She was forced to knock a few times before a groggy Austrian Polizei man shuffled to the door. He looked like crap. There was no other way to say it. She went ahead of him to start on coffee, while Franz took a long shower to clear his lungs of infected sputum and blood. He was moving into a pneumonia, she could tell, and wasn’t sure what would kill the man first—that disease or cancer, which had sucked all vitality out of a man that had been brusque and burly just a few months ago.Drinking coffee by herself at the hotel restaurant, Toni’s phone buzzed in her pocket and she picked up. She had just turned it on after going to wake Franz.“Yeah.”“Where the hell have you been?” It was her boss, Kurt Jenkins, the CIA director.“Sleeping. What’s up?”“Can you talk?”“I’m at a hotel restaurant, but there’s only a few people here and they’re across the room. What you need?”“A lot of activity last night,” Jenkins said. “A former KGB slash SVR officer was killed last night in Baden-Baden.”“Anyone I know?”“Vladimir Volkov.”“Jesus.
