Page 48 of Out of Control

He moved without any apparent haste to the apartment building across the street from their target. If he was lucky, the empty apartment he’d used two weeks ago to watch the brothel was still empty. He knocked on the unit’s door, waited plenty long enough for anyone to answer, and then pulled out a lockpick gun and inserted its metal tongue into the doorknob.

The device whirred quietly, and in a few seconds he and Spencer slipped inside the empty space. Still no furniture, and the same trash littering the floor. Nonetheless, Spencer went into SEAL mode and hand-signaled him to hold his position. He complied, letting Spencer satisfy himself the place was empty.

“Clear,” Spencer murmured a minute later.

He’d already moved over to the window and was standing in the shadows, peering at the dingy building across the street. It looked like every other postwar concrete apartment block in this part of the city.

Spencer took up a position on the other side of the window and settled into the utter stillness of an operator. He stood statue-like for maybe five minutes before he said, “Nothing better to do with your life after me, huh?”

Drago winced. No help for it. He was going to have to be honest. “It’s something I learned from you. If I was going to do this job, I might as well be the absolute best I could be at it.”

“My dad always said if a job was worth doing, it was worth doing right.”

Drago snorted. “My old man always said, ‘If you fuck up the job, I’ll beat your ass.’”

He felt Spencer’s gaze turn to him. Spencer murmured, “Interesting how we come from such different backgrounds, and yet here we are, in the exact same place, both physically and metaphorically.”

“Speak for yourself. I’m the one busting my gut to convince you not to haul me in so my bosses can throw me into a hole for a few decades.”

“At least you don’t have random thugs out to kill you.”

“Who says I don’t?” He added grimly, “Hell, renditions are known to include killing a rogue agent.”

Spencer fell silent at that, and he turned his stare back to the building across the street.

Drago did the same.

A strong and disorienting sense of déjà vu swept over him. He’d done this exact thing before, with this exact man. Only the target building had a different zip code. But the rhythm was the same, the identical stillness punctuated by occasional banter to keep them both alert.

To the trained eye, there were a few visible hints that the brothel was not like the neighboring buildings. The bars over the windows were heftier than most around here, and the curtains let out no light or, more importantly, shadows. If he looked at the ground-floor windows from just the right angle, he could see they were double-paned, bullet-resistant glass.

“Lot of fortification on the building,” Spencer commented. “Hard place to breach.”

“Which is why we won’t be breaching it, my explosives-crazy comrade. We’ll knock on the door and walk in like civilized customers.”

“Civilized?” Spencer grunted. “Two minutes of watching this place, and I can tell you this is a dangerous neighborhood that no decent person would dream of visiting.”

Drago shrugged. “Madame Eva’s clientele makes no pretense of decency.”

Behind all that fortification was one of the most notorious brothels in Berlin. And somebody inside knew what had actually happened to Fayez Khoury. Someone in there knew he had not been the killer. He was sure of it.

He and Spencer held their positions for several hours, watching a handful of men approach the front door, then knock quietly and slip inside.

When everyone who was likely to go inside probably had, Drago muttered, “We might as well make our approach. It’s a weeknight, and there aren’t likely to be many more customers.”

Spencer nodded. Drago watched as electric energy enveloped Spencer for an instant and as quickly faded into utter calm. The special operator was ready to go. But then, adrenaline had surged through his own veins too, and had already been channeled into alert readiness. They were so much alike, he and Spencer.

“C’mon, Spence. Let’s go prove my innocence.”

“After you.”

He nodded, acknowledging the concession by Spencer to let him lead the way. The dude was a natural leader and tended to take command of every situation.

Drago moved downstairs quickly and quietly, and Spencer did the same in his wake. Slipping outside, Drago checked both ways. The dark street was still. After jogging across the broken asphalt, he pressed the doorbell.

He and Spencer stepped inside a decent approximation of Dante’sInferno. The walls were black, the lights red, the scent of cum and sweat thick, the vibe lurid. A middle-aged woman overflowing a cheap black gown swept forward in a tawdry imitation of Satan’s madam. “Darlings. Welcome. How may we bring to life your wildest fantasies?”

Wow. The owner herself had greeted them tonight. Last time he was here, he’d dealt with a man who’d looked and acted like house security.

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