Patterson, James - See How They Run by Patterson James

Author:Patterson, James [Patterson, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Warner Books
Published: 1979-10-11T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 44

James Burns's office was a modishly furnished two-room walk-up in the West End business district of Frankfurt. The entire office consisted of Burns and a nineteen-year-old German girl named Sigi. It was he and Sigi against the world, James Burns liked to say whenever he was feeling put upon by Washington—which was often.

Like now.

Like the way they'd suddenly dumped all this terrorist crap in his lap and then fled for the hills.

As he climbed to the third floor of the prewar building, Burns heard loud music coming from above.

Goddamn Sigi was a Beethoven nut.

Once he got inside the office, though, he saw that the longhaired blond girl (James Burns liked to call Sigi his "very own California surfer in the Fozzerland") wasn't anywhere around.

A "While You Were Out" note was pinned to the telephone. A single word—"wife."

Mildly annoyed, the American man carefully folded his suit jacket. He dialed his home phone number and then lit up a cigar. While he waited for someone to answer, he stared at Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and Humphrey Bogart on the office walls. Goddamn Sigi was also an American movie nut.

"Who dis?" Burns heard.

"Vee-gates, it's the midget!" James Burns laughed into the telephone. "Is your mother home, midget?"

"Who dis?"

As he spoke on the phone, Burns also began to write out the things he had to do for Harry Callaghan before his workday was over.

"Dis ist Herr Burns, midget. The good-looking fellow mitt the blond hair. Daddy."

Patricia Burns giggled. "Daddy? You're silly."

James Burns didn't speak back to his little daughter. The door to the second room of the office had suddenly swung open.

Burns was looking at Sigi, neatly tied to a leather wing chair.

A man with a small Luger stepped into the doorway. James Burns understood why Beethoven's Ninth was playing so loudly.

"Wait a minute," James Burns said to the intruder, pulling out his own Smith & Wesson.

The Luger fired three shots into the blond agent's chest.

Shaking his head over the unfortunate shooting, the Weapons Expert quickly went through J.B. Burns's papers. He tucked two manila folders into his own briefcase. The folders contained the preliminary intelligence findings on the Storm Troop. They contained a Mossad report on the probable identity of the secret group's leader. Just as the group's secret Washington contact had informed them it would.

The only problem was that the Weapons Expert had come for the folders an hour too late. The Weapons Expert left the West End walk-up with the Telefunken stereo blaring Beethoven at 9++.

"Who dis? Who dis?" the voice from the telephone receiver continued to ask.

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