2 Oct 90—DENVER
In the beginning of the deal, Gandolph had expected to pay in cash but Denisov was too smart for that. He could deal with Kurt Heinemann but it would be on electronic terms. He did not accept cash, only a bank transfer. So Gandolph had arranged to put fifteen million dollars in the account of a certain bank in Zurich with offices on the Paradeplatz. Tomorrow, when Heinemann met Denisov, the money would be transferred by Heinemann’s telephone call to the Swiss city.
“What do you think?” Gandolph said. He was dressed casually, as casually as a man handing over the key to fifteen million dollars can be under the circumstances. Money changing is always a nervous moment. Not that he didn’t trust Kurt Heinemann. When it came down to it, Kurt needed Gandolph—his contacts and protections—more than Gandolph needed him.
They were sitting in the living room of his house in Evergreen in the Front Range of the mountains above the western edge of Denver. The kids and the wife were in Phoenix for the week.
Kurt Heinemann looked down at the cup on the coffee table between them. It was a nice, big house on the hillside, surrounded by trees and privacy. The mountains were clothed in bright colors because of the intensity of the sunlight. They met this way because Gandolph was the only person inside Consortium International who dealt with Mr. Dodge. It had been this way from the moment he was hired. Consortium International had its public meetings but each partner reported in general terms, never in specifics. That way, all their secrets were kept safe and risks were not shared. They liked it that way. Thus, the risk of Miss Browning was slight but real, shared only by Gandolph and, possibly, Mr. Dodge, and Gandolph had taken care of it in a secret way.
What did not occur to Gandolph this bright afternoon was that private risk did not minimize risk at all but, in some cases, exaggerated it.
Kurt Heinemann went to the wall of windows that led to the balcony. He had left the money transfer instructions on the coffee table. He carried a cup of coffee in his hand. He might have gone to the deck to look at the view. It was very nice and very private. The deck was at least a hundred feet above the next bit of ground. Ten stories.
Gandolph joined him on the deck. He shared the view as the owner of it.
“Tomorrow night,” Gandolph said.
“Ja, tomorrow it will be done.”
“When will I see you?”
“I will call you at the house from the airport. I can transfer the machine here.”
“Then what?”
“I will take a holiday. Maybe I will go to Mexico. I have never been there.”
“Don’t drink the water.” Another smile.
“So.” He put the cup down on a ledge that surrounded the deck. Gandolph smiled at him curiously and inclined his head.
Kurt Heinemann had killed or helped kill many dozens in his years in the Stasi. He saw murder as an instrument of war. Wars were declared and undeclared but killing was only an instrument. In any war, there are innocents. There had been no innocents here except for Mr. Gandolph’s wife and his two small children. It had pleased Kurt that they were not in this house and that they would not present a problem.
“So, Mr. Gandolph, we must say good-bye then.”
“Good-bye? I told you, we have a lot of opportunities coming up and they’re in your line.”
“I sold you on the existence of a machine that you yourself had heard existed from contacts with CIA. So, I could get you such a machine.”
“Yes.”
“Then our business is concluded,” Kurt Heinemann said. “Auf Wiedersehen, Herr Direktor.”
“I don’t get it.”
Kurt plucked the cup of coffee from Gandolph’s hand. He placed it next to his own on the deck ledge. Gandolph’s smile was definitely descending into a puzzled stare.
“I don’t get it,” Gandolph said again.
“Because you do not have to get it,” Kurt Heinemann said. Black eyes turned cold, face pale in the sunlight, the white scar livid under the eye. Gandolph stepped forward and grabbed at the ledge like a man holding on.
It was the wrong position to take.
Kurt knelt quickly and simply picked him up by the ankles and shoved.
He scarcely had time to scream as he flailed his arms like a high-diver and crashed headfirst on the floor of the forest.
Kurt stared down at the body.
He picked up his coffee and sipped. He kept staring at the body.
He had taken the irrevocable first step away from Pendleton and his servitude in America. He had fifteen million dollars. Tomorrow he would have Ruth with him on a plane to Germany and he would have both fifteen million in his own Zurich account and a machine to generate more money. Whatever happened, he would be back in his own world, fighting the war as the good soldier.