The Nearest Exit (29 page)

“I don’t believe it,” he said. “So fast?”

“We made a mistake. We were stupid.”

“How long do we have?”

“Until tomorrow afternoon, I’d guess. Any longer and they’ll send GSG 9 to knock down my door. Probably burn down the house while they’re at it.”

“So can we do it my way now?”

“We beat him, and he’ll just tell more stories.”

“If we don’t, he won’t say a thing.”

He was taped into the chair again when Erika Schwartz descended the stairs holding wine and two glasses, but something was different. She moved faster, and there was an air of confusion about her, or panic. She began from the beginning again, with the simple questions. Why did you kill Adriana Stanescu? Who do you work for?

It had been a long day with these two men who sometimes took random pops at him as he watched the Stanescu story over and over, but it had also given him time to think. The truth was that he and Erika Schwartz were seeking the same answers. They were both disgusted by what the Department of Tourism had done, and both
needed to know what could possibly justify it. Milo had received a vague answer from Drummond, but it wasn’t enough, and it wouldn’t be enough for Schwartz either, so he didn’t bother telling her.

His silence now seemed to upset Schwartz. A look of despair overcame her, and she turned to Oskar. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re right,” she said, then got up and settled on the sofa. “Go ahead.”

Oskar stood. “Gustav, why don’t you give Mr. Weaver a cigarette?”

While Gustav lit one, Heinrich tugged at Milo’s dirty shirtsleeves until his forearms were exposed, and Milo closed his eyes. He’d known it might come to this, but he’d expected a longer wait.

Gustav had done this before. He blew on the cherry before each touch and knew how much pressure to use so that the burn went deep but the cigarette didn’t go out. He was an expert of sorts.

Milo screamed a few times, but worse than the pain was the stink. The sulfurous smell of his hair melting, then the flesh, like charcoal. His stomach convulsed, but there wasn’t enough food in him to follow through on the action. Then he screamed again.

In their business, no one wasted time or energy pretending something didn’t hurt. Facts were facts, and denying the truth of pain was a wasteful show of braggadocio. Their business had no time for braggarts.

“Talk,” Oskar said after five burns, as he used a paper towel to roughly mop up the blood lest it stain the furniture.

Oskar was blurry through his tears; Schwartz, beyond him, was reclining. He couldn’t focus enough to see her expression. “Who’s doing it?”

“Excuse me?” said Schwartz.

“This. Who’s making you rush this? You were doing well before. You were taking your time. You even had me convinced you had all the time in the world. But it’s changed, hasn’t it? Someone’s telling you to get rid of me.”

“Gustav,” she said. “I think Mr. Weaver could use another smoke.”

Milo stiffened, though his face went slack, waiting for the pain. Gustav blew on the end of the cigarette while Heinrich again held
the arm still, and when he placed another burn among the red and black spots Milo screamed freely. It was all so damned professional.

Oskar waved a wisp of smoke from his face and leaned closer. “Talk.”

From the sofa, Schwartz explained, “Mr. Weaver, we may be rushed, but we have all night. Gustav has a carton of cigarettes in his bag.”

Milo stared at his taped knees. He heard Gustav blow on the cigarette behind him, but when he looked up the man was stepping back, sticking the cigarette between his lips.

Milo said, “It was for you.”

“Me?” said Schwartz.

“The plural you. German intelligence. I don’t know what department, just German intelligence. Adriana was killed so that the Company’s relationship with German intelligence could continue.”

While Oskar stared doubtfully, Erika Schwartz squinted at him. “What does that
mean
, Mr. Weaver?”

“No one defined it for me. Now that you’ve told me her background, I can make some guesses. I think you can, too.”

He could tell from her face that she was already ahead of him.

“It’s why I asked you,” he said. “Who told you to get rid of me?”

She wasn’t listening. He knew what she was thinking, because he’d had a whole day to think it over. She was thinking that a girl with a history like Adriana’s meant nothing to an organization. Not to the CIA, not to the BND, not even to the human traffickers who’d already gotten their money’s worth out of her. Adriana Stanescu only meant something to an individual, or a few individuals. The kinds of individuals who took trips to questionable clubs to find gratification in the sweat and allure of anonymous, illicit sex.

“Erika,” he said, and even he was surprised by the softness in his own voice. “Tell me who your boss is. Tell me who wants us to stop talking to each other.”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she got to her feet and walked to the stairs and ascended without a word. Her three men seemed confused by the sudden lack of direction, and Gustav settled on the cot
to finish his cigarette. Heinrich sat on the vacated sofa but didn’t look at Milo. Oskar remained standing, staring at the empty stairwell. Then he followed her up, carrying the wine and glasses she had forgotten.

In the morning, she asked Oskar to stay behind. She would call within the hour with instructions, and in the meantime Weaver should be allowed to rest. The videos had ended last night, and they had even dined together in the panic room. She had let him shower in the house itself with Heinrich as company. Though no more information was exchanged, Weaver spent dinner asking questions before realizing that she would not answer. Primarily, he wanted to know Theodor Wartmüller’s identity.

When she arrived at the Pullach office she rolled slowly through the parking lot. There—his bright red MINI. She took her time hobbling to the building and emptied her pockets into a small plastic basket before walking through the metal detector. It blipped, and with the guards’ magic wand they discovered a ballpoint pen that had slipped through a hole in her pocket to settle in the lining of her quilted coat. When one offered her back the metal items she’d removed, she asked to keep the basket for a little while. With a wry grin, the guard told her that that was fine.

She placed the basket on her desk and, without sitting, called up to the second floor. Wartmüller was in, she was told, but on another line. She asked if he would please call her as soon as he had time.

As she waited she found herself unable to do a thing. She turned on her computer and stared at the blue start-up screen but still didn’t
sit. When her desktop appeared, she didn’t even bother checking her e-mail, only gazed at the artistic flower photo that was the background to her daily work. Her phone rang.

“Erika? I heard you wanted to talk to me.”

“Outside, if you don’t mind.”

“Now?”

“If that’s at all possible.”

He considered it. “Not too long, though. I’ve got a conference call with Berlin soon.”

“Then you could probably use a cigarette.”

“Probably right, Erika.”

She returned to the front-door guards, who expected her to hand over the plastic basket, but she hadn’t brought it. All she did was stop a few feet short of them and turn around to face the corridor. When Wartmüller appeared, tapping the filter end of a cigarette against his knuckle, they shifted, suspecting now that they were in serious trouble.

“Hello, Erika.”

“Theodor.” She turned to the guards and pointed at the metal detector. “Is this still on?”

They nodded—of course it was on. Regulations required it to be on.

“Good,” she said and walked through it. The light above her head flickered green. Wartmüller continued around it. “You saw that, sir?”

“Sure,” said Wartmüller, frowning. “You really are an oddball, aren’t you?”

She smiled and continued through the door he held open.

As they crossed the road, heading to the park, Wartmüller began to talk about the party at the consulate. There had been an American musician there, over on a Fulbright grant to research Swabian folk music. So that’s what he played. “Unbelievable! I mean, none of us would listen to that stuff for money, but can you imagine being forced to listen to it sung with one of those flat midwestern accents? Jesus, what were they thinking? Next time I’m getting you an invitation. You’ll only believe it if you see it with your own eyes.”

It was the friendliness that grated on her. That catty camaraderie
was Wartmüller’s best weapon. It had the nasty effect of making everyone feel like a partner in this man’s worldly ways. It made her feel a partner in everything he did, and only now did she fully understand what that meant.

He lit a Marlboro as she settled on the same bench from yesterday, then sat beside her. “So,” he said.

“You want him quiet,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

“You want Milo Weaver sent away so he won’t fill in the blanks of Adriana Stanescu’s murder. You want . . . yes,” she said and nearly smiled, then stopped herself. It had come to her before, but now she felt sure. “Blackmail, I suppose. That’s really what provokes these things.”

“It must be too early for you, Erika. You’re not making sense.”

“You have a history,” she told him. “An open history. The rumor mill is full of Theodor Wartmüller’s sexual adventures. Not all of them are legal, are they?”

He grinned around his cigarette. “Please, Erika! You’re embarrassing me!”

“There was a place in Berlin. Very expensive. You could go there and be assured of confidentiality. You weren’t the only one—no. Politicians and directors, businessmen. Actors, maybe. A who’s-who of the sexually deviant rich.”

He exhaled smoke and knotted his brows. “That’s what the dance with the metal detector was about, wasn’t it? You wanted me to know you’re not wired.”

“Exactly.”

He thought about that, going through his options.

She said, “There was a girl at the club. You were being blackmailed with photos of her and you, yes?”

He didn’t answer.

“So you asked your friends in the CIA to get rid of her.” She paused. “Of course you would do that. You couldn’t kill her yourself, and if you’d asked one of us to do it—even Franz or Brigit—we would ask why. And we both know how rumors get around the office.”

“Yes,” he said distantly. “We do.” He took a long drag.

“Theodor,” she said. She made her voice as soft as she could manage. “I just want to understand.”

He flicked away some ash, but the movement was clumsy, and the whole cigarette tumbled to the ground. He sighed. “This hasn’t been going on so long. Just since December.”

“Of course it hasn’t,” she said, though she wasn’t entirely sure what he meant.

He patted his jacket and came up with his crumpled pack. He took his time lighting another one. “A letter. To my home. A package, really. It contained a letter and photographs. It asked for money to be transferred to an offshore account. The photos were stills from a video—that was obvious. Me and a girl in bed. The light was poor, but it was clear enough who I was, and who she was. She was very young—too young. That was obvious, too. I could still remember that night, and I knew that on the video it would look like . . .” He took another drag. “It would look like I was forcing myself on her.”

“Like you were raping her.”

“Something like that.”

“And the girl was Adriana Stanescu.”

Wartmüller stared at the ashy end of his cigarette. “I didn’t know her name. This was a private club. Berlin. I wasn’t the only customer. It was—at least, it was supposed to be—extremely confidential. Like you said. It had a reputation for this. I believed, as did the other customers, that I had no reason to worry.” He shook his head. “For that price, confidentiality should have been assured.”

Erika looked past him to where a figure moved along the edge of the park. An old woman with a tiny dog. What was an old woman with a dog doing on the grounds? She said, “When was this?”

“December. I told you.”

“No. The night with the girl.”

He exhaled. “Four years ago? Something like that.”