They avoided the early-morning taxi line outside the Hamburg train station. Instead, Jason led Johanna across Kirchenallee and hailed a cab in a plaza around the corner. When the driver asked for their destination, he told the young woman simply to drive and he’d provide the directions. He also asked her to adjust her side mirror so that he could see the traffic behind them. She gave him a curious look, but when he passed one hundred euro across the front seat, she complied.
For the next hour, he led them across the bridges over the Hamburg canals. It was Sunday morning, and they had most of the downtown streets to themselves. He knew he’d been here before. He didn’t remember many of the details, but he remembered the city itself. Hamburg was a place of business and brawn, a German version of Chicago with big shoulders. At least once, he was sure he’d come here by ship out of the North Sea. He could picture the industrial ports on the south side of the river and see himself navigating a nighttime maze of shipping containers stacked five high. He had his Sig in his hand.
But the when and the why of being here was gone.
His sense of direction came only from instinct, but his instincts were sound. When they headed toward the Elbe on Sandtorkai, he could picture the scalloped glass tower of the symphony hall in his head before they reached it on the street. When they passed the rough red stone of St. Catharine’s Church, he knew there was a Chinese restaurant in the next block, and he could taste their Hunan beef on his tongue.
Hovering over all of it was a ghost. Monika.
Had he been here with her?
When he was sure they weren’t being followed, he directed the cabbie to a residential neighborhood near Fischers Park, a few blocks north of the river. He and Johanna got out on a cobblestoned alley, and the taxi drove away. On their right, apartment buildings lined the street, most no more than three or four stories tall. Cars crowded the curb beneath leafy ash trees, and dozens of bicycles were chained to a railing beside a neatly trimmed hedge outside the apartments. The railing was mounted on a low stone wall, covered over with graffiti and spray paint. Across the street, dense foliage marked the fringe of the park.
“Is Monika’s place near here?” Johanna asked, looking at the deserted avenue.
“In the next block. Bernadottestrasse.”
“So why aren’t we there?”
“I want to check out the area first,” he said.
She took his hand as they crossed the street. They walked to the next intersection, where there was a stoplight but no Sunday traffic. He noted the handful of people around them. An old woman made her way toward the park, walking her schnauzer on a leash. Two twentysomething men jogged eastward in the opposite direction. On the far corner, a man stood next to his bicycle with a dark cigarette hanging from his mouth. Bourne studied him closely, but concluded that he wasn’t a threat.
The entire neighborhood looked secure.
And yet. He had a bad feeling anyway.
“Is everything okay?” Johanna asked, reading his face.
“Something’s off.”
“What is it? Do you see something?”
“No.”
“Then I don’t understand,” Johanna said.
“This feels too easy. I don’t like it when things come too easy.”
“Did this man Lorchaud lie about the location?”
Jason shook his head. “No, I saw the actual papers. The identification data on Monika was legit. But I’m starting to wonder if Lorchaud only gave it to me because he knew I wouldn’t find anything.”
Johanna squeezed his hand tighter. “Which building is hers?”
“The last building across from the park,” he said, analyzing the location with a quick glance. Most of the buildings on the street were elegant Altbau, old buildings, freshly painted in bright white and built with arches over the windows and gabled dormers on the roofline. The last building was newer, but boxy and unattractive. It was five stories high, built of tan brick, with balconies stretching across each level. The apartment number for Ella Graf put it on the building’s top floor.
“What do we do?” Johanna asked.
“We go inside.”
They stayed adjacent to the park as they headed down the street. He noted the cars around them, but the vehicles were empty. So were the balconies and windows in the nearby apartments. Somehow he expected to spot surveillance, but he saw nothing. When they were across from Monika’s building, he checked the balconies of the two upper-floor apartments, but both were empty, the drapes pulled shut.
Even so, the foreboding that tightened his gut got worse.
Your body senses danger faster than your brain.
Treadstone.
Bourne put his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, his fingers curled around the Sig. Together, he and Johanna crossed to the glass building door. It was smoked, and he couldn’t see inside. Each apartment had a buzzer and a metal mailbox beside the door. The boxes had handwritten names, and he noted the name graf written in block letters next to the mailbox for an apartment on the top floor.
“Is that Monika’s handwriting?” he asked.
Johanna shook her head. “I can’t tell. I don’t think so, but I could be wrong.”
He examined the label more closely. It didn’t look as faded and dirty as the others, as if it had been recently added.
Or was he being paranoid?
Jason studied the other names on the building roster. One label for the lone ground-floor apartment said: bauer—managerin. He pushed the buzzer, and a few seconds later, a woman’s voice answered. “Ja, ja, wer ist da?”
“Polizei,” Bourne said.
“Polizei? Gibt es ein Problem?”
“Wir müssen mit Ihnen sprechen.”
“Ja, natürlich, bitte kommen Sie herein.”
The glass entrance door clicked open with a buzz and let them inside. The manager already had her own apartment door open, and she met them at the stairs. She was a small woman and younger than Jason expected, about thirty, with a trim runner’s physique. She had short brown hair, red glasses, and a face full of earrings and piercings. She wore a black Lycra top and bottom, with a gold chain belt dangling around her waist. She introduced herself as Greta Bauer.
Bourne used a badge that identified him as Jean-Pierre Larousse of Interpol, and he gave his German a hint of a French accent. “Ms. Bauer, my associate and I are looking for a woman named Ella Graf. Our records show this apartment building as her last known address. Are you familiar with Ms. Graf?”
“Ella? Sure, of course. She lives on the top floor. She’s been here for years—longer than me, anyway.”
“Can you tell us what she looks like?”
The manager shrugged. “Pretty, wavy blond hair, very elegant appearance. I imagine she’s around forty, or midforties, hard to tell. She’s very nice, very friendly, never a problem or complaint. I can’t imagine she’s done anything wrong.”
“Do you know if she’s home?”
“I don’t. I’m sorry.”
“Have you seen her recently?”
“Yesterday morning was the last time. She was coming in as I was going out.”
Next to him, Bourne felt Johanna tense, and he knew why. It was beginning to feel real to both of them. Monika was here.
“Thank you for your help,” Bourne told her. “Please go back into your apartment now and stay there until I give you the all clear.”
The young woman blanched and quickly retreated behind the door of her flat.
Bourne climbed the stairs slowly, with Johanna a couple of steps behind him. On the top floor, they found doors leading to two apartments, one on either side of the stairwell. The metal number on the door on his right matched the number on the mailbox for Ella Graf.
He told Johanna to stay a few steps back, then slid his Sig from his jacket pocket.
“Jesus, is that necessary?” she whispered.
“I hope not.”
But his instincts hadn’t stopped broadcasting a warning.
He put an ear to the door and listened. There were no sounds from inside the apartment. Cautiously, he did the same to the door of the opposite flat, and it was silent, too. Staying to the side of the frame, he rapped sharply on Ella Graf’s door. There was no answer and no sound of movement from the other side.
He knocked again and this time called, “Fräulein Graf?”
Nothing.
“She could be out,” Johanna said.
“Maybe, but it’s pretty early to be out on a Sunday.”
He didn’t mention his fears of what they might find inside.
Bourne slid two stiff wires from the lining of his jacket and set to work on the lock. He worked fast. Less than a minute later, the lock clicked and he nudged the door open with his foot. He moved inside, arms extended with both hands on his Sig. Turning his shoulders swiftly, he confirmed that the living room was clear.
“Stay here while I check the rest of the place,” he told Johanna.
She came into the foyer behind him, but didn’t go farther. The apartment wasn’t large, two bedrooms, both of which had access to an outside balcony, plus a small kitchen and a single bathroom. He checked the whole unit in a few seconds and confirmed that the rooms were empty. No one was here, but there were women’s clothes in the main bedroom closet and dishes in the dishwasher.
Someone lived here.
Was it Ella Graf, the woman who’d once been Monika Roth?
And if so, where was she?
Bourne returned from the bedroom. Johanna remained in the foyer, studying the apartment with a frown on her face. She smelled the air, as if she could pick up her sister’s scent. Her stare went to every piece of cheap Ikea furniture, then to the walls, which were decorated with framed prints of the old masters. A crinkle of doubt furrowed her forehead, and she shook her head.
“This place doesn’t feel like her,” she murmured.
“How so?”
“The furniture’s wrong, and so’s the artwork. None of this is Monika. I don’t know, maybe that’s the point. You adopt a new life, you become a new person.”
“There’s nothing personal here,” Bourne said. “I would have told her to keep it that way. But after ten years, people usually slip. Their new identity creeps into the place. You can’t help it.”
“So what does that mean?”
He didn’t answer right away. He went to the patio door and stepped onto the balcony. The wicker furniture looked worn and heavily used. Five stories below him, the street was still mostly empty. He could see into the park, where a few teenagers played basketball. It was a normal Sunday morning, but it didn’t feel normal.
“Excuse me, hello, is everything okay?” a woman called from the apartment doorway. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
Bourne spun around, pointing the Sig with his right arm. The manager, Greta Bauer, shot her hands in the air and gave him a nervous smile. She glanced back and forth between Jason and Johanna.
“It’s just me,” she said brightly.
He took several steps back into the room, and he didn’t lower the gun. “Fräulein Bauer. I told you to wait in your apartment.”
“Yes, but I looked outside, and I didn’t see Ella’s car on the street. Usually that means she’s gone. I thought you might want to know that.”
“Thank you. You can go back downstairs now.”
“Oh, yes, all right. Okay.”
But she didn’t move. Her smile seemed frozen, her stare transfixed by the gun. She tugged at the piercing in the middle of her lower lip like a kind of tic. “Ella drives a Mini Cooper, by the way. She typically parks in the same place every day.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m trying to remember if I saw it when I got back yesterday, but I’m not sure.”
“I said you can go, Ms. Bauer.”
“Yes, of course. Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”
The woman pushed her red glasses nervously up her nose. She turned and disappeared through the apartment door. Bourne waited a couple of seconds before letting his gun arm drop, aiming the barrel at the floor. He regretted it as soon as he did. With the speed of a snake, Greta Bauer shot back into the room. Bourne jerked his Sig up, but he was too late. The woman wrapped an arm around Johanna’s waist and jammed the blade of an eight-inch knife against her throat. Her smile had vanished. Her dark eyes behind her red glasses turned to stone.
Jason’s finger curled around the trigger, but the woman pushed hard on the blade, drawing blood from Johanna’s neck.
“Put down the gun, Cain. If you don’t, I’ll cut her throat open right now.”
“Then you’ll die, too.”
“Machts nichts,” she said with a shrug. “Ich bin hier, um der Sache mein Leben und meine Treue zu versprechen.”
He remembered the oath of Le Renouveau. He’d seen what its members would do for the cause, and he didn’t doubt for a moment that this woman would kill Johanna, even if it meant sacrificing her own life.
Bourne bent down and put his gun on the hardwood floor of the apartment.