Free Brandenburg by Glenn Meade

far corner, rocking the table lamp, almost knocking it over.
    Meyer turned and saw Kruger glance up at him from his papers. Meyer returned to his seat, wishing the meeting would end.
    •   •   •
    Everything was going fine until Hernandez heard the click in the earphones.
    He sat on the bed nervously smoking a cigarette. The dated Japanese tape recorder lay in front of him, the cores of the tape still turning smoothly.
    The men had been speaking in German; Hernandez heard the voices clearly as the machine recorded their conversation.
    In his childhood, his mother had spoken to him in both Spanish and German, sometimes in Guarani, that curious, expressive mixture of Indian-Spanish that the ordinary Paraguayan preferred to speak. But German was second nature to him, the language his Paraguayan father had hated but his mother persisted in using.
    And then he heard the click in the earphones.
    The voices became muted, more distant, and then nothing, only a faint buzzing sound.
    Hernandez swore out loud. He turned up the volume quickly, pressed the earphones closer. Nothing. Dead. Torres had said the equipment was good, sensitive, could pick up the buzz of a mosquito at ten yards. Well, either it was picking up the buzz of a mosquito right now or the microphone had worked itself loose or been damaged . . .
    Or the men had found it.
    Hernandez wondered whether to leave, just go, get out now. No, better to stay, because the men wouldn’t know which room he was in, wouldn’t know where the receiver was situated. And from the room, he could always call the police.
    Please, God, don’t let them find the microphone .
    Hernandez sat on the bed for another fifteen minutes, smoked two more cigarettes, listening to the faint buzzing in his ears. Then he heard a loud bang like a gunshot. Seconds later came the sudden sound of laughter in the earphones, the thin clink of glasses, the faint sound of voices.
    “Prost.”
    “Prost.”
    “Prost.”
    A chorus of prosts.
    Hernandez let out a loud sigh, began to relax, began to understand. The men were drinking the champagne. Thank heaven. They hadn’t found the microphone.
    •   •   •
    The three men raised their glasses once more, in silence this time, the meeting concluded. Meyer looked at the silver-haired man, saw him sip the champagne. The man was pleased, very pleased, Meyer could tell. The meeting had gone well.
    Finally Kruger put down his glass and said to Meyer, “We must take our leave of you. It’s a long drive back north. The driver will take you to the safe house.”
    Meyer nodded. The silver-haired man placed his glass on the trolley and gripped Meyer’s hand firmly in both of his, a warm handshake, Meyer feeling the pride, the pleasure, well up inside himself.
    Kruger nodded to big Schmidt, who opened the door, stepped out into the corridor, eyes left, then right. He turned, nodded the all-clear.
    Meyer and Kruger picked up their briefcases. The silver-haired man followed after Schmidt, then Meyer next, Kruger last, taking one last look around the room to make sure nothing had been left behind, before closing the door after him.
    Schmidt led the way to the elevator.
    •   •   •
    Hernandez heard faintly the last words of the conversation in suite 120 and then silence. Curse Torres and his equipment.
    But at least he had something on tape. If only he knew what the men were talking about.
    He shivered inside, hearing the sentence in German again in his mind. “Sie werden alle umgebracht.” They’ll all be killed. Whom were they going to kill? And Brandenburg—what was Brandenburg? And what was the list? The pedigree? And who was the Turk? Their words made no sense.
    A chill coursed through Hernandez’s body like an electric shock. Most likely the men were big dealers from Europe. The ones who came over once or twice a year to renew narcotics contracts, to discuss prices. But there was something odd about the whole thing, something