the occasional shuffling figure and seeing little traffic. The air had a feel about it of more snow before morning. As far as Samurai was concerned, it was better this way. With treachery working both ways, and people to whom lying and double-crossing came as naturally as breathing, he would trust only what he had control over himself. That meant getting to Ashling first, before anyone else was even close.

They came to the end of a street of nondescript row houses. Rostiescki placed a restraining hand on Samurai's arm and nodded. "It's along there on the other side," he murmured. "Opposite the lamp."

"Who else is there?" Samurai asked.

"Just regular lodgers in the other rooms, and the woman who runs it."

"Who'll let us in?"

"I have a key."

"We'll go inside first and make sure that we've got them, then wait for the others," Samurai said. He took out his gun again and fitted a silencer to the end.

Rostiescki watched apprehensively. "What are you going to do?"

"Just a precaution," Samurai said.

They walked along the street to the door that Rostiescki had indicated. Rostiescki produced a key and pushed the door open. Samurai shoved him in ahead, keeping the gun in the other hand out of sight inside his coat. The passageway was dark and narrow, with stairs going up on one side, lit only by the light from a bare bulb on the first landing. They went past the stairs to a door in an even darker continuation of the passage at the rear, where only the light from an uncurtained window guided them. Rostiescki glanced at Samurai inquiringly. Samurai nodded. Rostiescki tapped on the door. "Hello," he called quietly. "I am the one who has been sent to fetch you. Open the door." There was no response. He tapped again, waited some more, then looked around.

"I don't understand it."

"Open it," Samurai muttered. Holding his gun cocked and ready, he flattened himself against the wall on one side of the doorway.

Rostiescki took out his keys, fumbled for a while in the dim light, and eventually the lock clicked. He pushed the door open cautiously. "Hello?" No sound or movement came from inside. Samurai nodded for him to go in. Rostiescki reached inside for the light switch, flipped it on, and went through. "There's nobody here," his puzzled voice called back after a few seconds. Samurai came out into the light and joined him.

It was a charmless room with a blanked-off fireplace, a double bed and a few pieces of old-fashioned furniture, dusty drapes still open, and smelling damp. There were no clothes, bags, or other signs of occupancy. Samurai moved around, nonplussed. He opened the doors of the ponderous, freestanding oak wardrobe and looked inside the chest of drawers. Had this loathsome little man been lying all along about this as well? He started to turn toward Ros-tiescki accusingly, but his eye caught something lying on the mantelpiece. He picked it up. It was an empty match-book cover from the Atlanta Hyatt hotel.

"They've been here," he snapped. "Where have they gone?"

Rostiescki shook his head wildly. "I don't know. I was supposed to collect them here. They were supposed to wait. On my mother's grave I don't know."

Samurai stalked over to the window and stared out at the shadows of the tiny rear yard. Now he thought he could see what had happened. Pipeline was smarter than he'd given them credit for. They knew that the operation here was corrupt and unreliable, and had made the arrangements with Rostiescki as a decoy, to mislead him and his contact in the border police, while the real escape was effected by other means. So Ashling was very possibly over the border already. . . .

And then again, maybe Pipeline wasn't so smart after all, Samurai reflected as he thought further. For Rostiescki had given one of the names as "Yuri," which Samurai knew to be correct, since it had been obtained from Pipeline's own intercepted communication to Nicolaus. Therefore "Oleg Kubalov" was probably correct too, which meant that Samurai knew the name that Ashling was traveling under. And he already knew Ashling's destination, Semipalatinsk, and that he had to be there on December 6. Tomorrow would be December 3. That would give Samurai the best part of three days to stop him. Ample, he decided with satisfaction as he turned back from the window.

"I could talk to the landlady," Rostiescki offered.

Samurai shook his head. "She won't know anything. Turn out the light. We're going to the north bridge checkpoint."

As they came back outside, vehicle headlights approached from the direction of the town center. It was a Mercedes. But instead of the detachment of police that Samurai had expected, three men in raincoats and overcoats, all wearing hats, got out, leaving the rear doors open. Another man in civilian clothes was driving, with Erenthaller in the passenger seat beside him.

The three drew up around Samurai, backing him against the wail and ignoring Rostiescki. One of them showed a badge that was invisible in the dark. "You are Sam Harris, on a U.S. military assignment?"

"Yes."

"Federal Republic State Security. Our instructions are to terminate your mission forthwith. You are to accompany us back to Berlin immediately."

Samurai thought of the people he'd crossed in Hamburg and Berlin, and decided that this had been instigated out of malice to thwart him. "I'm not under Federal Security orders," he told them. "My assignment was cleared through the embassy. You don't give me instructions."

"Mr. Harris, I must insist. We are authorized to use whatever force may be necessary, should you compel us to do so." More headlights had appeared at the far end of the street: the backup squad, no doubt.

"Is that so?" Samurai said, planting his briefcase in the unresisting hands of Rostiescki, who looked on incredulously as in rapid succession one overcoated figured was catapulted over the wall by the gate, the second was felled where he stood, and the third ended up tumbling heels over head in the gutter behind the Mercedes. Before the form had stopped skidding in the snow, Samurai yanked open the door, hauled the driver out by the collar, and sent him sprawling with a cuff to the side of the head. He jammed Rostiescki, still clutching the briefcase, into the rear seat and slammed the door behind him.

Erenthaller, still in the front passenger seat, could have opened the door and jumped. Instead he pulled his gun. But Samurai fired first as he slid into the driver's seat, wounding Erenthaller in the side, and pushed him out the other side with one arm as he steered the car away. Erenthaller fell in the path of the backup car closing in from behind, causing it to brake and swerve. By the time the driver had sorted himself out again, the Mercedes was away along the street.

"Which way is the bridge?" Samurai yelled over his shoulder to the terrified Rostiescki.

"Ahead, but over to the left." Samurai went in the other direction to draw the followers away for a distance, then lost them without much trouble in some high-speed skidding and cornering around the suburbs, ending when the police car went out of control and fell into a canal. Then he doubled back and drove to within a few hundred yards of the bridge, from which point he and Rostiescki walked.

The turn of events had reinforced his decision to follow Ashling into the FER. After all, he reasoned, he wasn't about to get any more help here in Germany. The car would have been nice to keep, but it would have attracted too much attention, and getting it over would need all kinds of special papers.

"I'll be going across tonight, instead of the two you were expecting," Samurai told Rostiescki as they approached the floodlit gate area with its barriers and uniformed sentries.

"What about papers?"

"Would Oleg and Yuri have had papers? You said you'd fixed things."

"It costs money," Rostiescki said.

"You've already been paid by Pipeline," Samurai -reminded him. "For two. I'm only one."

"You weren't scheduled," Rostiescki persisted, still holding out. "That's different."

"Let's put it this way. Either I walk off the other end of this bridge tonight. Or you never get to walk off it at all."

* * *

On the far side, Samurai hitched a ride in an oil delivery truck a few miles to the town of Liberec, in Bohemia, one of the states that had previously formed Czechoslovakia. The driver dropped him off a block from a hotel that looked comfortable. After everything that had happened that day, Samurai was content to think simply of sleeping, and let the question of how to get farther wait until tomorrow.

 

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