Tess Gerritsen - In Their Footsteps

“Not directly. I had little contact with Stasi agents. The East Germans, you know…they preferred to operate independently.”

“Then who would know about Delphi? There must be some old contact you can pump for information.”

There was a pause. “Perhaps…”

“Yes?”

“Heinrich Leitner,” said Sakaroff. “He is the one who could tell you. He oversaw Stasi’s Paris operations. Not a field man-he never left East Berlin. But he would be familiar with Delphi ’s work.”

“Okay, he’s the man I’ll talk to. So how do I get to him?”

“That is the difficult part. He is in Berlin -”

“No problem. We’ll go there.”

“-in a high-security prison.”

Richard groaned. “That is a problem.” In frustration, he turned and stared through the phone-booth door at the subway platform. “I’ve got to get in to see him, Niki.”

“You’ll need approval. That will take days. Papers, signatures…”

“Then that’s what I’ll have to get. If you could make a few calls, speed things up.”

“No guarantees.”

“Understood. Oh, and one more thing,” said Richard. “We’ve been trying to get ahold of Hugh Tavistock. It seems he’s vanished. Have you heard anything about it?”

“No. But I will check my sources. Anything else?”

“I’ll let you know.”

Sakaroff grunted. “I was afraid you would say that.”

Richard hung up. Stepping away from the pay phone, he glanced around at the subway platform. He saw nothing suspicious, only the usual stream of nighttime commuters-couples holding hands, students with backpacks.

The train for Creteil-Préfecture rolled into the station. Richard stepped onto it, rode it for three stops, then got off. He lingered on the next platform for a few minutes, surveying the faces. No one looked familiar. Satisfied that he hadn’t been followed, he boarded the Bobigny-Picasso train and rode it to Gare de l’Est. There he stepped off, walked out of the station, and headed briskly back to the pension.

He found Beryl still awake and sitting in an armchair by the window. She’d turned off all the lights, and in the darkness she was little more than a silhouette against the glow of the night sky. He shut and bolted the door. “Beryl?” he said. “Everything all right?”

He thought he saw her nod. Or was it just the quivering of her chin as she took a breath and let out a soft, slow sigh?

“We’ll be safe here,” he said. “For tonight, at least.”

“And tomorrow?” came the murmured question.

“We’ll worry about that when the time comes.”

She leaned back against the chair cushions and stared straight ahead. “Is this how it was for you, Richard? Working for Intelligence? Living day to day, not daring to think about tomorrows?”

He moved slowly to her chair. “Sometimes it was like this. Sometimes I wasn’t sure there’d be a tomorrow for me.”

“Do you miss that life?” She looked at him. He couldn’t see her face, but he felt her watching him.

“I left that life behind.”

“But do you miss it? The excitement? That lovely promise of violence?”

“Beryl. Beryl, please.” He reached for her hand; it was like a lump of ice in his grasp.

“Didn’t you enjoy it, just a little?”

“No.” He paused. Then softly he said, “Yes. For a short time. When I was very young. Before it turned all too real.”

“The way it did tonight. Tonight, it was real for me. When I saw that man lying there…” She swallowed. “This afternoon, you see, we had lunch together, the three of us. They had the veal. And a bottle of wine, and ice cream. And I got them to laugh…” She looked away.

“It seems like a game, at first,” said Richard. “A make-believe war. But then you realize that the bullets are real. So are the people.” He held her hand in his and wished he could warm it, warm her. “That’s what happened to me. All of a sudden, it got too real. And there was a woman…”

She sat very still, waiting, listening. “Someone you loved?” she asked softly.

“No, not someone I loved. But someone I liked, very much. It was in Berlin, before the Wall came down. We were trying to bring over a defector to the West. And my partner, she got trapped on the wrong side. The guard spotted her. Fired.” He lifted Beryl’s hand to his lips and kissed it, held it.

“She…didn’t make it?”

He shook his head. “And it wasn’t a game of make-believe any longer. I could see her body lying in the no-man’s-zone. And I couldn’t reach her. So I had to leave her there, for the other side…” He released her hand. He moved to the window and looked out at the lights twinkling over Paris. “That’s when I left the business. I didn’t want another death on my conscience. I didn’t want to feel…responsible.” He turned to her. In the faint glow from the city, her face looked pale, almost luminous. “That’s what makes this so hard for me, Beryl. Knowing what could happen if I make a mistake. Knowing that your life depends on what I do next.”

For a long time, Beryl sat very still, watching him. Feeling his gaze through the darkness. That spark of attraction crackled like fire between them as it always did. But tonight there was something more, something that went beyond desire.

She rose from the chair. Though he didn’t move, she could feel the fever of his gaze as she glided toward him, could hear the sharp intake of his breath as she reached up and touched his beard-roughened face. “Richard,” she whispered, “I want you.”

At once she was swept into his arms. No other embrace, no other kiss, had ever stolen her breath the way this one did. We are like that couple in bronze, she thought. Starved for each other. Devouring each other.

But this was a feast of love, not destruction.

She whimpered and her head fell back as his mouth slid to her throat. She could feel every stroke of his hands through the silky fabric of her dress. Oh Lord, if he could do this to her with her clothes on, what lovely torment would he unleash on her naked flesh? Already her breasts were tingling under his touch, her nipples turned to tight buds.

He unzipped her dress and slowly eased it off her shoulders.

It hissed past her hips and slid into a silken ripple on the floor. He, too, traced the length of her torso, his lips moving slowly down her throat, her breasts, her belly. Shuddering with pleasure, she gripped his hair and moaned, “No fair…”

“All’s fair,” he murmured, easing her stockings down her thighs. “In love and war…”

By the time he had her fully undressed, by the time he’d shed his own clothes, she was beyond words, beyond protest. She’d lost all sense of time and space; there was only the darkness, and the warmth of his touch, and the hunger shuddering deep inside her. She scarcely realized how they found their way to the bed. Eagerly she sank backward onto the mattress, and heard the squeak of the springs, the quickening duet of their breathing. Then she pulled him down against her, drew him onto and into her.

Starved for each other, she thought as he captured her mouth under his, invaded it, explored it. Devouring each other.

And like two who were famished, they feasted.

He reached for her hands, and their fingers entwined in a tighter and tighter knot as their bodies joined, thrusted, exulted. Even as her last shudders of desire faded away, he was still gripping her hands.

Slowly he released them and cradled her face instead. He pressed gentle kisses to her lips, her eyelids. “Next time,” he whispered, “we’ll take it slower. I won’t be in such a hurry, I promise.”

She smiled at him. “I have no complaints.”