On their last night in Berlin, Bliss took Fritzi to the city’s oldest restaurant, the Zur Letzten Instanz.
He plumped the light green corduroy pillow lying on the bench of the shiny, dark-brown majolica tiled stove and patted it for her to sit. “I thought you should sit on the same bench where the great man himself once sat.” He pointed to a white porcelain bust on top of the stove. Napoléon scowled down at the tiny table with Bliss’ name on the reservation card.
She laughed. “Half of Europe claims Napoléon ate or washed his hands somewhere. It’s as bad as ‘George Washington slept here’ back home.”
“Well in this case there was a witness. His name was E. T. A. Hoffmann. You’ve heard of him, the writer who wrote The Nutcracker, that ballet that gets danced by every American ballet company at Christmas?” He pointed to the large round table in the corner. “He was sitting right there when Napoléon marched in, sat on your bench and ordered pig’s knuckles and sauerkraut to go with his wheat beer.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“I kid you not. Hoffmann wrote about it in a letter to one of his Paris friends.”
Bliss ordered wheat beer, pig’s knuckles and sauerkraut and Fritzi was caught in another of his spells.
“Do you remember the little café along the Gendarmenmarkt where we drank our first coffee together?” he asked.
How could she forget?
“Well, right next door, on the second floor, is where Hoffmann had his law office. He was the one who gave the German language its word for sparkling white wine.”
“Sekt?”
“Yes. Back home after a trip to Paris, he went to the little pub down the street from his office for dinner. The barkeep poured him a glass of sparkling white wine, and Hoffmann said, ‘C’est sec.’ He was saying in French, ‘It’s dry.’ But his drinking buddies thought it was the name of the wine they were drinking, and ever since the German word for champagne is Sekt.”
He watched her pick at her pig’s knuckle. “Nervous?”
“Not really. I just want it to be over.”
“We still haven’t found anything linking Pawlowski to the train except that phone call. I’m wondering if we should call this whole thing off.”
“What do Mackenzie and Murphy think?”
“They say he has the manpower and the organizational skills to pull it off, but…”
“Why would he risk something so stupid?”
“Exactly. On the other hand he is AWOL. He could be taking the train to Chechnya or Iran where they have labs that can extract the plutonium. But more likely we’re witnessing a turf war and he’s lying low until the shooting ends, and we’re spinning our wheels for nothing.
“I almost had ATTF talked into cancelling the whole operation, but then I saw how much Michael Usher wanted us to call it off. Do you have any idea why?”
She shook her head.
“You were at NSA when he was.” He grinned as if he was embarrassed. “I don’t know how to ask this without sounding insulting but…what does Usher have against you?”
She shrugged. He had his drive back and he had succeeded in ruining her reputation. Fritzi Jordan was just another item ticked off on Usher’s to do list. Neutralized. No longer a threat.
“Maybe it’s the landfill,” Bliss said. “It used to be owned by the Germans. Maybe he doesn’t want you blown away by all that German overengineering and overspending before you lead that workshop. He’s a complicated guy.”
“Usher complicated? Hah! Usher is all about the money. Something about the conference or Pawlowski is threatening his portfolio.”
“How do you know that?”
Should she mention the flash drive? Half of her wanted to tell him, but she no longer had the proof. And the flash drive had been US government property. She had broken the law. “Just a hunch,” she said.
“So, should we call it off ?”
She grinned. “Don’t you want to find out why Usher is so nervous?”
“Atta girl,” he said. “I knew you’d see it my way. Dessert?”
“Are you insane? I’ve never eaten so much in my life.”
“The portions could feed a family of four, couldn’t they?”
She drank her beer without speaking. He took her hands and lifted them until she looked into his eyes. “Sometimes you’re like a raindrop falling into a pond,” he said. “Don’t lose yourself out there.”
20 Kaliningrad