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thirty-two

Samurai was met at Hamburg's Fuhlsbüttel airport by the local CIA station chief, Ambrose Chame, who was based at the U.S. consulate ostensibly as a member of a trade delegation, and a younger man whom he introduced as William Litherland, one of his agents. A black Mercedes waited for them outside the terminal. As they sped south into the city preceded by a Hamburg police car flashing a blue light, Chame briefed Samurai on the measures that had been put in place. Circo had called somebody at the Berlin embassy the night before, requesting police cooperation but declining to give details on grounds of national security, and the German federal authorities had cleared things with Hamburg.

Chame was a solid, heavily built man in his fifties, who moved ponderously and wheezily, with shaggy hair, ample, ruddy features, and a ragged mustache. He was wearing an open raincoat and scarf with a Tyrolean hat against the north German winter cold, and talked in a blunt, forthright manner that said he'd been doing this for years, it was as lousy as any other job, and anyone who didn't like his manners should be looking for a different line of work.

"The latest is that the boat's on time. The kraut honcho running this end is a guy called Weyel. He's down at the docks now, getting set up. They'll be checking out everyone who comes down the plank."

"How many men does he have? Where has he deployed them?" Samurai asked.

"That's his bag. We'll find out when we get there."

"How will they identify Ashling?"

"We got pictures through the wire first thing this -morning."

"These men of Weyel's, I assume they are reliable?" Samurai fired the questions in a clipped, authoritative voice, conveying more than a hint of presumption that he already regarded this as his operation.

Chame eyed him undecidedly for a second before -replying. "Relax. Yeah, they're as good as you're gonna get, okay?"

"We can't afford any mistakes," Samurai insisted.

"We're just gonna grab a guy who's coming off a fuckin' ship, for chrissakes," Chame pointed out. "You wanna call out the whole army?"

"I'm used to perfection, and I expect nothing less," Samurai informed him curtly.

Chame caught Litherland's look; turned his eyes upward briefly, and looked away out the window at the outskirts of the city. Desk cowboy from inside the Beltway. This was going to be one of those pain-in-the-ass jobs that he just loved.

* * *

Inspector Weyel, in contrast to Chame, was small and dapper, clad in a gray overcoat over a suit, with checkered vest and a crisp white shirt. Also, to begin with anyway, he was impressed by, and approving of, Samurai's display of professional thoroughness.

The Auriga was a medium-tonnage freighter that carried maybe a dozen passengers in addition to cargo. It would moor at the Baltic-Pacific Line berths on a quay backed by warehouses and the company's offices in the north-shore docks. Weyel had the full cooperation of the owners, and had spread out a plan of the berthing area on a table in the loading manager's office, which looked out over the quay. Three gangplanks were usually used, one forward, one stern, and one amidships. The passengers disembarked via the last. Nevertheless, Samurai had insisted on having one of Weyel's men at every gate, each of them backed by two uniformed men.

"What happens after they come ashore?" Samurai asked, studying the plan. "Which way do they leave?"

An official of the company pointed. "The luggage is brought through to there, where they clear immigration and customs. Then along that corridor past the trucking bays to the exit. The roadway there connects out through gates to the street."

"Place another man in the customs hall there, with two uniformed men by the door out," Samurai directed. "Also, keep a car standing by outside the gate." Weyel nodded and passed the instructions to an assistant, who said "Ja" and hurried away.

Samurai went to the window and surveyed the berth where the Auriga would dock. "There is the chance that they could take him off the far side in a boat," he said. "Contact the harbor police and have a launch patrolling about five hundred meters out there."

Weyel thought that was getting a bit melodramatic, but he complied.

"I assume we have direct contact from here to all your units?" Samurai said.

Weyel indicated the radio on the table beside the plans.

"The sets have all been tested?"

"They are quite reliable," Weyel assured him. For the first time, a discernible edge of irritation crept into his voice.

"Test them," Samurai said.

Chame and Litherland were watching from inside the doorway. "Think we need the Navy too, in case he tries to get away in a submarine?" Litherland murmured from the side of his mouth, his face deadpan.

Chame snorted beneath his breath and shook his head. "That guy's got a fuckin' cattle prod stuck up his ass. Where are they getting 'em from these days, Bill?"

The harbor police launch duly appeared and began circling slowly offshore in the estuary. The phone rang and was answered by the company official, who announced that the Auriga was less than a kilometer away along the channel. The ship came into sight shortly afterward under the overcast sky, an unremarkable container ship with a stern super-structure, hull lime-green showing a few streaks of rust, and an orange stack. It turned at one of the outer buoys, came in on an approach course to align gradually with the dock, reversed screws, and nudged gently against the quay. Hawsers were pulled across and secured fore and aft. The gangways went up, shouted orders and replies sounded back and forth, and a few minutes later figures began filing down.

But nothing came from the policemen watching the midships ramp to report anybody resembling Ashling. Nor from either of the other two ramps, where crewmen had also started coming off.

"Stop them all at the customs point," Samurai instructed, looking strained. "I'm going down there myself."

He did so, and observed personally while each of the ten listed passengers was interviewed by an immigration agent. None of them was Ashling.

"Seal off this whole area," Samurai said. "None of the crew are to be let out without being checked. He could be disguised."

Everyone who had come ashore was cleared. The -delay was affecting operations aboard the ship, and the captain was getting annoyed, demanding to know what in hell was going on. Chame stayed out of it, smoking cigarettes, and seemed to find it amusing.

"There is no way they could have been tipped off," Samurai fumed. "He must be here somewhere. Inspector, organize a search of the ship."

But by now Weyel had had enough. "Look, I think it's about time you realized that you don't have the authority to give orders here," he retorted.

"Just do it, dammit!"

"My instructions were to assist you in apprehending a passenger," Weyel reminded him. "The passengers have all been accounted for, and the man you're looking for was not among them. Therefore I have no further obligation. I suggest you recheck with your sources of information."

Samurai looked across in exasperation to Chame, who was smirking over a plastic cup of coffee. "Can you explain to this idiot that this is important?"

"You're the hot shit from the top, who knows what's going on. You explain it to him."

At that moment, hurrying footsteps sounded from the corridor leading out to the street entrance. The policemen by the door into the customs hall parted to let through a man in a raincoat, who came straight over to Weyel.

"What is it, Gustav?" Weyel said, reading the urgency on his face.

"We've just got news from the Harbor Light Bar, sir. The Estonian who calls himself Nicolaus was seen there within the last hour, accompanied by a man answering to Ashling's description. They left through the rear entrance when our men arrived who were sent to check."

Samurai put a hand to his brow. "You mean you didn't have the back of the place covered?" he grated.

"Let's get over there," Weyel snapped. Chame gulped down the last of his coffee, crumpled the cup, and tossed it at a bin. Samurai was already following Weyel out, while the other policemen around the room converged toward the doorway behind them.

* * *

The Harbor Light Bar was little more than a glorified pub down on the waterfront, with a couple of drinking lounges, one of which also served as the restaurant, and a few rooms that were let out upstairs.

"Yes, he left that way, the Estonian," the proprietor confirmed, indicating a passageway leading to the back of the premises. He nodded and stabbed a finger up and down on the photograph of Ashling that was lying on the bartop. "The man who was with him looked like that. They sneaked out with their bags as if they were in a hurry. It was when your police came in this way and started asking questions."

"You're sure?" Weyel said, sounding as if he found it hard to believe.

"Of course he's sure," Samurai seethed. "Does he look like one of those incompetents that you've got working for you?"

"I'd suggest that language like that is hardly likely to prove constructive," Weyel said stiffly.

"What kind of language do you expect, Inspector?" Samurai demanded. "Why not face the facts? Hell, you screwed up."

Weyel wasn't used to having this kind of difference aired in public. "How can you say that?" he retorted. "We did everything exactly as you specified."

"On the contrary, you did everything wrong. Am I -expected to be everywhere at once?"

"What else did you want?" Weyel demanded angrily.

Samurai enumerated on his fingers, his eyes blazing. "You let him slip through somewhere, off the ship. You didn't have this place staked out from the start, which allowed them to get back here. You sent uniformed men blundering in the front to alert them. You hadn't secured the rear. Do you want me to go on? . . . Should I take over running whatever passes for a training school in this city?"

Weyel colored visibly and whirled upon him, whereupon Chame interjected, "Why don't we check out the room? It might tell us something."

Which averted a row for the time being. The policemen, Chame and Litherland, and Samurai followed the proprietor up a flight of stairs behind the living room, and along a passage adorned with nautical decor and paintings of ships.

The room was a plain but bright and cleanly kept single, with closet doors open, a half-empty bottle of schnapps left on the vanity, and other signs of having been hurriedly vacated. There were some oddments of food, discarded wrappings, and a couple of used bus and train tickets -lying around, but nothing immediately useful. Litherland touched a fingertip to a trace of white crystalline powder on the vanity top near the bottle and tested it experimentally with his tongue. "Salt," he informed the others simply.

Chame, meanwhile, had straightened up from the waste bin, holding an empty, cylindrical, plastic container.

Samurai took it from him and turned it to show the label. It read "Panacyn," and had Ashling's name, along with directions.

"It's his," Samurai announced grimly. "He was here." He held the container out, as if offering evidence that he was inviting any of the others to challenge. None of them did.

The implication was clear. Germany was part of the Consolidation, and hence its security and police forces cooperated closely with U.S. and other Western agencies, and maintained strict frontier controls. But if Ashling never-theless managed to cross over into Poland or the states that had once constituted Czechoslovakia, he would be virtually unstoppable. After half a century of the delights of communism, those countries took a more relaxed attitude -toward such matters, making passage onward into the FER little more than a formality. In fact, some said that Eastern Europe was already as good as a part of the FER. And once there, in the chaos and anarchy that now prevailed where tsars and commissars had once ruled, he could vanish without effort.

Samurai looked from one to another of the faces confronting him, as if expecting somebody to voice the obvious. They stared back, waiting. "He must be stopped before he gets out of Hamburg," he said finally.

"Very well. You're the perfectionist. What would you suggest?" Weyel replied, sounding sarcastic and relishing it.

For once Samurai's resourcefulness failed him. After a final check around the room, which turned up nothing new, the party went back downstairs and split up to depart in several vehicles. Weyel accompanied Chame, Litherland, and Samurai back to the U.S. consulate to make sure that his version of the story was incorporated into the record there. Samurai said nothing, but sat glowering with suppressed rage throughout the drive.

Chame, in between popping peanuts into his mouth and studying the city passing by, sent occasional, curiously thoughtful glances in his direction as they drove. For somebody who seemed to be exceptional in a lot of ways, this Sam Harris was astoundingly inept at handling the human side of the business, Chame thought. And in Chame's experience, the people side was what it was all about. Somehow he got chilly passings of a feeling that Harris didn't have a human side to him at all. Either that, or something inside the hotshot from Washington was starting to come apart.

* * *

The news waiting when they got to the consulate changed the whole picture, however. Following a priority-one request from Circo, search keywords relating to Ashling's defection had been watchlisted in the National Security Agency computers at Fort Meade, the final repository and clearinghouse of the nation's prolific industry in global communications tapping and eavesdropping. A satellite intercept that morning had picked up an item in a microwaved message stream of telephone conversations emanating from an unidentified source inside the FER. The extract, routed to the consulate in Hamburg via the U.S. embassy in Berlin, had come in only minutes previously. It read:

"There's been a change of plan. We've got a place -reserved for Headman on a December 6 launch from Semipalatinsk. Have you got that?" . . . There was a gap to indicate a reply, which the satellite hadn't recorded since it would have been carried in a transmission going the other way. Then: "Yuri won't be able to make it tonight to collect him in Berlin. So can you put him up somewhere overnight, and Yuri will meet you for breakfast instead." . . . Another gap, followed by, "Okay, then. That's the Branden-burger on Heerstrasse, ten o'clock sharp. Yuri will be there. . . ." The route-back code contained in the transmission indicated that the call had originated from Volgograd, in what was now the Kalmyk Republic.

And that suddenly answered everything. Semipalatinsk, formerly a center of the Soviet space program, was now one of the principal Earthports to Offworld, located in the Kazakh Free State. Pipeline's intention was clearly to ship Ashling up from there, launching in five days' time. Yuri was evidently a courier being sent to collect Ashling and take him across the frontier. And they weren't due to meet until tomorrow!

Samurai departed for Berlin less than an hour later, having made arrangements with his U.S. embassy contact to be met there, and for police cooperation and backup to be available.

This was going to be Berlin district's problem now! Inspector Weyel obligingly agreed to provide Samurai with a car. He even supplied him with a police driver. Just to make sure he got there.

 

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