Brandenburg (2 page)

He parked the car and walked back the last block to the small commercial bank on the corner, pushed through the revolving doors, and told the manager he wanted to see his safe-deposit box.

The manager promptly ordered a senior clerk to go down to the vault with the old man: Señor Tsarkin, after all, was a valued customer.

“Then tell him to go. I want to be left alone,” Tsarkin said in his usual abrupt manner.

“Certainly, Señor Tsarkin. Thank you, Señor Tsarkin.” A final, polite bow from the manager, and then, “Buenos días, Señor Tsarkin.”

The blue-suited manager irritated Tsarkin, as usual, but especially so this morning, with his bowing and scraping and ingratiating, gold-toothed smile.

Buenos días.
Good morning.
What was good about it?

He had just been told he had less than forty-eight hours to live, and right now the pain in his stomach was eating into him like a fire, almost unendurable. He felt weak, terribly weak, despite the drugs to quell the pain. What had he to smile about? What was good about this morning?

The last morning of his life, because he knew now what he had to do.

And yet the truth was, Tsarkin felt a strange kind of relief: the lie would soon be over.

He caught a reflection of himself in the cold, stainless-steel walls as the clerk led him down into the cool of the vault. Tsarkin was ninety-one and, until six months ago, had looked ten years younger. He had been fit then, ate the proper foods, never smoked, and rarely drank. Everyone said he would make the century.

They were wrong.

His reflection in the stainless-steel wall showed him as he was: emaciated, looking like a corpse already, the bleeding in his stomach so bad that he could almost feel the life draining from him. But he had important things to do, no matter what the pain, no matter what the doctors had told him. And once those things were done he could sleep peacefully, forever.

Unless there really was a God and a hereafter, in which case he would pay for his sins. But Tsarkin doubted it. No just God would have let him live so long and so full and so rich a life after all he had done. No, you just died. It was that simple. The flesh became dust, and you were gone forever: no pain, no heaven, no hell. Just nothingness.

He hoped.

The clerk unlocked the metal gates and led him through into the basement chamber. It was a small room, six yards by six, silent, a cold marble floor. The clerk examined the key number he held in his hand, ran a finger along the shining steel boxes along one of the walls, found Tsarkin’s deposit box, removed and unlocked the box, and placed it on the polished wooden table in the center of the room. He handed over the key, withdrew, and then Tsarkin was alone.

The vault had the coldness and the silence of a morgue and Tsarkin shivered involuntarily.
Soon I’ll be there,
he told himself.
Soon there will be no pain
. As he went to sit at the table he dragged the small metal box toward him, inserted the key, and opened the lid, before removing the contents and spreading the papers out onto the polished table.

All there. The deeds to his lands, the keys to his past. He reconsidered a moment, putting off what had to be done, thought about enjoying one last orgy of indulgence, but truly there was nothing more he wanted to do. The pain made everything unbearable, and, besides, he had enjoyed everything life had to offer.

He gathered up the contents of the deposit box in his hands, sorted them neatly into an orderly pile, and placed them in one of the old, large envelopes that contained some of the papers. It made a neat, hefty bundle. Then he pressed the buzzer for the clerk to return.

•   •   •

The house stood on the Calle Iguazu, on the outskirts of the city. White and large and surrounded by high walls, barely visible from the road. The classiest part of Asunción, and Tsarkin had been able to afford it. He opened the wrought-iron gates with the remote control, drove up the curved sweep of the asphalt road, and parked the Mercedes on the gravel driveway in front of the house.

He grunted when the mestizo butler opened the front door to greet him. He went straight through to his wood-paneled study and locked the door. It was warm in the study. Tsarkin loosened the two top buttons of his shirt as he looked out onto the lush, manicured gardens, the pepper and palm trees beyond the window. He owned a lot of property in Asunción, and three farms in the Chaco hinterland, but this place had always been his favorite.

He sat down at the polished apple-wood desk and emptied the contents of the envelope onto the gleaming surface and began to sift through the pile.

He looked at the passport first. Nicolas Tsarkin. Fine. Except he wasn’t Nicolas Tsarkin. His real name—he’d almost forgotten it—and then when it came to his lips, so unreal, he had to smile to himself, weakly. So long to live a lie. He put the passport aside.

Once he was wanted in half a dozen countries. Once he did terrible things in that old, forgotten name. Inflicted terrible deaths and terrible pain. And yet the truth was, when you boiled it down, he
couldn’t stand pain himself. He chided himself: it was no time for thought.
Do it
.

He sorted through the papers. Old, tired papers, tattered records of his past. He read through them once again. As in his nightmares, it all came back to him: the cold terror on the faces of his victims, the blood, the butchery. Yet he felt no remorse.

He would have done it all again. No question.

He put the papers aside, removed several blank sheets of paper and an envelope from the desk drawer, and began writing.

When he finished fifteen minutes later, he sealed the envelope and tucked it into his pocket before crossing to the fireplace, clutching the papers from the safe-deposit box in his hands, and making a neat pile of them in the grate.

He took a match from the box he kept on the mantelpiece, struck it, and set the flame to the papers. Then he crossed to the wall safe hidden behind the framed oil painting, swung back the painting on its hinges, and thumbed through the combination.

He selected the papers he wanted, making sure there was nothing left that might incriminate anyone, and crossed back to the fireplace. Watching as the flames licked the papers, he added more to the blaze, until there was nothing, only black ashes. He checked through the ashes with the poker.

The flames had done their work. Nothing remained.

When he had done all he had had to do, he left the house. He drove to the post office four blocks away, bought the stamp he needed, and posted the letter, express. He drove straight back to the house, parked the car in the garage this time, and went into his study again.

Do it quickly,
the voice in his head told him.

No time for thought. No time for thinking about the pain to come. From the top drawer of the polished apple-wood desk he took out the long-barreled Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver, checked that the chambers were loaded, then placed the barrel of the weapon in the roof of his mouth, letting his lips form a perfect O around the cold metal.

He squeezed the trigger.

It was all over in less than a second, and Tsarkin never heard the explosion that flung him up and backward, shattering half his brain, as the bullet ripped out through the back of his skull, sending shards of bone and bloodied brain matter flying into the air behind him, spattering the white walls gray and red as the blunted lead of the bullet embedded itself in the wood below the ceiling.

Less than a second of primary pain.

All in all, Nicolas Tsarkin could not have wished for a more quick and painless death.

PART ONE

2

STRASBOURG, FRANCE. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23

Sally Thornton knew she wanted to spend her last night with him.

It was raining hard as they came out of the restaurant near the opera, and when Joe Volkmann hailed a taxi to take them back to his apartment, she knew she was going to stay. Men didn’t ask a girl back for a drink and then send her home in a taxi. Especially not on a rain-soaked night. At least not the men she’d known.

She wore an emerald-green blouse that hugged her slim figure and matched her eyes. Her skirt was gray and tight, and her legs were sheathed in darker gray-patterned stockings. She knew she had a shape that most women would kill for. But she wasn’t quick to give her sexual favors. Though she knew little about Joe Volkmann, she liked him very much.

Sally had been in the intelligence services for five years since Oxford, and she had just finished a six-month temporary posting at DSE—Direction de Sécurité Européenne. Created eighteen months earlier by the European Union, the intent had been to form a European equivalent of the United States’ FBI, with investigation and enforcement powers that crossed national frontiers. In practice, DSE didn’t quite live up to that intent. Despite the European Union, nationalism had not withered away. Still, her time in Strasbourg had been fascinating. But now it was time to go home, a week’s leave in London before her posting to New York.

During her time at DSE, Joe Volkmann had been her teacher and mentor. He had been friendly and warm, intense at work, but today when he offered to help her pack, she was a little surprised; still, she knew the offer was genuine and not a come-on. She got the feeling that he didn’t push things, so the man was a challenge.

He’d spent the afternoon in the apartment in Petite France, helping her fill the wooden packing crates with her belongings and the small items of antique furniture she’d bought. When she suggested a meal to repay him, he countered with tickets to the opera and dinner afterward.

The opera was
The Magic Flute,
music she loved. As she watched him throughout the performance, she saw that he listened to it attentively. And though he smiled at her a lot and the evening had a romantic flavor, he didn’t try to make a pass. That was usually a specialty of the Italians if you ventured near their DSE offices.

His apartment on the Quai Ernest Bevin was on the first floor, and the balcony entrance overlooked a tiny, paved courtyard. It was a small, two-bedroom affair, and he kept it pretty neat for a guy. A TV in a corner, as well as a Sony sound system. Several books lay around and lots of CDs. Classical mostly, but she saw some jazz and rock. On shelves above were some photographs in frames, and more books.

Choosing a disc, he inserted it into the CD player. Edith Piaf, Sally soon noted with approval. “How about a drink, Sally?”

She went to sit on the couch and crossed her long legs. She saw him look at them briefly, and she said, “How about scotch?”

“A girl after my own heart,” he said, smiling.

“With ice and a splash of water,” she added, echoing his smile.

She watched him go into the kitchen. He was tall, dark-haired with a touch of gray, and well built—not handsome in a conventional way, but he was attractive. He looked more French than British. And he had something, only Sally Thornton couldn’t figure out what. Maybe something in his sensitive brown eyes, the same eyes she had seen in the woman in one of the photographs on the shelf.

He looked like the kind of guy who could protect a woman . . . But then, all the men she worked with looked like that—trained soldiers and intelligence officers and hard-nosed narcotics specialists masquerading as policemen.

She figured out maybe what it was. Here was a man she could
trust. He was a hard man, but he didn’t come on hard. And his smile gave him away . . . he was vulnerable, she reckoned, under the confident exterior.

He came back into the room carrying their glasses. He handed hers across and sat on the couch opposite. He loosened his tie, and as he sipped his scotch, he let his eyes fall on her, and she was conscious of his stare—and of his gentle, unthreatening smile. In the background, Edith Piaf was singing.
Je ne regrette rien
.

“You’re going to miss me, Joe?”

“Sure. There’s a lot to miss.”

“Then why are you smiling?”

“Because they’re going to love you in New York.”

“Who? The people at the embassy?”

“Those, too. But I mean the Americans. The guys will be beating down your door.”

She smiled, swirled her glass. “Why, thank you for the compliment. You’ll come visit me sometimes?”

“If you like. But the truth is, you’re better off over there, Sally. Things are turning bad in Europe, and I think they’ll get a lot worse before they get better.” He glanced at his watch, then the TV. “You mind if I catch the late news? It’s a professional vice.”

“Go ahead. I’m a news junkie, too.”

He turned down the sound system and flicked on the TV. The news was pretty discouraging. The economic downturn was in its third year. Unemployment was over 20 percent. Business failures kept mounting—solid companies you’d have thought would never fail. And in Germany, where the East was never successfully integrated, the downturn was worse than in the other nations of the EU. Angry mobs rampaged through the streets. Except for the fact that the images were in color, the scenes were very like those from another age. And they both recognized that.