A Death in Sweden(66)

“You can set it up so that I can hit it just before I go in there?”

“Of course. You just hit the Enter key when you’re ready to go.”

“Good. Set it up.”

Josh pulled the laptop over in front of him. Dan thought of telling him to restrict his activities to what they’d just discussed, not to try contacting anyone else, but he could tell Josh was on side now. Callie wasn’t, and it was for all the right reasons, but she was still wrong. She was staring at Josh with utter disbelief.

She could tell Dan was staring at her in turn, but she showed no acknowledgement and said only to Josh, “Aiding and abetting in the murder of four CIA officers. As well as treason, I really hope you’re calling this right, Josh, because you’ll spend the rest of your life in prison if you’re not.”

Dan said, “Even if he ends up on the wrong side, I guess for Josh to face the consequences, someone would have to report what he’s done here. That’s not me.”

Josh looked up from what he was doing and met Callie’s eyes, asking her the question.

“No, I’m not making promises like that. Not until I know all the facts.”

Dan saw that as promising for some reason, a sign that she was wavering, but Josh looked blasé now and said, “I’ll take my chances. I know I’m doing the right thing.” He looked up at Dan. “I’ll be straight, I don’t know that you’re doing the right thing, but I know I am. I always had an idea Brabham was rotten.”

Dan smiled in acknowledgement. Callie shook her head, as if unsure how any of it had come to this.

“Okay, this is ready to go. Hit the Enter key and within thirty seconds the cameras will be down and out for nearly ten minutes.”

“Good, thanks. You said one of the guys walks the grounds. About how often?”

“On a normal night, every hour, maybe. Tonight, I’d guess every half hour.”

Dan looked to the window. It was dark outside now.

“I’m heading off now. I’ll have to cuff you, like I said, so you better both have a bathroom break.” They stood, and he looked at Callie, seeing more than ever, in the way she carried herself, that she could be dangerous if she had a mind to be. “Callie, despite everything, I like you, I like that you’ve held your ground, even though I think you’re wrong. Now you might be thinking this is your last opportunity to stop me, so I’ll warn you again—if you try anything, I’ll kill you. You have to believe me on that.”

Her eyes were fierce as she said, “Why wouldn’t I believe you? It’s the only thing you’ve said for which I’ve got incontrovertible evidence.”

He showed them to the bathroom, then cuffed them to the railings at the top of the stairs. He put his bag together again, being careful to lay the primed laptop on top of everything else.

He stopped on the stairs before heading down, and looked at them, nodding another acknowledgement to Josh. Then he said to Callie, “There is one other thing I said that you know to be true.” She raised her eyebrows, giving him nothing. “I said I wouldn’t kill you if I didn’t have to.”

And with that he walked down the stairs and out into the cold Berlin night.





Chapter Forty


He took the black BMW and headed out of the city. It had been overcast and cold since he’d arrived in Berlin, the atmosphere itself possessed of a hollow metallic quality. Now as he drove, the first flakes of snow were falling on the still air. It was early in the year for it, and hard to believe that just a few days before, in Auxerre, it had felt like an Indian summer. Even Sweden had been warmer than this.

Brabham’s place was on a quiet and narrow residential street, tree-lined, the road bordered all the way along with a mixture of hedges, fences and walls. The houses on one side were big, mansions and villas, but on the other side, the shore of the lake, they were more like miniature estates with gabled and tiered manor houses, all of them no doubt described with false modesty by their owners as villas.

He parked up before reaching Brabham’s place. There were other cars parked on the side of the street, so there was nothing conspicuous about him stopping there, and with the dark and the snow settling, he doubted anyone would pay much attention to a figure walking purposefully.

He kept to the far side of the road, and walked right past and kept going. The property was bordered by a fence of metal railings, about six feet high, with a neatly trimmed hedge immediately behind it that was slightly higher. At the entrance, the fence curved inward to the gates, forming a semi-circle, the gates themselves set into stone pillars. And beyond one of the gateposts was the small security lodge, built in the same stone.

Dan noticed cameras on the fence there, but pointed downwards to see anyone waiting to gain access. He could see a light on in the lodge too, though couldn’t see through the window from this angle. The main house, a big old pre-war mansion, was probably another fifty yards back from the lodge, partially obscured by trees and shrubs, no lights visible bar for an ornate porch light next to the main door.

Once he was a decent distance beyond the property, and onto the next which seemed to be separated by a much higher and broader hedgerow, he turned and walked back again to the car. He kept his head down, and not just for effect because the snow was falling harder now, forming a mantle that was already taking the edge off the darkness—that would make it harder to get in unseen.