Winter Work by Dan Fesperman

Author:Dan Fesperman [Fesperman, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2022-07-12T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

· · ·

Half an hour later Emil pulled to the curb of a busy street in Schöneberg. He still felt shaky, and his toes were still numb with cold. He had taken several detours along the way, to make sure he wasn’t followed. But he hadn’t yet decided exactly how much to tell Dorn. Play it by ear, he supposed.

He stepped into a yellow booth and punched in the number for the duty officer at the Bernau police station. A gruff voice answered.

“Patch me through to Lieutenant Dorn’s home, please.”

“No need. He’s up in his office.”

It wasn’t yet nine o’clock on a Saturday morning. Emil sighed and waited for the detective to answer.

“Dorn here.”

“It’s Grimm. I’ve been to see Andreas Plotz this morning. The news isn’t good.”

“No luck on ID’ing the film?”

“He’s dead. Trussed up and carved to a bloody mess in his bathroom. Someone had tied him to a chair.”

There was a sharp intake of breath, followed by a pause filled with the crackling that still haunted all East-West phone connections.

“That’s remarkable.”

“Remarkable?”

“I was just looking through the Boyan Barkov police file, the one from Leipzig. They faxed it overnight and, well, your description…”

Emil nearly tripped himself up by saying something that would’ve showed he knew all about the similarity of the two murders. Instead he said, “Yes?”

“It sounds exactly the same. Horrible, but the same.”

“So then it’s the same person?”

“It certainly sounds that way. The killer in Leipzig was Yuri Volkov, a bit of muscle the Russians had hired. But the fellow who cleaned it all up in cooperation with Dieter Krauss had a few stripes on his collar. A KGB colonel.”

“Name?”

“I was just reaching that part. His signature is all over the forms. Here we go…Gregor Kolkachev.”

Emil knew the name, and even remembered the face. A tough KGB insider, midforties by now, a big man who had managed to survive the shakeups and purges that had seemed to emanate every few years from Moscow. He was the district chief for counterintelligence, which meant he’d have a keen interest in either saving or destroying the HVA’s agent files and other sensitive documents.

“Kolkachev. I see.”

“Do you know him?”

“The name is vaguely familiar, but I can check with people who’d know, if you’d like.”

“Yes, that would be helpful.”

“And of course now I’ll need to find someone other than Plotz to tell me more about these strips of microfilm.”

“Maybe it would be better if you just returned them to me.”

“No, no. I have a few solid leads I’m already pursuing.”

“But, Grimm, I cannot possibly—”

“I’ve already set the wheels in motion, Lieutenant. Too many people are now aware of a police interest in this matter for me to not show them anything. Oh, and for obvious reasons it will be better for both of us if you’re the one who reports this Plotz killing. It’s in a Plattenbau in Marzahn. I’ll give you the address. I touched nothing.”

“Me? But you’re there! I don’t even know the supervisor for that district. And—”

“I’m in Schöneberg now.

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.