The Berlin Conspiracy Read Free Page A

mother’s medical bills and how little a nurse made and how she only went with nice men. I asked her how she could tell if they were nice and she said she could just tell, like she did with me. I thought she probably said that to all her potential customers, but I didn’t mind listening. At least I was dry.
    I heard the door of the sedan slam and a minute later Powell was storming the platform with Baby Bear Johnson in tow. They stopped about ten feet away, like they were staking me out.
    “What the hell are you doing, Teller!” A vein was throbbing violently in Powell’s right temple and his head looked like it could explode any minute. He really needed to loosen his tie.
    “I was just talking to—” I turned to the lady. “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”
    “Rita,” she responded, looking kind of apprehensive.
    “I’m Jack,” I smiled. “Jack Teller.”
    “Hello.” She nodded warily.
    “Zip it up, Jack. Fun’s over,” Powell barked.
    I started to say that I hadn’t actually had a lot of laughs so far, that maybe Rita and I would try to salvage the evening, but I stopped short because that’s when I saw him—standing under a street lamp on the road below was our man, watching the whole scene with an expression of utter contempt on his face. He didn’t move, just stood there like a statue, one hand in the pocket of his raincoat, the other holding the cane, rain splashing off his fedora, waiting patiently for us to spot him.
    “Looks like we all got caught with our pants down.” I nodded toward the street.
    He waited for Powell to see him, then turned and disappeared into the darkness. Powell signaled Chase on the opposite platform and he took off after him, hoping to get some kind of ID—a car, a face, anything, but I knew he’d come up empty. This guy wasn’t your run-of-the-mill East German bureaucrat building a retirement fund. He was for real, you could tell.
    I wondered again why I would be of such interest. I’d been turning it over since I was briefed, thinking about operations I’d been involved in that might have attracted his attention. Iran, Guatemala, Mexico, or even Cuba—nothing connected. I’d been active in all that stuff and knew a lot, but nothing a lot of other guys didn’t know, too. The most reasonable explanation was that I looked like a candidate for recruitment because of the way I walked out, but that didn’t work, either. If they wanted to try me they’d have used a discreet approach, at the beach maybe, with a well-stuffed bikini as bait, not a letter that alerted the entire intelligence community to their intentions. No, it had to be something else that hooked him. But now it looked like I’d never know—it was highly unlikely that he’d give us a second shot.
    “We won’t see him again,” I said.
    “If that’s true, you’re in big fucking trouble,” Powell flashed. “Hell, you’re in big fucking trouble anyway.”
    “Really?” I answered as coolly as I could. “I’m the only one who’s supposed to be standing on this platform. Besides, I’m here on a guest pass, so if anyone’s in big fucking trouble it’s you, Chief.”
    Powell signaled Johnson with a nod. The kid reached out to take hold of my arm, and without really meaning to, I laid him out pretty cleanly with a simple left hook. To be fair, he wasn’t expecting it, but it felt good anyway. Powell sighed like a frustrated headmistress.
    “For Christ’s sake, Teller, was that really necessary?”
    I shrugged, offered Johnson a hand up, and pulled him onto his feet. “Sorry, kid, you took me by surprise.”
    “No problem,” he drawled, dabbing at a tiny spot of blood on his lip. “Would I be taking you by surprise now?”
    My throat was firmly in his grasp before he finished the sentence. I knew the move, but I’d never been on this side of it. It’s kind of like having your trachea in a vise—the slightest pressure will collapse the thin wall of membrane that runs from