wanted to show her he knew his job better than she knew hers.
Pervak said, “Target is on foot, leaving hotel.”
Sorokina was surprised by this. “What? Where is she going?”
“I don’t know.” Then Pervak tossed in, “She has a shadow.”
Sorokina answered quickly. “A shadow? Who is this shadow?”
“Want me to go ask him?”
Sorokina snapped back. “I want you to follow him.” She was clearly intrigued, though. “What are the chances they are together? That he’s watching out for her?”
“Unknown,” Pervak said, and then, “It looks like a standard foot-follow. I don’t think he’s working with her.”
“I’ve been telling you for days that she is the best. She’s ID’d her follower and she’s running an SDR to see how many are on the team and to try to judge their skill. If they aren’t with her, then they could be German or American intelligence, or . . . anybody else she’s pissed off. Trust me, Sirena has enemies other than us.”
This Pervak had worked out on his own, so he just kept walking, keeping himself at least fifty meters back from the man who was fifty meters behind Zoya.
Sorokina said, “Listen carefully, Semyon. Direct me to her, and I’ll fulfill my obligation to give her a chance to surrender herself tonight.”
“But the follower?”
“We need her to lose the tail before I get there. You can help with that.”
Pervak nodded into the phone. “Kill him?”
“No. A mugging, something like that. Just take him off the chessboard. He might be armed, so watch yourself.” She sounded to Semyon as if she were running down the stairs now. “Stay on the line and direct me.”
“Passing under the Brandenburg Gate, making a left on Ebertstrasse. Come out the south side of the hotel and you can get in front of her.”
“Copy,” she said before hanging up.
Pervak adjusted his ill-fitting sport coat as he walked on, passing men and women here and there, but keeping his eyes on the man who had his eyes on Russia’s public enemy number one.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Court moved east on Behrenstrasse, a block and a half southeast of the Kempinski hotel, tailing a man who was tailing a man who had just finished dinner with the woman he loved. His only plan was to try to get a fix on who this follower was, to make certain he wasn’t part of a Russian kill team, and if he was, to somehow neutralize the threat.
The pain meds and the infection were going to make that already daunting task even more so, but he pushed himself forward, every step a chore, every block covered a sap to his already minimal energy and focus.
Far ahead, Ennis made a right on Mohrenstrasse, and his shadow, who had been walking on the opposite side of the street and behind him, crossed quickly and remained in pursuit, probably forty yards back.
Ennis turned suddenly, crossed Mohrenstrasse again, and stepped into the lobby of the Hilton Berlin. His shadow entered through a door on the west side.
Court stopped his advance now and stood alone in the darkened street, his legs more unsteady than ever. Ennis was going back to his hotel room, this seemed obvious enough. The tail would be heading in to surreptitiously get a look at what elevator floor he stopped on.
Could this be a hit? There had been opportunities to close on the target on the street if the man had wanted to do that. Walking into a four-star hotel to frag Ennis in front of cameras and witnesses would have been the wrong play. No, Court decided, this was just one of the two shadows he had detected earlier watching Zoya, and this one had branched off to follow her companion to learn more about him.
Just as Court himself now had done with Ennis’s shadow.
Even through the fog threatening to overtake his brain, he’d been careful along the short stroll to keep one eye open for the other man he’d first seen outside the Starbucks. Now he was less worried about seeing two men, because if they had been working in a duo on the Ennis tail, then it would have been the other follower who actually went inside the building, and not the man who’d been directly on the target’s ass for the entire walk.
Court knew this job, he understood the intricacies of the tradecraft better than almost anyone, and he was confident the show was over for tonight.
Unless, he realized, he could wait out here until the man learned what he needed to learn about Ennis