Day of Wrath

Thorn lunged out of the darkness, grabbed the closest, the one wearing the baseball cap, by the scruff of his neck and the back of his jacket, and whirled him around — slamming him face-first into the brick wall. A quick neck chop dropped the moaning man to the pavement — out cold.

A rapid glance showed him that Helen had put her target down and out in that same split second.

Moving quickly, they dragged the two unconscious men further into the alley, behind a row of overflowing trash bins.

Thorn knelt beside his victim, rapidly frisking the man for weapons and ID. Helen did the same.

“Jesus, I feel like a mugger,” she muttered.

“Yeah. But at least we’re highly efficient muggers,” Thorn said with a wry grin. He set the Walther P5 pistol he’d found in the unconscious man’s shoulder holster down on the ground and kept searching.

The smile slipped off his face as his hand closed around a small leather wallet, thin but stiff, in the man’s jacket pocket. He flipped it open. One side held a photo identity card of the man he’d knocked out. The other held a badge. The word “Polizei” practically leapt off the ID card.

“Oh, shit,” Thorn said softly. “Now we are well and truly fucked …”

“No kidding.” Helen showed him the police credentials she’d found on her own man. “And there’s more.” She handed him a crumpled sheet of paper. “I found this next to the badge. Take a look.”

Thorn glanced down at the paper. He couldn’t read all the German but the two Xeroxed black-and-white photos — one of Helen and one of himself in his U.S. Army uniform — were clear enough. He frowned.

“That’s my FBI file photo,” Helen said.

“That son of a bitch Mcdowell set us up,” Thorn growled.

“Looks that way.” Helen shook her head. “I’d guess he decided to have us locked up before we could do any more damage to his precious reputation inside the Bureau. He must be betting he can do enough spin control so that we come out of this smelling real bad — and he gets the credit for shopping us to the German authorities.”’ “I think Mcdowell and I have a few things to sort out,” Thorn said.

“After me, Peter. After me.” Helen dropped the ID card on top of the man she’d attacked and jumped to her feet. “In the meantime, we’ve got maybe two minutes before their boss runs a radio check and all hell breaks loose. I suggest we skedaddle while the coast is still clear.”

“Amen to that.” He scrambled upright. “Back to the hotel?”

Helen shook her head, leading the way east down the alley toward the next street over. “No. Too dangerous. If the Berlin police are on the ball, this’ll hit the news in minutes. So we leave our bags here and start running now.”

“To where? Not the train station,” Thorn said.

“Same problem,” Helen agreed. “The cops will have men on watch at every train station, bus terminal, and all the airports before we could even get close.”

She didn’t bother hiding the despair in her voice as she continued.

“Thanks to Mcdowell, we’re about to become the targets of a major manhunt. The Polizei aren’t going to be very happy that we just put two of their plainclothes detectives in the hospital.

And I don’t have the faintest idea of how we’re going to get out of this damned city — let alone the country?”

Thorn kept his mouth shut as they left the alley and kept heading east — deeper into the city. There wasn’t any point in trying to cheer her up with false optimism. He was already feeling the walls close in around them himself.

CHAPTER TWELVE CONNECTIONS

JUNE 13

_{Vienna, Virginia}

Major General Sam Farrell, U.S. Army, retired, had finished writing for the day when the phone rang. He clicked the television off in mid-CNN interview. Who the hell would be calling him after midnight?

He pushed himself upright out of the recliner and reached for the phone on his desk. The desk, like his study, was almost impossibly neat — with everything in its place and spotlessly clean.

Farrell blamed his compulsive neatness on the thirty-plus years he’d spent in the Army. Louisa, his wife, said he just had too much free time.

He got to the phone on the third ring. “Farrell.”

“General, it’s Peter Thorn.”

Farrell’s irritation changed to pleasure. “Pete! It’s damned good to hear your voice.”

He’d known Thorn for most of the younger man’s military career.

The special warfare community was a small, tightly knit fraternity-one that built lasting friendships.

Since his retirement, he’d heard from Thorn once a month or so a postcard, e-mail, or phone call. And always a card on holidays.

Farrell wouldn’t call it a father-son relationship, but then he’d served with Thorn’s dad, too — long before Pete had been born. Nobody was going to replace big, tough John Thorn in his son’s affections.

Still, he suspected their friendship bridged some of the emptiness Thorn had felt after his dad passed away.

Somehow, though, Farrell doubted this call was a social one.

He knew Thorn too well. “Where are you, Pete?”

“Berlin, sir.”