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By Root 756 0

ended the vocations of nineteen public enemies. Ten were in prison, the rest dead. The media, even his colleagues, both then and now referred to him as Berlin’s “Cowboy,” its “Dirty Harry,” and it was that role he would play to Detectives Bohlen and Prosser and the others in the situation room when he returned. Something had come up, he would tell them. Something he would take care of himself. Their instructions would be to continue on the course he had laid out for them that morning, an intense continuation of the massive and very public manhunt for the killer of Theo Haas. There would be no announcement that he had left. The media would be told only that he was coordinating the effort from his headquarters office and was unavailable for comment. No other details would be given. It was that simple.

50

RITZ-CARLTON BERLIN, SUITE 1422. 8:08 P.M.

Sy Wirth clicked off one of the two BlackBerrys he’d carried with him since he left Houston and picked up a freshly sharpened number 2 Ticonderoga 1388 pencil. He made a brief note on the last of the half-dozen yellow legal pads on the writing table in front of him, on which he had scribbled twenty-odd memos, the result of several hours’ worth of business calls. Done, he looked at his watch, then picked up the BlackBerry he’d just used, the one he called his everyday phone and utilized for business and personal calls. He was about to punch in a number when there was a knock at the door.

“Yes,” he said impatiently.

“Room service, Mr. Wirth.”

Wirth got up and opened the door. A uniformed waiter pushed a rolling table with a covered platter, a carafe of coffee, and a bottle of mineral water into the room. He was starting to set it up when Wirth intervened.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said brusquely and gave him a twenty-euro bill.

“Thank you, Mr. Wirth. Guten abend.” The man nodded and left, closing the door behind him.

Wirth lifted the silver cover from the platter, glanced at the club sandwich beneath it. Ignoring it, he went back to the desk, picked up the everyday BlackBerry, punched in a number, and waited for it to ring through.

“Yes.” Dimitri Korostin’s voice filtered through his earpiece.

“Well?”

“You sound nervous, Sy.”

“How long are you going to keep me waiting around? What’s the status of our project?”

Korostin laughed. “Your status is that you’re anxious and on edge. My status is that I’m getting a blow job. Afterward I’m going to dinner with friends. I think my lifestyle is better than yours, Sy. Excuse me a minute.” Suddenly there was dead air, as if he’d clicked off. A full two minutes later he came back on. “Sy, you there?”

“Fuck you and your blow job.”

“Relax, Sy. Like they say, your order has been processed. I will have information for you before midnight. Fair enough? I wouldn’t want to disappoint you and risk losing the Magellan/Santa Cruz–Tarija gas field. Would I?”

With that Korostin clicked off, leaving Sy Wirth alone with his two BlackBerrys, half-dozen legal pads, coffee, mineral water, club sandwich, and unease.

8:20 P.M

Hauptkommissar Emil Franck turned his Audi down a service road near Tegel Airport in the last rays of warm summer-evening sunshine. Sunshine that, after the gray skies and drizzle of the morning should have cheered him a little at least. But he was in no mood for cheer. Apprehending Marten for the killing of Theo Haas had been one thing, but since the photographs and the rebellion in Equatorial Guinea had come into play it was clear that something far more complex than the murder of a Nobel laureate was taking place. As he had said on the phone, it would be a billiard game. Kovalenko was already in it. Moscow was watching. God only knew where it would go from there.

Ahead he could see a maroon Opel parked at the side of the road next to a security fence. All around was the thunder and whine of jet aircraft approaching or taking off from the airfield. He slowed, then pulled up behind the Opel and stopped. Two men were in it. Kovalenko and a driver. The Russian said something to the other man, then opened the door and got