Crossed Swords by Sean Flannery

Author:Sean Flannery
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

11

It was after ten when John woke up slumped in the chair next to the telephone. He had no recollection of falling asleep. He had been telephoning hotels without results and had simply drifted off. His back and neck were stiff and his mouth was foul from too many cigarettes. He got up and stretched. The city outside his window had come alive. Even from his room he could hear the noise of traffic along the busy Ku’Damm. Berlin like any large city never really slept, and like most large cities the evening activities seemed concentrated in one major area. In Tokyo it was the Ginza, in London it was Soho, and late at night in New York it was Times Square. Here in West Berlin it was the Kürfurstendamm, a broad boulevard of nightclubs, restaurants, sex shops, and private clubs. He stood at the window for a long time looking down at the street and the glow of the city. From here he could not see the wall, but like everyone else who came to Berlin, he was conscious of its presence out there in the darkness. Conscious of the vast differences in life on this side versus in the East. You couldn’t come to Berlin without feeling it.

His father and Chernov were out there somewhere. He could feel their presence as well. Tonia Trusov was looking for them. And someone else was too. Who? Who had followed him around Washington? Who had killed poor Stan Kopinski? The Russians as he had believed, or some faction within the CIA as Tonia Trusov had suggested? In the bathroom he splashed some water on his face, straightened his tie, and looked at his haggard reflection in the mirror. He had come too many miles, he thought. More than any man should have to travel. His father had told him a few years ago that the very best men in this business burned out early, or simply quit before it was too late for them. “There comes a point at which we are ruined for anything else, though,” he’d said. “This business is de-civilizing. And when that is stripped away from us, what do we have left? Perhaps only a primal instinct for survival in which we lash out at anything in our path—friend or foe.” Had he come that far already? He supposed he had.

Before he left his room he checked his gun, cycling a live round into the firing chamber and making sure the safety catch was in the on position before he holstered it at the small of his back. He pulled on his coat and took the elevator downstairs.

To trust or not to trust. It had been his problem from the time of his earliest memories when his father was disappearing sometimes for months on end. From an age when he began to question those disappearances, and the little things his father was saying—or not saying—to his family by way of explanation. The late-night telephone calls and messages, the strange people just at the fringes of their lives.

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