July 15, 1984 – Frankfurt, West Germany

  Sigrun Keller no longer wore short sleeves, even when the summer heat passed 30 degrees Celsius.

  Since she turned fifty she’d taken great pains to stay fit. Diet. Exercise. Meditation. You can’t have a healthy body without also possessing a healthy mind. Healthy-ish at any rate.

  But short of getting several rge tattoos there was nothing she could do—no exercise to perform, no mantra to recite—to cover the scars on her arms. Knife wounds, bullet holes. She had a varied collection of both on her limbs as well as her upper and lower body. She hadn’t worn a bathing suit in decades. She’d never worn a bathing suit much before that either—never had the time, or the interest.

  Maybe if I’d been stationed in Cuba, she thought as she walked around the block. Her face and head were hidden from observers— and the bright sunlight—under a rge hat and sungsses. Scanning for tails was an old habit. No thought necessary. Her eyes and brain would have alerted her on their own if she was being followed. She wasn’t.

  Almost five years since their second radar contact—and their st—of what they still referred to as an unidentified enhanced asset. Roughly speaking it had also been the st reported activity/sighting/whatever of the glowing human shaped entity. Sigrun had no doubt that the two things were connected, even if her unofficial bosses were not as convinced. One of their objections was that the glowing figure had never killed before that st incident. Most of the earlier reports had it healing rather than harming. Even during the Ramstein attack, when Americans had been killed, the glowing figure hadn’t retaliated in kind. That was the first radar contact they’d had—courtesy of the United States Air Force. It had been brief, sting barely two minutes. And to call it a strange radar signature was an understatement. The longer contact from Stuttgart had been less unusual. From both of those they’d been able to identify a rough starting point, a fifty kilometer circle from which whatever it was had unched.

  And ever since then they had been quietly watching.

  Waiting.

  But as the wait dragged on Sigrun, and her superiors in Berlin, began to lose hope that it would ever reappear. REFORGER—NATO’s joint exercise, Returning Forces to Germany, had included almost every member nation. It was certainly possible what when the exercise ended the unidentified enhanced asset had returned to whatever country had brought it.

  But it was also possible that it was still here, keeping a lower profile.

  So the regur deliveries of radar information continued—twice a year, more or less. Sigrun Keller could close her eyes and navigate every dead drop in the city at this point. There were two in her sight at the moment, though neither of them was her—or her contact’s—destination.

  She continued to walk steadily, using the reflections from the shop windows to scan her surroundings. When she thought she recognized a face she would stop, turn towards the gss, remove a small bottle of sunscreen from her bag and apply some to her face and neck as she studied the reflected face as it continued to walk on the other side of the street.

  I wonder how hot it is in Cuba this time of year, she thought as she approached the frozen yogurt shop that was her current destination. She looked forward to getting out of the heat.

  No spy in their right mind met a contact on a hot park bench in this weather.

  Rainer Voss. They’d had their eye on him for a while. Quietly. No fuss. Not just him. Three other civilian analyst at the GEADGE/NADGE Coordination Center who fit the profile. Minor financial difficulties. Minor issues with the w. Minor pyer in national protests. Loner. What free time he had he spent looking after his sick mother. Spent a good chunk of his sary on her care.

  Over time the list of suspects had gone from four to three to two. They’d sprinkles enticing tidbits around each of them at various times, only to have those choice sweets ignored. In the end it had been something out of the blue—quite literally in this case—that had drawn their attention to Rainer Voss. Something that streaked across West Germany on 30 June. Twice. Something that looked familiar. That the BND had been searching for for five years.

  June 30th, 1984 – Frankfurt, West Germany

  “NADOC is reporting an unknown fast mover entering Dutch airspace bearing 090 from Amsterdam FIR. Heading 270. Speed 1300 knots. Flight level 050 No IFF,” The operator reported calmly.

  Bernd Schilling stopped by the operator’s station and looked at the report. It was too early for surprises. The shift was barely two hours old. He hadn’t even finished his coffee. Why do things like this always happen to him?

  As long as it remained The Nethernd’s problem there was no call for arm. Forty five seconds ter the situation began to change.

  “Contact is over Amsterdam. Turning. New heading 135. Speed 2000 knots, flight level 050. Still no IFF.”

  In about three minutes the unknown object would reach West German air space. Once that happened it would very much be their problem. He had that much time to make a series of phone calls.

  They had it on their own system now.

  Whatever it was it was small. Almost no return to speak of. Possibly it was covered in some sort of stealth composite. Bernd knew the Americans were working on something. He assumed that the Soviets were as well. Whatever it was he had little time to consider it. If it stayed on its present heading it would be directly overhead in less than four minutes. The Dutch hadn’t scrambled interceptors. There hadn’t been time. The Luftwaffe and the Americans were both still in the process of unching fighters. Bernd thought that by the time they were wheels up the skies would be empty except for them.

  “Contact, bearing 315, speed 2000 knots, flight level 050. Still no IFF.”

  “Have the spotters picked it up?” Bernd asked no one in particur. He looked towards the desk, and the man with the phone pressed to his ear. He shook his head.

  “Contact turning, new heading 090, speed 1500 knots, flight level 035. No. squawk. Contact bearing 090, heading 090, speed 1500 knots, 1000 knots, flight level 035, 030...”

  Bern stood and watched the dispy as the operator called out numbers. The unknown contact disappeared from the dispy fifty kilometers east of Frankfurt just as four new contacts appeared.

  Too te, Bernd thought.

  “This wasn’t a UAV,” Bernd was saying to the powers that be. “It was some sort of aircraft. Someone flying it.”

  “What aircraft can change velocity that quickly? It would tear itself apart,” Luftwaffe colonel argued.

  Bernd had an argument of his own. “It crosses Amsterdam and turns south east. It reached Frankfurt and turns due east. Then is brakes hard and descends and drops off radar. It was using rge cities as ndmarks. It was flying VFR.”

  The man behind the colonel was almost certainly a spook. BND. Bernd knew the type. The kind of man who could sit on the corner of a desk and smoke while the world erupted in atomic fire. His face dispyed no emotion. He crushed out his smoke and stood up. He looked at the colonel.

  “Get the report to me before by 4 PM.”

  They were the only words he spoke. Bernd had barely written his first draft when he found himself standing at another dispy an hour ter, watching the ghostly performance py in reverse. Not exactly, but close enough.

  Who or what flies all that way and then spends barely an hour on the ground? Bernd wondered. What the hell was it doing? Shopping?

  Bernd Schilling had no idea that he had hit the nail squarely on its head.

  July 15, 1984 – Frankfurt, West Germany

  Two suspects became one.

  Rainer Voss.

  Five men and four women—and a series of nondescript cars—followed Voss. Some cars in front of him, some behind. It required some logistical pliability, moving cars into pce, guessing which direction he might go. But they kept track of him all the way to his destination.

  It was the break in his normal routine that tipped them off. Up until now he’d been boringly regur. Home, mother, work, mother, home. Some days, when her health took a turn for the worse, Voss would spend the night at her house. Her Sozialwohnung.

  But there were times—every six months or so—that he would change his schedule. Take a trip somewhere. Not far. Not for long. Usually right after a night shift, when the building was almost deserted. But even then he’d ignored the Ostereier they’d left to entice him. They were sure he’d taken something, but had no idea what.

  Now, barely two weeks after their mysterious supersonic ghost paid them a brief visit, he did something completely out of character—unless you were trying to shake off a tail. A series of taxis, busses, and footpaths starting at his apartment and ending at an American frozen yogurt shop.

  It was an excellent meeting pce. Alleys on both sides. A parking lot behind that let out onto Kurzr?derstra?e. They could call in enough men and women to watch all the exits, but it would take time.

  The agent on the opposite side of the street reached into her empty pram and grabbed the hand held radio. “Das Zielobjekt hat gerade die Eckenheimer Landstra?e 431 betreten. Alle Einheiten versammeln sich dort. Schnell.” Subject just entered 431 Eckenheimer Landstra?e. All units converge. Fast.

  She looked up and nodded to the man behind her.

  Take the back of the building, her head tilt said as clear as if words were spoken. Help was on the way, but she didn’t think it would arrive in time.

  For now they were on their own.

  The trick to meeting in a small building was to keep one eye on your contact and another on the front door. Even more preferable was if you could watch the street without being watched in return. Sigrun had chosen a small table next to the curtained front window, using an ashtray to keep a sliver of light open between the curtain and the window frame.

  She’d been picking at her small cup of frozen yogurt—strawberry, allegedly, though it tasted like nothing at all—when Voss had arrived. Didn’t even pretend to be interested in ordering before sitting opposite her.

  “Rainer, we’ve talked about this,” she said in a low voice. She sounded like his mother to anyone listening, though she knew his real mother was more than a decade older than she was.

  “Sorry. I want to get back right away,” he said quietly. he slid his closed hands towards her and she took them in false maternal affection. A moment ter each of them retrieved their hands, and the transfer was completed. The small metal cassette holding 15 mm film was quickly transferred to a hidden pocket in her summer dress. The only time Sigrun carried any sort of purse was when she needed to hide a pistol, and she’d assumed that this would not be one of those times.

  When she glimpsed the man and woman across the street she realized that her assumption was incorrect.

  Voss was blown. Even if she were able to get him out of this small cafe with the bright pink walls covered with posters of scoops that were nowhere to be found on the menu he could never go back, and the BND would eventually find him. Better to save herself. Sigrun’s mental calculus of the situation took a fraction of a second.

  “Excuse me for a second,” she said before standing up and walking to the side hall held the universal signs for the WC. “Try my yogurt,” she said as she walked away.

  Don’t run. Never run. Never look suspicious. It was the cardinal rule. One of them anyway. Innocent people don’t run unless they’re te catching a train.

  Sigrun wished there was a train station close by. No such luck.

  The man walked briskly across the street and down the side alley. He’d be at the back door in a moment. The woman pushed the pram steadily but not quickly. She abandoned the pretense when she reached the front door, and when she entered the coolness of the small shop she was unimpeded.

  Voss was sitting alone. He hadn’t touched the cup of pink melting substance. Which still sat on the opposite side of the table.

  Shit, she thought as she glimpsed the empty chair that she was sure had been filled a moment ago. Several things passed through her mind, but she knew in her heart that they’d been spotted. It was her partner’s job now to catch whoever had sat on that side of the table. It was her job to keep Rainer Voss from escaping.

  “Rainer?” she asked pleasantly. When he looked up she smiled. “It is Rainer, right? I’ve seen you in the canteen at work a few times.”

  Rainer’s visits to the canteen were brief, and solitary. He stayed to himself, never made eye contact. He’d always been paranoid that someone would take one look at his face and see his guilt written there in bck ink. That level of paranoia informed him now that he and this woman had never crossed paths in the canteen or anywhere else.

  “I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” he said as he began to rise.

  A firm female grip nded on his shoulder. It was much stronger than he’s expected and he winced reflexively as he sat down hard.

  “No, Herr Voss. I haven’t mistaken anything.

  Sigrun had taken four steps outside before the man from the street approached her.

  “Pardon me,” he said as he held his arm out towards her, his hand positioned like a stop sign. “Can I see—”

  Sigrun dipped low and drove upward. Her skull caught the man’s chin with a crack, and he folded without a sound.

  “No,” Sigrun said sotto voce as she walked calmly away, “you can’t see my identification.”

  Still got it, she thought as she kept walking. She massaged her aching head.

  Most of it anyway. It never used to hurt this much.

  Rainer Voss sat with his hands folded in his p. The metal table in front of him held a small Minox C camera. Small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. His camera, he was sure. He’d never taken pains to hide it.

  It was the only incriminating item the team had found during their search of his apartment. They’d taken apart air ducts, appliances, plumbing fixtures. Moved everything away from the walls. They could have simply opened the center drawer of his desk and spared themselves the bother.

  The man who sat across from Rainer—who’d pced the small camera at the exact center of the table—was busy thumbing through The Giants and the Graveyard: How the Superpowers Buried the Free Nations. Voss was equally certain that the book had come from his own collection.

  “Not a fan of our powerful allies, or our equally powerful enemies,” the man said as he continued to turn pages. “We found a dozen books like this in your apartment.”

  Rainer looked at the man with dead eyes. He thought they were about the same age. A bit more grey in the man’s hair than Rainer had. Fewer wrinkles around his eyes. Fewer sleepless nights.

  Probably comes from having no conscience, he thought. A perfect tool for his American overlords to use before discarding.

  “No. Not a fan of either. I have no reason to be. No true German does.”

  The man closed the book and looked directly at Rainer. If his intense stare was intended to intimidate, it failed completely.

  “I’m a German. I’m a fan of the Americans,” the nameless man said ftly, without emotion.

  “I said no true German,” Voss replied equally cold. They could—and probably would—do what they liked with him. He might end up whimpering and begging for his life. But not to this toady.

  Voss could see the muscles in the man’s face tighten—his hands balled into fists. Rainer expected a blow that never arrived.

  The man hissed out his words when he spoke through his clenched teeth. “I’m the only true German in this room, you little shit.”

  It was ironic that the first thing to pop into Rainer’s mind was a line from an American film about the human capacity for evil.

  “You’re an errand boy sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill.”

  Whether the man got the reference Voss couldn’t tell. He stood up slowly, retrieved both book and camera from the table and shouted to the guard outside the door.

  Rainer sat quietly, listening to the sound of receding footsteps.

  There was no point trying to hide anything from them. He knew that. Everyone talked eventually. Besides, there was nothing particurly noteworthy to hold back. He’d tell them everything, much good it would do them. But only when they asked, and what they asked. If they were too stupid to ask the right questions that wasn’t his problem to correct.

  He pced his hands palm down on the table before straightening his back. He pulled his shoulders back twice before rexing into his breathing exercises.

  The next move was theirs. Rainer didn’t think the Bundesnachrichtendienst would wait very long before making it.