A Death in Sweden(57)
“But . . .”
“They killed my friend Charlie. Not just killed, they tortured him.”
“Oh my God.” She put a hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry, Dan.”
He nodded, but pointed then and said, “Here’s the train.”
She tried to say something, but stopped herself. He could appreciate that too, because what was there to say? So they waited as the train glided along the platform and they boarded in silence.
It wasn’t until they were on their way that she said, “When will you leave? We can stay together tonight?”
He thought of how easy it would be to say yes, how much he wanted to be with her tonight. But for the time being, at least, he knew his own internal momentum was too strong, that he had to move, had to see this through to what he saw as its logical conclusion.
“I won’t be staying in Paris tonight. I’ll be moving on right away.”
“Then I’ll come.” When he only smiled, she said, “We made a pretty good team, didn’t we?”
He nodded.
“I don’t want you with me.” She looked stung and he said, “Not like that. The opposite. I don’t want you involved in the things I have to do now.”
“So maybe you don’t have to do them. You could . . .”
“Go and live in the forest?” She smiled in response, but there was a sadness about her that was unbearable. “It’s not just about me, it’s about everything, Charlie and the others, the stuff we did, it’s about Sabine Merel . . .”
“But we have the tape.”
He didn’t need to spell it out, though, that having the tape and seeing it broadcast were two different things. Certainly, Patrick would use it as leverage, to ensure the withdrawal of funding, the reassignment of key personnel, any number of things that would fall short of what Dan and Inger wanted, what the Merels and Bergeron wanted, what Jack Redford had wanted.
Inger seemed to acknowledge that fact, and in the end, said only, “I’m just afraid you don’t know what you’re walking into, even with your background.”
“I have a pretty good idea.” He nearly added that it was nothing he couldn’t handle, but Inger didn’t look as though she’d be reassured so easily, and in the present circumstances, he felt it might be tempting fate anyway.
Chapter Thirty-five
He traveled in the cab with Inger, leaving her at the Swedish Embassy.
One last time, she said, “I can’t change your mind?”
“I promise this is the last time ever, but no, you can’t.”
“So when will I see you?”
“In Stockholm. I’ll be there. Soon.”
She shook her head, as if in response to a lame joke, but sounded desperately concerned as she said, “Please be careful.”
“I’ll be in Stockholm. You haven’t seen the last of me.”
She leaned across and kissed him, and he held her until the obvious impatience of the cab driver parted them. He watched as she walked into the embassy, and turned only when the driver asked where he wanted to go. Dan gave him the address of his apartment in the 17th and sat back in the seat.
He was fired up enough now that he was almost hoping to encounter more of Brabham’s guys in the area around the apartment, but there was no one that he could see, and he wondered if that was because they’d all been called away. A handful had followed them down to Auxerre, all dead, another he’d killed at the Vergoncey. Another team had gone to Croatia to take care of Charlie.
His thoughts snagged once again on Charlie’s death, and he forced his mind in a different direction, trying to work out what those various logistics told him about Brabham’s team, the numbers and resources at his disposal. He was guessing from past experience that he probably had a dozen working for him directly, most of them in the field.
Of course, there was always an endless supply of freelancers, but the quality was variable, and that had already shown in the people Dan and Inger had come up against. Nor would Brabham want freelance people hanging around his office in Berlin. It left him confident that he could do this, that maybe he could even come out of it alive.
As he stepped inside and closed the door, he could tell the apartment was empty. Anybody would have known it was empty, and as he walked through the sparsely furnished rooms he thought of how another person might have filled this space with life.
He thought of Sylvie’s apartment nearby, stamped with her personality, and he wondered if he even had it within him to live like that, to live. Foolishly, his thoughts made a run for Stockholm, to some imagined domesticity with Inger, and he was embarrassed by how alluring he found it, a woman he hardly knew and who hardly knew him.
He also knew he couldn’t afford to be distracted. Whatever promise the future held, he had business to finish with his old life first, and he needed to focus on that above all else.
He threw some clothes into a bag, then went into the secure room and put together another bag. He checked the trains then, and headed back out, knowing he couldn’t rely on Patrick to get him through airport security this time.
He took a late-afternoon train to Cologne and picked up the night train there, grabbing a few hours’ sleep but arriving in Berlin just before five in the morning. There was a boutique hotel just along the street from the address he had for Brabham’s office so he’d arranged an early check-in.