Day of Wrath

The German woman turned to a computer mounted on the counter and typed in a few lines. Numbers and letters flashed onto her screen. “Ja, we have that ship in our database.” She tapped the screen with a pen.

“She arrived six days ago on the fifth — and docked at S43.”

Helen leaned over the counter. “Is the ship still in port?”

Fraulein Geiss entered another code and studied the new set of symbols on her monitor. She shook her head. “No. She sailed again on the seventh-bound for Portsmouth in England.”

“Can you tell us what cargo she offloaded?” Helen asked, quickly scribbling the ship’s berth and her arrival and departure times on a notepad.

The German woman shook her head stiffly. “I do not have this information. That is not our function here. You must obtain that from the Customs Office.”

Helen thought fast for a moment. There were three possibilities facing them. First, that the crew of the Baltic Venturer had unloaded her cargo of contraband jet engines here in Wilhelmshaven.

Second, that she’d carried them away with her on the next leg of her journey. Or, the third possibility: that whoever controlled the engines had shifted them to another vessel — just as they’d apparently done in Bergen.

She flipped to another page of her notebook. “Do you have some way to find out what other ships were berthed next to her while she was in port?”

“Of course.” Fraulein Geiss nodded humorlessly, apparently a bit nettled that an American reporter would doubt the efficiency of the Wilhelmshaven Port Authority office.

This time the German woman produced two lists. One was for S42, the berth to port of the Venturer. The other was for S44, to starboard.

S44 had been empty when the Baltic Venturer arrived, but a “reefer,” a refrigerated cargo ship, had steamed in the next day.

She’d unloaded her goods for the next three.

S42, the portside berth, had been busier. A container ship, the Caraco Savannah, had been moored there, but she’d left almost immediately.

Another ship had taken her place later that same day, taken on cargo, and then sailed right after Baltic Venturer on the seventh.

Fraulein Geiss waited until Helen’s pen stopped moving. “Is that all, Fraulein Anderson?”

Helen smiled at the dour woman. “That’s all, Fraulein. But I do want to thank you for your time and effort.” She put a hand on her pocketbook.

The German shook her head primly. “Such thanks are not necessary. I do my work, that is all. Now, if you will excuse me … “Of course,” Helen said. “So the Customs House is …” She produced the pocket map they’d picked up at the train station’s tourist kiosk.

With a barely suppressed sigh, Fraulein Geiss circled the location for her.

From across the Weserstrasse, Heinz Steinhof watched the serious-looking man and pretty woman emerge from the Port Authority office. They stood on the pavement, studying something the woman held in her hands. A map?

He turned to the big, darkhaired young man beside him. “You were right to signal me, Bekker. This looks promising.”

Sepp Bekker grunted in reply. Steinhof had recruited him several years ago from the dissolving ranks of East Germany’s Border Command. Bekker was just short of two meters tall, with broad, almost.Slavic, features.

He was in his early thirties, strong, quick, and utterly without principles. He also had wild tastes, evidenced by the cobra’s head tattoo that peered over the edge of his shirt collar.

The ex-border guard bragged about his tattoos whenever he could — idly boasting to his fellows that he had one for every would-be escapee he’d shot before the Berlin Wall crumbled.

Steinhof thought he needed seasoning.

Steinhof himself was almost as tall as the younger man, but his own hair had turned silver and he kept it close-cropped. A casual observer might mistake the two of them for father and son, but the older man’s face held more intelligence than the young, tattooed thug’s ever would.

The two Americans had turned away now — walking west toward the Customs House.

“Wait here.”

Bekker nodded, settling back into the shadow of the building.

Staying on his side of the street, Steinhof passed them at a rapid clip, then crossed over at the next intersection. This close to the end of the working day, there was plenty of foot traffic, and he was one of a half dozen others waiting at the light when the two Americans reached it.

He studied them carefully at close range — making sure he stayed out of their direct line of vision. No doubt about it. These two were the quarry Reichardt had assigned him Thorn and Gray in the flesh and within easy reach.

Steinhof shifted slightly on the balls of his feet. He could feel the weight of the Walther P5 Compact hidden by his jacket.

There they were, less than two meters away, totally unaware and unguarded. He had the sudden urge to draw his pistol and kill them now, here, immediately.

The urge passed.

Murder on a public street in broad daylight was far too risky.