He was where she would have expected him to be, at a corner table, away from the rest of the customers, in the shade of a tree, the sun behind him giving him a silhouette and keeping his identity disguised. It was a tactically perfect position. Besides, she was sure that he had his people in the area watching them, anyway.
They were in a little park at the base of the Berliner Fernsehturm, Berlin’s infamous TV tower and revolving restaurant that dominates the skyline no matter where you are in the city. The park had a small coffee stall and at this time of the morning it was fairly busy, made even more pleasurable by the warm day and relaxed atmosphere. She knew how he operated and she was familiar with his rules, so, for today at least, she kept herself in check. There would be no attitude today, no cutting comments… at least she hoped not.
“It’s been too long,” he said, standing to greet her. The smile on his face was both warm and generous. She still looked the same; slim, petite. The only change physically was that her blonde hair was gone and had been replaced with a red colour that looked like copper on fire. It suited her, he thought.
Sabina pulled back the little chair at the table, sitting down and placing her shoulder bag on her lap in front of her. The bag was both a comforter and a barrier to her nerves. She looked him over for a moment. Dark jacket, scarf, and black turtle neck sweater. He even dressed like a Berliner. In the past, she had only known him as Alex; a cover name certainly, but one that fitted his mysterious reputation and occupation, but her brother had referred to him as the Fisherman once he had been recruited.
“I like the bits of grey in your hair. It makes you look distinguished. I’m surprised you remembered me after all this time,” she said smartly. So much for being well behaved and no attitude, she thought belatedly.
“Of course I did, I kept an eye on you from a distance. It’s safer for you that way, safer for everyone. You know the rules,” he said reasonably.
“It’s good that you remember your old lovers. That’s what a gentleman would do, I suppose.” Ouch – there she went again. Stop it Sabina, just stop it!
He let that slide. This was not the time to bring up old emotions and their shared past history, no matter how brief it had been. It had been a little over five years since he had last spoken with her face to face and that had been the day that he had ended their love affair. The recruitment phase of the Sailfish operation was coming to an end and was moving into the long-term phase of running him as a source. In real terms, Sabina’s use as an access agent was no longer needed and it was therefore necessary for Lyth to slowly withdraw his availability to her.
He had taken her for lunch to a little bistro where they had dined well and laughed. But even then he was sure that Sabina could sense the coldness that was creeping over him. By the time they had made it back to the hotel room and they had made love, she knew it for sure. The warmth and passion of him, while still there, was clearly not as intense, in fact it felt more like he was giving her a pity fuck.
So when he sat her down and had told her what Pavel was doing for him and how it was vital that she keep the secret of his covert life to herself, she knew then that she was nothing more than a means to an end. He had held her and told her that she would not see him again, probably not for a long time. Their affair was over, he was going away. She asked him to repeat what he had just said and so he had, but much more delicately this time. She had slapped him hard across the face once, twice, and he had taken it, not reacting. Then she had broken down in tears, sobbing, the pain and hurt racking her body.
Of course it wasn’t as clean-cut as that. They had arranged for her to move to Berlin, out of harm’s way, had provided her with an apartment, money to set her up and had even enrolled her in university to study art. In case of an emergency with Pavel, she was to be the cut-out between her brother and his controller. “If there is a problem with Pavel, if he reaches out to you while he is away, then that means he is in trouble and needs help. Contact this number and I will get to you both,” he had said.
And then he had left and hadn’t seen Sabina since. Instead, he moved onto another operation, another source for the Prism in a different part of the world. Sabina often wondered if he had ever shed a tear for her, for them… ever… or if he had just shoved his emotions down into some dark pit deep inside himself. Maybe he just really was that cold and heartless after all?
“How does motherhood suit you? A little boy, I hear,” said Lyth warmly.
A light came over her face and she smiled. “He is my world. I can’t imagine my life without him anymore.”
They both looked at each other and shared a hundred unfinished conversations in those glances.
“I know why you are back here. Is it my brother? What’s happened to him? Is something wrong?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Sabina, as of this morning your brother is fine and at his usual position in work. He’s in good health and safe.”
She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing, her shoulders relaxing.
“However, the situation is changing rapidly. The contingency plan that we talked about all those years ago is now coming to fruition,” said Lyth. “It looks as if your brother’s future in his current position is about to become untenable. We need to prepare for that and I need you to help us bring him to us, just like we planned all those years ago.”
She nodded. It was the day she thought would never happen – the extraction. “How long do we have?”
“He has his appointment with the doctor in Vienna in less than a week. I wish it was longer and that we had more time to set things in motion… but, as I say, the situation is advancing upon us quickly.”
“What do you need from me?” she asked; she was focused and ready now.
Lyth met her eyes. They were green with a fleck of gold in them. “I need you to commit to bringing him home, to us. I need you to go on a fishing trip for me.”
She nodded. “I will –”
But he had already cut her off. “But I can’t tell you any more about what we have in mind until you have thought it through. It’s dangerous and not without risks, but we will be with you all of the way.”
She sat quietly, her body still but her mind racing. Finally, she asked the question that was burning away at her. “And Marco? What will happen to him?”
“We will look after him while you are away… a few days, nothing more. I promise. We have good people, kind people that can help you through this. I want you to think about it overnight,” said Lyth kindly.
She laughed harshly. “What? I have to wait to decide between my brother and my child? Don’t be ridiculous!”
“It’s a difficult predicament to be in, I know, I understand. But I really want you to think this through. It’s not a black mark against you if you say no, far from it. We will find another way to do it. But if you are in, you are in completely… or not at all. I want you to be sure about this. It’s not just you to think about anymore, Sabina, you have a little boy now who needs his mother.”
She looked at him and for a moment she thought she saw that glimmer of the man behind the mask, the human behind the calculating and cold intelligence officer and she loved him for it. “It’s my brother, Herr Fisherman, of course I will do it. There is nothing to think over. But if it makes you feel better, I will at least think it through overnight.”
He nodded, satisfied. “Thank you. I’ll send you a message tomorrow so that we can arrange to meet… whatever you decide.”
She stood, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “He’s not yours, in case you were thinking that? Marco, I mean. His dad was just some guy; he was kind, nice, gentle, but then he had to leave.”
“I wasn’t. Besides, he has your eyes, so I’ve been told.”
“I think we would have made beautiful babies,” she said, after a moment’s reflection.
Lyth nodded. “I know we would. I’ll be in touch over the next few days.”
She turned away from him, refusing to look back, and headed towards Alexanderplatz to catch her bus home. Lyth watched her walk away. She was still everything that he remembered about her; beautiful, tough and fragile all at the same time. He finished his coffee and started his own trek back to Wallstrasse, secure in the knowledge that the SCALPEL counter-surveillance team would be escorting her, discreetly and connected by an invisible radio loop, all the way back to her apartment to make sure that she was ‘clean’.