The Heat of Ramadan Page 2

  Her form was lithe and athletic, so she wore bland, oversized shirts and fatigue-like trousers. Her hair was dark brown and of a naturally groomed texture, so she refrained from washing it much while in the field. She would pull it back into a tight bun and don thick glasses to dull the liveliness of her hazel eyes. Everything suggested such a total lack of sexuality that men would look at her and fairly grimace when she topped it all off with an expression that her mother would have called “farbissiner.”

  Today, Francie would fairly disappear within her operational area. Wearing a dull raincoat, a floppy hat and her Walkman, she would be forced to listen to blank static. She would read passages from a mundane work on the life of Wagner, and she would move from café to café, never lingering for more than half an hour, yet constantly forced to order food for which she had no appetite.

  She would wait, and by midafternoon she would be sick to death of eating….

  Eckhardt moved forward through his mental checklist, arriving at the image of one of his favorite comrades. Harry Webber was the elder of the primary field team, and thoughts of him were always sure to improve Eckhardt’s mood.

  Austrian born, Webber frequently amused the younger members of Special Operations with his tortured dialect of a working-class Viennese. He was close to forty, tall, bony, stooped and mostly bald. His sharp eyes were creased with smile lines, his sideburns going grey. His hawkish sly nose and quick smile completed the demeanor of some sort of comic cabaret master, constantly on the verge of tossing off one-liners which served to levitate even the gravest of situations.

  On Flute, Harry Webber would be serving as the Team’s Janitor, with a secondary function as Emergency Decoy.

  As with all complex military missions, Operation Flute had a window within which it would have to be executed. After a certain amount of elapsed time, the operation could no longer be considered secure, and it would have to be abandoned until some future date and place. Today was Flute’s final day.

  Whether or not the mission was on, at given intervals this morning the primary team members would take to the streets of Munich. Harry Webber would appear at the first of the five safe houses. In one hand, he would have the long fingers of a tall, blonde resident female agent, compartmentally ignorant but quite beautiful. On his rain-soaked face, Harry would sport a lurid grin, suggesting an early morning dalliance.

  It would take the couple less than fifteen minutes to sanitize each house. First, wearing surgical gloves, they would sweep for “giveaways,” incriminating items forgotten under pre-combat pressure. These were seldom if ever found, and part of the reason that Harry’s comrades loved him so was that his admonitions to transgressors were always executed, post-operation, in a quiet place far from the sonar ears of Hans-Dieter Schmidt.

  Next, from his leather shoulder satchel, Webber would remove two cans of Vichy Basic Homme after-shave spray. In recent years, Department had decided that it was dangerously time-consuming to thoroughly wipe a safe house for fingerprints. Instead, a liquid had been developed by the Magicians. Applied with an atomizer, the substance served to break down the oils left by wayward fingers, making it nearly impossible to lift a latent print.

  Like housekeepers on Benzedrine, Webber and his partner would quickly spray nearly everything in the room that had a nonporous surface. They would do table legs, telephones, chair arms, picture frames, door handles, bathroom fixtures and even magazines. Granted, for a time each flat would smell like a cathouse in Port Said, but soon the odor, along with the initial stickiness, would fade.

  At last, after a final once-over, Webber would deposit a fat envelope on a conspicuous tabletop. As with Hauser’s cars, it would contain a typed note of apology to the owner and five hundred deutsche marks.

  By midmorning Webber would have sanitized all of the safe houses and dismissed his partner. Then, he would spend all day if necessary, sitting in his truck in a private garage in Schwabing, listening to the radio. . . .

  Eckhardt, still lost in the half-reveries of pre-mission review, did not realize that he was smiling stupidly.

  “Warum bist du so glücklich?” Rainer Luckmann had finished his Frühstück and washed the dishes. He had removed his black leather alpine parka, and with pistol on belt was down on the floor. With shoe toes on the yellowed kitchen linoleum, hands on the grey salon carpet, he was doing push-ups.

  “Thinking of Webber,” Eckhardt explained.

  “Neun . . . Zehn . . . He’s getting too old for this work.”

  “Du Arschloch . . . he’s at his peak. Relaxed, unlike us. And don’t do too many. Spoil your aim.”

  Luckmann obediently switched to sit-ups, but first he took a drag from his cigarette, which was perched in a metal ashtray on the kitchen table.

  The stench of the tobacco made Eckhardt want one too. He reached into the pocket of his coat for a pack of Rothmans and lit up with a disposable lighter. The Great Game—as the British liked to call the intelligence business—took its toll. All of the primary team members were fit, but all of them smoked. Tony wondered if the entire team were rounded up for questioning and deprived of their cigarettes, they might all begin to sing like a flock of California love birds.

  Hans-Dieter Schmidt, Eckhardt was sure, would also be smoking at this very moment. He would be hunched over his desk at Kinder-Spiel GMBh, his bogus toy import-export firm, staring at three black telephones like an optimistic vulture. The small office, filled with maps, catalogs and shipping forms, would be foggy with smoke. Schmidt would not move from his chair, the only evidence of his anticipation the ravaged red-and-white packs of Krone filters at his fingertips.

  Schmidt’s usually optimistic expression would be devoid of all humor as he waited for word from a team of Casuals. The Casuals were local resident operatives whose only function would be to identify the opening moves of the Target, report in, and then quit the mission.

  Eckhardt sighed as he marveled at the complexity of the operation, the number of personnel involved. In modern times, the idea that a lone assassin could successfully tail a well-protected quarry and then execute the mission solo was a concept relegated to works of Fleming fiction. To do the job properly and, most important, to survive the episode, you needed support. There were very few world-class intelligence apparatuses which could work as noncompetitively with their own national counterparts. Eckhardt took pride in his fellow countrymen’s abilities to cooperate, compartmentalize, maintain security, and still execute a sophisticated mission. Today, Operation Flute would involve the facilities and personnel of Diplomatic Security, Civilian Intelligence, Military Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence and Special Air Operations.

  If Flute succeeded, the credit would be ravenously consumed by all. But if it failed, everyone would also eat his “helping of straw.”

  Perhaps this attention to operational detail somehow served as psychological compensation for the Missing Factor—the Unknown Quantity. That single nebulous entity was inevitably the Target, for while preparation might be perfect, everyone in proper position, you never knew precisely what HE was going to do.

  Amar Kamil.

  Was he still in his room at the Continental on Max-Joseph Strasse? The Watchers had been at it all night, sealing the hotel as best as they could without blowing the mission. At last report, 0120 hours, Kamil had retired. But who could be sure?

  And then, if and when he finally appeared, would Kamil play the game? Would he proceed as he had done for four days running, to his “office” beneath the Stachus? And if he did so, when he finally emerged, would he still have the sexual appetite for a risky call on his paramour in Bogenhausen?

  So many variables. So many chances. So much reliance on luck and fate. It all began to seem suddenly foolish to Eckhardt. Bordering, in fact, on the impossible.

  They had been tracking the terrorist across Europe for nearly three months, yet he always seemed to evade their grasp, like an evil magician. At times, Eckhardt had to remind himself of the importance of the m
ission, and he would hark back to the initial briefing, when the Team was assigned to Operation Flute.

  “What did he do now?” he had asked Schmidt when the commander first announced their target. Kamil certainly had a bloody resumé, but he had not yet committed an act nefarious enough to warrant execution.

  “He blew an American airliner out of the sky.”

  “Hornesby?” Rainer Luckmann had asked breathlessly, whispering the name of the sleepy Scottish town into which the flaming wreckage had slammed, along with its 262 passengers.

  “Yes.”

  “Then why don’t the Americans get him?” Eckhardt had posed.

  “Because they would have to have an eyewitness, Kamil’s fingerprints, and an Act of Congress to do it,” Schmidt had said with a mixture of pity and scorn.

  Eckhardt needed no more reasons, for Kamil was now responsible for mass murders that cut across international lines. But he also wondered whether the Team had finally met their match.

  He sucked on his cigarette, watching Luckmann perform his exercises, and his stomach began to churn again.

  The telephone rang.

  Luckmann stopped in mid sit-up. Eckhardt flicked his head toward a corner of the salon where the dirty white instrument sat on a small wooden table.

  It rang again.

  Luckmann sprang to his feet, but Eckhardt was there first, snatching up the receiver. He forced himself to produce a normal tone, even a touch of drowsiness.

  “Morgen.”

  “Grüss Gott.” It was Hans-Dieter’s basso voice. “Is this Herr Adler?”

  “I’m sorry.” Tony was already nodding at the expectant Rainer. “You have the wrong number.”

  “Entschuldigen Sie, bitte.”

  Schmidt hung up and Eckhardt’s receiver clattered into the cradle simultaneously. He was already moving to pick up his small overnight bag. Luckmann threw his jacket on and pulled a black leather cap onto his head. Neither of the two men spoke as they examined the rooms, quickly, one last glance. They had done it twice already. It was just habit.

  “Ready?” Eckhardt faced Luckmann in the middle of the salon. Rainer patted the small bulge under his jacket.

  “Ready.”

  “Wir gehen.”

  * * *

  The splattering of the cold rain sounded suddenly like ball bearings on steel plate, but Eckhardt, hatless, ignored it. Alone, he walked slowly across Kossener Strasse to the dull blue Fiesta parked in front of the church, opened the door, slipped into the front seat, deposited his satchel in the rear, briefly warmed the engine and eased out into the street. The rain was bouncing up white halos around the parked cars in Unter Sendling, and hardly anyone else was driving. He swung around the church, headed north on Zillertal and stopped fifty meters up the block.

  Luckmann waited by the apartment-house door, as if reluctant to brave the downpour. He counted to a full thirty seconds and, satisfied that no other vehicle had followed Eckhardt, went out into the street. He walked casually toward the corner, headed up Zillertal Strasse and jumped into the passenger seat, welcoming the growing warmth of the engine.

  “Ein dreckiger Tag,” Luckmann spat, complaining about the weather. He stuffed his bag into the rear seat while Eckhardt pulled away, taking a slow right onto Otztaler and heading east toward the center of the city.

  “It’s going to stay this way,” said Eckhardt, concentrating on keeping his speed down. Nothing above third gear, he told himself. “Better get used to it.”

  Luckmann blew out a breath and looked at the little cloud. “Can I at least take an umbrella?”

  “As long as you don’t use it.” Eckhardt smiled.

  “Fuck you.”

  They were already on Lindwurm, only a block away from the Theresienwiese. During the Oktoberfest, the massive playground had been filled with revelers downing ten-liter pitchers of beer and then happily regurgitating kilos of broiled oxen, grilled fish and pork sausage after wild rides on the Tri Star or the roller coaster. Today it was only an empty grey flattop crossed by the occasional pedestrian trudging through soggy snow.

  “The radio,” Eckhardt ordered.

  “Jawohl, Hauptmann,” Rainer sarcastically obeyed.

  The Fiesta’s cheap Sanyo had been extracted from the dash and deposited in the trunk. In its place, as with all the primary team’s vehicles, was a creation of the Department’s Magicians.

  On the outside, the black, high-tech AM/FM was a Blaupunkt Frankfurt. On the inside, it was all Tadiran. “A German radio with a Semitic soul,” as Hans-Dieter described it. The receiver contained some unusual features uncommon to simple car stereos.

  Below the tuning display were six preset buttons. The three on the right functioned normally and could be preset to choice commercial stations. The three on the left were set to engage only the operational frequencies of Flute. While the “Blaupunkt” contained no apparent tape player, inside was a sixty-minute, continuous-loop microcassette.

  Pushing the radio’s power knob, rather than turning it, activated only the cassette and the operational frequencies. The tape played a prerecorded local pop station, from which all references to time, day and date had been edited. The disc jockey was a female.

  From her chilly veranda in Bogenhausen, Ettie Denziger would control all broadcasts to the primary team. Through her modified Walkman, she would monitor Munich police traffic. Her telephone, seemingly one of those push-button, clock-radio extravaganzas, served a dual function. It received incoming calls, yet through it Ettie could also broadcast to the Blaupunkts over a powerful UHF transmitter. She could switch operational frequencies with numbered combinations on the push-button handset.

  Ettie’s coded messages would be brief. When necessary, she would override the sultry taped disc jockey with a “weather report” or a “birthday greeting,” offering team updates, instructions or frequency changes. Excepting a special alteration to Eckhardt’s Blaupunkt, there were no provisions for two-way conversations.

  Ettie liked it that way. No one could talk back to her.

  Rainer reached over and punched the power knob on the radio. Immediately the tape engaged in the middle of a Dire Straits recording of “Private Investigations.” Luckmann laughed, but Eckhardt was concentrating on the traffic. He was following a green-and-white Audi police car, and his knuckles tightened under his leather gloves.

  Luckmann pushed the far left preset button, engaging the first operational frequency. It added no static to the taped broadcast, as only Ettie’s voice could actually open the wave.

  Eckhardt stared past the droning wipers of the Fiesta. He blew out a breath when he turned onto Kapuziner Strasse, as the police car continued on Lindwurm. Traffic was still light, and he wondered if the massive hangovers of January’s Fasching festival had kept most of Munich in bed today. It was not good. No traffic meant less police work, and he wanted the police to be very busy today.

  The Neuer Sudl Friedhof appeared ahead, the grey stones of the cemetery pressed under a white curtain of steamy fog. Eckhardt turned onto Thalkirchner and stopped the car.

  “Go see your poor Tante Hilde,” he said.

  Luckmann groaned and walked off into the cemetery.

  Eckhardt moved on, quickly found a space, and parked. He left the engine running, the radio on. He turned off the wipers, opened the window a crack, and lit a cigarette.

  After a moment, there was a knock on the passenger window. He opened the door to admit a tall redheaded girl, who fairly fell into the front seat, shivering under her long woolen coat.

  “Liebchen.” Tony leaned over to kiss the girl. She looked startled at first, then she remembered and kissed back. Tony mentally shook his head, but he said nothing. He might have to kiss her all day long, and there were worse ways to wait.

  Long ago the Department had decided that a single man waiting in a car was a suspicious sight. Two men was sacrilege. However, a loving couple usually elicited nothing more than a smile.

  The girl was a resident consu
lar employee, totally compartmentalized, knowing virtually nothing. Her cover was light, and to an inquisitive policeman she would respond with blushes and confess to no more than a recent one-nighter with ‘Franz,’ as she had been told to refer to Eckhardt. She opened her coat, then the top button of a cream silk blouse, and moved closer to Tony, who stretched one arm around her shoulders.

  “Could be worse,” the girl said, smiling shyly. “At least you’re good looking.” It would probably be the most exciting day of her diplomatic career.

  “Shh,” Eckhardt whispered in her hair. “Let’s listen to the radio.”

  He wondered if this couples routine might be wearing thin. He was certain that Department must be aware of it too. Soon they’ll be using pairs of children, he thought. Or worse than that, midgets. The image brought a smile, quickly quelled by a glimpse of Luckmann in the cemetery, mourning no one in the rain.

  At 10:10, Amar Kamil had finally left the Continental, prompting his grateful Watchers to make a public telephone call to Kinder-Spiel GMBh in Westend. In turn, Hans-Dieter Schmidt had promptly dialed 551570, got the desk at the hotel, and asked for room 210. He held his breath for five rings, and when no one answered he hung up and began dialing again, sending all of the primary team members into the streets.

  The chase was on, but from this point forward it had to be played as a courtship rather than a pursuit. The Department’s military psychologists had made extensive studies. Animals in the wild sensed when they were being hunted. Sentries guarding enemy bases seemed to feel it when they were about to be taken down. Even in the crowded streets of a major city, Targets could often smell a tail.

  Amar Kamil could not now be followed in the classic sense. He would be picked up by Casuals at various points, the sightings not even reported, and left to go on his way. If he did not reasonably adhere to the pattern required by the mission, that would be reported and Operation Flute would be postponed. This was where luck would become a major player in the game.