TWENTY
PRESENT DAY
Just like most evenings, Dr. Azra Kaya exited the emergency room door of Franziskus-Krankenhaus on Budapester Strasse, and walked alone through the night. Her flat was in a building on Tiergarten Strasse, in the heart of Berlin, just fifteen minutes away at her typical brisk pace. She usually listened to music during the walk but she had forgotten to charge her headphones, so tonight she just leaned into a cool breeze and thought about her cases of the day.
She was completely oblivious to the man sixty meters behind her, moving along the opposite sidewalk in the same direction on Tiergarten Strasse.
Dr. Kaya was an internist, still with another year of residency to go, and she typically worked long, hard hours. Born in Turkey, she’d immigrated alone at eighteen, leaving her family behind. She now considered herself more German than Turk by a wide margin, a fact her parents, like many parents of first-generation immigrants, had mixed feelings about.
She’d gone to medical school in Heidelberg, graduated near the top of her class, and almost immediately began working in hospitals and clinics around Berlin. Single at thirty, like many Turkish women she had a modern view of her role in society and was in no rush to settle down. She lived for her work, and she worked a lot.
At 12:18 a.m. she entered her building, then made her way through the small and dark lobby to the tiny elevator. The trip to the fourth floor passed quickly, and she pulled out her keys as she walked halfway up the hall, finally stopping at number 403.
She was inside in an instant, locked the door behind her, and plopped her purse down on the kitchen island there. After grabbing a can of sparkling water from the fridge, she stepped into her bedroom to shower and change.
Tonight’s shift hadn’t been especially taxing, but still she was looking forward to watching a movie while eating popcorn, one of her favorite late-night pastimes and a habit that she’d found helped her fall asleep.
Twenty minutes later she’d changed into a black Puma tracksuit, and she’d removed her hair tie so her dark and curly wet locks fell down past her shoulders. She popped out her contacts and put on her eyeglasses, and then she picked up the nearly empty can of sparkling water and headed back towards the kitchen.
She entered her living room and was surprised by a slight breeze. Looking to her right, she saw that the window by the television was open. She pulled to a sudden stop, terror filling her chest, and her eyes then shot to the kitchen on her left.
There, just four meters away, a figure stood, leaning back against the kitchen island. She let out a meek gasp, but she did not scream, and she did not run.
Her voice was measured but calm, considering the circumstances. “Wer sind Sie?” Who are you?
In English the man replied, “I need help.”
Azra took in a deep breath of air, then let it out slowly before switching to English. “You scared the shit out of me.” And then, “I didn’t get a text.”
“I know.”
The young doctor said, “And if I don’t get a text first, I don’t treat you.”
“Come closer. Look at me. You know me.”
Dr. Kaya was no longer uncomfortable with the stranger in her flat. She marched up to him, flipping a light switch on the way.
As soon as she did so, she examined the man’s face carefully. “You,” she said, a fresh tone of bewilderment in her voice.
“Yeah. Me.” The man coughed.
“I know you. Three and a half years ago, you came to me.”
The man smiled a little. Dr. Kaya thought he looked ill. He said, “You have a good memory.”
“In your case, it’s easy,” Azra said. “You were my first. You always remember your first.”
Court cleared his throat nervously. There was a joke to be made here, but he didn’t feel like making it, and she looked at him like she had other things on her mind.
Then Dr. Kaya smiled a little. “Your arm had a serious gash. I asked you what cut you, and you told me it was broken glass.” She paused, her eyes locked on him in the low light. “It was not glass.”
Court confirmed the doctor’s statement. “It was not glass.”
“It was a knife,” she said.
“It was a knife.”
“You’d lost some blood, but you were incredibly fit. Stoic, too. You just sat patiently and bled while a twenty-six-year-old medical student desperately tried to treat you. My hands were shaking.”
“You did great.”
Court remembered it all as well as Azra. He had been hired by a Russian mafia concern to go to Berlin to assassinate a Chechen mobster who lived under heavy guard. Court had done the deed, but on the exfiltration he found himself on the wrong end of a knife, wielded by a bodyguard who’d run out of bullets.
Court killed the Chechen with the same blade an instant after it had slashed into his arm.
At the time Court worked as a hit man for hire for a British handler, who belonged to an underground resource network his contractors could call upon, all over the world, if they needed help. Among the resources were medical professionals for clandestine treatment. Court had used the service many times over the years while working for Sir Donald Fitzroy, but now, as a freelancer and sometimes off-book CIA contractor, he sought out members of the network for help on his own.
Dr. Kaya said, “Soon after you left, three thousand euros appeared in my bank account.”
Court said, “I was surprised that someone like you would work in the network.”
The young Turkish woman with the wet hair said, “I’ll take that for a compliment.” She looked him over. “You need medical assistance. But . . .” she repeated, “I did not receive a text.”
“I’m working outside the organization that retains you to treat patients in the area. But I am here in town, and I needed your help, so I came.” He added, “I can pay you. Cash, right now. Will you help me?”
“Come, sit.”
Court moved to a small settee in her simple living room and sat down roughly, his knees almost giving out completely as he bent. She steadied him, then hurried to her bag on the kitchen island to get her stethoscope.
Court said, “I have an infection in my shoulder. In the bone. I think it’s pretty bad.”
“When did you contract it?”
“A month ago.”
“How?”
He hesitated, and then said, “You know how it is. Broken glass.”
She knelt on the floor in front of him. “Whatever you say.” He took his shirt off and she looked at his bandages for the first time.
“Who dressed this wound? A monkey?”
He coughed again. “The monkey wasn’t available, so I did it myself.”
She laughed a little, and gently removed the dirty bandaging. Looking the surgical wound over, she put her hand on the skin near the cut and then on his forehead.
“A good surgeon.” She held her hand on his forehead. “But you have a fever. How have you been treating it?”
“IV antibiotics. Three weeks or so. I stopped a few days ago, but am taking pills.”
“You just ended your IVs?” She seemed surprised. “You need an infusion of Cipro for eight weeks, at a minimum. This is very serious.” She looked around her flat a moment. “I can rebandage you for now, but I’ll have to get the antibiotics, saline, and an IV pole and tubing. I’ll need you to come back every night and I will administer—”
“I don’t think I can do that.”
She looked at him. “Right. I understand. That’s a lot of coming and going. You can stay here. I have a guest room. It’s a mess, but there is a bed. I can bring the medicine and saline when I get off shift and rig up—”
“I can’t do that, either. I am here in town to work. Not to lie on a sofa.”
“But you—”
“Pills. I need more pills. A lot of them.”
“Oral antibiotics aren’t strong enough to defeat a bone infection.”
“They don’t have to win the war; they only have to keep me in the fight.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I need to keep going. A week would be my guess, but it could be longer. Once I’m done here, I have a place I can go and get IV antibiotics, as long as I need them. I just have to hang on until I’m done.”
She put her head in her hands, a show of frustration. “What is it that you people do that makes you so . . .”
She seemed to be searching for the word, so Court tried to help. “Crazy?”
“I was going to say ‘relentless.’”
“Yeah, well. I get myself into situations. Sometimes I need help getting out of them.”
“I’ll give you the pills, but you have to let me see you when you can. The infection can grow even with the Cipro. As long as you are in town, you’ll need to try to come back regularly, and I will give you an infusion.”
Court nodded. “Deal. I also need some other drugs.”
“What other drugs?”
“Adderall to keep me on my feet. Something to help me sleep when I have time for rest. Klonopin works. And something for pain, for my shoulder, and for anything new that comes along.”
“Anything new?”
“There is no shortage of broken glass here in Berlin.”
Dr. Kaya looked him over again, and for the first time, he felt judged by her.
She said, “So, what you are telling me is you are falling apart and need drugs to keep it together.”
Court shrugged. “I’ve got to keep moving. Whatever tools I can employ to stay in the fight are the tools I’m going to use.”
The young resident nodded after a time. “I can get what I need at the clinic. I will secure IV equipment, as well. Will you return tomorrow night?”
“I think so.”
She went to her purse and began digging through it. Court shifted his hand closer to his right hip, ready to pull the pistol in the small of his back if she brought anything out of the bag that could pose a threat to him. But instead she just took out a bottle of pills. “Lortab,” she said. “It will help with the pain.”
Court shook his head. “Tramadol. It’s milder. I just need to take the edge off.”
She threw the bottle to him and he caught it. “Break those in half. I had oral surgery some months ago. Only needed the pills a couple of days for the pain.”
Court had dealt with painkiller addiction in his past, a shockingly common occurrence among military and intelligence paramilitary operatives. But he also knew his body, and he knew the drugs. If he took the opioid only when he was, indeed, in real pain, then there was less chance his addiction would fire back up.
And he was in pain now. “Thank you,” he said as he put his shirt back on.
“Thank me by doing me one more favor.”
“Sure.” He broke one of the pills and downed it without water.
“You have a lot of bruises and scrapes. Contusions that are not three weeks old. Whatever you are doing, it still involves the risk of injury.” She patted him on the arm. “Try not to get hurt any worse than you already are.”
Court nodded, looked out the window to the street. “I’ve been trying and failing at that for twenty years.” He looked at her now. “I’ll try harder. Just so you don’t stress.”
He produced a wad of euros, and she looked at it, but did not take it. “Tonight was just a consultation. I’ll take your money, but not tonight. You are an old friend, and it is good to see you.”
Court had spent just a few hours in this young woman’s care years earlier. He remembered little of their encounter. It spoke volumes about the other sons of bitches sent here for treatment that she remembered him so warmly.
Five minutes later he was out the door of Dr. Kaya’s apartment. As he walked along Tiergarten Strasse, he looked in every dark alcove, noted every parked car, took stock of which lights were on in which apartments at one in the morning. His actions were automatic; he recorded mental notes so that he would understand the natural patterns in these surroundings, because he knew he’d be back again.
He also thought about Zoya.
He climbed into a taxi in front of the Swedish embassy, asking the driver in passable German to deliver him to the U-Bahn station at Rathaus Spandau. They drove west through the night for nearly fifteen minutes before the Mercedes pulled over and Court climbed out and began walking again, alone through the empty streets.
Ten minutes later he entered an all but darkened building and started up the stairs.
Court had rented a completely nondescript flat at Bismarckstrasse 64, not too far from the U-Bahn, just west of the Havel River in the Western Berlin district of Spandau. The small space was on the third floor next to a staircase that led down to a rear parking lot, and it had a dingy and unadorned yellow balcony that looked out over the main street. But other than a good rear exit and good sight lines on a forward approach, the flat had little going for it. Here Court was four miles away from the center of the city, the floors and bathroom were dusty and grimy, and the only neighbor on his floor seemed to be grilling some sort of sickly-sweet-smelling meat on the next balcony over, even now, well past one a.m., with the scent wafting into Court’s shitty rental property.
He normally preferred sleeping in closets; he felt safer there than in a bed, because anyone sneaking up on him in the night would naturally expect to find him in bed. But here at Bismarckstrasse 64 he tossed his threadbare bedding onto the cold vinyl flooring of the bathroom, as there wasn’t a single closet in the 450-square-foot flat, only a dresser with drawers that felt like they had been welded shut by time, humidity, and poor craftsmanship. He flipped off the lights, drew his HK VP9 pistol, and placed it next to him on the floor.
His fever had already broken due to the hydrocodone Dr. Kaya had given him, though he knew it would return by morning. His shoulder burned and stung, but not so bad now with the pain medication, and he didn’t expect it to impede his sleep much at all.
He was too exhausted to worry much about pain. Tomorrow he’d be watching Zoya from afar, and he needed to get his head around that now.
He wasn’t looking forward to his mission here, but he preferred it to Zoya being dangled out alone by the CIA.
He closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep.