Born to Die in Berlin: A Thriller Read online

  BORN TO DIE IN BERLIN

  ALEX CARLSON

  Copyright © 2017 Alex Carlson. All Rights Reserved.

  No part of the publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of very brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Berliners are unfriendly and inconsiderate, gruff and bossy. Berlin is repulsive, loud, dirty, and gray, full of construction sites and clogged streets. But I feel sorry for those people who cannot live here.

  Anneliese Bödecker

  Chapter One

  U2’s Achtung Baby was recorded in Berlin’s Hansa Studios soon after the Berlin Wall came down. Fans and critics describe it in different ways—introspective, dark, kinetic—but most would agree that the album is raw. Previously, while the Wall still stood, Wim Wenders had projected a similar rawness in Wings of Desire, a painfully long film that is nonetheless achingly incomplete. You get the feeling you’re watching it with one eye closed. Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz, written during the interwar period, was so raw that naive readers assumed the book was unedited. Each art form captured Berlin’s essential quality.

  Rhys Adler didn’t care much for art, but he felt the city’s rawness as he lay on the cold, hard asphalt and looked up toward the pewter-gray sky. The sky was mere backdrop. Rhys focused his attention instead on the underside of his bike’s boxer engine.

  It was funny how a motorcycle will suddenly go all squirrelly on you. Take this old R75/5 for example. Despite its age, the BMW had been purring along, pistons pumping consistently, the acceleration smooth, the exhaust issuing a hum that delighted the ears and a smooth vibration that thrilled the loins. But the bike had suddenly developed a tick. Today, when he opened up the throttle after a light turned green on Torstrasse, nothing happened. The bike just idled with no power. He eased the throttle back and then accelerated again, slowly this time, and the bike pulled forward down the street as expected.

  Funny little thing like that was never a good sign. But a part of Rhys’s brain welcomed the challenge. It was an opportunity to lose himself in the complexity of automotive engineering, a way to block out the rest of the world. It would give his activity meaning, at least for another day.

  He’d work on it until he had it figured out. He’d take it apart, disassemble the fuel system and clean out the grits of dirt that might have clogged the system. He’d open up the engine, remove the piston rings and look for scratches, warps, or cracks.

  And it if it didn’t start up again and accelerate as it should, he’d just do it again.

  He lay under the engine block on his back, wearing an old L.L. Bean flannel with a liner thick enough to ward off a hurricane, or so the company claimed. He didn’t know anyone in the New England who wore an overpriced shirt like that, and Berliners—who ignored the Roy G Biv fashion spectrum and filled their wardrobe with various shades of black—wouldn’t be caught dead in it. But Rhys didn’t give a damn what they or anyone else thought, which was enough to make him an echt Berliner.

  He worked in his building’s courtyard, though courtyard was too fancy a word to describe the space. Buildings in Berlin are pressed tight together, so there are no alleys. Entering the back apartments, where the rents were cheaper, required walking through an opening cut into the building and further into the courtyard, the Hinterhof. Like most, his was a sunless, desolate space that housed trashcans and bicycle stands filled with rusted, abandoned bikes. Yet there was space for Rhys to park both his motorcycles without problem and he could work on them knowing that no one in the windows above would pay him no mind.

  The air was cold and the gray sky darkened as afternoon turned to twilight. The Hinterhof’s windows had begun to light up, and Rhys figured his neighbors were settling in for a long winter evening. It hadn’t rained yet today, but it would. Berlin winters ensured a constantly wet ground.

  He had just removed the piston head clamp when he heard the sound of approaching footsteps coming from the opening to the street. They were swift, purposeful, unfamiliar. Out of instinct, he grabbed the largest wrench from the toolbox and worked the grip in his hand. He had made a lot of enemies in this city and it was best to meet them with a weapon in hand. He stood up and faced the approaching figure.

  It was a woman. He loosened his grip on the wrench, but only slightly. Some of those enemies had been women.

  She wasn’t a Berliner. She wore a wool overcoat over a professional suit. Both were neat, but not pricy. Her eyes, dark and intense, looked at him directly, and while she was pretty enough, she clearly didn’t waste a lot of time primping. Her face was expressionless other than having the look of intelligence and a disdain for bullshit. He’d seen the type before.

  She stopped before him.

  “Kann ich Ihnen helfen?” he asked.

  “You’re Mr. Rhys Adler?” said the woman, in English.

  American. The voice, the demeanor, and the clothes all added up. He knew who she was, or at least which organization she worked for.

  “I am.” Rhys squinted at her, wary of her showing up here.

  “You’re a hard man to find, Mr. Adler. You don’t answer the phone number I have for you and your name isn’t on the buzzers in front of the building.”

  “The name’s on the letterbox inside the door. You could have sent a letter. It don’t matter though. Whatever this is about, I probably can’t help and I’m sure I wouldn’t want to if I could. So you can just go back to Clayallee or wherever and try to forget how you found me.”

  “Mr. Adler, I’d like you to consider a job, a temporary one.”

  “I’m not looking for a job.”

  “You’d be doing me a favor.”

  “I’m not really interested in doing any favors, especially for someone I don’t know. Just want to be left alone.”

  “Perhaps this will be sufficient for you to at least hear me out.”

  She handed him a sheet of paper, folded twice over. He unfolded it and looked it over. It was an Agency PAR, post-action report. He looked at the date and swallowed. The tension left his body and heartache filled the void.

  “Alright. Let me cover this up and we’ll go inside. I’ll hear you out. But I’m not making no promises or nothing.”

  Inside the apartment, Rhys scrubbed the grime off his hands at the kitchen sin
k while the woman took off her overcoat and threw it over the back of a chair in what passed for a living room. The way she took propriety of the space confirmed she was used to being in charge. He joined her in the room but ignored her while he fiddled with the coal oven, propping up the glowing embers and tossing two bricks of coal through the oven door. He left the oven door ajar, letting the draft stoke the embers to get the new bricks lit. Coal ovens were tricky, but the warmth they provided was unbeatable, like a hug from your mother. The air smelled faintly of burnt coal, the urban equivalent of a wood stove in an alpine hut.

  “Here, Mr. Adler. So you know who you are talking to.” She handed him a business card.

  Lucinda A. Stirewalt

  Information Officer

  Economics Section

  United States Diplomatic Service

  It gave the address and telephone number of the American Embassy at Pariser Platz.

  He looked at her. She was young, which meant she must be very, very good. You don’t become Berlin’s chief of station without impressing some very serious people. He held up the card. “Non-declared status?”

  She didn’t deny what he had guessed, which was tacit confirmation.

  “Mr. Adler, about that post action report: I’m sorry about Karen. She is missed at Clayallee, both professionally and personally. I wish I had known her. I replaced her nine months ago and hers are some big shoes to fill. I’m sure I haven’t succeeded. Her reports, by the way, confirm everything people down there say about you. I wish I had someone with your versatility whom I could lean on.”

  Karen Astana had been the Central Intelligence Agency’s chief of station in Berlin. She had been killed when an operation went tits up a year ago. Rhys didn’t like how it had been handled and he developed doubts about what he was doing and for whom he worked. He left the Agency but couldn’t pull himself to leave the city.

  He didn’t show any emotion. He just looked past her to the glow inside the oven door. “I’ve said I’ll hear you out, but I’m no closer to agreeing to anything.”

  “Fair enough. This is why I’m here: we have a new ambassador.”

  “New administration, new ambassador. That’s what happens. Is this one as bad as the last?”

  “Worse. Another political appointee, but a meddler.”

  Traditionally, one-third of ambassadorships were filled by political appointments, friends of and donors to the president. The arrangement has been practiced for decades and presidents of both parties follow it. Regrettably, these men and women have no interest in becoming the ambassador to Moldova, Togo, or Botswana, so amateurs plague western European capitals. Most just wanted the title and lifestyle and left the day-to-day running of the embassy to the Deputy Chief of Mission. The State Department had promised a career diplomat to fill the post in Berlin, but the president had overruled. So a real estate mogul replaced an executive producer from Twentieth Century Fox.

  “Unfortunately, Ambassador McClellum doesn’t seem to be content with the prestige and the parties. He hangs around station, asks questions where he shouldn’t, and tries to get involved with the Agency’s activities. It would just be annoying but something has come up. We’re looking into a situation and he’s getting in the way.”

  Rhys didn’t say anything, but raised an annoyed eyebrow that indicated he wanted her to get on with it.

  “There’s a possible connection between known Islamists here in Berlin and a manufacturer of insecticides, a company also located here in Berlin. You can understand why we’re concerned.”

  “Sounds like a German problem.”

  “We agree, and we’ll hand it over to the BND, but American interests are involved and we want action on any intelligence we hand over.”

  “I still don’t see how this concerns me.”

  “We need someone who’s not on the ambassador’s radar to look into this. We also can’t leave any fingerprints.”

  “And I’m not Agency anymore.”

  “But you know what we need and how to deliver it. You’d be a knock, and we’d pay you well for your services and the risks.”

  A knock was an agent with NOC, non-official cover. Agents or consultants with official cover had diplomatic immunity, which protected them from stiff punishments if caught. If exposed, an official cover agent was merely declared persona non grata and evicted from the country. Knocks, in contrast, had no such protection. If caught, they risked spending the rest of their lives in a foreign jail. In countries less progressive than Germany, such spies were often executed.

  “We need someone to scope out Berlitec, the company that manufactures the insecticide. It would simply entail looking into the company’s officers and scientists, get us data so we can confirm or refute the idea that it’s weaponizing its product. It would be low risk surveillance, light penetration. Eyes on the ground to see if there is anything that computer searches missed. We’ll analyze the data at Clayallee.”

  Rhys was done with all that. He had stayed in Berlin because Berlin was a difficult city to leave. Countless souls have gone to Berlin for a year only to wake up twenty years later, still walking the same streets, no better off but probably no worse either. The city was as far from Dixville Notch, New Hampshire as you could get, but it was as much of a home as his place of birth. It was also a perfect home for people who didn’t feel at home anywhere.

  “I’m still not feeling much incentive to help.”

  “Mr. Adler, we have evidence to suggest that some of the people we’re looking into might have been involved in Karen’s death. We’re giving you a chance to avenge it.”

  “But no safety net if things go south.”

  “That’s the deal. And it would be an opportunity to make the world a safer place.”

  Rhys made a dissonant look. Make the world a safer place. What else had Karen included in his file? Was this Stirewalt woman playing him? Appeals to patriotism were lost on him and she knew not to play that angle. How could they know what might make him agree?

  His defenses began to melt away, perhaps nudged by the memories of Karen and his former motivation, perhaps for no other reason than the fact that he was bored. Maybe he could just dangle a toe in the water, see how it felt. He stared into the coal oven, searching for reasons to refuse. He came up blank.

  “When do you want this done?” he asked.

  “Yesterday.”

  He exhaled and looked to the ground, immediately regretting what he was about to say.

  “Tell Bashir to meet me at 5 Ziege at midnight.”

  “I’m sorry?” She shook her head as though confused. She began to speak, but he cut her off.

  “Don’t play dumb. Islamists in Berlin have all gone dark, so I know the NSA didn’t get you your intelligence. It came from Bashir. Either he’s there at midnight or I walk.”

  She gave in to his rebuke. “Where is this 5 Ziege?”

  “He knows.”

  Chapter Two

  The American Embassy’s return to its original location next to the Brandenburg Gate on Pariser Platz signified Germany’s gratitude for the United States’ commitment to (West) Germany during the Cold War. The other western Allies—France and Britain—also have their embassies on the square, and the other wartime ally, which had been equally “committed” to (East) Germany, fittingly has its embassy a short walk to the east down Unter den Linden. Pariser Platz, in short, represents the very heart of Berlin.

  Of course, the American Embassy was not there during the Cold War. The building had been leveled by bombs—American bombs, ironically—during World War II and Pariser Platz was just a tad too far east in the divided city. Without giving up its claim on the spot, the Americans nonetheless refused to recognize the German Democratic Republic and placed its new embassy in Bonn, the capital of the Federal Republic of Germany. But since the Americans had an occupying force in Berlin, an island city in the middle of East Germany, they maintained a mission in Dahlem, located at Clayallee.

  After the Wall fell in
1989 and the Germans voted to make Berlin the capital of the reunited country, the American government reclaimed the real estate on Pariser Platz. The new embassy is a modern building, reflecting a new, future-oriented country. Consular duties—and the CIA station—remained at the functional Clayallee compound while diplomatic functions transpired at Pariser Platz.

  After passing the security desk—more like a vault visitors had to navigate through—a clean lobby led to an elevator that brought the most distinguished visitors to the third floor. The windows in the ambassador’s office looked out over the Brandenburg Gate, reminding guests that the United States was Germany’s most important ally. Ambassador McClellum’s office was large, comfortable, and designed to impress. A large desk signified that weighty decisions were made there and the photo on the wall behind it, of the ambassador with the smiling president, suggested that the ambassador had the president’s ear, day or night.

  But the weighty decisions were not made in the ambassador’s office. These were made two doors down in the office of Sophia Venegas, the Deputy Chief of Mission. The DCM was responsible for the day-to-day management of the embassy, served as chief of staff to the ambassador, and oversaw the various sections—Political, Economic, Public Affairs, Management, and Consular—at the embassy. The DCM was also the chargé d’Affaires, representing the United States when the ambassador was not in the country. Because the long string of political appointments had been vacant in the head, the chargé d’Affaires label was fitting, and the embassy personnel throughout referred to Venegas as the chargé, those closest to her lovingly calling her “Sarge.”

  Sophia Venegas had never been a sergeant, had never even been in the military, but the nickname stuck because it contrasted so vividly with her appearance. Sophia Venegas was head-turning beautiful, a fact she couldn’t hide even if she wanted to. She was aware of her looks and understood the power they conveyed. She didn’t flaunt it, though she didn’t suppress it either. It was just an indisputable fact. Her nails were manicured, her hairstyle up-to-date, and her suits, while conservative and modest, did little to hide her curves. Wearing an evening dress at formal embassy occasions made her a weapon of mass destruction.