Rogue Signal: A Gripping Spy Thriller (Tom Marlowe Spy Thrillers Book 7) by Jack Gatland

Author:Jack Gatland [Gatland, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hooded Man Media
Published: 2024-10-28T00:00:00+00:00

16

EMIL AND THE DETECTIVES

Marlowe stood at the corner of Erich-Kästner-Straße, the collar of his polo neck shirt turned up against the chill Berlin air. It had taken Susan – that was the name of the server – twenty minutes to drive here, and it had taken Marlowe everything he had to send her off with his thanks. If she’d had her way, she would have walked him to the bloody door.

Which would have been hard, as even Marlowe didn’t know the door yet.

When they’d walked outside the coffee shop, Marlowe still munching on the sandwich, he’d quickly glanced around, seeing a truck passing with an open flatbed back. While Susan went to get her car, a battered old Volkswagen Beetle, Marlowe had quickly hurried over to the truck, and, as it drove off in the other direction, he tossed the remnants of the phone into it. He knew calling Wintergreen had been risky, and anyone watching would have worked out the source phone, hunting for it, even without the SIM card in. With luck, whoever was chasing him was clever enough to work out that he’d stolen the phone, and would now think that, after the call, he’d grabbed a ride in the truck, while Susan the server took him in the opposite direction.

He hoped it worked, as he stood on the wide and empty street, noting the neat rows of white apartment blocks to his left-hand side, and wasteland to the right. Each block was numbered oddly, the building next to him being number “1”. The book reference felt obvious enough – Kästner’s famous novel, published in 1929, was a valid number, but the street numbers certainly didn’t go up to 1929.

Marlowe’s eyes narrowed as he considered the possibilities.

Four digits. Could be a code itself. Added up?

That made 21 – but then which of the apartments would it be inside? What was the second clue?

In pairs?

Maybe.

Slowly and carefully, he sauntered down the street, his keen eyes taking in every detail, counting buildings. The street carried on, but to his left was a courtyard where the numbers carried on down, and around in three sides of a square. He continued past, but then stopped.

The door on the left side of the gap was “5”.

The one on the right of the gap was “25”.

Okay, so it’s down here, then.

Walking down the left-hand side of the garden square, he counted along, and paused near the end. There was a grey, utilitarian building in the middle of the garden that divided the two sides, and someone had been working hard on it, painting a variety of cartoon faces all over the building. It was good work, and Marlowe almost moved on before he saw the cartoon head with the bowler hat, and realised what this was.

Emil and the Detectives.

He could have been wrong, but as he turned to walk away, he found himself on the opposite side of the space, and outside number 19.

The first two digits. Now, he needed to work out the “29” part.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.