Chapter Nine

It WAS time, but not for the hit Barbara had planned. As she headed for the elevator and Costa's room, a man appeared out of nowhere behind her, and she felt the muzzle of a pistol pressed into her back. With the gun covered by his coat, the man smiled as if he were greeting an old friend. Grasping her arm very tightly, he said softly: "Just go, to the elevator. That's right, keep walking normally. I will shoot you if you do not do as I say."

"You wouldn't shoot me in the middle of the lobby!" Barbara snapped.

"I would. You've got a gun in your bag, yes? I could say I caught you with the weapon, couldn't I? Go," he said in accented English.

Barbara knew he was right. He had her, at least for the moment.

"Ok, Ok, I'm going."

Reaching the elevator, they stepped inside, still standing close like good friends. Four other people entered behind them, three men and a woman. The man holding Barbara told her to push the button for the fifth floor; the woman and the man accompanying her were going to the tenth; and the third man, to the sixth. The fourth man smiled and said he was going to the fifth, too.

Barbara wondered what the surveillance cameras in the elevator were recording. Did the people monitoring them observe anything unusual? Probably not; this man was good.

When the door opened at the fifth floor, the man getting off with them insisted: "After you, please."

As Barbara and her captor left the elevator, she was gambling that he had not noticed her momentary glance at the man who was now behind them. In the hall her captor spoke again: "That is good, very good. Keep going, to 518. I will hand you the key. You will open the door. I will have my gun on you. Make no noise. That way you will live a little longer. Or I can kill you here. It is your choice."

When they neared his door, he handed her the key. Feeling his gun still firmly against her back, she put the key in the lock and slowly turned it.

When she heard the click, Barbara dove forward and downward into the doorway. The man fired one shot, hitting her in the back. Before he could fire again, a bullet hit him in the head, and he fell.

Barbara lay facing the wall that divided the small hall from the bathroom. The bullet had hit her right side just below her waist, in a spot where her hip had always seemed to hurt. Now it really hurt. It had been a long time since she had been shot, and she had forgotten how much it hurt. Eyes closed, she concentrated on breathing.

After checking the other man's pulse—he was dead—Robert McCall knelt by his wife. Barbara opened her eyes and turned to lie on her back, letting out small groan. He said: "Barbara, lie still. I'm going to get something to stop the bleeding and call for help."

She nodded slightly.

McCall went to the phone in the room and called the hotel operator, sketching quickly what had happened and ordering them to fetch the paramedics. Then he got two towels from the bathroom and returned to Barbara. One towel he put under her head, and then he told Barbara: "I'm going to put this under your back to help stop the bleeding." Lifting her slightly, he wedged the towel between her back and the floor. "The paramedics are on their way. Don't worry, it's going to be all right."

Barbara nodded again. She wasn't sure how she felt, except that it hurt. She knew it wasn't as bad as the last time, but other than that, she hadn't a clue.

"Robert…," she started. She had a lot to tell him.

"Don't say anything. Just lie still."

As much as she hated Robert's telling her what to do, this time she followed his orders. Then an unpleasant thought occurred to her. "Damn," she muttered, more to herself than to McCall. "I'm not going to get him."

"Get who?" McCall asked. Not this man, McCall wondered?

"Costa. I'm after Costa." She spoke so only McCall could hear because people were gathering outside the door, gawking at the body and the woman bleeding into the carpet.

McCall lowered his voice, too. "Carlos Costa? Then who is this man?" He gestured at the dead German.

She closed her eyes. It was such a long story.

"He's German security, BND. But I saw him at Bautzen. A Stasi officer, maybe a commander. Doesn't make sense." It was too tiring.

McCall was confused. Barbara could have seen this man at the East German prison. But how could he now be in the BND? They certainly did not allow former Stasi officers into their ranks.

Within a few minutes, FBI Special Agent Alonzo Garcia and two other FBI agents arrived. Garcia was in charge of security for the peace conference. He had been leading the security coordination meeting when he'd gotten the word of the disturbance on the fifth floor.

Good God, he said to himself, a shootout between the German security chief and an unknown woman, right before the conference. And what was Robert McCall doing here, he asked himself? Was the Agency somehow involved? Garcia knew that McCall had resigned, but he had never really believed that McCall was completely out of the profession.

Soon after the FBI, a deputation from the Miami police turned up as well. The local police and the FBI did not often work smoothly together, but Garcia was a good communicator, and he quickly made sure that they were on the same page. After ordering the bystanders moved away, he turned to McCall.

"Robert, what the hell is going on? Who did the shooting? Who's she?" Garcia pointed at Barbara.

McCall exchanged looks with Barbara; she nodded almost imperceptibly. He stood up and addressed Garcia, whom he had known since they had teamed up for a joint mission about fifteen years ago, when Garcia had been a fledgling agent. They had had a kind of mentor/mentee relationship, and McCall felt obligated to tell Garcia the little he knew from Barbara's sparse account.

"Alonzo, the woman is my wife, Barbara Williams," he began.

"Your wife? I didn't know you'd married?"

"It's a new arrangement. The man—I don't know his name—brought her up here at gunpoint and threatened to kill her. She told me that he's German security, and that she knows he was an officer in the Stasi prison where she was held in the eighties. He shot her, and I shot him. Can we leave the rest for the moment?" he said, gesturing down the hall, where they could see the paramedics stepping out of the elevator.

"None of that makes sense. This man is no ex-Stasi guy, Robert. He's Karl Frenzel. You've killed the head of German security at the conference. The Germans will be just a little upset about that," responded Garcia sarcastically, concerned about the international repercussions of this mess.

"Alonzo, I am sorry you are in a difficult position. But that man was about to kill my wife. I had no choice," McCall said flatly in his firmest voice, the one many people had learned to be wary of.

"Well, Robert, we are going to have a long conversation about this soon," Garcia insisted in his equally firm voice. He was willing to cut McCall some slack, for Garcia had always respected the older man. No matter his personal relationship to McCall, though, it was his job to get to the bottom of this, and that he would do.

"I assure you, I want to understand as much as you do, but we'll have to wait until Barbara can tell us more," McCall said. The subject was closed.

Turning away from Garcia, McCall knelt down to Barbara again: "My love, the paramedics are here." She nodded again.

While the two paramedics began initial treatment and lifted her onto a gurney, Barbara was still only half aware of what was going on, but each time they moved her, she certainly felt the pain. Between the stabs of pain, she was telling herself that she was too old for this. Would she ever allow her past to rest—or would her past ever allow her to rest, she wondered wearily.

Before they took her to the elevator, McCall told he would be directly behind her on the way to the hospital. He kissed her lightly, and the paramedics took her away. Right then, Garcia and McCall each saw Barbara's purse lying on the floor near where she had fallen. Both men reached for it, but Garcia was quicker. It was very heavy, and he looked inside.

"Hum, Robert, your wife certainly carries interesting things in her handbag," Garcia said, taking the gun and silencer from the bag. "Know anything about these?" Garcia was not surprised, but he almost wished he had not found the weapon. It was going to make his dealings with McCall much more difficult.

"No," McCall said. It was the truth. The gun she usually carried, the one she had the permit for, was at home, and she did not normally carry a silencer. He knew nothing about THIS gun or THIS silencer.

Garcia looked at him, sure that McCall could tell him more. He let it go, because he knew he could not force McCall to say anything.

"Alonzo, may I have Barbara's purse? I need the keys to her car." McCall did not want the FBI agent to discover the false ID he was sure Barbara had inside. He needed the keys to get to the hospital, but also so he could dispose of the other weapons he suspected were in her car.

McCall was playing a game with him, Garcia was sure. His former mentor didn't want him to see what else was in the purse. "I think I'll keep the bag for now, Robert." Garcia fished inside and brought out the keys. "But here are the keys. You'd better get going, she'll be at the hospital soon. We'll talk later." Garcia still had work to do at the hotel before he could go to the hospital, but he knew exactly where to find McCall and his wife when he wanted to interview them.

McCall took the keys. "Thank you, Alonzo."

As he turned to go, Garcia put his hand on McCall's shoulder. "Good luck, Robert. I hope she's OK."

McCall nodded his thanks, took the elevator down, and walked through the lobby, out the back exit and to Barbara's car. He wouldn't do anything about the weapons in the car for now; his first priority was getting to the hospital.

Back on the fifth floor, the Miami police's crime scene investigation team had arrived to do their job. While Garcia was keeping track of their work, his mobile phone rang. It was the German embassy in Washington. Someone had already informed them about Frenzel's death. An official would be arriving tomorrow morning, and they wanted to schedule a meeting, immediately. Certainly, he told them. Would 10:00 AM be convenient?

After the CSI team released it, Garcia followed Frenzel's body down in the elevator, watched while it was loaded in the medical examiner's van, then got in his own car and headed for the hospital. This situation with McCall's wife was going to be difficult. Hell, everything was going to be difficult, he said to himself with a sigh. He was in for some unpleasant days ahead.

From the hotel entrance, a man watched Garcia's departure. He had observed the ambulance leave a few minutes earlier, too. Approaching one of the police officers, he asked: "Can you tell me please what happened?"

"A shooting upstairs, sir. It is under control now."

"Where was the ambulance going?"

"Miami General, I think."

"Thank you, officer," the man said. A plan taking shape in his mind, he walked back into the hotel lobby.