Andrew Britton - The Assassin

“How do you even know he’s there?”

“I checked three times this afternoon,” Bennett replied. “The name he’s been using in Berlin — Walter Schauble — is listed on the buzzer at the front door. Ruhmann has the penthouse, and the lights have been on all day. I also ran a discreet check through the TUV… That’s the agency that carries out safety inspections for vehicles registered in Germany. Under the Schauble identity, Ruhmann owns a Mercedes CLK coupe. The car wasn’t parked in the street the first time I looked, but it was there when I passed the apartment later.”

“That doesn’t mean a thing,” Kealey said. “Maybe he has an assistant. Ruhmann might not even be in the country.”

“If that’s the case, wouldn’t the assistant be traveling with him?” Naomi put in.

“Maybe…” Kealey fell silent, thinking it through. “We’ll just have to look and see.”

Bennett swung the Range Rover onto the Friedrichstrasse and followed it down to the river. Even seen through the curtains of rain, the black water shone with multicolored lights, most of which spilled from the immense blocks of flats on the south bank. A few houseboats were moored near the Reichstag, where the Luisenstrasse crossed the Spree. To their left, a towering pinnacle of light marked the TV Tower in the Alexanderplatz. Naomi gazed through her window, admiring the view for as long as possible. Then Bennett turned onto a narrow street just south of the river, and the squat buildings looming over the sidewalk replaced the luminous skyline. A few seconds later the vehicle started to slow.

“That’s it,” the ops officer said. They followed his gaze immediately.

“Doesn’t look like much,” Kealey remarked. “Ruhmann knows how to keep a low profile.”

“Yeah, he’s smarter than most of his peers,” Bennett agreed. He started to put his foot on the brake, but Kealey said, “No, keep going to the end of the street. We’ll park there.”

Bennett nodded. As they approached the intersection, he found a spot near the curb and pulled in.

“What do you have for weapons?” Kealey asked.

Bennett pulled back his jacket to reveal the butt of a Browning Hi-Power. Then he turned and said, “See those cases next to you, Kharmai? Hand one of them up, will you?”

She did as he asked. Following Kealey’s lead, she opened the other. It contained a field-stripped Beretta Tomcat. She stared at the pieces for a long moment, trying to remember the weaponry course she’d taken at Camp Peary five years earlier. It took her two minutes longer than necessary, but she finally managed to put the. 32 caliber pistol together. Dry firing it once, she heard a satisfying click. Then she slipped a 7-round magazine into the butt and chambered a round.

The other case contained a Sig P229, the standard-issue weapon of the U.S. Secret Service. This one happened to be chambered for 9mm rounds. Kharmai paused to watch Kealey put the weapon together. She had handed him a case at random, and she couldn’t help but wonder what his reaction would have been if he had ended up with the smaller gun. She didn’t think he’d care that much, but she knew that men could be surprisingly superficial about such things.

Bennett looked uneasy. “You know, I’m not supposed to have those weapons in-country. They’re not registered with the embassy. If anything happens-”

“I don’t think we’ll need them,” Kealey cut in. “But I’m not going in there unarmed.”

“You’ll try to keep this clean?”

“If I can. It’s up to Ruhmann.”

“Well, that’s the other thing.” Bennett shot him a curious look. “How do you plan on handling this?”

“I assume Harper briefed you over the phone.”

“He did.”

“Then you know why I’m here. All I want is Vanderveen’s location.”

“And the weapons,” Naomi reminded him. “We need to know who was ultimately taking possession at those ports in the Middle East.”

“Right,” Bennett said. “But then what? You can’t leave him alive. He’ll be on the phone before we leave the building.”

Kealey’s face turned hard. “I realize that. Let’s just get up there and see what he has to say. I’ll figure out what to do after that.”

Bennett shook his head, but he pushed open the door and stepped into the rain. Kealey and Kharmai concealed their weapons and followed his lead. They moved at a quick pace down the flooded sidewalk, reaching the entrance to Reichstagufer 19 a moment later. Bennett punched a button at random, and a voice came over the intercom. “Yes?”

Bennett looked at a loss. Kharmai pushed him aside, scanned the list, and hit the same button. In rapid, exasperated German, she said, “Delivery for 4B. I’m not getting an answer, and I have other stops to make. Do you mind?”

A few seconds later, the door sprung open, and they stepped inside.

On the other side of the road, 20 meters west of the doorway, Yasmin Raseen watched them enter the building. She was sitting in the driver’s seat of the Mercedes, the engine on, the heater running at full capacity. She was clearly visible to cars passing by in the road, but that was intentional; she wanted to appear like she was waiting for someone. A magazine was sitting on the passenger seat, the German edition of Vogue. She pushed it aside to reveal the Motorola radio, then pressed the TRANSMIT button. The earpiece was already in position, the wire concealed beneath her hair. “They’re here. Two men and a woman. They just entered the building.”

At that moment, Vanderveen was on the north side of the river, lying prone on the gravel roof of a four-story apartment building. The shooting mat was tucked beneath his body, the olive drab poncho draped over his back. The rain was beating against his back so hard it nearly hurt, and the cold had numbed his exposed skin hours earlier. The weapon that lay before him, the barrel propped up by an integral folding bipod, was a Steyr Scout Tactical with a 5-round box magazine. Through the preinstalled Kahles ZF95 mil-dot scope, he had an excellent view of Ruhmann’s brightly lit office, which was not more than 100 meters away, on the far bank of the Spree. As soon as Raseen’s transmission came over the radio, he lowered the stock and returned the call.

“Give it a minute; then get inside.” Raseen had taken the caretaker’s key; she wouldn’t need to be buzzed in. “Stay in the foyer until I give you the word.”

There was a brief crackle of static, and then she acknowledged his words. Vanderveen lifted the rifle back to his shoulder and looked over the river with his naked eye. Under normal conditions, the Steyr Scout was a highly accurate weapon. In this case, however, it was practically useless, and it wasn’t because of the rain. He had picked up the weapon that same afternoon, which meant that he didn’t have time to acquire a zero. The dealer in Dresden had assured him the weapon was sighted in, but that didn’t mean a thing; zeros were different for each shooter.

Even with time to sight in, though, he would have needed to break the Steyr back down to get it up on the roof, as he couldn’t exactly be seen walking around with a fully assembled rifle. Either way, the weapon was less accurate than it was supposed to be, which explained why he wasn’t going to try to take Kealey on the street. He had considered the option, but 5 rounds didn’t leave much room for error, and Kealey was a world-class marksman in his own right. And there was another, more important factor at play: he had brought at least one other person along, the woman named Kharmai.

Vanderveen smiled to himself beneath the poncho. He had anticipated this possibility; in fact, he had anticipated everything. He was satisfied with his preparations, but there was something else, an undercurrent of pure adrenaline, that he couldn’t ignore. It seemed as though everything since Maine had led up to this moment, his chance to finish the work he’d started eight years earlier.