Hunter's Rain (9 page)

The blonde blinked twice this time. “I’m sorry. I think you’ve come to the wrong place. We are…”

Carey Bloomfield marched up to the desk and leaned over. “Listen to me, you diet freak. If you give me any more bullshit, I’ll squeeze that scrawny neck of yours so hard you’ll want to spit out your larynx! And while you’re at it, do something about those zits.”

The blonde went a bright pink, and instinctively put a hand to a cheek, hiding what she thought was a pimple that had dared invade her perfect face.

Carey Bloomfield did not tell her there was nothing there. “Well?” she demanded. “Do you do your job and get me Toby?”

The blonde, one hand still hiding the non-existent pimple, pressed a button on her intercom with a delicate finger.

She cleared her throat. “Mr. Adams…there’s…there’s a Miss…” She looked warily at Carey Bloomfield, a question in her eyes.

“Bloomfield. Colonel Bloomfield.”

The blonde’s eyes widened so much, they were in serious danger of popping out. “C…
Colonel?
Bloomfield?”

“Which question do you want answered first?” Carey Bloomfield asked.

But the blonde was spared. Jacket missing from his summer-weight three-piece suit, a shirt-sleeved Toby Adams rushed out from the recesses of the office, beaming. He carried an expensive putter in one hand.

“Carey!” he greeted. “This is a pleasant surprise.” He gave her a quick one-handed embrace, ignoring the dampness of her coat, then indicated the putter with a sheepish grin. “Practising.” He looked at her clothes. “Terrible weather, huh? Mary-Ann,” he went on to the blonde who was now staring at Carey Bloomsfield, transfixed. “Two coffees, please? Milk and sugar both.”

“Ye-yes, sir.”

“Come on, Carey. My inner sanctum.” He put his free arm about her shoulders, and guided her back to his office.

The blonde gaped after them, then got up to prepare the coffee.

Toby Adams did not look like a man in his late fifties. But for the slight greying of his neck-length, naturally wavy hair, he seemed a good twenty years younger. Fit, with a flat stomach, he was a six-footer with greyish eyes that looked at Carey Bloomfield with the fondness of a father. He seemed for all the world like a genuine business executive.

They walked along a carpeted corridor full of closed doors.

“Eavesdropping going well?” Carey Bloomfield asked, studiedly casual as she glanced at the doors. Her coat dripped intermittently onto the carpet.

Adams smiled. “You are a tease.”

“And where in God’s name did you get that blonde?”

“Window dressing. She’s what people expect to see when they wander in here.”

“She’s well cast...or is she faking it?”

“The genuine stuff; but she thinks she’s working for a VIP travel company. That’s why everything’s so…secret.”

“She believes that? She’s dumber than she looks.”

“The pay’s very good, and she gets to see Europe. She asks no questions. The best kind of front person to get. And here we are.”

Adams’ office looked exactly like that of a CEO of any company. On the floor beneath his pedestal desk, was a waste basket lying on its side. Within it were four golf balls. A lonely hat stand was in a corner. .

“As you can see,” Adams explained as he shut the door behind them, “practising my putt. Doing a few rounds tomorrow with some people…”

“This rain won’t let up today and anyway, the course will be soaked.”

“We’ve got wet weather arrangements. Indoor.”

“I see. All nicely planned, then.”

“Yes.”

Adams did not seem to spot anything ironic in the remark. He slid the putter back into his high-tech golfing bag, and was about to lean on his desk, when there was a diffident knock on the door.

“That will be Mary-Ann,” he said, going to the door.

“That was quick.”

“She can be quick at some things, despite appearances.”

“I’ll bet,” Carey Bloomfield remarked, looking about her. “Somewhere I can hang my coat so it doesn’t drip on something precious? On her, I wouldn’t mind.”

He smiled at her. “Same old Carey. Hang it on that hat stand. It hardly gets any use.” Adams opened the door. “Thanks, Mary-Ann.”

Carey Bloomfield hung up her coat as a simpering “You’re welcome” came from outside.

Adams backed into the room carrying a small, black tray with two porcelain cups on saucers. The coffee in them was steaming. He swung the door shut with a heel, then came up to Carey Bloomfield, offering the tray.

“I have to admit it smells good,” she said, taking one. “Thanks.”

“She’s quite a coffee maker,” Adams said as he took the tray to his desk and set it down. He picked up his own, and leaned against the desk. He raised the cup in a brief salute. “Didn’t know you were in town, Carey. No one warned me.”

“No one was supposed to. This is private. I got in yesterday.”

“Private?”

“I’m on vacation, Toby.”

“So you’d thought you come to Berlin.”

“Why not?” Carey Bloomfield took a sip of her coffee. “Mmm. Good. I’m surprised. I thought she would be afraid of damaging her fingernails.”

“As I’ve said, Mary-Ann’s good at some things.”

“Making coffee…”

“Among other things.”

“I won’t ask.”

Adams smiled, and let it pass. “So you’re in Berlin. No guesses about whom you’ve come to see.”

“Why?”

“Come on, Carey. You’re not here to see me. Your favourite policeman is the likely candidate. You’re soft on the guy.”

“I could take offence…”

“But you won’t. I’m not wrong. In fact, that might be helpful to us.”

“Oh? I thought you didn’t approve.”

“Times change. Things change.”

“Well here’s a change. Some people also seem to think they know why I’m here. They tried to shoot me today.”

Adams’ eyes widened in astonishment.
“What?”
He slowly put down his cup. “Are you kidding me here, Carey?”

“About this, I would not kid. Some guy in a fake cop uniform - or maybe a fake cop in a real uniform, or even a real cop – tried to splash me.”

“Jesus! What happened?”

“Pappi happened.”

“’Pappi’?”

“My ‘favourite’ policeman’s buddy…”

“So you were seeing Müller.”

“What can I say? I cannot tell a lie.”

“That was a little sharp, Carey.”

“That’s what it does to you when some fake cop tries to wipe you in broad, rainy daylight, in the middle of Berlin.”

“And you come to me for the answers?”

“I’ve come to you, Toby, because we go back years, and maybe you can tell with if there’s something running concerning me, that I don’t know about.”

Adams shook his head. “If there is, this is the first I know about it; just as this is the first I know about your being in Berlin.”

“Whoever it is, must have known I’d be here. Find out what you can, Toby.”

“You’ve got it. As you’re here, anyway…” Adams went on.

“I knew it.”

“Well… you are on site, so to speak...”

Carey Bloomfield took a deliberate swallow of the blonde’s coffee. “You want me to keep an eye on Müller. Why?”

“Müller…has connections with the past which might be of use to us. Remember Dahlberg?”

“How could I forget?”

“We needed him alive…”

“I’m not the only one who killed him. Müller shot him too, to save his aunt.”

Adams nodded. “I know. But there are those – and I’m not one of them - who think that this thing with your brother might have swayed your judgement a little.”

“As I said at the time, they were not there, Toby. And he would still have died, even if I hadn’t been there. No way Müller was going to let him get away.”

“I understand that.”

“But you want me to shadow Müller.”

“As you’re here…”

“I’ll do a deal, Toby. I’ll keep an eye on Müller…”

“And keep me informed…”

“And keep you informed. But you find out which asshole sanctioned a hit on me.”

“Deal.”

“I think I did that very well,” Carey Bloomfield said to herself as she walked away from the building. “And I did not lose my temper. Not once. That thing with the blonde bimbo was a bagatelle. Why are you betraying me, Toby?” she went on, hunching herself against the rain as she looked for a taxi. “Damned weather.”

A taxi came, and she gave the address of a big hotel on Friedrichstrasse.

“
This Toby Adams,” Pappenheim said, “he’s her
controller?
”

“According to her,” Müller replied.

They were in the Rogues Gallery. Müller had called him there, sometime after Carey Bloomfield had gone.

Müller had spent the intervening time poring over the documents his father had left, in the hope of seeing something else about Adams; but there had been no further mention, nor more photographs.

“Turn up for the books, if he’s now betraying her.”

“Seems like it. We must be getting too close, if we’re beginning to touch deeply buried people like Adams.”

“I’d amend that to dangerously close. And it’s a big web they’re spinning. I’m not complaining, you understand. Feeling that chill at the back of your neck as yet?”

“I’ve been feeling it for some time,” Müller said.

“That’s alright, then. Just checking. If Miss Bloomfield admitted about Adams to you,” Pappenheim went on, “it must have been quite a shock for her. By identifying him to you, she has blown the cover of friendly agent, operating here under the deepest secrecy.”

“No so friendly, if what little we know turns out to be true. She had little choice in the matter. Seeing that picture was a traumatic experience for her. Even I, am still shaken by what this could mean; so God only knows what it’s done to her. She trusted him with her life. They go back to the days when she went to the Middle East to try and rescue her brother – against orders - and found a living corpse having its skin peeled.”

“Despite knowing what happened,” Pappenheim said with a frisson of horror, “it still gives me the shivers to think about it.”

“Adams backed her up then,” Müller said. “So finding out he is with
The Semper,
must be very tough for her. But it also tells us plenty about the kind of people who employed diseases like Dahlberg,” Müller went on. “The kind who had my parents killed.” His voice grew cold as he said this.

“You worry about your neck, and I’ll worry about yours.” Pappenheim grinned. “See? I’m smiling when I say that. And if Adams is also involved?”

“If this Adams is involved…” Müller let his words fade.

Pappenheim understood, without needing to hear more. The iciness in Müller’s eyes told him everything.

Adams was on the phone to someone.

“I’ve just had a visitor,” he said.

“Should that be of interest to me?”

“Oh it should. It should.”

“And who is this person who should interest me?”

“Carey Bloomfield.”

“Ah. The lovely colonel.”

“She was quite upset. Understandably so. It would seem that someone tried, misguidedly – or was misguidedly instructed – to take her out. You would not know anything about that, would you?”

There was a pause.

“Are you questioning me?”

“I am asking a simple question, about a stupid decision.”

“Now listen…”

“No!
You
listen! If this was your doing it was crass, stupid,
and
counterproductive. She is now aware that she is a target. She is forewarned, and will be extremely alert – as would be expected of someone of her calibre. I have told you on several occasions to leave her to me. I will attend to her when the time is right.
Not
before. You could have compromised us.”

There was more silence at the other end, as the person he was speaking to considered this. Adams was also well aware that he had offended the other’s sensibilities; but he did not care.

“Does she suspect anything about you?” came the voice at long last.

“Of course not! There’s not a chance in hell she’d know about me. I never act prematurely.” It was a deliberate barb. “I want your assurance you’ll reign in your dogs. This must
not
happen again.”

An even longer silence followed.

Adams waited.

“Very well,” came at last, reluctantly so.

The man Adams had been speaking to put down his phone, and looked at his companion.

“These Americans. They think they own the world.”

“They do,” the companion remarked with cheerful candour.

“That’s surprising, coming from you, Vladimir.”

“Pragmatism,” the man called Vladimir said. “But even the biggest of houses are vulnerable to burglars.” He smiled. “The right kind of burglars.” .

The other man smiled too. “What I like about you, Vladimir, is your sense of humour.

“What you like about me, is my ability to get things done.”

“That too.”

“Adams was right, though. It was not a good idea to try it on the colonel. At least, not so soon.”

“You heard?”

“How could I not? He was shouting.”

They both laughed.

“And I must be going,” Vladimir said when the bout had subsided. “I’ve been in this country long enough. Three days is a long time.”

“Another vodka, perhaps?”

“Most kind, but no. I’ve a long, tedious flight ahead.”

“You’ve said nothing about the genetic virus.”

“Because there’s nothing to say. Success is as far away as ever. Whoever stole that sample all those years ago, took the one and only original batch. And all documentation was destroyed with the lab. It’s a start from scratch.”