STAG WAS ON the plane back to Singapore when she took the seat next to him. He couldn’t actually say he was surprised. No matter how much he covered his tracks, he was, after all, an amateur.
“How does it feel, Mr. Maguire, to be the most sought-after man on the planet?”
He looked at her, her thin vintage suit, this time in white cotton, set off the faint suntan. Angelika Aradi had followed him to Bali.
“You’re the only one who can find me. Why is that?” Stag now realized how odd it was for a flight from Bali to Singapore to be almost empty. He wondered if Ms. Aradi had managed to buy most of the tickets so they could speak.
“My father was a pickpocket in Hungary, my mother was Bosnian.” She smiled darkly. “They both gave me skills not necessarily found in those assigned to my job.”
“And what job would that be? Spy? Assassin? NATO-destroying subcontractor? What do you do, Ms. Aradi? In fact, what the fuck does Tarnhelm even do?” His guard was up. She was a singular woman. He feared her and was fascinated by her in equal measure.
She raised one eyebrow. “You don’t know?”
“No. Enlighten me.”
“Tarnhelm starts wars. There’s money in that, don’t you see?”
He rubbed his jaw. “Yeah, I got that.”
“What Tarnhelm does is deal in secrets. The enemy is the truth. Truth makes people very hard to control.”
“Then count me as the enemy.”
“They already have.”
“How much do they pay you to start wars?”
“I’d rather they pay me to stop them. But right now, my fee is my daughter’s life. She’s in a study. Cancer-free.” She paused. “She’s not yet five years old.”
Stag had nothing against a little kid, particularly one with cancer, but it didn’t settle well that Tarnhelm had sicced this woman on him only to find out she was a mama grizzly in disguise. How did you ever win a round with a mother protecting her cub?
“I guess there’s no point in offering you a bribe then,” he bit out.
“Mr. Maguire—Stag—they think you know where the bomb is. Once they get your information and find the bomb, Tarnhelm will sell it and kill you.”
“I’ll be happy to take the information to my grave then.”
“That’s their worst fear.”
“I know. So go tell them.” Stag’s anger was rising. “And fuck off.”
She stared at him. “You need to trust someone.”
“And I’m going to trust you?”
“No. But I know someone you can trust at NATO—”
“What? Are you telling me you’re some kind of ‘double agent’? Tarnhelm by day, NATO by night? Bullshit.”
“What I’m telling you is that Tarnhelm is very powerful, more than most of the world knows. Its tentacles are everywhere. But you can trust my contact—”
“How do I know the person you refer to is not reporting back to Tarnhelm for a nice set-aside?”
She didn’t toss back a smug answer.
Finally, she said what sounded a little too much like the truth. “Because I don’t want my daughter in Tarnhelm’s world, that’s why.” Her words were calm. “She’s fought too hard. She’s too pure. I may be filthy from what I’ve had to do, but I’m telling you the truth. I work for Portier. He is the one who paid for the study that cured my daughter. I have an allegiance to him. But I don’t want my daughter in a world where nuclear arms are bought and sold to the highest bidder.”
He stared at her. His back was up. She was good. Damn good. He almost believed her.
“Do you really understand what you’re dealing with?” she said. “A rogue nuclear device with the force of a Hiroshima, to the highest bidder? Untraceable to any nation, group, or corporation? I can’t think of anything more coveted on this earth except immortality.”
He still said nothing.
“You’re in deep. You’re going to need allies. And you don’t know who to trust.”
“I sure as fuck don’t trust you. According to Interpol, you’re wanted for questioning concerning the death of a NATO official.”
It was her turn for silence. But she didn’t look surprised by his accusation. If anything, she just looked more weary. Like she’d heard it all and seen it all.
“Here’s the contact.” She handed him a business card. “He’s expecting you at any time.”
“How do you keep finding me when all the rest can’t?”
“Tarnhelm has face-recognition spy satellites, but you can’t use it in subways or buildings. Sure, they’ve hacked into most Visa and MasterCard networks, but they can’t trace cash. Sometimes, like the military, they find themselves in love with the technology and fail to get the man on the ground to do the old-fashioned legwork.” Her hand slid to the part in his jacket. He looked down. There was the micro GPS he’d suspected she’d put in his sleeve. Her brushing against him on the Pariserplatz was just a diversion for the other hand to slip the GPS between his buttons.
“If I have to kill you in order to save my daughter, I will kill you.” She rose from her seat when the captain put on the seat belt sign for their approach into Singapore. “Do everything you can to prevent that.”
The plane’s lighting lit the wasting beauty on her face, and she turned and walked to the rear of the plane.
“Stag!” Jake called out from the lobby.
Stag had never been so happy to see someone in his life. He went to him as fast as he could through the expanse of the Berlin Sony Center.
“The apartment’s upstairs. Let me take your bag.” Stag gripped the older man’s shoulder in camaraderie. They walked through the enormous complex just south of the Tiergarten. Stag had found the place on Airbnb.
When they had settled into the stark, modern two-bedroom, Jake was the first to speak. “I’ve got the Königssee information. There’s a historian there—a Herr Professor Hoening—I’ve already spoken to him. He says there have been rumors of Nazi stash around Königssee since late ’42. But he was adamant that there was nothing in the lake. It’s too clear and too easy to explore. It’s a dead end.”
“Maybe it’s not the Königssee. Maybe I’m off-base on that one.” Stag frowned.
“Perhaps, but there’s a lot of abandoned military equipment that was there at the end of the war. He said most of it has been picked off, but there are a few places in the mountains inaccessible. They’ve been left virtually intact.”
“I need to go there. But first, I have to figure out if I have all the pieces in Berlin. There’s an apartment here …” Stag’s voice wandered off. He still couldn’t figure out what bothered him about it. “I think the first thing to do is have you get over your jet lag. Then dinner tonight. With an acquaintance.”
“Acquaintance?”
“Yes. I don’t really trust him, but I think he just may tell us the truth. Besides, I’m kind of running out of friends in Berlin.”
Jake nodded, then headed to his bedroom to rest.
“I am interested in an apartment,” Stag said into the new GoFone he’d bought. The number would be unrecognizable to Kronbauer and whoever might be tracing calls at the Dresdenhof, but he hoped Kronbauer would recognize his American accent and voice even though he spoke German.
There was a long pause at the other end of the line.
“I am sorry. We have nothing available,” Kronbauer said slowly.
“I would like to meet with someone anyway. If in the future—”
“I will pass your number on to the appropriate person. Thank you very much.”
Stag heard the click at the end of the line. He wasn’t sure if the message got through. The only thing he could do now was wait.