At the Gare de l’Est, Helen bought a ticket to Berlin via Mannheim. They had thirty minutes until departure They ordered a pair of double whiskies at the station café while everyone else sipped coffee. The waiter didn’t bat an eye.
Helen felt stretched as tightly as a rubber band on the verge of snapping, but the first swallow of whiskey helped. The second, more so.
“What will happen to Marina?” she asked. “I didn’t have time to tell them much, thank God. But I would have. I was about to. That damn knife.”
“Stop. Don’t do this to yourself.”
“Where were you all that time? How did you even know?”
“I didn’t. It was a hunch.”
She told Helen about her earlier trip to the room, when she’d discovered the tracking beacon.
“I grabbed the copy of Paris Match on my way to warn you off. Later I saw that you’d removed the report, and figured you must have hidden it in the room. When I remembered how you gave them the slip in Berlin, I thought you might try the same thing in reverse here.”
“Good God. We even think alike.”
“Here’s to that.” They clanked their glasses.
“I dressed up like an old charwoman, broke into a vacant room next door, and sat tight. Once the fun started, I waited for the van to be taken care of out front. Then I climbed over to your terrace and body-slammed the shutters. Here’s to shabby French construction.”
They tapped glasses again. An educated guess, a single act of daring. Without either of them, she’d be dead.
“As for Marina, she’s getting a fresh set of documents and a passage to somewhere safe. My understanding is that she was pretty much fried.”
“That’s how she seemed to me. A refugee with a price on her head.” She paused, sipped. “What about you? Won’t this end badly for you, once everyone finds out what happened?”
Claire smiled.
“That call I made an hour ago? It was to my COS, to let him know I’d bagged the wayward clerk from Berlin. He’s bursting with pride. If anything he’ll probably advance me a pay grade, and now that word is out that you’re back in Agency hands, Gilley has no choice but to back off. All the same, it’s probably best if you show up at Berlin station unannounced.”
“The goon with the knife, do you think he’ll really deliver the message to Robert?”
“Damn right he will.”
“But did we really need to send it? I mean, I guess I’m thinking that as long as I make it back to Berlin with the goods, Robert will soon be out of business. Right?”
“Oh, Helen.” Claire frowned with concern.
“What?”
“I hope we’re not expecting too much from all this.”
“Why shouldn’t we? We’ve built a foolproof case against him.”
“Yes, it’s great work, all of it. Something the three of us can always be proud of. But these reports, these tapes and eyewitness accounts, well…”
“Well what?”
“I’ve done some thinking about the realities here—with a man like Gilley involved, and what he does for a living.”
“What do you mean? Who have you been talking to?”
“Look. Of course we’ll try to bring him down. Maybe we’ll succeed. But our only chance to do that is if you can first work a deal for yourself, and these materials will help you. They’re your ticket back to freedom, so use them that way.”
“Well, sure. But once they’ve seen everything…”
“You don’t get it, do you? Our evidence is the very reason they’ll be willing to give you a pass, by making you agree to hand everything over and keep your mouth shut. My guess is that they’ll get lawyers involved, for him as well as for you. You’ll want that. The first thing you should ask for, in fact, is a lawyer. You’ll probably have to sign something fairly disagreeable. But don’t give it up for nothing. Make them pay, one way or another.”
“I don’t want them to pay, I want him to pay.” Claire’s expression told her exactly what the chances were for that. “Oh, Claire, I fucked this up for all of us, didn’t I? For Marina, too, and for Anneliese. If I hadn’t just taken off like that…”
“No. You didn’t. We put together what we wanted to put together, and now more people than ever will know. One way or another, word of this will creep into more corners than it ever would have otherwise. Okay, so maybe it won’t take him down. Given what he does for the Agency, maybe nothing could take him down. But they’ll watch him closer. They’ll tighten his leash.”
“How can you know that?”
“I can’t. But it makes operational sense. He’d be jeopardizing everything if he doesn’t clean up his act. They’ll know that now, and so will he.”
Helen tried to take solace from that, but there was little to be had. So instead she finished her whiskey.
“By the way,” Claire said. “So you’ll breathe a little easier on the train, you should know that one of our people will be on board the whole way. In fact, he’s here now.”
Claire nodded toward a spot over Helen’s right shoulder. Helen turned and saw Clark Baucom a few tables over. He raised a coffee cup in tribute, and then smiled like a boy who’d been caught copying someone else’s exam.
“How did he…? And you…?”
“I’m sure he’ll be happy to tell you. I gather that the two of you know each other rather well.” Helen blushed. “It’s quite all right. Your secret is safe with me. All of your secrets are.”
“He’s no secret to anyone in Berlin. But I’m going to take you up on the last part of that promise.”
“Good. It’s the least we can do for each other. Trust and share, the three of us. Stop doing that and we’re no longer the Sisterhood.”
Helen smiled, and then the PA system called out a boarding announcement for her train. They stood, and hugged one last time. Baucom was already making his way toward the platform, while keeping Helen in his field of vision.
“I won’t follow any farther,” Claire said. “Your very able escort will take over from here.”
A final smile, and Helen turned to go.
Nine hours later she was in Berlin.