Taylor thought for a moment, then pulled out her phone and dialed a number.
“Who are you calling without my permission?”
“The last man who tolerates us.” After a pause, she said, “Good afternoon, Agent Kim… Right. We appreciate that. Listen, we have a few things we didn’t get to in our debrief with Agent Whitmore, which was actually an ambush.” She listened again. “I know. I understand.” She made eye contact with Brodie. “We’re at the Adlon, and if you have time to join us, we can talk… All right, meet you there in about fifteen.” She hung up and looked at Brodie. “He suggested we meet outdoors—in front of the Reichstag.” She added, “He sounded, as always, enthusiastic.”
“He already knew about our reassignment.”
Taylor nodded. “He claims he just learned that from Whitmore a few minutes ago.”
“And why are we meeting him?”
“We have a duty to pass on our findings to someone we trust before we depart.”
“He’s an FBI counterterror guy with an agenda, Maggie. Not the best audience for our latest theories. Also, he’s annoying.” He said, “We should have called General Kiernan. Keep it in the family.”
“My instincts say to talk to someone who isn’t duty-bound to report what we say.”
Brodie nodded, but said, “I’m not into protocol, but we should ask for a meeting with the legat—”
“Scott, I’d rather drink bleach than have another meeting with Sharon Whitmore and Jason Butler. Kim is our best option.”
“Okay. Your call.” Brodie looked for the waiter who, in his charming European way, went into hiding when he sensed someone was trying to pay the bill and leave. Brodie considered skipping out on the check as a call-back to his last time here, but no one else would get the joke.
Eventually the waiter appeared and brought them the bill. Brodie paid and was about to get up when he froze.
Across the lounge he spotted a lanky man in his seventies with close-cropped white hair. The man wore a black suit and was sitting in an armchair sipping a coffee while he read a German newspaper. A brown leather briefcase sat near his feet.
Brodie’s mind flashed back to the man in Neukölln who’d climbed into the maroon Mercedes that had been idling at the curb.
“Scott? Ready?”
He gestured to the chair next to him.
Taylor came around the coffee table and took the seat next to Brodie.
He said, “White-haired guy reading the paper. Saw him near Qasim’s.”
Taylor glanced at the man, who kept his eyes on the paper as he lifted the coffee mug to his lips. She said, “I’ve seen a dozen old white men today who look like him.”
Brodie studied the man. He had a round face with high cheekbones and a ruddy complexion. He seemed genuinely absorbed in his paper, or at least was doing a convincing act of it.
Taylor added, “Even if you’re right, it could be a coincidence. Or even one of Schröder’s men, which wouldn’t surprise me.”
Brodie kept his eyes on the man, who lowered the paper to check his watch.
Taylor stood. “C’mon, Brodie. We have to meet Kim.”
They left the lobby lounge and stepped out onto Unter den Linden, where the snow had turned to a light rain, and pedestrians and cars pushed through the ice and slush.
They headed west, back in the direction of Pariser Platz and the Brandenburg Gate, which was just south of the Reichstag. They passed beneath the bare linden trees, whose skeletal frames were etched in snow against the blank sky.
Brodie thought about the old man, who’d climbed in a car half a block from where Brodie and Taylor had been standing in Neukölln, and then wound up sitting in the same hotel lounge as them in a much nicer part of town. Coincidence? Possibly. But unlikely. And in this business, seeing a stranger twice in one day was one time too many.
CHAPTER 31
Brodie and Taylor stood in front of the Reichstag, a massive neo-Baroque building across the street from the Tiergarten. A cobblestone plaza stretched out before it, dotted with snow and a few tourists braving the rain.
Brodie surveyed the German parliament building as they waited for David Kim. A row of neoclassical columns stood beneath an ornate pediment with the words:DEM DEUSTCHEN VOLK. To the German people. Rising above the pediment was a large glass-and-steel dome, one of the few modern-looking additions to the façade. The four corners of the building featured squat towers topped with German flags waving in the cold wind.
