The Berlin Conspiracy Read Free

who’d spotted Chase and decided to give it a miss. Either way I’d come a long way for nothing. To my surprise, I felt let down. Being back in action, even such as it was, had my adrenaline going again and my curiosity was aroused.
    It started to drizzle.
    “We’ve been stood up, guys,” I said into my pocket. “Anyway, it’s getting wet out here and Goldilocks needs some hot porridge.”
    Long pause, me getting wetter while the message was relayed.
    “Papa’s not ready to call it,” I finally got in my ear. “We’ll go till twenty-one hundred.”
    Powell knew the guy wasn’t going to turn up. He just wanted to avoid any second-guessing from Washington, but meanwhile I was the jerk getting wet. “Sure,” I said, keeping my cool. “But I’m lodging a formal complaint with my union.”
    “We’ll be sure to put that in the report,” Baby Bear assured me. “And, ah … Papa Bear requests that you knock off the chatter.”
    “No problem.” Now I wanted to knock Papa Bear’s arrogant head off his gray flannel shoulders.
    The rain started to pick up. I was about to tell Powell where to get off when out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a figure with a cane approaching. I buried my nose in the
Tribune,
muttered, “Heads up,” into the microphone.
    “Yeah, we see it,” I got back from Johnson.
    My heart picked up a beat.
    The figure stopped, maybe fifteen feet short of the bench. I stole a look and saw it was a woman holding a closed umbrella. Mid- to late thirties, with dark hair falling out of a cream-colored nylon scarf with faded red roses around the edge. She looked tired, kind of used up. I noticed a small run in her stocking along her right calf that she had mended with nail polish. She became aware of my look, glanced back over her shoulder, and opened the umbrella.
    There was no reason that our mystery man couldn’t be a mystery woman. Of course, an umbrella wasn’t a cane but that could’ve been a glitch in translation. (It wasn’t that unusual. I once saw a description of an especially tall Venezuelan contact translated as “he is unusually high.” The meeting never came off because our guys were looking for somebody who was stoned out of his mind. It really happened.)
    I went back to the newspaper, but kept one eye on her. She was doing the same with me, but not very subtly. I could tell that she was going to make a move and after a few more peeks she did, faking interest in a movie poster to move closer to the bench. I waited, thinking we were wasting our time—this was strictly Amateur Hour.
    Finally she turned to me and, in German, said, “You’re getting wet.”
    My German was pretty rusty, but I tried anyway, saying something like, “Are you offering to share your umbrella?”
    She paused for a beat, looked me over, then, in English, said, “Would you like to have some company?”
    I couldn’t help laughing, which took her by surprise. She turned away, looking more embarrassed than offended, which she had every right to be. I was about to apologize when I got Powell in my ear.
    “For Christ’s sake, Teller, get rid of the whore,” in that weary Ivy League way. Fuck you, I thought, she’s just trying to earn a living, probably a more honorable one than you earn. I removed the earpiece, put it in my jacket pocket, and got off the bench.
    “Hey, I wasn’t laughing at you.” She looked at me, dubious. “I just thought it was funny that you switched to English. Is my German that bad?”
    She smiled. “Terrible.” It was a nice, natural smile. She had nice eyes, too. Light brown. Too bad they were massacred with mascara.
    “I don’t do this all the time,” she said after an awkward pause. “I’m a nurse.” She didn’t need to explain anything to me, but if it made her feel better that was fine.
    I said that in fact I wouldn’t mind sharing her umbrella, and as soon as I was under she started to tell me about how she needed the money to pay for her sick